Chapter VIII
Christianity as the Universal Religion
I have evidenced my great respect for Christianity in many ways ... Its best and most lasting eulogy is its harmony, which I demonstrated in [Kt8], with the purest moral belief of religion. For it is by this, and not by historical scholarship, that Christianity, so often debased, has always been restored; and only by this can it again be restored when, in the future, it continues to meet a similar fate. [Kt65:9]
1. Kant’s Copernican Perspective on Religion
One of the best ways to guard against the common tendency to commit a long string of interpretive errors, by reading into Kant’s writings a largely (if not entirely) negative attitude towards empirical religions, is to recall the metaphor Kant himself introduces at the outset of constructing his System. In the second edition Preface to Kt1, Kant appeals to Copernicus’ revolution in astronomy as an example for philosophers to follow. As we saw in KSP1:III.1, Kant describes his Copernican revolution in philosophy primarily in terms of systemt, yet its influence spreads throughout his entire System of Perspectives. In theoretical philosophy, let us recall, the Copernican Perspective enables us to accept the revolutionary notion that the character of our knowledge depends on the subject when the subject-object relation is viewed from the transcendental perspective, even though the common-sense notion that the object determines the character of our knowledge remains valid, whenever we adopt the empirical perspective. That is, the Copernican character of Kant’s fundamental philosophical Perspective is what gives him the ability to accept the appearance of things as a legitimate way of viewing the world, while nevertheless explaining the deep (properly philosophical) structure of those appearances in terms that seem, paradoxically, to uphold exactly the opposite view.
Those who fail to grasp this essential aspect of Kant’s thought are likely to find it difficult to comprehend how Kant’s ‘transcendental idealism’ can also be an ‘empirical realism’. The difficulty resolves itself, however, once we recognize that each label refers properly to a discrete perspective adopted by the human mind. What is often not appreciated is that Kant’s Copernican Perspective operates throughout his System, not only in systemt. As we come now to the task of assessing the implications of the second experiment in Kt8—that of testing the applicability of systemr to one historical religion, Christianity [cf. VII.1]—we must therefore keep Kant’s established (Copernican) strategy at the forefront of our minds. What Kant says about ‘pure rational religion’ determines a distinct Transcendental Perspective on religion. Just as in systemt, many of the arguments and conclusions in systemr cannot simply be carried over to the Empirical Perspective, as applying directly to historical religions as such. The purpose of a ‘transcendentally ideal’ system of religion is not to deny the validity of an ‘empirically real’ interpretation of the living faith of ordinary believers, but to legitimate it, philosophically.
Fortunately, we need not look far in the text of Kt8 to find evidence of how Kant applies this Copernican Perspective to religion. One of the most significant passages, we have already cited in VI.3 and VII.1: Kant compares the ideal relationship between rational (i.e., transcendental) and historical (i.e., empirical) religion to ‘concentric circles’ in Kt8:12(11) [see Fig. VII.1]. His reason for doing so is to emphasize that empirical religion should conform to the transcendental conditions for religion.[1] Thus, Kant normally reserves the term ‘religion’ for those historical traditions that do successfully live up to the transcendental conditions. In order to distinguish the pure religious ‘core’ from the historical tradition(s) as such, he refers to the latter as ‘faith(s)’. In so doing, he does not intend to deny the validity of historical traditions, nor even to downplay their significance, but merely to distinguish between the properly philosophical and nonphilosophical Perspectives on religion. The ‘Copernican’ aspect of the metaphor consists in Kant’s reversal of the order most religious people would assign to the two circles: instead of viewing historical faith as the core and moral action as the secondary element, Kant views the latter as the core and locates the former on the periphery.
In the first edition Preface to Kt8, Kant offers us a different, but equally instructive, explanation of his Copernican Perspective on religion. He begins by rehearsing some of the key conclusions of his practical writings:
So far as morality is based on the conception of man as a free agent who ... binds himself through his reason to unconditional laws, it stands in need neither of the idea of another Being over him [i.e., God] ..., nor of an incentive other than the law itself [i.e., happiness] ... Hence for its own sake morality does not need religion at all ...; by virtue of practical reason it is self-sufficient. [Kt8:3(3)]
The strict reductionist interpretation of Kant’s views on religion stops here, declaring once and for all that Kant’s aim is to eliminate empirical religion [see VI.1]. Yet this overlooks the fact that Kant begins the second paragraph of the same Preface with an important (Copernican) qualification:
But although for its own sake [i.e., in the first three stages of systemp] morality needs no representation of an end which must precede the determining of the will, it is quite possible that it [morality] is necessarily related to such an end [e.g., God and/or happiness], taken not as the ground but as the [sum of] inevitable consequences of maxims adopted as conformable to that end. [4(4)]
Here Kant is reminding us that, even in systemp, two ‘ends’ (viz., God and a form of immortality that guarantees a proper degree of happiness) had to be postulated in order to answer ‘the question, What is to result from this right conduct of ours?’ [5(4)]. He then goes on to argue that such ends are not just ‘quite possible’, but are indeed necessary, if we wish to conceive of the highest good as realizable [see KSP1:VIII.3.B].
This position is ‘Copernican’ in the sense that, like the aforementioned concentric circles metaphor, it reverses the order of priority most people (whether philosophers or not) would assign to religion and morality. Whereas nearly everyone would be inclined to say our understanding of morality arises out of our religious tradition, Kant insists that, for the purposes of transcendental philosophy, ‘this idea [viz., God] arises out of morality and is not its basis’ [Kt8:5 (5)]. Kant’s reason for arguing in this way becomes clear in the third paragraph, which must be blatantly overlooked by anyone who wishes to adopt the reductionist interpretation of Kt8: ‘Morality thus leads ineluctably to religion, through which it extends itself to the idea of a powerful moral Lawgiver, outside of mankind’ [6(5-6), e.a.]. In a long footnote attached to this sentence, Kant removes all doubt about the transcendental character of his inquiry in Kt8 by clarifying that the proposition ‘There is a God ... is a synthetic a priori proposition’ and then asking the standard question of all transcendental philosophy: ‘But how is such a proposition a priori possible?’[2] After a lengthy summary of ‘[t]he key to the solution of this problem’, Kant concludes by reiterating the same point [8n(7n)]: ‘That is, morality leads inevitably to religion.’
In the remainder of the first edition Preface Kant contrasts the Perspective of the ‘philosophical theologian’ with that of the ‘biblical theologian’, arguing that only the latter should be subject to government censorship (as the current king of Prussia had recently instated [see note VI.28]). Philosophical theology, by contrast, ‘must have complete freedom to expand as far as its science reaches’ [Kt8:9(8)]. At first, this topic seems to bear little relation to the topic of the first half of the Preface. But a clear recognition of the Copernican character of Kant’s approach reveals a close connection after all. The biblical theologian is a person whose proper tools are revelation and faith, whereas the philosopher must use reason and argument, even when dealing with the same religious and theological issues (or biblical texts) as the former. This distinction is directly parallel to that between the Empirical and Transcendental Perspectives. Kant, of course, is writing primarily to his fellow philosophers, so the views he has just expressed in the first part of the Preface represent what is required for those who adopt the Transcendental Perspective. Far from denying the validity of the opposing view, this philosophical Perspective is meant to provide the rational foundation for the ordinary (Empirical) way of looking at the same issues.
This explains why Kant adopts such an accommodating attitude towards the biblical theologian.[3] He is not merely trying to please the king’s censors, as some have assumed;[4] he is seriously proposing that, as long as biblical theologians do not ‘rashly [declare] war on reason’ [Kt8:10(9)], but use reason while staying within their own ‘province’ (just as philosophers might use a scriptural text without adopting the Bible’s own Perspective), the conflict between this Perspective and the philosophical is normal and healthy. (The nature of this conflict is the main topic of Kt65 [see note VII.3, above].) In a 1793 letter Kant confirms that Kt8 was written as an aid to the biblical theologian [AA11:415 (Zw67:205)]: ‘By assessing his doctrines from the point of view [i.e., Perspective] of rational grounds, he shall be armed against any future attack.’ Thus, Kant encourages biblical theologians to ‘be at one with the philosopher’ or else ‘to refute him’, provided they do not carelessly ‘mix the two’ Perspectives, because ‘the sciences derive pure benefit from separation’ [Kt8:10(10)].
Recognizing the Copernican emphasis of Kt8’s two Prefaces helps us appreciate more fully how systemr presents a balanced religious standpoint that has essentially affirmative implications for Christianity.[5] We saw in VI.2 and VII.1 that systemr takes into account all three standpoints in the System: it upholds the importance of theoretical knowledge (theology), but puts strict limitations on its interpretation, so that practical reason (morality) always has priority in determining the meaning of religious doctrines and practices; yet both of these standpoints are subordinate, as far as religious experience is concerned, to the judicial standpoint [see note I.17]. As we shall see in Part Four, the latter alone can provide the basis for a devout person’s personal relationship with the Being towards whom obedience to the moral law is directed and with regard to whom all doctrines are symbolically interpreted. This triadic relationship [cf. De73: 244-5] can be elucidated by depicting the distinction between the three aspects of systemr in terms of the clothing metaphor implied by the title of Kt8 [VI.2; s.e. Fig.VI.2], as shown in Figure VIII.1.
Our examination of systemr in Chapter VII focused mainly on the bare elements of pure religion; given its emphasis on religion’s moral core, we can now refer to this ‘first experiment’ as systemr-m.[6] In opposition to this aspect of
Figure VIII.1: Three Aspects of the Religious ‘Person’
religion is the biblical theologian’s focus on the theoretical/doctrinal ‘garments’ of religion; given its emphasis on a revealed scripture, we can refer to it as systemr-s.[7] This aspect will be the focus of our attention in Chapter IX. Here in Chapter VIII, our examination of Kant’s second experiment focuses on his assessment of Christianity as the historical religion that best synthesizes the naked body of religion with a set of revealed ‘garments’; we can therefore refer to this aspect of Kant’s Critical religion as systemr-C.
By depicting systemr-C as having a primarily synthetic character in relation to systemr-m and systemr-s, this map highlights both the general nonreductionist method of Kt8 [see VI.1-4] and its specific aim of authenticating the validity of Christianity as the universal religion of mankind.[8] Although Wood is correct to say Kant ‘thought that theology, along with morality, becomes corrupted when it bases itself on empirical principles, and that when men draw their God from nature or experience rather than from pure [practical] reason they are more likely to serve him by empty ceremonies than by rational and morally upright conduct’ [Wo78:82], this must therefore be taken to imply not that the judicial standpoint is abandoned in Kt8, but rather that it is set on the proper foundation of the primacy of practical reason (just as was systemj in Kt7).[9]
Kant’s foremost concern in Kt8, aside from establishing the elements of pure rational religion, is to determine the extent to which ‘Christianity, as found in the Bible, is composed of ... the canon of religion’, so that this ‘ecclesiastical faith’ can provide an appropriate ‘vehicle’ for ‘pure religious faith’ [Kt65:36-7; s.a. Kt8:123n(113n),135n(126n)]. That is, even though Christianity presents to the believer (subjectively) a set of divine commandments that are therefore to be regarded as duties, it can nevertheless act as a vehicle for true (universal) religion, as long as these commandments can also be viewed objectively (i.e., from the philosopher’s Copernican Perspective) as capable of being justified rationally as duties in and of themselves.[10] In such a case, Kant views natural religion and revealed religion not as contradicting, but as complementing each other. This he confirms in Kt35:(83-4):
Natural religion employs that knowledge of God of which man’s reason is capable and it is bound up with morality; supernatural religion contains much that is calculated to make up for man’s deficiencies.... [S]upernatural religion is not opposed to natural religion, but completes it. Natural religion is true but incomplete.
Kant believes his critique of religion can analyze the nature of religion without contradicting ‘the literal meaning of the popular faith’ precisely because, ‘earlier by far than this faith, the predisposition to the moral religion lay hidden in human reason’ [Kt8:111(102)]. And for this same reason (viz., the inner hiddenness of pure religion), revelation can serve an important role by bringing to fruition the essential ‘kernel’ of pure religious faith within each person [see Wo70:193-4]. Thus Kant explains in Kt65:8-9 that in Kt8 he views ‘revelation [as] useful in making up the theoretical deficiency which our pure rational belief admits it has (in the questions, for example, of the origin of evil, the conversion from evil to good, man’s assurance that he has become good, etc.) and helps ... to satisfy a rational need.’ In VII.2-3 we have already seen how the deficiencies of natural religion give rise to the need for revelation. The four ‘gaps’ left by systemr (in all three of its manifestations) are listed in Table VII.2. In this Chapter we shall come to see how Kant portrays the Christian religion (or systemr-C) as filling these gaps with a revealed content (or systemr-s) that adequately meets the needs of natural religion (or systemr-m) without contradicting any of its fundamental precepts.
The outward manifestation of religion in its imperfect, historical form is just as necessary for the realization of universal religion as empirical judgments are for the realization of the categories in theoretical knowledge, or as virtuous actions are for the realization of the moral law in practical activity. Religious activity is real from the empirical perspective, but ideal from the transcendental perspective: ‘the idea of the objective unity of the religion of reason ... is an idea of reason which we cannot represent through any intuition adequate to it, but which, as a practical regulative principle, does have objective reality’ [Kt8:123n(114n)]. Thus, even though ‘ecclesiastical faith ... naturally precedes pure religious faith’ [106(97)], ‘this order ought to be reversed’ when considered philosophically [106n(97n)]. This reversal is Kant’s Copernican Perspective on religion; yet it does not deny the derivative validity of the ‘natural’ order (i.e., the legitimacy of religion’s empirical manifestation, which can be regarded as primary when viewed from the Empirical Perspective).
The perspectival character of Kant’s understanding of religion is further evident in his claim that ‘there is only one (true) religion; but there can be faiths of several kinds.’[11] This is because ‘ecclesiastical faith ... appeals to [the] senses, whereas religion is hidden within and has to do with moral dispositions’ [Kt8:108(99)]. On this basis he suggests: ‘If we take what is universal in religion and so is common to all religions [i.e., if we adopt a truly religious disposition] ..., then there is no reason why every individual should not follow the religion of his forefathers’ [Kt35:(110)]. This raises the question whether every accidental vehicle of religion is equally suited to promote the universal essence of all religion. Kant clearly recognizes that there are important differences;[12] indeed, this is what gives rise to the need for a philosophy of religion.
Because of its accidental character, each faith must ‘be able to cease; whereby is indicated merely the inner stability of the pure moral faith’ [Kt8: 135n(126n); s.a. 174(163)]. Nevertheless, ‘it remains true once for all that a statutory ecclesiastical faith is associated with pure religious faith as its vehicle’ [106(97)]. Wood expresses Kant’s position here with admirable clarity: ‘Kant does not intend that ecclesiastical faith ... shall be abolished by progress. Rather, it is to come to an understanding of itself as a vehicle for pure religious faith, so better to serve the pure faith which is its essence’ [Wo70:196; s.a. Kt65:29]. Along these lines Kant distinguishes between ‘merely statutory’ and ‘purely moral laws’: ‘the concept of the Deity really arises solely from consciousness of [the latter] ..., through which the will of God is primordially engraved in our hearts’; nevertheless, ‘divine statutory laws’ can ‘comprise the means to its furtherance and spread’ [Kt8:104(95); s.a. Kt65:49].
Kant’s discussion in Kt65 of the conflict between the philosophy faculty and the ‘higher’ faculties of theology, law, and medicine [see note VII.3] makes it very clear that both the empirical and transcendental elements in religion are necessary for the realization of universal religion. Kant does not expect clergy to give up their belief in the authority of Scripture any more than he expects lawyers to ignore the ‘law of the land’, or physicians to transgress ‘medical regulations’ [23]. All he asks is that, when these ‘businessmen’ of the higher faculties [18] appeal to reason to justify their positions, they recognize the change in Perspective that is involved, and allow philosophers to criticize their views. Thus he says in Kt65:23:
So the biblical theologian ... draws his teachings not from reason but from the Bible; the professor of law gets his, not from natural law, but from the law of the land; and the professor of medicine does not draw his method of therapy as practiced on the public from the physiology of the human body but from medical regulations. As soon as one of these faculties presumes to mix with its teachings something it treats as derived from reason [i.e., as pure], it ... encroaches on the territory of the philosophy faculty, which mercilessly strips from it all the shining plumes that were protected by the government and deals with it on a footing of equality and freedom. The higher faculties must, therefore, take great care not to enter into misalliance with the lower faculty, but must keep it at a respectful distance, so that the dignity of their statutes will not be damaged by the free play of reason.
In this way reason functions as a corrective to revelation, ‘making it consistent with itself and with every perspective from which it can be regarded’ [Kt1:668]. Nevertheless, philosophers have no business publicizing their criticisms to laymen, but only to theologians, whose responsibility it is to interpret revelation in such a way that it is as consistent as possible with reason. Clerics then take their lead from theologians. If a conflict between philosophers and theologians should remain unresolved, the duty of clerics is to side with the theologians’ interpretation of revelation. ‘To refuse to obey an external and supreme will on the grounds that it allegedly does not conform with reason would be absurd’ [Kt65:25], for this would be to confuse the Copernican Perspective of the philosopher with what might be called the Divine Perspective of the theologian. Kant’s hope, however, is that the natural conflict between the Perspectives of the philosopher and the theologian will be of lasting benefit for both empirical and transcendental religion.[13] As Gregor explains in Gm79: xxviii: ‘Genuine peace among the faculties can come only if the ecclesiastical faith and the law of the land are purified to the point where they are completely consistent with a priori principles of reason and can be regarded as applications of them.’
In IV.4 we saw that it is a mistake to regard Kant as a deist [s.e. note IV.24]. Equally mistaken is the claim that Kant merely ‘reduced Christianity to a symbolic expression of man’s sense of moral duty’ [Ho75:29, e.a.; cf. VI.4]. Admittedly, he does argue that from the Copernican Perspective Christianity must be viewed as a vehicle for expressing an inner religious disposition; but he never treats this as a defect, especially since it is not the only valid way of regarding it. As we have seen, Kant held that it is at the very least possible to regard Christianity as both subjectively revealed and objectively natural. He says in Kt6:488 that his critique of religion ‘is not ... derived from mere reason but is based also on the teachings of history and revelation and considers only the consistency of pure practical reason with these (that is, shows that there is no contradiction between them).’ That Kant’s personal opinion was that revelation is more than just possible is reflected by the fact that he ‘so often and so insistently call[s] himself a Christian’ [Go71:194]. One passage wherein he implicitly refers to his own Christian belief also says much about the importance of a Critical attitude towards such belief: ‘I have always ... recommended to other believers a conscientious sincerity in not professing or obtruding on others, as articles of faith, more than they themselves are sure of’ [Kt65:9, e.a.]. Likewise, he says in Kt31:337 that in itself ‘Christianity has something worthy of love about it’, but not when it is ‘armed with dictatorial authority instead of its gentle spirit’ [339]. The traditional interpretation of Kant, whereby he is portrayed as viewing Christianity merely negatively, as the religion ‘which least overstepped the bounds of reason’ [Go71:194], is therefore quite untenable; its longevity is due primarily to the failure of interpreters to be as broad-minded as Kant himself. Kant’s own Critical view is that Christianity ‘effected a thoroughgoing revolution in doctrines of faith’ [Kt8:127(118)], so that of all the ‘different varieties of belief in divine revelation ... Christianity, as far as we know, is the most adequate’ [Kt65:36].
The remainder of this chapter will be devoted to a thoroughgoing explanation of just how Kant sets out to demonstrate the adequacy of the Christian religion. In VIII.2-3 we shall work our way once again through the four Books of Kt8, this time paying special attention to Kant’s second experiment. Books One and Two correspond, as we shall see, to the Old and New Testament, respectively.[14] Books Three and Four likewise correspond to early church history and traditional forms of Christian worship. After examining a variety of themes in these four areas, I shall conclude in VIII.4 with a summary showing how Christianity constitutes a system that closely corresponds to systemr-m. Having attained a balanced understanding of Kant’s view of Christianity (as systemr-C), we shall then be prepared to take a step back and offer in Chapter IX an assessment of Kant’s position from the Perspective of the biblical theologian, and in so doing, to propose a systemr-s.
2. Kant’s Assessment of Biblical Religion
A. The Creation Story and the Fall of Adam
As in all Kantian systems, the first stage in systemr-C adopts the transcendental perspective [see VII.2.A]. In carrying out his second experiment, Kant applies the rational elements obtained in this first stage explicitly to the biblical account of the creation and fall, as told in the first three chapters of Genesis [see Kt8:39-44(34-9)]. His aim is to arrive at a rational explanation of the ‘pure’ meaning of the essential points raised in the biblical text, so that the extent of their compatibility with systemr-m can be properly assessed. His treatment of the biblical account suggests (as we shall see) the following basic correspondences with the elements of stage one: the creation of Adam and Eve in the image of God corresponds to Kant’s theory of the good predisposition; their original habitation in the Garden of Eden symbolizes the original innocence of every human being; their fall into sin through the influence of an external source of temptation, the serpent, illustrates the propensity of every human being to adopt evil maxims (i.e., maxims that give priority to incentives that are external to systemp), due to the mysterious intervention of radical evil; and their consequent expulsion from Eden corresponds to the concluding element in stage one, the adoption of an evil heart. Recognizing these parallels makes it all the more important to understand that Kant is not attempting to explain away the biblical account (in the manner of eliminative reductionism [see VI.1]), nor even to pass judgment on its historical status. On the contrary, he goes out of his way to draw attention to the many correlations between systemr-m and the biblical narrative, stressing that here, as throughout systemr-m, his account ‘agrees well with ... the Scriptures’ [41(36)]. For as we saw in VIII.1, the explication of such symbolic correlations is one of Kt8’s two main purposes.
The most important issues in Book One relating to Kant’s second experiment all revolve around the relationship between radical evil and the biblical account of the origin of sin. What has misled many interpreters of Kt8 is that Kant consistently guards against the belief that a merely historical account can provide a sufficient explanation of any stage in the development of pure religion. Nowhere is this more evident than in his treatment of the ‘origin’ of good and evil. Kant argues that ‘it is ... a contradiction to seek the temporal origin of man’s character’ [Kt8:40(35)], because that character has its ‘origin in reason’ [39(34)]. The transcendental perspective must be adopted in order to discern the true origin of good and evil in the human disposition; no account of actual events in time will suffice, though such empirical accounts may well serve as symbols, pointing to their transcendental basis. Thus, for example, Kant says the claim ‘Man is created good’ [cf. Genesis 1:31] means ‘the original [pre]disposition in man is good’, not that ‘he is already actually good’ [44(40)]. The biblical account of the original goodness of human nature is to be interpreted, then, as a symbolic representation of the universal goodness of the human predisposition, as demonstrated by rational arguments completely independent of any revelation [see VII.2.A]. Kant is not dogmatically claiming that the biblical account is historically untrue; rather, he merely insists that the question of its historicity is irrelevant to the determination of how appropriately the narrative describes the rational origin of goodness in human nature, as established in stage one of systemr-m. Because the first three chapters of Genesis clearly regard human nature as originally good, while at the same time avoiding the inference that this godly ‘image’ makes us actually good, Kant’s assessment of their symbolic religious value is essentially positive.
In examining the origin of evil Kant likewise treats the doctrine of original sin ‘not as a revealed dogma, but as an implication of our own experience’; interpreted in terms of the rational need to posit radical evil as the mysterious source of our propensity to evil, this traditional doctrine serves as ‘the foundation of [Kant’s] whole theory of the nature and function of religion in human life’ [We26:92-3]. Goldmann makes a similar point: ‘The doctrine of radical evil is not a foreign body in Kant’s philosophy. It is not only justified but even necessary for the coherence of the system. It is certainly not a concession to the Christian religion.’[15] If any concession is involved, Christians (or anyone who believes in original sin) are the ones who may need to make a concession to the requirements of pure rational religion. For the only way to confirm the validity of this doctrine without merely presupposing it as divine revelation (i.e., without adopting the Perspective of the biblical theologian) is to demonstrate the role it plays in pure rational religion. Kant readily allows that theologians, as such, can legitimately base their doctrines on the Empirical Perspective of the Scriptures, provided they recognize that when they begin to discuss the pure meaning of such biblical accounts, they are adopting the philosopher’s Transcendental Perspective [Kt8:40n(35-6n)]. Once this is acknowledged, Kant’s (secondary) aim in this first stage of systemr-C becomes evident: to show how the first few chapters of Genesis, properly interpreted, can serve as an adequate vehicle for symbolizing the transcendental elements of universal religion.
Adam and Eve’s blissful pre-fall state corresponds in Kant’s mind to the good predisposition in systemr-m; but at the fall, he tells us, ‘this happiness vanished like a dream’ [Kt8:19(15)]. Kant’s metaphor here implies that the fall can be regarded as a fall into consciousness, for he then adds that the post-fall age is ‘as old as history’,[16] presumably because the writing or even telling of history presupposes consciousness. As we saw in Chapter II, Kant had made extensive use of the metaphor of ‘dreaming’ in Kt18 to pave the way for his own attempt to replace traditional (dreamlike) metaphysics with his own Critical (awakened, or enlightened) alternative. Now he uses the same metaphor in a way that suggests the good predisposition ceases to function actively at the moment a person ‘wakes up’ morally, which happens as soon as the first conscious moral choice is made. Whether Kant would regard this as a plausible account of the how the first person ‘awoke’ from the state of primeval moral ‘sleep’ is unclear from the text, and (in view of his attitude towards seeking temporal origins) irrelevant. What is clear is that he regards the biblical account of the first beginnings of human (moral) history as a profound symbol of how each of us develops as an individual. For example, he says ‘the rational origin of [every] evil ... action must be regarded as though the individual had fallen into it directly from a state of innocence’ [41(36)]. The story of the fall can therefore be regarded as an appropriate symbolic description of what happens every time a person transgresses the moral law.
In Kt8:42-3(38) Kant further suggests that when considering our own moral history, ‘the explanation of evil in terms of its beginning in time’ must always go back to ‘the causes of each deliberate transgression in a previous period of our lives, far back to that period wherein the use of reason had not yet developed, and thus back to a propensity to evil (as a natural ground) which is therefore called innate...’. Kant is here referring to our early childhood, when each person inevitably (by virtue of a natural propensity) makes an unconscious evil choice and thereby attains a level of consciousness adequate for moral responsibility.[17] He then stresses his oft-repeated claim that the fall into evil is a moral act for which each individual is ‘to be held responsible’. The biblical account (set as it is in the Garden of Eden) aptly symbolizes the initial (noumenal) act whereby we choose to adopt self-love as our supreme maxim; but that it can also symbolize the ‘contingent’ (phenomenal) act whereby we first choose to do something evil is a possibility Kant leaves open. Resolving this issue, however, is not of much significance to the success of Kant’s second experiment. What is significant is to recognize that the biblical account, while not determining the course of Kant’s argument in constructing systemr-m (inasmuch as the arguments presented in VII.2.A did not rely in any way on anything drawn from the Bible), nevertheless turns out to be a profoundly symbolic expression of essentially the same point: that human nature as we know it is a corruption of an originally good state.
Kant’s account of evil in Book One [s.e. Kt8:32-9(27-34)] rejects the classical view of evil as ‘a mere absence ... of goodness’ [22-3n(18n); s.a. We26:94]; it is this to be sure, but it is also a ‘positive’ force in its own right, capable of taking over and corrupting a person’s good predisposition. ‘Between a good and an evil disposition ... there is therefore no middle ground’ [Kt8:23n (18n)]. Accordingly, Kant notes with approval the tendency in Christianity to distinguish between moral good and evil ‘not as heaven from earth but as heaven from hell; he commends it as ‘philosophically correct in meaning’, since there are no ‘gradual steps’ between a good and an evil disposition [60n(53n)]. Kant’s account of these religious symbols is examined more fully in AVI.3.
Another aspect of Kant’s attempt to assess the validity of the biblical account in terms of systemr-m is his definition of ‘sin’. In place of traditional definitions (e.g., sin as separation from God), Kant simply regards it as moral evil viewed from the religious standpoint. Thus he defines sin as ‘the transgressing of the moral law [viewed] as a divine command’ [Kt8:42(37); s.a. 72(66)], reiterating throughout Kt8 that this involves a reversal in the proper order of our incentives, ‘whereby [our will] makes lower incentives supreme among its maxims’ [43(38)]. In this way Kant insures that the accountability for sin remains squarely on the shoulders of the person who breaks the moral law. The vulgar, temporal account of original sin that ‘describes [evil] as descending to us as an inheritance from our first parents’ is ‘inept’ [40(35)]. Once the irrationality of ‘passing the buck’ through a temporal interpretation of original sin is exposed, the rational value of the doctrine, as paving the way for some meaningful self-reflection, can be appreciated: it forces us to recognize the influence of radical evil in our own reason, and in so doing, beckons us to ‘direct our attention to the actual evil of given actions’ in order to find in ourselves the origin of the evil deeds we have committed [40(35)].
In spite of Kant’s harsh rejection of the inheritance account of original sin, his strong desire to justify the Genesis narrative through symbolic interpretation leads him to make room even for this otherwise ‘inept’ view. For in the concluding paragraph of Book One, after reminding us of the ‘inscrutable’ nature of ‘the propensity to evil’ [Kt8:43-4(38-9)], Kant points out that ‘the Bible expresses [this inconceivability] in the historical narrative’ by locating the first origin of evil ‘not in man, but in a spirit of an originally loftier destiny.’ Since our evil disposition is rooted not in our natural inclinations, but in our own rational choice—i.e., since ‘the human mind has no immediate inclination to wickedness, but is only indirectly [i.e., mediately] wicked’ [Kt35:(220); s.a. We26:109]—it is permissible in Kant’s opinion to trace the origin of evil back to a pre-existing spiritual source, such as that suggested by the biblical account of Satan.[18] For Kant this conjecture ‘has purely negative significance’, as Webb points out, inasmuch as ‘it in no way enlarges our knowledge of supersensible reality’ [We26:185]. Its chief advantage is that it ‘completely avoids the confusion of the Evil Principle with mere natural inclination’ [117], as is required by Kant’s definition of sin. The presence in us of inclinations is not something worthy of blame (any more than we can be accused of error simply because objects appear to us in space and time!); for the moral failings that result from choices we make on the basis of inclinations, however, we must bear full responsibility [see Wa72:145].
Once again Kant has confirmed the meaningfulness and symbolic value of the biblical narrative. Although a literal interpretation of the inheritance view of original sin is too morally debilitating to countenance (taking away, as it does, our freedom and therefore our ultimate responsibility for the evil choices we make), the depth of Kant’s appreciation of the symbolic meaning of the text is seen in his view that, as Webb puts it, ‘the propensity to evil is no less deeply rooted in our nature than if we had inherited it’ [We26:113]. In other words, Kant is not even asking us to give up the inheritance interpretation, but rather to change the perspective from which we view it: instead of viewing the doctrine of original sin from the empirical perspective, as a literal account of the temporal origin of evil, we are to view it from the transcendental perspective, as a symbolic expression of a profoundly rational religious truth. The Genesis narrative therefore qualifies as the first stage in systemr-C; it not only provides us with a strikingly vivid description of the first stage of systemr-m, by depicting humanity ‘as having fallen into evil only through seduction, and hence as being not basically corrupt’ [Kt8:44(39)], but it also points the reader forward to the hope [cf. Gen. 3:15] ‘of a return to the good from which he has strayed.’
B. The Gospel Story and the Nature of Jesus
The second stage in systemr-m adopts, as usual in Kant’s System of Perspectives, the logical perspective. Just as the logical perspective in systemt establishes a conceptual framework through which knowledge can be gained in spite of the transcendental limitations of space and time, so also in systemr-m this second stage establishes the basic religious concepts [see VII.2.B] that enable us to respond effectively to the transcendental limitations imposed on us by evil in stage one. In other words, just as the categories ‘save’ the possibility of empirical knowledge from the limiting conditions of sensibility, so also the ‘gospel’ of faith in the archetype of perfect humanity saves the possibility of pleasing God from the limiting conditions of radical evil.[19] In the Christian tradition, the New Testament accounts of the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus as the ‘last Adam’ furnish an effective conceptual structure whereby human persons can counteract the problem of sin that has plagued mankind ever since the ‘first Adam’ [see Rom. 5:14; 1 Cor. 15:22,45]. Kant’s examination of the compatibility between the Christian Gospel and stage two of systemr-m occurs mainly in Book Two of Kt8, though the General Observation appended to Book One provides a number of helpful preparatory suggestions.
In the first of Kt8’s four General Observations Kant focuses mainly on the nature of ‘the original predisposition to good’ and how it can be restored to its rightful place as the governor of the human disposition, despite the fact that this place is inevitably usurped by evil at the very outset of every person’s moral development. After declaring that ‘Man is created good’ (a point at which systemr-m confirms the view of human nature expressed in Genesis 1:26-31) and granting ‘that some supernatural cooperation may be necessary’ in order for a person actually to become good, Kant stresses that ‘man must first make himself worthy to receive’ such divine aid [Kt8:44(40)]. In so doing, we do not make ourselves good, but ‘only render ourselves susceptible of higher, and for us inscrutable, assistance’ [45(40-1)]. His use of the biblical metaphor of a fruit-bearing tree [cf. Matt. 3:10; 7:17-19; 12:38] suggests that the problem of how the human ‘tree’ (disposition) becomes evil even though it was originally predetermined to be good, and the subsequent problem of how that evil ‘tree’ becomes good again, are the two key issues in the first half of systemr-m. As I argued in VII.2, systemr-m as such cannot solve these problems, but merely acknowledges their existence as rational ‘gaps’ needing to be filled by the symbols presented in some particular religious tradition [see Table VII.2].
By exposing the ‘naked body’ of religion, systemr-m highlights the need for some historical revelation to provide ‘clothing’ that can make religion ‘decent’. Whereas Kant’s doctrine of radical evil draws attention to the first mystery that must be explained by any true empirical religion, his doctrine of the ‘archetype’[20] highlights the second mystery. Expanding on Kant’s own ‘clothing’ metaphor [see VI.2], we could say that if the incomprehensibility of radical evil gives rise to religion’s need for a set of comfortable ‘undergarments’ to explain evil’s origin, then the incomprehensibility of the archetype (including its relation to the originally good predisposition) gives rise to its need for a suitable pair of ‘trousers’ to explain how evil can be overcome. Taken together, these two elements constitute the necessary conditions for the possibility of religion: just as knowledge would be ‘blind’ without concepts and ‘empty’ without intuitions [Kt1:75], so also religion would be ineffectual without a capacity in human nature to receive divine aid (i.e., the archetype) and pointless without the threat posed to human nature by radical evil.
In Book Two itself, Kant develops at great length the connection between the archetype and several Christian doctrines relating to Jesus’ vicarious atonement. Although Kant never uses the names ‘Jesus’ or ‘Christ’ in Kt8,[21] the nature of Jesus as the Christ is undoubtedly his main concern in assessing how well Christianity ‘fits’ with stage two of systemr-m. There are several other important issues, to be sure; but they all revolve around the question of what role Jesus ought to play in a Christian’s religious self-understanding. In order to highlight the applicability of Kant’s arguments to the Christian view of Jesus, I shall henceforth freely interpolate his name into my account of Kant’s position. This should not be taken to imply that Kant was referring exclusively to Jesus in such passages—though sometimes he certainly is—but only that Jesus is one (and, in light of Kant’s intent to focus on Christianity, usually the most prominent) religious figure to whom his comments apply. He discusses the relevant issues more systematically in Section One, so I shall begin here with a brief account of Section Two, where Kant examines ‘the Christian portion’ of the Bible [Kt8:78(73)].
Section Two of Book Two is mainly a descriptive synopsis of the biblical narrative, with special emphasis on the conflict between Satan and Jesus. After a brief account of how Satan, as ‘a being of a higher order—a spirit’, acquired ‘dominion over spiritual natures’ and thereby set up a ‘kingdom of evil’ [Kt8: 78-9(73-4)], Kant explains how the ‘Jewish theocracy’, with its civil constitution prescribing ‘partly ethical’ and ‘partly ... burdensome’ observances, ‘did no substantial injury to the realm of darkness’. Into this context came ‘a person whose wisdom was purer even than that of previous philosophers, as pure as though it had descended from heaven’ [80(74)]. Proclaiming himself as innocent with respect to Adam’s original ‘bargain with the evil principle’, Jesus refused to bargain even when Satan ‘offered to make [him] deputy-governor of his entire kingdom’ [80-1(74-5)]. In response to Jesus’ attempt to stir up ‘a public revolution (in religion) through the overthrow of a ceremonial faith, which crowded out the moral disposition’ [81n(76n)], Satan imposed all manner of sufferings upon him, resulting eventually in his death. Jesus’ willingness to ‘give up his life’, however, was itself ‘a manifestation of the good principle, that is, of humanity in its moral perfection, and an example for everyone to follow’ [81-2(76-7)]. Outwardly, the revolution failed; ‘the moral outcome of the combat’ between Jesus and Satan, therefore, was ‘really not the conquering of the evil principle ... but merely the breaking of its power to hold, against their will, those who have so long been its subjects’ [82-3(77)]. Yet in the long run, Jesus’ obedience opens up a new, ‘moral dominion’ to all those who wish to follow him in forsaking the rule of the evil principle.[22]
Kant’s purpose in devoting a whole section to ‘this vivid mode of representation’ [Kt8:83(78)] is not to ridicule those who believe it is true, nor to eliminate its significance by reducing it to its moral core, as Collins claims [Co67:176-7]. Rather, it is to confirm its suitability to serve as a symbolic vehicle for true religion: ‘for practical purposes, its spirit and rational meaning have been valid and binding for the whole world and for all time’. In other words, provided the believer draws from the Bible a conviction ‘that there exists absolutely no salvation ... apart from the sincerest adoption of genuinely moral principles into his disposition’ [83(78)], a belief in Christian doctrine can be fully supported by Kant as a manifestation of universal religion. When believers recognize how ‘Scripture ... harmonizes with the most holy teachings of reason’ [83(78)], they will avoid the tendency to use Jesus as an excuse for moral laziness, seeing instead the need to join with Jesus to become ‘sons of God’ [John 1:12; q.i. 82 (77)]. For a more systematic account of how Christian doctrine must be interpreted in order to foster this goal, let us turn now to examine Section One.
One of the most fundamental characteristics of Jesus in Christian doctrine, his perfection, seems at first to be ruled out by Kant’s theory of the universal human propensity to evil. We saw in VII.2.A, however, that Kant explicitly allows for the possibility that anthropological research might turn up an exception to the rule of human beings having an evil propensity. His reason for specifying this limitation on our empirical knowledge of evil may well be to make room for the Christian belief in Jesus’ sinlessness [see 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Pet. 2:22; 1 John 3:5]. The conjecture that Kant views Jesus as a man without any propensity to evil draws some support from his qualified defense of the virgin birth: ‘To conceive the possibility of a person free from innate propensity to evil by having him born of a virgin mother is an idea of reason accommodating itself to an instinct which is hard to explain, yet which cannot be disowned, and is moral, too.’[23] The reason it is ‘hard to explain’, presumably, is that in order to be a genuine moral example, Jesus must have suffered the effects of radical evil just as everyone does; how this could be the case without his actually succumbing to the evil propensity and thus starting out with an evil disposition is not an issue Kant addresses [but see note VIII.16]. In any case, Subsection B of Section One is largely devoted to a discussion of what it could mean for a human being to be an incarnation of God. The bottom line, as required by systemr-m, is that ‘each man ought really to furnish an example of this idea [i.e., the archetype] in his own person’ [Kt8:63(56)], so whatever Christians believe about the nature of Jesus, it must not prevent them from being Christ-like (i.e., aiming at perfection) themselves.
To this end, Kant provides a two-paragraph sketch of the minimum rational requirements for a properly religious interpretation of Jesus’ nature—or for that matter, of any person who is set up as a religious ideal. First, he argues that even if ‘a truly godly-minded man’ gives us the best possible ‘example of a man well-pleasing to God’ [Kt8:63(57)], ‘we should have no cause for supposing him other than a man naturally begotten.’ While admitting that a person such as Jesus ‘might be a man supernaturally begotten’ (thus leaving open a theoretical space for the traditional Christian doctrine), Kant opines that such an hypothesis ‘can in no way benefit us practically’ because the archetype within us is already of ‘supernatural origin’ [64(57)]. Here, despite appearances to the contrary, Kant is not dogmatically denying the divinity of Jesus; rather, he is emphasizing that we must not lose sight of Jesus’ humanity, because if we elevate him ‘above all the frailties of human nature’, then ‘such a divine person could no longer be held up as an example’ [64(57)]. By making ‘all transgression on his part utterly impossible’, this would certainly ‘hinder the adoption of the idea of such a person [i.e., the archetype] for our imitation.’
Kant’s point in this paragraph is not to encourage us to accept or reject any religious doctrine, but rather to encourage those who do accept it to interpret it in such a way that it does not conflict with the minimum requirements of true religion, as laid out in systemr-m. That Kant’s position here is not dogmatic, but hermeneutic, is clearly seen in the last part of the paragraph: after warning against the dangers of emphasizing Jesus’ divinity to the exclusion of his humanity, he adds that the doctrine of divine self-emptying [see Phil. 2:5-8] is a ‘thought [that] must attune our hearts to admiration, love, and gratitude’ [Kt8: 64(58)]. Moreover, in the lengthy footnote appended to the last sentence, he points out that John 3:16 (‘For God so loved the world ...’) has a legitimately religious, symbolic interpretation that helps ‘us comprehend the degree of God’s love for the human race’, noting that we ‘cannot dispense’ with such analogies, even though an overly literal, anthropomorphic interpretation ‘has ... most injurious consequences’ for moral religion [65n(58n)].
Any doubt that Kant is willing to countenance the possibility that Jesus really is the Son of God should be dispelled by the last paragraph in Subsection B. Whereas the foregoing paragraph warned against an overemphasis on Jesus’ divinity that would eclipse his humanity, Kant now acknowledges that there is, in fact, a legitimate moral interpretation of the former doctrine. Even though Jesus must be regarded (from the theoretical standpoint) as ‘completely human’, he ‘might ... truthfully speak of himself’, from the hypothetical perspective, as if he were an incarnation of perfect, divine goodness. ‘In speaking thus he would be alluding only to his disposition’ [Kt8:66(59)]. Any theological defense of the doctrine of Jesus’ divinity must therefore be a hypothetical claim that points away from the theoretical standpoint to the practical standpoint. Far from denying the possibility of Jesus’ divinity, Kant is attempting to provide an interpretation of this doctrine that renders it morally admissible. If Jesus is (theoretically) an ordinary man who (practically) has God’s own disposition within him, then he can still serve as an example for our own moral self-improvement; for we (as potential sons of God) have just as much access to the archetype as did Jesus (who himself had to learn obedience and be made perfect in order to become the savior [Heb. 5:8-11]). As Kant later explains, ‘in the appearance of the God-Man [on earth], it is not that in him which strikes the senses and can be known through experience, but rather the archetype, lying in our reason, that we attribute to him ... which is really the object of saving faith’.[24] Thus Kant explicitly acknowledges the transcendent origin of the archetype as a form of divine assistance (i.e., grace): alluding to Philippians 3:9 [s.a. Rom. 10:3], he points out that our attainment of a ‘pure moral disposition ... will ever remain a righteousness not our own’.[25]
These explanations of how God’s grace must be interpreted from a practical standpoint are not, of course, sufficient to establish the actual divinity of Jesus—only faith in a divine revelation could do that. But they are misinterpreted when taken as discounting the significance of Jesus’ historical character altogether, as when Ward [Wa72:151] interprets Kant as maintaining: ‘Whether Jesus ever existed or not is beside the point; he is the “archetype of the pure moral disposition”, which all men must imitate in themselves.’ This typical way of misreading the text results from a lack of attention to the principle of perspective. ‘The archetype lies in the understanding’ [Kt35:(109-10)] and must therefore be viewed from the logical perspective of systemr-m; but ‘the Example set before us in the Gospels’ is presented from the empirical perspective. Kant can say that ‘experience provides not a single example of honesty, of righteousness, or of virtue’ [(109)], because these are ‘universal principles’ when regarded from the logical perspective of stage two; yet in the next breath he can affirm: ‘There are, indeed, examples of righteousness, of virtue, and even of holiness’ [(110)], insofar as these are viewed from the empirical perspective. The same is true for the archetype: ‘Our archetype is not a pattern [i.e., an empirical example] which we must reproduce, but a rule [i.e., a logical concept] to which we should conform’ [(98)]. Empirical individuals ‘can only be judged good or bad by reference to universal principles’ [(109)], so the fact that Kant explains the adequacy of Jesus’ example in terms of his realization of the archetype is not meant to render his historical existence irrelevant, but to authenticate his life as worthy of imitation—so much so that his disposition can be regarded as divine.