Appendix VII

The Four Parerga: Reason’s Need for Divine Assistance

 

 

1. Workings of Grace (Gnadenwirkungen)[1]

          Kant examines four types of ‘parerga’—one for each of the General Observations appended to Kt8’s four ‘books’.[2] He defines parerga as by-products of reason’s operation in religious matters, whose pur­pose is ‘[t]o remove the difficulties’ obstructing the pure moral religion [Kt8:52(48)] ‘when these difficulties have reference to transcendent questions.’ These ‘high-flown ideas’ [52(47)] ‘do not belong within [‘religion within the bounds of bare reason’] but border upon it.’ That is, they arise directly out of a moral need but satisfy that need by positing theoretically inscrutable cause-and-effect relation­ships between God and human persons [52-3(48)]. As a result, although they are freely available to reason for use in accordance with ‘her good will’, and ‘may yet be necessary as a complement to her moral in­suffi­ciency’, they can be dangerous if misused. When a person re­places an unassum­ing ‘reflec­tive’ faith in these parerga with a presumptuous ‘dogmatic faith, which pro­claims itself as a form of knowledge’, various types of re­ligious error are bound to result. As we saw in VII.1, a theoretically ‘dishonest’ belief in workings of grace, mira­cles, mysteries, and means of grace produces the corresponding er­rors of ‘fanaticism’, ‘superstition’, ‘illumination’, and ‘thau­maturgy’ [52-3(48); s.e. Fig. VII.3].

          Applying the parerga to Kant’s concentric circles metaphor [see Fig. VII.1] clarifies why each historical faith adopts its own versions of the parerga. In addition to showing the parerga arising directly out of the boundary of pure rational faith, Figure AVII.1 depicts Kant’s important distinction between direct and indirect forms of service to God [see VII.3.B]. Any

 

 

Figure AVII.1: Parerga as Rational By-Products of Moral Religion

ecclesiastically-determined religious action that immediately satisfies a demand of the moral law is a direct way of serving God. Nonmoral religious actions or beliefs can also be said to ‘serve God’, though only indirectly on Kant’s view, if they enhance a person’s moral disposi­tion. Outside of true religion lies the false forms of religious service, wherein a person believes God is pleased with ac­tions that have no relation to morality and may even induce neglect of the moral law. The parerga are located on the boundary between pure and empirical forms of true religion, as Kant suggests [Kt8:52(47)], for they can either enhance or detract from the pure moral core of religion, depending on how the devotee interprets them. Since Kant’s second ‘experiment’ [see VII.1] takes Christianity as a test case [see Ch. VIII], he tends to focus on the typical Christian version(s) of each parergon.

          The parerga that arises out of stage one of systemr Kant calls ‘work­ings of grace’. This phrase refers to ‘super­natural moral influ­ences in relation to which we are merely passive’ [Kt8:194(182)]. The dependence of religious fanatics on an ‘imagined experience’ of such divine action is seen by Kant as a misguided way of avoiding the seriousness of the implica­tions of radical evil in human nature. Dependence on a redeemer in the material stage of our religious development can cause a person to replace God-given freedom (and the responsibility that comes with it) with an imagined feeling of emotional closeness to God. This tends to give rise to moral laziness, whereby a person proudly assumes God’s grace is sure to erase any evil the believer does [201(189)]. Against this misuse of the parergon Kant argues not that all workings of grace are impossible, but that ‘it is impossible to define these things theoretically ... because our use of the concept of cause and effect cannot be extended beyond matters of experience’ [53(48)]. This should not be taken as an outright denial of supernatural interven­tion. Kant is very careful to leave a space open for God’s grace [see AVI.4], but believes the philoso­pher (who as such cannot appeal to divine revelation) must not presume to un­derstand how it works: ‘we can admit a working of grace as something incompre­hensible, but we cannot adopt it into our maxims either for theoretical or for practical use’ [53(49)].

          A person who gives first priority to ‘feeling’ the inner workings of God’s grace, thereby obscuring the voice of conscience (and so also the likelihood of good life-conduct), is com­mitting the religious error Kant calls ‘fanaticism’.[3] Kant defines ‘fanaticism in its most general sense’ as ‘a deliberate overstepping of the limits of reason’ [Kt4:85]. In religion, it is ‘the illusion of wishing to [be made good by grace] by striving for what is supposed to be communion with God’ and is characterized by the belief that we can detect grace in operation and even ‘produce [it] within ourselves’ [Kt8:174(162)]. This illusion is

 

fanatical when the very means it contemplates, as supersensible, are not within man's power ...; for this feeling of the immediate presence of the Supreme Being and the distinguishing of this from every other, even from the moral feeling, would constitute a receptivity for an intuition for which there is no sensory provision in man's nature.... The fanatical religious illusion ... is the moral death of reason; for without reason, after all, no religion is possible, since, like all morality in general, it must be established upon basic principles. [175(163)]

 

Kant’s complaint here is that fanaticism puts reason to death before it has had a chance to bear fruit in a genuinely religious (morally-attuned) disposition. As we shall see in XII.4, this does not mean Kant would object to the notion of reason coming to ‘rest’ when it fulfills its natural goal.

          What is important to keep in mind is that Kant’s warnings about the dangers of dwell­ing on the workings of grace do not in any way imply that he sees no role whatsoever for grace. We have seen in AVI.2-4 [s.a. VII.2.B and VIII.2.B] that quite the contrary is true. Kant is deeply convinced that grace is a necessary component for any true religion. His criti­cism here is meant to warn against the danger of believing we can know so much about how God dispenses grace that we can control God’s ways. As Galbraith aptly points out [Ga96:79], Kant’s concept of grace ‘strongly implies a power that is, at least in some respects, beyond our control.’ (In IX.4 I show how this calls into question the common notion that Kant is Pelagian.) Moreover, Kant’s pessimism here does not imply that all claims to have experienced God are harmful. As I argue at great length in Part Four, Kant’s mind was wide open to the possibility of religious experiences, provided the workings of grace are always morally enlightened—to the extent that his own position can best be described as Critical mysticism.

 

2. Miracles (Wundern)

          The morally-transcendent idea arising out of the second stage in systemr, with its emphasis on the need for supernatural assistance in making humanity pleasing to God, is a theo­retical dependence on miracles—i.e., on the impor­tance of ‘knowing through experience something whose occurrence, as under objective laws of experience [i.e., in systemt], we ourselves recognize to be impossible’ [Kt8:194(182)]. A common misconception of Kant’s Critical phi­losophy is that the theoretical limitations imposed in Kt1 rule out the possibility of miracles at the very outset.[4] However, there is no justification in the text for this interpreta­tion, as long as we accept Kant’s definition of a miracle as an event ‘in the world the operating laws of whose causes are, and must remain, absolutely un­known to us’ [86(81)]. For Kt1 leaves plenty of room for un­known causes of events; what it denies is the possibility of obtaining knowl­edge of uncaused events. (If miracles were defined as events not caused by nature, then every act of free will would be a miracle for Kant.) Causes can be unknown to us because of our ignorance either of natural laws or of supernatu­ral intervention. Thus Kant distinguishes between ‘natural wonders’ and ‘a real miracle’:[5] ‘the first opens up the prospect of a new acquisition for the nourishment of rea­son; that is, it awakens the hope of discovering new laws of nature: the second ... arouses the fear that confidence shall be lost in what has been hitherto ac­cepted as known.’

          This fear may be what led Kant even in his pre-Copernican days to believe miracles in the natural order ‘are either not at all or but seldom necessary’ [Kt15:112(289)]. He explains his position more fully in Kt46:460-1: ‘Supreme Wisdom’ designed ‘the course of nature’ in such a way that it has an ‘accuracy which requires no amendment’; yet God ‘has often made the most weighty exceptions to the universal rules of nature’ so that the ‘superior ends’ of human beings (especially relating to the ‘government of the world’) could be furthered. After adopting the Copernican Perspective, Kant recog­nizes two, more extreme possi­bil­ities: ‘miracles must be admitted as [occurring] daily ... or else never’.[6] Viewed from the theoretical standpoint, miracles must re­main un­known, so ‘the modesty of reason demands’ that they be regarded as useless for science;[7] viewed from a morally-enlightened judicial standpoint, however, we can see mira­cles everywhere in nature. Thus Kant calls attention to the beauty of the rebirth of a plant from a mere ‘seed’ each spring [Kt1:89n(84n)], and exclaims that ‘no one ... will assert that this is a mere result of natural laws; no one, indeed, can claim to comprehend whether or not the direct influence of the Creator is required on each occasion.’

          One of Kant’s clearest accounts of miracles comes in Kt32:361-2n. The predetermining influence of ‘divine providence’ is a perfectly acceptable con­cept, he claims, provided we understand it in the general sense of establishing and maintaining the laws of nature. But, he claims, to apply this ‘formal’ concept ‘materially, i.e., with respect to objects in the world ... is false and self-contradictory’, because it requires ‘the perfect cause of events in the world [to] supplement its own predetermining providence in the course of the world’. Along these lines Kant says in Kt35:(94-5) that a good

 

event is certainly part of God’s providential scheme of things, but it is presumptu­ous to claim to have been specially selected by God for fortune’s favours. God’s in­tentions and purposes are universal in their nature, and an event may be the con­comitant of a wider, not the result of an ad hoc intention.... In the course of the world taken as a whole everything is grounded in His good providence ... Universal Nature, not particular circumstances ought to evoke our thankfulness; for though the latter touch us more nearly, the former attitude is a nobler one.

 

To suppose God operates on specific natural events is to confuse the theoretical standpoint with the judicial (teleological) standpoint; but this does not mean the latter is invalid. ‘Although we can very well explain the physico-mechanical cause of these extraordinary cases’ [Kt32:361n]—i.e., apparent miracles—‘we must not overlook the teleological cause, which intimates the foresight of a wisdom commanding over nature.’ As an example of the legitimacy of such a dual explanation, Kant cites the healing work of a physician [362n]:

 

God is the author of the physician and all his medicines, and if we insist on ascend­ing to the highest but theoretically inconceivable first cause, the effect must be as­cribed entirely to Him. Or we can ascribe it entirely to the physician, so far as we consider the occurrence as explicable in a chain of causes under the order of nature.

 

          This passage clearly supports the view that Kant’s criticism of mira­cles in Kt8 is meant to imply not that they cannot hap­pen, but that a supersti­tious trust in their theoretical reality can do more harm than good to the further­ance of universal religion. The danger is that a person may ‘count on miracles’ as an excuse for avoiding moral improvement ‘in the af­fairs of life’ [Kt8:87(82)], or may believe that professing belief in certain his­torical miracles is a ‘means whereby we can render ourselves well-pleasing to God’ [85(80)]. Such de­mands indicate a person’s ‘moral unbelief, that is, ... his lack of faith in virtue’.[8] ‘However pious and humble such talk may be, it is full of self-con­ceit’ [Kt32:361n]. Indeed, ‘a really firm theoret­ical faith in mir­acles’ can even lead to ‘a senseless conceit’, whereby a person be­lieves ‘man could him­self perform them and so storm heaven’ [Kt8:88(83)]. Arguing against this perver­sion of religion in Kt8:84(79), Kant says ‘the true religion’—i.e., (Kantian) Chris­tianity—‘is now here, and from now on is able to maintain itself on rational grounds’, even though miracles may well have played an important part in its foundation. Christianity is based on ‘the moral disposition’ [84(79)]; neverthe­less, ‘it is wholly conformable to man’s ordinary ways of thought ... for [its] historical introduction ... to be ac­companied ... by miracles, in order to an­nounce the termination of the earlier religion, which without miracles would never have had any authority.’ Far from denying the validity of the miracles recounted in the Bible, Kant suggests we ‘honor the trappings which have served to bring into public currency a doctrine whose authenticity rests upon a record in­delibly registered in every soul and which stands in need of no miracle.’[9] That is, miracles are needed as a prop for human weakness, not because of any lack in the content of ideal Christianity; by making true religion more appeal­ing, they hasten the day of its universal acceptance [see KSP4].

          In addition to Kant’s official theoretical meaning of ‘miracle’, and his occasional allusion to a sec­ondary, judicial meaning [see e.g., Kt8:89n(84n), q.a.], this word can be (and often is) used from a practical standpoint to refer to the otherwise inexpli­cable change in a person’s disposition [see note AVII.6]. The miracles Kant says we should honor but ignore from the theoretical and practical standpoints are exclusively natural miracles; his own description of conversion would easily qualify as the prime example of a personal miracle. This is implied, for instance, when he asserts that the realm wherein good and evil principles ‘have might is a realm not of nature but of freedom, i.e., a realm in which one can control events only so far as one can rule hearts and minds [or ‘spiritual natures’ (Gemüther)]’.[10] Kant adopts this view of miracles explicitly in Kt32:362n: ‘From a morally practical standpoint ... the concept of the divine concursus [i.e., of personal miracles] is quite suitable and even necessary. We find this, for instance, in the belief that God will compensate for our lack of justice, pro­vided our intention was genuine ...’. But he is careful to warn, as usual, ‘that no one should try to explain a good action (an event in the world) as a result of this concursus, for this would be a vain theoretical knowledge of the supersen­suous and therefore absurd.’ ‘Even the Bible’, in its treatment of conversion, ‘seems to refer, not to supernatural experi­ences and fantastic feelings which should take reason’s place in bringing about this revolu­tion, but to the spirit of Christ, which he mani­fested in teachings and examples so that we might make it our own’ [Kt65:59]. Kant stresses both the personal validity of miracles and the danger of dogmatizing on them in Kt8:63(56): ‘Only this idea [of the arche­type of perfect humanity] ... can establish the truth of miracles as possible effects of the good principle; but it can never itself derive from them its own verification.’

          The most important Christian miracle, the resurrection of Jesus, does not escape Kant’s attention in Kt8. Kant treats this miracle as a part of Jesus’ private min­istry, occurring after his public ministry had been completed [128-9n(119n); see note VIII.32]. In so doing he is not discounting the resurrection as a figment of the disciples’ imagination. His purpose is rather to emphasize that an under­stand­ing of the pure meaning of the event is more important than a dogmatic claim to un­derstand exactly what actually hap­pened. Thus, he discounts the importance of a literal, physical resurrection, because overemphasizing this purely theoreti­cal aspect can eclipse the practical significance of Jesus’ claim that he ‘would still be with his disciples, even to the end of the world’ [129(120); cf. Matt. 28:20], in the spiritual form of the archetypal ideal of humanity well-pleasing to God. Kant readily admits that ‘historical belief’ in Jesus as the God-man, considered apart from the pure re­ligion for which it serves as an important vehicle, does ‘stand in need of verifi­cation through miracles’, explaining that such miracles ‘can be au­thenticated ... only by scholarship.’[11] For the Christian, this implies that, regardless of what happened to Jesus’ bones, it is rationally acceptable to believe he arose in a form that gave (and mysteriously gives) new life to all who are open to receive it. The resulting resurrection faith is what really matters, not a theoretical understand­ing of the precise nature of the miracle. To put the latter above the former is to succumb to a mistaken belief in the primacy of theoretical reason, thus divest­ing the parergon of miracles of any valid practical use it might otherwise have.

 

3. Mysteries (Geheimnissen)

          Out of the third stage of systemr arises the morally-transcendent idea of a ‘divinely prompted’ understanding of holy mysteries [Kt8:137-8(129)]. For Kant a ‘mystery’ is a transcendent ‘object of reason’ that can be under­stood in terms of the practi­cal standpoint, but cannot be comprehended in terms of the theoret­ical stand­point.[12] In Ax94:247-55 Axinn elucidates Kant’s view of mysteries by distinguishing between two types of ignorance: ‘unknowability’ and ‘mystery’. Some­thing unknowable ‘can be mentioned but not used’, while something mysterious ‘can be used but not mentioned’ [251]—‘use’ being practical in its orientation and ‘mention’, theoretical. Kant’s point is that God’s activities really are mysterious, inasmuch as we can know why God must act, but not what God’s actions will be. This parergon leads to false religion only when a person neglects this point and believes the mysteries of God’s actions can become objects of theoretical knowledge.

          The only genuine holy mysteries are the ideals present­ed to us by practical reason (such as the good disposition in stage one, the arche­type in stage two and the king­dom of God in stage three), ‘which God alone can do and the performance of which ex­ceeds our capacity’ [Kt8: 139n(130n)]; in such cases ‘it may well be expe­dient for us merely to know and understand that there is such a mystery, not to compre­hend it.’ A dogmatic belief in divine revela­tion, however, can lead a re­ligious person to believe that we can actually com­prehend mysteries from the theoretical standpoint, through a ‘merely pas­sive’ process of ‘inner illumi­nation’ [83(78)]. Our conception of the transcen­dent is then mistakenly re­garded as a knowledge of God’s nature, not just as it appears to us ‘as moral beings’, but as it is in itself [139(130)]. This failure to distin­guish between God’s Perspective and our own leads to speculations that tend to over­shadow the possibility of seeing a moral meaning in a mystery; hence ‘a bare literal faith in it hurts rather than improves the truly religious dis­position’ [147(138)]. ‘[I]t is an easy thing for a man to accept these statutes ..., whereas the moral improvement of his attitude of will is a long and difficult struggle’ [Kt65:60n]. Kant’s advice is not to discard the mysteries altogether, but to ‘read a moral meaning into’ them, so they ‘no longer contain an in­conse­quen­tial belief but an intelligible one that refers to our moral vocation’ [39].

          The ex­ample Kant gives of a holy mystery that need not be regarded as such is the doctrine of the Trinity. If we regard this doctrine in terms of ‘the requirement of practical reason’ to believe in God as a ‘holy Legislator’, a ‘benevolent Ruler’, and a ‘righteous Judge’, then, as we saw in V.4, it ‘really contains no mystery, because it merely expresses the moral rela­tion of God to the human race’ [Kt8:139-40(131); s.a. Kt35:(80)]. Thus Kant argues that, even though God must be regarded as ‘one and the same Being’ when viewed ‘physically’ (i.e., from the theoretical standpoint), when viewed from the practical standpoint ‘God wills to be served under three specifi­cally different moral aspects’.[13] The Trinity is a mystery only if we regard it as merely a revealed truth—one that is otherwise ‘unsuited to man’s comprehension’ [Kt8:142(133)].

          By no means is Kant denying that the Trinity is a revealed truth; all he is denying is that this is the only (or even the best) stand­point for understanding it. In fact, his intention is to show how rea­son can come to the aid of revelation without in any way destroying its au­thority, but in­stead confirming it. Thus he explains (with a rather ironic and po­tentially mis­leading choice of words, if read without an appreciation of its perspectival emphasis) that the doctrine of the Trinity is in one sense ‘revealed’ in the incomprehensible form of ‘a mys­tery (from one standpoint [i.e., the theoretical]) and can yet (from another [practical stand­point]) be revealed’ (i.e., understood), for it is ‘revealed to us through our [practical] reason’ [Kt8:142 (133)]. Kant then lists, in the order of the aspects of the Trinity, three theoretical mysteries whose practical meaning reason reveals: (1) ‘The mystery of the divine call ... is abso­lutely in­com­prehensible’ if re­garded theoretically, in terms of how a created being can be free to answer such a call, yet is ‘quite clear’ if regarded in terms of ‘a call to citizenship in a divine state’; (2) ‘The mystery of atonement’ is contradictory if re­garded theoretically, since moral ‘good cannot come from another but must arise from man himself’, yet ‘such vicarious atonement’ can be understood ‘from the practical standpoint’ as a necessary assumption of faith, ‘a means of supplementing’ our inevitable weakness; and (3) ‘The mys­tery of election’, if regarded theoretically as an arbitrary ‘decree’ of divine will, ‘is for us an absolute mystery’, yet it can be understood, if regarded practically, as God’s re­sponse to ‘a morally-believ­ing acceptance of [vicarious atonement]’.[14] If the thoroughly per­spectival character of Kant’s treatment of the Trinity is overlooked, this passage will almost certainly be misunderstood. Kant is not reject­ing the legitimacy of these doctrines, but is authenticating them, by arguing that, although ‘our understanding is by nature unsuited’ to attain such theoretical knowledge [144n(135n)], the mysteries can be clearly understood if we view them from the practical standpoint.[15]

 

4. Means of Grace (Gnadenmitteln)

          The morally-transcendent idea that arises as a by-product of the fourth stage of systemr is the concept of ‘a supernatu­ral accession to our moral ... capacity’ [Kt8:191(179)]. As with the other par­erga, the main thrust of Kant’s discus­sion of this idea is constructive. He de­scribes the notion of supernatural aid in moral matters ‘as a sacred thing’; as such, we should hold it ‘at a respect­ful distance’ [191(180)]. ‘The true (moral) service of God’ is the invisible ‘service of the heart’; nevertheless, ‘for man the invisible needs to be repre­sented through the visible (the sensu­ous) ... in the interest of practicability’ [192(180)]. Because of this need, it is good and proper that people should use outward religious ceremonies and acts of worship as a means to further the in­ward religious disposition.[16] However, Kant warns that this is ‘a means which, although really indispensable, is extremely liable to the danger of misconstruc­tion; for, through an illusion that steals over us, it is easily held to be the ser­vice of God itself’ [192(180)]. Thus Kant criti­cizes such a ‘means of grace’ only when it is employed by a person who be­lieves ‘that if he honors the cus­tom (the formality), God will surely accept it in lieu of the act [of adopting a good disposition] itself’ [193(181-2)]. For this is a ‘self-deception’ that ‘is internally self-contradictory’, because ‘that divine aid ... itself really aims at nothing but our morality’ [192(180)].

          Once the ‘service of God’ is ‘brought back to its spirit and its true mean­ing, namely to a disposi­tion dedicating itself to the kingdom of God within us and without us’, it ‘can be divided, even by reason, into four observances of duty’ [Kt8:192(181), e.a.]. The Christian tradition normally expresses these duties in the form of: (1) ‘private prayer’, awakening the intention to establish ‘goodness in our­selves’; (2) ‘church-going’, encouraging this intention out­wardly ‘through public assembly’; (3) ‘baptism’, whereby the ‘public assembly’ encour­ages goodness by receiving a member ‘into the fellowship of faith’; and (4) ‘communion’, whereby such fellowship is maintained, through the symbol of a ‘joint participation in all the fruits of moral good­ness’ [193(181); s.a. We26:161-2]. These observances, together with the type of duty each focuses on, can be mapped onto the 2LAR cross in the following way:

 

 

Figure AVII.2: The Four Means of Grace

 

This 2LAR is based on the 1LAR distinctions (1) be­tween an individual’s personal expression of the intention to be good (-) and a church’s corporate expression of its intention to prop­agate goodness in its members (+), and (2) between the inner (-) and outer (+) forms of each. (I have reversed the order of the second and third items in Kant’s list, so that this 2LAR will correspond more directly to Kant’s list of characteristics of the invisible church, as shown in Figure VII.5.)

          Kant devotes far more attention, in Kt8 and elsewhere, to the topic of prayer than to any of the other three means of grace. This, I believe, is not be­cause he opposes it more strongly, but because he values it more highly. (This is reflected in Figure AVII.2 by prayer’s tran­scen­dental (--) status in relation to the other means of grace [cf. Fig. III.4]; the transcendental perspective, of course, is the basis for Kant’s entire System.) Because prayer plays such an inexorable role in the religious life of most Christians and is so central to any genuine biblical theology, I shall defer discussion of that topic until AVIII. Kant’s concept of prayer has been so grossly misunderstood by his critics that a detailed and careful examination will be required in order to dispel the many misconceptions surrounding it. At this point let us therefore look more briefly at the other three rituals.

          Kant criticizes ‘church-going’ as a dangerous ‘means of grace’ only when a person uses it ‘to conceal the bad moral content of his disposition from the eyes of others, and even from his own eyes’ [Kt8:199(187)]. Church cere­monies then become ‘an opiate for the conscience of such people and a pillow on which they hope to sleep tranquilly’ [Kt39:495(215); s.a. 494(214)]. Against this tendency Kant warns that ‘we do not profit God by uttering His praises.... True religion is the religion of the fear of God and of a good life. If a man’s actions show no signs of it, he has no re­ligion, let him say what he will.’[17] Kant’s unwillingness to tolerate such illusory forms of religion is as stringent as Jesus’ own:

 

To this end man busies himself with every conceivable formality, designed to indi­cate how greatly he respects the divine commands, in order that it may not be nec­essary for him to obey them; and, that his idle wishes may serve also to make good the disobedience of these commands, he cries: ‘Lord, Lord,’ so as not to have to ‘do the will of his heav­enly Father.’ [Kt8:201(189), quoting Matt. 7:21]

 

Nevertheless, Kant endorses this ‘ceremonial public service of God’, when properly employed, as being ‘not only a means to be valued by each individual for his own edification but also a duty directly obligating [‘the community of be­lievers’] as a group, as citizens of a divine state which is to appear here on earth’ [198(186-7)]. Such edifica­tion ‘does not consist in feelings’ pro­duced by ‘listening or reading and sing­ing’, but rather signifies ‘the result of devotion in the actual improvement of the man’ [198n(186n)].

          Among the various activities performed in church, Kant expresses special approval of ‘public prayer’ as ‘a moral ceremony’: a clergyman’s public prayer, for instance, ‘cannot only raise the feelings to the point of moral exalta­tion ...; it also possesses in itself a more rational basis than does private prayer for clothing the moral wish’, because it encourages the par­tici­pants to be united towards a common moral end [Kt8:196-7n(185n)]. (This distinction between public and private prayer will be examined more thoroughly in AVIII.4.) Webb’s description of Kant’s view of public wor­ship as ‘just a machin­ery for stimulat­ing the moral sentiment in us’ [We26:154] is therefore potential­ly misleading. For Kant is not reducing public worship to an austere means of motivating mechanical obedience to moral laws, but confirming its rightful status [see VI.4] as a means of encouraging truly devout participants to serve God freely in their lives. Thus he says in Kt39:485(196): ‘A religion which makes men gloomy is false; for they should serve God with a joyous heart and not from compulsion.’

          Kant’s treatment of baptism and communion in Kt8:199-200(187-8) is short and to the point. Baptism ‘aims at something holy ... but ... is not in it­self holy or productive of holiness’; it is an ‘illusion’ to believe this human ritual is itself ‘capable, in an instant, of washing away all sins’. Nevertheless, it ‘is a highly significant ceremony’ when viewed as a commitment to work to­wards ‘the development of a man into a citizen in a di­vine state’. Likewise, commu­nion ‘is a religious illusion which can do naught but work counter to the spirit of religion’ if we ‘assert that God has attached special favours to the cele­bration of this solemnity’. Yet, when viewed as a means of propagating

 

churchly community under laws of equality, [it] contains within itself some­thing great, expanding the narrow, selfish, and unsociable cast of mind among men, especially in matters of religion, toward the idea of a cosmopolitan moral community; and it is a good means of enliven­ing a community to the moral dis­position of brotherly love which it represents.

 

That Kant does not exhaust the depths of the symbolism con­tained in these Christian sacraments should not obscure the fact that his inten­tion, at least, is to guard against their misuse by providing a rational explana­tion of how they can help promote universal religion. His insistence on replacing an idolatrous literal interpretation of such rituals with a symbolic interpretation is an example worth emulating, though Christian theologians will no doubt wish to expand on Kant’s own account of what that symbolism actually is.

          In conclud­ing this appendix, it may be helpful to point out that this account of the four basic ways of expressing reverence for God provides conclusive proof that Kant’s Critical religion cannot justly be described as a ‘religion of works’, as is so often assumed. As we saw in AVI.4, this charge would perhaps be valid for systemp, if Kant had attempted to squeeze religion within that system, but not for systemr, and even less so for its specifically Christian form [see VIII.1]. For systemp is not a religious system at all, but a moral one that points to the need for a distinct religious system that can ‘save’ it from total impracticability. ‘Only if religion is added to [morals]’, Kant explains even in Kt4:130, ‘can the hope arise of someday participating in happiness in propor­tion as we en­deavored not to be unworthy of it.’ The uncritical equation of systemp and systemr is the source, as it has so often been through­out this study, of the mistaken ascription of a ‘salvation by works’ religion to Kant. And a proper understanding of the fourth parergon likewise reveals that Kant allows a place (though indirect) even for works directed solely to God.

 

  [1]. Greene and Hudson translate this term as ‘works of grace’. This is misleading, inasmuch as it could lead to a confusion between this parergon and the fourth, means of grace—i.e., works we can perform to earn God’s favor. Webb’s ‘operations of grace’ [We26:162] is an improvement. The new Cambridge Edition uses ‘effects ...’. I use the more literal ‘workings’ throughout this vol­ume to preserve the contrast between God’s ‘workings’ within us and ‘works’ we perform [cf. AVI.4].

[2].  See Fig. VII.3. All the examples of parerga in Kt8 are closely related to specific Christian doctrines. This is simply because Kant chose Christianity as the historical faith to make the object of his ‘second experiment’ [see VIII.1 and Fig. VII.1].

  [3].  Kant’s term, Schwärmerei, indicates that he is carrying on the tradition of the Protestant Reforma­tion, for this word ‘and its many cognates were favorite terms of abuse for Luther’ [Fe93:x-xii]. Fenves argues that the usual translation, ‘fanaticism’, has some misleading connotations. After rejecting ‘zealotry’ and ‘enthusiasm’ as alternatives, he opts for ‘exaltation’ on the grounds that Schwärmerei ‘derives from the swarming of bees.’ His suggestion is that Kant’s use of this term implies an analogy between ‘the congregations of swarming churchmen’ and ‘the aggregates of swarming bees’—a similarity ‘between human beings and animals—not human beings and God’ [xi]. ‘Like bees, Schwärmer fly through the air on erratic paths, and ... hover there without any easily understood means of support.’ While he admits that this term is ‘too closely connected with an uplifting emotion’ [xii], it has the benefit of accurately connoting the ‘danger, of becoming so uplifted that there is no place to go but down.’ For our purposes it is enough merely to note that these interesting connotations imply that anyone (including mystics!) who can feel the presence of God without losing the capacity to ‘think for oneself’ is not a fanatic in Kant’s sense.

  [4].  Thus Friedman [Fr86b:515] says Kant’s God ‘does not spontaneously institute action, does not respond to pleas and prayers.’ The latter part of this claim is inaccurate because Kant never puts such limits on what God can or cannot do and because it gives the wrong impression that prayer is useless [but cf. AVIII.1-4]. But Friedman is far from being alone in his views. McCarthy [Mc86:57], for example, agrees that Kant ‘dismissed all prayer’ as well as any ‘claims of direct divine intervention in human affairs.’ Earlier he had admitted that Kant gives ‘no outright refutation of all miracles’ [Mc82:203]. In Mc86:92-95, while discussing Kant’s four parerga, McCarthy clarifies that ‘Kant avoids outright dismissal of miracles, not in order to abet traditional religion but rather in order not to give aid to the new enemies of religion.’ But I do not see why Kant could not have been motivated by both concerns. McCarthy admits that in Kt8:84(79) ‘Kant grants the role of miracles in the Scriptures’ [Mc86:93], but he excuses this by saying ‘Kant grants the place of miracles only in narrative, not in fact.’ The passage in question does indeed appear in a discussion of the Gospel narrative, but this does not mean Kant denies miracles any other realm of legitimacy; instead, he claims ignorance, thus (as usual) leaving room for faith. Yet McCarthy claims miracles ‘cannot be a tenet of faith.’ This is partially correct: they cannot be a tenet of pure rational faith; but they can be accepted as a legitimate part of historical faith.

  [5].  Kt8:88n(83n). For a similar comment alluding to Kant’s belief in miracles, see note AVII.6.

  [6].  Kt8:89n(84n). In a similar tone [86n(81n)] Kant notes that ‘for God no distinction of easy and difficult is to be thought of.’ Comments such as this readily confirm Galbraith’s claim [Ga96:78] that in the parerga ‘Kant is not denying what is beyond the limits, but rather, acknowledging the limits of the human capacity for comprehension.’ Thus in an unpublished essay [AA18:320-2] Kant explicitly argues against the theoretical impossibility of miracles [cf. De73:333].

                  McCarthy points out that ‘Kant’s real position’ in Kt8:89n(84n) is that having ‘daily’ miracles is not a real option, because it ‘is not at all compatible with reason’ [Mc86:93]. ‘In sum, ... there can be no such miracles today, nor is there any possible use for them.... The only real ‘miracle’ that Kant is prepared to accept, without terming it such, is the marvelous event of one’s being accounted well-pleasing to God.’ While there is no doubt that this is the primary miracle for Kant, and the only necessary miracle, he never dogmatically denies the possibility of other types, as McCarthy repeatedly claims.

  [7].  Kt8:89n(84n). In Kt1:700 Kant likewise argues that, ‘as we have no knowledge of these [‘intelligi­ble grounds of the appearances’] whatsoever, we must never attempt to make use of them in our explanations of nature.’ Nevertheless, he is careful to point out in Kt8:88n(83n) that a person’s decision not to ‘incorporate belief in miracles into his maxims (either of theoretical or practical reason) ... does not impugn their possibility or reality.’ Settle captures the essence of Kant’s position in Se71:346: ‘The method of thinking in science today does not deny miracles, as Bultmann [et. al.] claims; rather, as Kant suggests, it ignores them.’

  [8].  Kt8:63(56); s.a. Kt35:(87). By ‘faith in virtue’, Kant simply means believing that people are sometimes capable of doing good. Thus he declares [(128-9)]: ‘It is certainly right and proper that man should recognize how weak he is, but not by the sacrifice of his good dispositions, for if he is to receive God’s help he must at least be worthy of it. If we depreciate the value of human virtues we do harm, because if we deny good intentions to the man who lives aright, where is the difference between him and the evil-doer?’

  [9].  Kt8:84(79). Kant expresses a very similar view in AA10:168(Zw67:80): ‘miracles and revela­tions were needed, in those days’ to combat Judaism, but now ‘the scaffolding must be taken down.’

[10].    Kt8:82(76). The chief personal miracle Kant affirms is salvation by grace [see AVI.2-4]. McCarthy agrees: ‘Kant in the end allows for the miracle of grace to complement human effort’ [Mc82:199].

[11].    Kt8:129(120). This interpretation provides support for Hare’s (undefended) claim in Ha96:51 that Kant’s ‘polemics’ should not be read ‘anachronistically ..., as evidence that he did not believe in central doctrines of Christianity, like the historical resurrection of Christ.’ As here, Kant is always careful neither to support nor to deny such doctrines in any absolute sense. Sometimes, however, he does reveal an unfortunate lack of toleration for paradox when interpreting them. This is nowhere more obvious than in his dismissive treatment of the idea of bodily resurrection: ‘Those who accept this are materialists, to which class the apostles also belong, who place personality in matter. The transfigured body is a word without sense. — Why should our calcerous flesh [be] in heaven?’ [Kt25:28.2.769(Jo97:33), t.b.; s.a. Jo97:37].

[12].    Kt8:137(129),144(134-5),194(182). For Kant ‘mystery’ refers not to a feeling for or experience of the transcendent—Kant’s views on that subject are considered in X.3-4 and AVII.1—but to ‘secret knowledge’ of what is transcendent. Swedenborg’s Arcana Coelestia (which means ‘Heavenly Secrets’) is filled with such alleged mysteries and was probably in the forefront of Kant’s mind when he wrote about such matters, even in Kt8.

[13].    Kt8:141(132); s.a. 146-7(136-7). Kant’s belief in the Trinity is further demonstrated by his reference to three distinct types of ‘founders’ of true religion. He describes Jesus as the founder of the first true church [159(147),179n(167n)], God as the founder of the kingdom of heaven [152 (140)], and the Holy Spirit as the ultimate source of the inner judging of the conscience [145-6n (136-7n)]—the latter being, through the mediation of the moral law, the foundation of true religion.    (I would like to thank one of my past students, Ida Ng, for pointing these correlations out to me.)

[14].    Kt8:142-3(133-4). These three mysteries correspond to the three ‘difficulties’ Kant examines in Book Two, Section One, subsection C, though they are given here in a different order and expressed in slightly different terms. See Table AVI.2 for a summary of the difficulties.

[15].    Despland claims Kant’s discussion of miracles and mysteries is ‘inconclusive’ because they are irrelevant to his main concern [De73:218]: ‘the wind is taken out of the sails of this whole debate with the standpoint of criticism.’ My goal, by contrast, has been to show that these parerga, though peri­pheral, are a significant concern of Kant’s, and that his discussion is as conclusive as is humanly possible, given the restrictions established by Critical philosophy.

[16].    See note VIII.34. In a 1776 letter to Wolke, Kant shares his views on religious education, openly supporting just such an indirect affirmation of the value of ‘devotional exercises ... as a means of animating an effective conscience and a fear of God’ [AA10:179(Zw67:84-5)]. He even recommends that a particular child be allowed to attend ‘religious ceremonies’ with proper guidance.

[17].    Kt35:(113); s.a. (41). Kant elaborates on this point in Kt35:(104-5): ‘true service does not consist of observances and external usages: it is to be found in sanctified dispositions put into practice in our everyday activities ... Thus we serve God not by particular acts, but in all our activities; our service must be incessant and must embrace our whole life; service of God does not consist of particular acts performed at particular times.... The effect of our activities cannot reach beyond this world; we cannot affect God in any way. We can only dedicate our dispositions submissively to Him.... True service of God is a life purified by the true fear of God. Accordingly, we do not enter a church to serve God there: we do so in order to prepare ourselves to serve Him in our lives.’

 

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