Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason

Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone is a religious philosophical writing of Immanuel Kant, published 1793-1794. Kant develops in a philosophical theory of religion, the designs based on a rational religion, the so-called religion of reason. To this end, the idea of ​​freedom, the idea of ​​the immortality of the soul and the idea of ​​God be characterized as unprovable but necessary postulates of reason. The man himself designs Kant considered as one person, good principle and evil principle necessary are competing with each other in the. The religion scripture is considered one of the most famous works of Kant.

Construction

• First preface ( 1st edition 1793)
• Second Preface (2nd edition 1794)

First piece

From the indwelling of the evil principle in addition to the good

• I. From the original predisposition to the good in human nature
• II From the propensity to evil in human nature
• III. Man is inherently evil
• IV From the origin of evil in human nature

Second piece

From the battle of the good principle, with the evil to man dominion over the

• Part I: From the legal claim of the good principle to rule over the people
• Part II: From the legal claim of the evil principle to rule over the people, and the struggle of the two principles together

Third piece

The victory of good over the evil principle, and the establishment of a kingdom of God on earth

• Part I: Philosophical idea of the victory of good principle under foundation of a kingdom of God on earth
• Part II: Historical Introduction to the gradual establishment of the dominion of the good principle on earth

Fourth piece

The service and after service under the dominion of the good principle, or of religion and clericalism

Part I. From the service of God in a religion at all

Part II From After service of God in a statutory religion

• § 2 The religious delusion the opposite moral principle of religion
• § 3 From priestcraft as a regiment in the after service of the good principle
• § 4 From the guide of conscience in matters of faith

The principle of evil and of good

In the first section of Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone ( RGV ) examines Kant the question of whether man is by nature good or evil. The " principle of evil " Kant understands it as ultimately inexplicable phenomenon, which was but of each individual is: Everyone wear naturally the propensity to evil, a radical evil in itself. This principle is what discourages people from acting morally:

" The proposition that man is evil, [ ... ] may want to say anything other than: . He is aware of the moral law and yet has the ( gelegenheitliche ) deviation from the same recorded in his maxim "

The principle of evil thus serves Kant as an explanation for why the man often immoral acts against their better judgment. The good principle, however, is the humanity in its moral perfection. Kant illustrates this in the picture of the " Son of God". In practical faith in him, or - what is in Kant's sense of the same thing - the idea of ​​humanity that man can hope to be pleasing to God. The term "Son of God ", which Kant calls the " archetype of the godly man ," is thus used by Kant as a symbol that stands for the idea of ​​a morally perfect humanity. Accordingly, the "Son of God " so no empirically perceivable, historical being ( the name of Jesus Kant speaks in the RGV not aware of ), but the sensual expression of a rational idea:

" Alone in the appearance of the God-man is not what falls from it in the sense, or can be known by experience, but the archetype lying in our reason, which we inferior to the latter the (because so much can be perceived in his example, it is found that the invention), actually the object of saving faith, and such faith is identical with the principle of a godly life change. "

The other sections of the religious scripture describe an ideal course of history towards the gradual establishment of the kingdom of God and the rule of good in the world. This - the reign of the good, that is a completely moral state of the world - Kant regarded as the desirable goal of history. Will achieved through the " gradual [n ] transition of ecclesiastical faith to the exclusive sovereignty of pure religious faith" ( RGV, Section Three, VII ), ie by a gradual replacement of a based on the belief in revelation towards a faith based on reason.

Visible and invisible church

This target of dominion of the good principle ( the moral perfection of humanity ) is only jointly reachable. According to Kant, this justifies the need for an ethical community, so a church. Kant distinguishes here, however, between " visible " and " invisible" Church: The visible church always go by a revelation or a " statutory " good faith and was influenced by various religious practices and cults that rejects Kant as unreasonable. The many visible churches owe their existence, according to Kant, the weakness of human nature. Kant therefore calls on the invisible church, which is a community of reasonable moral beings.

Relationship between religion and morality

As Kant had already shown in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, is truly moral action - in Kant's words, an acting out of duty - only possible if human beings can understand themselves as free. In addition, an acting out of duty presupposes that human action is not only in mere compliance with moral rules - this is called Kant duty contemporary action - but the human being is free for the moral law ( the moral law ) decides. This moral law is accessible to man solely by reason ultimately determined by application of the categorical imperative. According to Kant therefore can not determine what is moral commanded or forbidden religion itself. Morality has so far completely independent of religious observance stay and is determined by reason alone:

" The moral, so they remotely on the concept of man as a free, is for that reason but also himself founded by his reason to unconditioned laws binding nature, requires neither the idea of another being over him to recognize his duty, nor another driving force as the law itself, in order to watch them. At least it is his own fault if such a necessity finds him, but the can be then remedied by nothing else: because what does not spring from himself and his freedom, gives off no substitute for the lack of his morality. - So you need for the sake of itself ( both objectively what the want, as subjectively, as regards the skill ) is by no means the religion, but virtue of pure practical reason it enough themselves. "

Kant is explicitly opposed to any " statutory " religion, that is against any religion whose commandments by mere authority apply (eg, by God, through the Bible, by an absolute ruler, etc.). Really morally may be for Kant only those moral duties, which can be recognized by pure reason. For a dogmatic religion understood Kant had already in his famous essay What is Enlightenment? turned. In this sense, Kant calls a " religion of reason " that every blind faith - about belief in revelation wisdom, referred to Kant as a " counterfeit service " - overcomes and rests solely on the foundation of reason. About the "true religion," the religion of reason, Kant says, therefore:

"The true, the sole religion contains nothing but laws, i.e. such practical principles whose absolute necessity we can be aware of, so that we recognize as by pure reason (not empirically ) are disclosed. Only for the sake of a church, of which there may be several equally good forms, it can Statutes, give i.e. held to be divine ordinances, which are arbitrarily and randomly for our pure moral judgment. This statutory faith now (which is at best limited to a people and can not contain the universal world religion) too much keep to the service of God at all and to make it to the top condition of God's good pleasure in humans, is a religious delusion whose compliance an after service, i.e. such alleged worship of God, which is traded the true, required by him services directly opposed. "

For Kant, therefore only the "true religion", which can be understood by every single human being itself from pure reason out. The revelation Kant recognizes that in its importance for the spiritual progress of humanity, but sees it as a to be overcome stage of human development. The man needed the belief in revelation only as long as he was not yet mature enough for the reasonable ( "pure" ) faith.

Critique of revealed religion and religious cults

In the fourth section of RGV Kant turns sharply against any form of blind, not accompanied by reason, faith in revealed wisdom:

To want to perceive "Heavenly influences in itself, is a kind of madness in which can even be method well ( because those supposed inner revelations but always moral, and therefore must be connected to ideas of reason ), but always but injurious a religion of self-deception remains. "

Kant rejects everything from the religion that has to do with revelation, dogma, belief in miracles or " celestial influences ". In this he includes also prayers, church liturgies, pilgrimages or confessions. This summarizes Kant in the principle of:

" Everything except the good of life, to be able to do man still supposedly to be pleasing to God is mere religious delusion and after service of God. "

The aim of the religion of reason, Kant is thus not primarily the redemption or other forms of reward for a good life, but only the moral ( "good" ) of life itself

Freedom, immortality, and God as postulates of practical reason

Freedom, immortality of the soul and God are, according to Kant ideas that can not be proven. The general impossibility of such evidence had already shown in the Critique of Pure Reason Kant. Nevertheless, it was necessary to postulate these ideas at least, that is, to accept as a hypothesis, that the man could at all be understood as being that can act moral. What exactly is meant by these ideas, Kant treated in other works and focuses it's not in the RGV specially. The possibility of human freedom, Kant had already been treated in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, the immortality of the soul and the idea of ​​God in the Critique of Practical Reason.

However, it is important for the understanding of religion Scripture ( RGV ), do not confuse these ideas with the usual religious ideas. This is shown by the example of the immortality of the soul: For just as Kant's concept of God is to be understood as a technical term and should not be understood as a personal God, so also the concept of the immortality of the soul is not in any way comparable to other religious ideas, approximately to that of a metempsychosis, or the salvation of the soul after physical death. A concept of salvation such as in Christianity knows Kant's philosophy of religion not because the soul must continue to be tried according to Kant, even after physical death to morality. The soul is thus not redeemed, but has to infinity strive to be moral. Kant says in the Critique of Practical Reason:

" What can come only in respect of the hope that share the creatures would be the consciousness of his erprüften attitude to it from its previous progress from worse to Moralischbesseren and thereby made ​​known to him immutable Vorsatze a distant uninterrupted continuation, as far as his existence whatsoever may extend even beyond this life to hope, and so, though never here, or in any absehlichen future instants of its existence, but only in the (God overseeable ) infinity of his continuance with the will of the same (without indulgence or remission, which not together rhymes with justice ) to be fully adequate. "

Kant thus argues that it is " From Worse to Moralischbesseren [ ... ] even beyond this life " is a "continuation" of progress. Otfried Hoffe explains these abstruse passage as follows:

" What is remarkable about this argument that they changed the traditional idea of ​​the future life. For Christianity, even for Plato the struggle of duty to the slope only in this world, takes place during the blessed no temptation to evil, know more hereafter. For Kant, however, the moral effort of this world is extended to infinity. "

Censorship problems in the publication

Kant's met with considerable resistance by the Prussian authorities. After the religious edict of 1788 churches and religious critical writings have been exposed to particular censorship. A part of Kant's Religion Scripture was refused permission to print, so that it could only appear in 1794 against considerable resistance. The king personally campaigned against publication. On October 1, 1794 was preceded by a cabinet order of Frederick William II: Kant 's " philosophy to distortion and degradation of some major and fundamental doctrines of the Scriptures and of Christianity abused " and violated his "duty as a teacher of youth." " On His Royal. Majesty's gracious Special command " was therefore of Kant calls to refrain from any further publication of this kind, " failing which you have you to expect with continued recalcitrance infallible unpleasant dispositions. " Kant had to commit then, to refrain from any further comments on religious matters, what he also held until the death of the king.

Kant's personal relationship to religion

What Kant as a private person about religion, especially Christianity thought, is occupied by only a few documents, including private letters and statements are his friends. Recent publications show that Kant - as explained theoretically in his religion Scripture - refused and private large parts of the church practice. In the Kant - biography Manfred Kühn states:

"Organised religion filled him [ Kant ] with anger. Anyone who knew Kant personally, it was clear that it was alien to the belief in a personal God. God and immortality, he had indeed been postulated, but believed himself to neither. His firm conviction was that such beliefs merely a matter of " individual need " are. He himself felt no such need. "

His pietistic school judged Kant later called " youth slavery " and "the breeding of the fanatics ." Karl Ludwig Pörschke, with the head at the age was a friend, reported: "He [ Kant ] has often assured me that he had already long been master and still doubted any proposition of Christianity. Gradually one piece after another was dropped. "Already in a letter to Lavater from 1775 declared Kant " Praise the teacher of this religion " (meaning Jesus ) and prayer and " devotional acts unimportant " for" ". An explicit rejection of Christianity is not handed down by Kant.