Journal of May 26, 2005

Thursday, May 26, 2005 7:01 PM

I just caught a glimpse in myself of the evil that Kant speaks of the earth being now heir to. Instead of simply sticking to my guns in my refusal to engage in an ingrained habit that I have forsworn, I found myself thinking about how distasteful it was anyway and made a face. But that is providing a buttress to the absolute command of desist. And before you know it, as i come to depend upon that buttress, then when it the distasteful part is suddenly and unexpectedly removed, I tumble into active sin. And so somewhere along the way I had lost sight of the absolute and was depending upon the contingent, and while that is not a sin per se, it is the disposition for sin for it is seeking supports for what can only be an absolute, a categorical imperative.

And so we start off with the absolute, but then we actually fall into active sin and excuse it through our weakness as though it was irresistible. And so we resolve again, and we do this again and again and sort of get used to it. And so next we find good reason to remain strong (for that is all that is lacking) and we do so by these buttresses. And then we are primed for a fall, for when the buttress is no longer needed, it’s rationale suddenly destroyed, we are already leaping into the sin. And so the danger exists in all of buttressing the absolute with cries of self interest, like rewards, that the moral imperative will have been lost through disuse and nothing separates the virtue from sin is merely an occasion free for the sin, and that is always merely a matter of circumstance and incidence, and as such indifferent with regard to the moral core which is the disposition. What we are inclined to do.

The final step is more severe and taken by not many people, namely the forswearing of the moral law, or at least its subjugation to prudence, so that good is always done when possible, but it is allowed to be possible only when it is prudent, and then it is not possible any longer. This is not a demon who rejoices in violations of the moral law (for such a human would have to be considered as a lunatic of a criminal sort).

And so this is our natural bent, Kant teaches, a self induced proclivity to disobey the moral law. A willingness to consider, even consider, the steps involved in an immoral act. That itself alone is a severe condemnation of the human race, and a condition from which man is to be rescued, if he can be rescued at all.

Now turning to part II of Religion we see that in order to break this natural use of human freedom as a descent into evil, which builds upon itself in the pure market place and arena of competition, in order to break this evil we have to be willing to conceive of the possibility of liberty from this natural bondage, and this comes in the picture of the Son of Man, the person who exemplifies moral perfection in a vivid way by resisting and overcoming great obstacles and finally suffering and dying to remain true to absolute righteousness. That then has to be made accessible to the individual, the connection between that image (actually originally a product of pure reason). We have to want to be like that Son of God and that means we have to believe that it is possible that we will be successful in order even to try, given our deep roots in sin (which morally are discouraging and makes us want to simply give up and give out).

I think here we go into the difficulties of conceiving of a transformation, of experiencing a transformation, and of justifying a transformation. These are the three difficulties which Kant then solves in order to move on.

Then the door is open to a new resolution and an assumption of the new disposition as a voluntary act by a free agent. But what hope is there in this, Kant asks? The only reasonable hope is that people of the new disposition will join together in a public testimony of their intention to strengthen each other in a pursuit of a love of the moral law. A mutual encouragement society. This was to be based on the church because it is necessary to have a God in order to convey to the members of the union that their laws are absolutes and not subject to debate. Namely the moral law, that the primary intention of this religion is in a mutual pursuit of a love of the moral law. That is its primary practical intention. That’s what is to be effected in a world of sinful people. This is an absolute. This encompasses even God for it is his command that we treat each other with dignity and respect.

[I think here then the Christians step out ahead of Kant in declaring all people as objects of God’s love, and that some of us, the blessed, get to act like God in conveying this love in our own persons.]

And then in part IV we take this church apart and give it a systematic description in terms of its moral worth in promoting a love of the moral law.

All rituals of the church must be given a moral interpretation. This is obvious if the teaching of the church is morality as it is here assumed. The guise of the religion can be what it will, so long as nothing detracts from the moral, e.g., a declaration that some knowledge, as opposed to some practice, is necessary for salvation, e.g., a holy trinity.

Kant had seen that the spirit of the church was alive in the prayers of his parents for their employer even in the midst of a bad labor dispute. And so he found that it was efficacious in the promotion of genuinely moral dispositions. The Christian religion was efficacious in promotion of this genuinely moral disposition and Kant had seen it in the prayer life of his parents in the labor dispute.

Then he goes on to say that no member of a moral religion will be able to violate the moral law, and so no more trials for heresy or .

8:12 PM Concerning respect for the moral law. Now it is one thing to conceive of a moral law and note how it would be necessary for beings in a free realm where people do what they choose to do through rational deliberation. But it is another thing to come to be bound in some way by this moral law. How can a person be bound to an idea? We are bound to an idea when we know that it is just an idea and yet we justify our actions according to that idea. We have a bad conscience and cannot be pleased with ourselves until we find a way to justify the action and which we cannot just wish into existence. This is being bound to an idea. And we are bound to the idea of the moral law and describe this as respect for the moral law, a feeling that can only arise as a result of an understanding of the moral law. It is a practical feeling, i.e., it is a feeling which can be induced by means of attention to a moral act.

And so since we are so bound we know that we are free and can act as we choose through rational deliberation determining what is good or what is evil.

8:20 PM Concerning the necessity of the death of Jesus. The whole point is to get the Holy Spirit into the disciples as He is within Jesus. That’s the whole point of Jesus’ ministry, to release the Holy Spirit into hearts receptive and inviting of that spirit.

Two problems. You have got to have sinless souls and you have got to want to have those souls.

And so this is what Jesus did. He had to show the disciples what it was that they would be getting when they get the promised salvation (the Holy Spirit and not secular victory and rule). They had to understand that they must stop bickering among themselves, and each knew what he had to do, and still they would not. He dies then to make this clear that in order obtain the salvation which is given of God you must be willing to love a fellow Christian more than life. Now with this made clear they then have to believe that it is possible to have that much love as the spirit of a sinless soul (as of now) and this is the result of the Resurrection and the transformation of faith into sight on the part of the apostles. With the unity of spirit that comes in the release of the bickering and lording the Holy Spirit descends upon these willing spirits together and each disciples becomes a little Jesus, having the same Holy Spirit that Jesus had and has, and acting in the authority of that Holy Spirit.*

[* In a word: by his death Jesus showed what it would mean to be like him, and by his resurrection Jesus convinced his disciples to want to be like him. The key was to stop the bickering and to become one in spirit--this sets the stage for the entrance of the Holy Spirit Saturday, May 28, 2005 ]

And now to the objective argument. Jesus proves in his life (although up to and necessarily including his death), in order to make the supreme example, that the human race is capable of a perfectly righteous man, who goes into death for the sake of righteousness. It cannot be half way like the case with Abraham, where you can wonder if Abraham was really faithful, and stopped just before his lack of trust. There has to be a clear sign that a man can be conceived who would be willing to go into annihilation before doing something wrong or not doing a good.

And so he proves objectively that there is a basis for hope for the human race, namely that it can be rescued morally and come to be a naturally moral race, i.e., that is a possibility, a known possibility. And so in the great court of all the species, represented by angels, God will show that the human race proves that this creation of freedom in flesh was good, and that Jesus proves it.