10/26/05 Wednesday 4:45 PM So inspired I see the following development, first of evil.

I simply have to assume that people in this world are out to get me, i.e., if I had to choose I would say that most people might be willing to use me to their own advantage, or even only that many might, and who are otherwise indistinguishable to me, and so I as a prudent man have to assume that there are people out in the world who would take advantage of me. I know this because I know of my own willingness to break the moral law on occasion as, for example, in my driving habits, for I am required morally to obey the law even when there is no chance that a violation would be detected.

Now here is the idea. Even if all people were as honest as I sincerely seek to be, nevertheless it is a prudent viewpoint to assume the worse and not to inadvertently lead an otherwise well intending man into a temptation, e.g., through owns own obvious inability to deal.

And so, based on our own self knowledge, knowing it holds of all, it behooves a person to “be on guard” and to expect the worse, or at least not to consider it far fetched. And so we might all accidentally be well intending persons, and nevertheless we must assume otherwise, and therein lies the societal element in the equation, namely that it is so presupposed in all. And so, in a word, candor vanishes, as when Adam and Eve hid themselves from God and each other.

And so obviously, given the power of this rational idea of prudence, it is clear that it is not going to change unless some people are willing to come together for the express purpose of making it good, i.e., practicing virtue among each other without fear of being “taken”. For reasons of utter stability, which is not forthcoming from any human institution, the maxim of the society is established by command of God, i.e., a church. And so in the church we do not have to presuppose the idea that some members might be trying to change the constitution of the church and removing the solitary glory of the moral law itself, for this is a command of God and can never be changed. In the church then we come together and practice virtue with each other in an unhindered way, with the result then that we are better prepared to resist unlawful “counter measures” to the evil of the world, or to take advantage of others who are unknowing themselves, children, lunatic, adults dealing in new waters, etc. Kant talked in Practical Reason about the storekeeper who was good to kids, but who might be doing it from sheer prudence. This same storekeeper might conceivably be part of a church and it might be spilling over into his habit of thinking, and he is treating the kids right because it is the right thing to do, and he is trained in the church to do that without reference to any gain or prize.

We have gone from Book 1 to Book 3. In-between we learn of the necessity of somehow awaking in rational consciousness the notion of the entirely righteous person, the so-called Son of God, the guy who does it right even from the very beginning, and not have to be given a second chance (if such a thing were even conceivable in the pre-awaking state). Now this guy proclaims the religion of the human, namely that God commands only that we obey his moral law, and then adds tooth that we are never to fear to do so, for the end is preordained already by God, namely the gathering of each of two kindred spirits, the spirit of togetherness and the spirit of go it alone. The old religions like Islam and Judaism, in a figure of speech, are discarded as relics. They had it all wrong. The struggle is between good and evil, and a call is given out to all the world to join in the band of the Son of God and to seek compliance above all with the moral law and not to worry about the pain, but to be assured that in their realm they will delight in the company of each other.

The realm of those who go it alone, in contrast, is one in which there is a natural repulsion which forbids doing it together. Each, as supreme above all others in his own mind, will not be able to tolerate the presence or pretended superiority of any other and so they will either retreat to separate realms, if that is possible, or else spend eternity trying to get the better of another where,, presumably,, Satan would be in competition to and will of course win and so may, if he wants to, take the supreme human in unrestricted competition and make him, like the Romans, have the king of the losers crawl around their dining room and beg for scraps to avoid starving to death. Pretty horrible.

Any way the way is now open, through his proclamation (and the solution of certain moral problems) for the church to be established as a means for the good people to fight the evil of this world, and to found an institution for virtue to which all people would freely join, all well intended persons, and which would conceivable encompass the world, although that cannot be guaranteed (and still we are duty bound to try!), and who would together practice virtue and go out again into the fray in the evil world and seek to add goodness and righteousness.

Then after the establishment of the church we turn to Book 4 and there we see how this moral church is to be established (visibly in an organization) and how it is to preserved and furthered.

It must be preserved from contamination of historical creeds. contamination is too strong, of course, and we need to say from any corruption of the single Great Command by adding other ways of pleasing God, as though they were pleasing in and of themselves over and able the morally right conduct life. A creed may be recited, but it is understood to be a form of solidarity and not binding on the conscience of any member of a church which pretends to be the universal church. All sorts of activities are permissible, but they are considered entirely as means to moral perfection, like disciplines might be, and the only thing that ever counts before God is a disposition or spirit which is dedicated to the moral law above all else.


Such a church could be recommended to all governments of the world as worthy of tax exemption, being a valid representation of the invisible church which all well intending persons recognize a duty to join (the curious duty to the species, even though it is not certain that it will be successful). It is conceivable that Jewish and Muslims institutions would qualify, and “church” becomes generic. It should be a rule of the UN that no government may favor anything but a church (as described by Kant).

The Gentile Christians would be certainly qualify since for them neither scripture nor history are considered as a command of God, but only the law of love (as they call the moral law). God cannot be pleased merely by the believing of a fact, but only in an active disposition to live in accordance with the moral law. The Gentile Christian accepts Jesus as Lord and as Savior, the first being the intention to comply first with the moral law and the second being an acceptance of one’s forgiveness. The acceptance of one’s forgiveness is not what is pleasing to God,but rather the disposition of compliance.

A congregation of the Christian Church is to be established for those who are purists, namely do not affirm the resurrection of Jesus, but merely seek to cooperate with others in the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth. “Those who are not against us are for us.”

The supplicant would say: father, I do not know that I can believe that Jesus rose from the dead, but I do believe in the Kingdom of God that he established in his life time and I want to be part of that and of helping to erect it. he then comes in accepting Jesus as Lord, but as not Savior, and remains with this hope that if happiness is proportionate out in accordance with one’s disposition to virtue that his disposition is truly virtuous, and not merely to the look of common place experiences (without great trials which are more threatening and revealing).

No wonder the gentiles and Jews consorted to destroy Jesus; he had come to change the established order and an utter discard of all, of all of the old gods and a proclamation of the true God, the God of Light. It was no longer about pork, it was about the spirit, the disposition and whether it were good or evil.