Summary: What does Paul add to Kant’s equation of moral salvation?

Kant has salvation belonging to them who have a good disposition. Examples might be Zachaeus and the “naturally good gentiles” of Romans 2. Here there is an expectation that people will be judged by their dispositions and that a given individual does in fact have a good disposition (and where experience is only suggestive).

Paul then brings in a guarantee of the good disposition and it is through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus dies for all and this forgiveness is conveyed through a union of spirits with Jesus where one commits to the way of good conduct and thus joins spiritually with Jesus in his death, and where this is then continued as the new commitment calls for a cross to be carried by the follower (still in one and the same spirit), and one who is forgiven. This is the notion of the binity (like the two hands) and similar to the notion of a trinity.

By means of this atoning death all people, sinners included most of all, can know that they are being called into the service of the church (for the establishment of the Kingdom of God), and by means of his resurrection all people can know that they shall succeed in their new strivings. Guesswork is then discarded and the believer can expect to attain to the Abba/Daddy consciousness where one knows that God loves him. This is the witness of the Holy Spirit.

Paul had considered God as a fearful and wrathful and dependable being who had to be placated. He now looks at him as a father who loves him, and indeed who has always loved him.

And so a person might be saved and not know it, and the only way of knowing that one is saved is through acceptance of Jesus and Lord and Savior, unifying one’s spirit with his in his death to sin and in his resurrection to a new life which will include the witness of the Holy Spirit that we are beloved of God, in the Abba/Daddy experience.

10/30/05 Sunday 4:18 PM I’ve got to get into the thinking of Paul. He will have wondered about his mission. He accepted the notion of the salvation of Zachaeus and that of the “naturally good gentiles” but wondered how to spread that news. It was not just the miracle of the resurrection, but it will also have to have something to do with the death, for why not let him conquer death by never dying? as was his due?

We can just call people as Jesus did Zachaeus and can expect some to step forward and respond. But what is needed, given the human condition, is real promise of success.

There are some souls, touched by God we have to say, that respond to the gospel message of the living Jesus (before his death), but they are in ignorance and do not realize their own blessing and their own deprivation in knowledge.

So Paul brings forth the convincing facts. The spirit of God is promised to all those who believe in Jesus and accept his death as the forgiveness of all their sin, accept it by the anticipation of this spirit in the miracle of the resurrection. Jesus then must live, but he had to die, and then rise victorious over death.

The only penalty of justice remaining to the Christian is the picture of the sufferings of Jesus which were taken on in order that you might not have to (for when your spirit is joined with that of the Lord Jesus, you are then one with him in a single flesh, such that you count together. I.e., the Christian suffers in the thought of the sufferings of Jesus, and that while the Christian ought to suffer the actual pains themselves, they are limited to suffer only the pains of commiseration and the guilt of being responsible for this condition.

In this way the Christian continually conceives of the death of Jesus as taken on for the specific individual Christian and where the moral judgment is remedied in the identity, morally speaking, of the two spirits, that of Jesus and that of his follower, almost like a little binity, cf.: trinity or unity, i.e., a multinity of two. Like a marriage where both suffer when one suffers.

Since we are of one and the same spirit we suffer together, but me always from guilt.

And so by dying for me Jesus enables me to join my spirit with his in a binity and so I pay by letting Jesus suffer, and he pays by suffering.

And so it is this attitude which pervades the mind of the Christian. We suffer together, he and I, he for me on the cross and I now for him with my own cross. Jesus’ spirit is accounted responsible for all good works, and I am willing to suffer the pain of carrying the cross in this present world.

Now then it is because I know that he died for me on the cross, in order that I might live, that I am embolden to claim to claim that forgives through my dedication to the principle of love first, and strengthened through the validation of this forgiveness in the resurrection.

So there is a guarantee of a guidance of the Holy Spirit, and indeed a possession such that God is called Abby/Daddy which comes through the realization (belief) that Jesus died for you on the cross and rose again to give you new life, and all you have to do is to take it by accepting Jesus as the Lord of your life. Then you can rightly call him Savior.


Now Zachaeeus may never have experience the Abba/Daddy spirit, nor also not the “naturally good gentiles”. It may be that the Holy Spirit will give evidence of his presence only in those who accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. This would not be unfair and can very well reflect the wisdom of God. Many are saved, many of them know it not, but simply strive for virtue for the sake of virtue and not for any gain.

Both strive for the sake of virtue and not for any gain, but the believers have foreknowledge of a gain that is ours anyway, and this is given in the Abba/Daddy experience, and this comes only with faith, i.e., it is a practical experience, it can be experience through faith, i.e., as a result of faith this experience will arise. It will not be expected otherwise, although perhaps God can convey it via a supernatural insight into Kant’s thing on its own.

Both hope for a supper with Jesus, and only the believer validates his hope with the experience of the Abba/Daddy, i.e., he has more reason for his hope than the one who hopes apart from faith.

All people may hope for reward for the good and hope that they will be found good. The believer knows that he will be found good, for he was crucified with Jesus in spirit and thereby cleansed from sin, and reborn in the resurrection to a new way of life. Walk in the spirit.

And so Paul declares: trust me and accept this story and you will see in yourselves a transformation, just as I have seen in my own experience, and instead of being afraid of God and wanting to hide from him, you love God and call him Daddy. This is the witness of the spirit that you are a child of God, and it comes by believing in Jesus as your savior and then claiming the new birth in his resurrection and thereby accepting Jesus as Savior, and then rejoicing in your good fortune in being called to a new spirit by someone who loves you that much.

So Jesus forms a binity with all believers and his death serves as payment for the sins of each believer and his resurrection serves as the New Birth.

The left and right hands together comprise a binity, each requiring the other for explication of the images in space.

And so salvation may belong to some unawares, but there is no reason to wonder, for by accepting the death and resurrection of Jesus you come to experience the transformation which is manifested in the Abba/Daddy.

And so Jesus dies for all, but only those of a like spirit can claim it by proclaim him Lord and Friend of their lives. And so all are called to take on that new spirit and those who accept then are forgiven of their sins and hope for communion with Jesus as they carry their cross in their shared one and the same spirit.

All are called to the way of righteousness. Some join by a good disposition, others join by a change in disposition, and these are called believers.

Either you have a good disposition and so are already counted in the Kingdom of God, or else you need a new disposition, i.e., you are a sinner, and it is of such that Jesus dies in order then unify in spirit and where you then carry your own cross in solidarity and spirit with Jesus in the utter conviction of your cleaned soul and the expectation of the witness of the spirit that someone is a child of God.

If you are not sure that you are righteous, then take heart, for Jesus died in order that you might not have to die and then rose to show you that you can enter into eternal life now, without dying. This is for your forgiveness and for your new life. You can claim it by unifying your spirit with his in the Holy Spirit as your assume and now activate the new disposition, the new spirit, and you can anticipate a validation in the Abba/Daddy.

The Abba/Daddy experience would have to be declared an inspiration for those who are not believers. A miracle. But then that would justify the belief in the miracle of the resurrection!?

I think the Abba/Daddy experience belongs to those who, like Paul, believed in the atoning death and the resurrection.

I think it is possible to be in the Kingdom of God and not have the Abba/Daddy witness.



7:13 PM Back to the guy fashioning a world (Kant’s Religion, Preface, Par. 2). So he is morally inclined and wants to do the right thing. He is led by practical reason and he is to live in this world of his own making. What kind of world would he make?

He would make a world of the Highest Good.

And he would do this for two reasons:

1. In the first place he is led by practical reason, and this calls for moral virtue and happiness in accordance with that. It would be impossible to call for moral virtue and no happiness, and it would be impossible to call for no moral virtue and yet happiness, each being an abomination. And so then of course he would create a world of the Highest Good.

2. In the second place he is morally inclined and this means that he will choose in accordance with the moral law, and the moral law itself calls for a world of the Highest Good.

And so this man would choose such a world even though he could not be sure that he might be denied great happiness in such a world, and he does so because he is driven to seek a purpose to be fulfilled by all his duties, in order that they not be aimless.

Later Kant will conclude that this morally inclined man is duty bound to join a church and to actively engage in the work of the Kingdom of God. The reason is this: it is not to be expected that the species might become righteous through the individual and uncoordinated efforts of the morally inclined, even if all we accidentally such, for the Highest Good calls for the highest moral perfection in a world, and so it is necessary for us to strive jointly with others of a like mind, morally inclined.

It seems he has a duty to the species to do all he can to redeem the species, and this he does by joining a church and taking part in the fray through mutual encouragement of kindred spirits.

It is a strange duty, for there is no guarantee that it can be successful.

Now by this fashioning of a world we are to be led to the subject of religion.


the man feels necessitated to choose in this way, regarding his happiness, just as though he were judging of another person, a total stranger. I.e., this is a right world for anyone to live in.

“In this way each person proves to himself the morally impressed need to think of a final purpose for his duties as the result of these duties.” He judges this way of himself because he must so judge by moral duty, and so he posits a final purpose for his duties as a result of this duties. As a result of these duties he posits a final purpose for his duties.

And so then in this wise we come to the notion of God.

7:42 PM The highest good cannot be accomplished less all people in the species cooperate for that, and even though this cannot be counted on, nevertheless each member of the species is then required to work to that end, i.e., cooperate with others in a joint effort.


It seems there are two arguments: join a church because it is unlikely that you can obtain moral perfection on your own (speaking to a morally inclined person), and join a church because you are required to do your part in an endeavor which calls for all but which may be neglected by some and even many (and since it calls for all, it calls for you).