Kant on Morality and Religion

I am submiting a letter here for publication. It concerns the debate of 5/20/06, "Faith and Values," concerning the role of religion in the moral shaping of the individual. The general argument had to do with whether religion was necessary for morality. Immanuel Kant developed a marvelous thesis such that the actual situation were quite the reverse, namely morality was necessary for religion (and was its ultimate source, and thinking now of religion as opposed to cult) and instead of religious people becoming moral it was rather moral people becoming religious. I think this would be of interest to your readers. I have tried to summarize Kant's thinking and presenting it in an almost popular style.

While I am not a trained scholar of Kant, I am not without credentials. Here

http://www.kantwesley.com/Kant/CirclesInMidAir/CirclesInTheAir.html

you will find an expanded essay on Kant's theory of the object which was published in a scholarly German (and of course obscure) journal. I have presented this letter to the well known Kant scholar, Dr. Stephen Palmquist, who thinks it conveys with reasonable accuracy the thinking of Kant on this matter, at least as a severe abbreviation. [see http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/%7eppp/hp.html#main_map]

This letter also sets the groundwork for the crux of the possible spitting of the mainline Protestant denominations (especially now the Episcopalians). This split shall be along lines of a moral and universal church versus a statute-bound church (which certainly has a moral core, but adds additional ways of pleasing God which are amoral, e.g., avoiding same-sex sex or abstaining from blood sausage). The liberty of the Christians was compromised by Constantine. The reinstitution of liberty began when Martin Luther rejected ecclesiastical law and it will now be finished upon the rejection of scriptural law by many in the Protestant denominations.

For an interesting perspective on this subject you might want to visit: http://www.kantwesley.com/GentileChristian/index.html

Apropos the article on morality and religion of May 20, 2006, Faith and Values, it is fascinating to me that the influential philosopher Immanuel Kant had such a remarkable twist on this very debate. While quite involved, it went something like this: by means of science and reason you cannot know that God exists or that God does not exist. And while it is certainly true that people can be moral without the least influence of religion, it is also true that this morality, upon systematic and thorough and coherent reflection, will lead those very same people to religion, and also show them how to distinguish religion from cult.

The reasoning continues: a man who is morally inclined is obligated by consistent and healthy thinking either to insist upon a world with a happiness commensurate to virtue (in some way yet to be determined) or to seek medical treatment to rid himself of this troubling and inhibiting idea of morality. And since no person can renounce morality and remain a human, it follows that we must insist upon the joining of morality with happiness. This can only be accomplished through an eternal life and a morally judging and omnipotent God, and so it is morally necessary for there to be both God and eternal life. And so now in this way we come to religion, and here, since morality has led us this here, we view the commands of morality as the commands of God, thus providing an impetus to moral fervor. And since it was morality that brought us to God and not the other way around, this religion will be a moral religion. Hence morality leads to (this moral) religion in every morally inclined person through thorough reflection.

It is worth noting that religion was something very special for Kant and in fact he declared that in all of recorded history there had never been but one moral religion and that was the Christian religion. It may be that Kant did not have any contemporary manifestation of the church of that religion in mind when he made that statement. He was likely speaking of something more primitive, namely the Greek expression of the early Christian church (where the only law was the law of universal love). Probably the nearest candidate to Kant’s moral and thus, potentially, universal church today would be the Episcopalian Church in America (and I am not an Episcopalian).

In a word: every morally inclined person is duty bound to get involved in something akin to a "law-free" church (as understood above) and cooperate in the fashioning of a good world (something, by the way, that Kant himself never bothered to do except for ceremonial occasions). And so while religion not does not lead to morality necessarily (although it could and should increase moral fervor), morality does lead to religion upon right thinking. In fact Kant declared this to be a "duty to the species" for since it is hardly expected that any individual will achieve to moral perfection given the onslaught of a world mired in selfishness and domination, and yet that remains always a necessary goal, the only practical hope is for people of a kindred spirit to come together and cooperate with each other for their mutual moral strengthening and to make a united front for the good. And yet it was also a "curious" duty since there was no guarantee that a willing person would find others of a like mind to cooperate in that way.

We can see then that religion is not the foundation and source of morality, and at the same time we also see that the moral law of universal dignity, working on the mind of the morally inclined and thoroughly rational person, does lead to religion, to moral religion, and imposes an obligation to join a church similar to the early Greek expression of the Christian Church.

With regard to the debate on May 20, 2006, Faith and Values as to whether religion is necessary for the development of morality there is another possible outcome that was not considered, namely not only that morality can be arrived at quite independently of religion, which is the testimony of scripture itself (Genesis 3:22), but that morality will lead to religion. The German philosopher Kant insisted that a morally inclined person, who thought thoroughly and consistently about his morality, would discover a very special "duty to the species" calling for a certain moral cooperation. Since the onslaught of a world mired in selfishness and domination can be expected to overpower the individual person who wishes to lead a moral life, the only practical hope would be for such people to join together in a church where they could mutually encourage each other and present a united front against this pervasive evil of the world. Accordingly then all morally inclined persons, whose morality will be obtained independently of religion, are nonetheless obligated to become religious and to get involved in a church (something that Kant himself never bothered to do).

Philip McPherson Rudisill

To contact the author, please e-mail: pmr**kantwesley.com (note: the ** must be replaced by @)

To The Table Of Contents on Letters