Original scientific paper
Zimmermann's critique of the understanding of Religion in the philosophy of Kant
Ivan Kešina
; Katolički bogoslovni fakultet Sveučilišta u Splitu, Split, Hrvatska
Abstract
In this essay the author analyzes the concept of religion in the philosophy of Kant who had in effect closed every theoretical path to God, for he believed that God cannot be encompassed by possible experience. On the other hand, he attempted to render God accessible to the human mind from a practical-moral angle. In other words, he downgraded the importance of knowledge in order to create space for faith, out of his conviction that it is good for man not to have knowlege of this mystery, rather to simply believe that God exists. The moral order becomes the basis for the conviction that God exists, however one's sense of certainty no longer rests on logic, but rather on morality. Morality then becomes the foundation of our religion and not the reverse.
Zimmermann criticizes Kant's knowledge theory on the unknowability of the transsubjective world and consequently God's existence. He considers that Kant's theism, when viewed theoretically, becomes antimetaphysical. Accordiing to Kant's ethical theism, God is merely the supreme pre-condition for the existence of a rational moral order. The truth about the question of God's being (esse) is nothing other than agnosticism (modernism), of which Kant is the philosophical father. Zimmermann criticizes and rejects Kant's view of religion as a subjective need which disappears when man becomes mature and able to act purely out of a need to fulfill his moral duty, that is, solely because his reason demands it.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
936
URI
Publication date:
18.3.2006.
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