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Immanuel Kant: Religion Within the Limits of Bare Reason

Book Review
Student ID: 1003558W

The key text which lays out Immanuel Kant’s most explicit unpacking of the subject of
religion and theology was his Religion within the Limits of Bare Reason published in 1793 –
which as its title suggests, was a formal attempt to re-conceptualize and promote religion
and an understanding of the divine through the epistemological sieve of reason and logic
alone, without any recourse to revelation or tradition.

The book is made up of four inter-related essays which impressively capture Kant’s various
views on religion, and within essay one: The bad principle existing alongside the good i.e.
The radical evil in human nature; he begins to lay out a theology of how we should view
humanity’s disposition towards moral good and evil.

The first key point he tries to establish is that our subjective basis for making choices
towards good and evil, must come as an expression of a will that is not influenced by any
natural or supernatural force but rather is completely free to choose by force of will
whether to pursue good or evil.1 This stands in sharp distinction to the more restricted
forms of human agency seen in the Lutheran tradition that Kant grew up in, 2 and may well
be written as a direct polemic against it – all the while affirming a very Pelegian notion of
human freedom.

Flowering out from this free agency comes our predisposition towards the good which for
Kant is an awareness and pursuit of the universal moral law (p. 13). Despite this however, he
claims that there also lurks a “wickedness” and “corruption” in the human heart that is apt
to raise its ugly head whenever humanity pursues the moral law for various reasons other
than one which is most important – namely doing it for the sake of duty to the moral law
alone (p. 14). For Kant, human beings are not wholly corrupt in themselves but rather are
influenced towards evil, and therefore possess the possibility of moving forwards on a path

1
Jonathan Bennett, “Religion Within the Bounds of Bare Reason,” Early Modern Texts.Com, 2013, page 9,
accessed October 21, 2017, http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/kant1793.pdf
2
Henry Cole, trans, Martin Luther on the Bondage of the Will (London, T. Bensley, 1823), 66.
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of self-improvement by their own strength – this again being another slap in the face to
Augustinian notions of human sovereignty (p.22).

In order to do this, it requires that one undergo a revolution of the heart where a purer
principle is adopted as the basis of all actions and this is our obligation to duty as the prime
motivator (p. 24-25). This is one of the most controversial but also theologically interesting
aspects of the book in that Kant will take traditional interpretations of biblical principles – in
this case regeneration of the heart born of the Holy Spirit – and repackage them into purely
rational expositions which are validated through practical logic.

In essay two: The conflict of the good with the bad principle for command over man, Kant
draws out his own understanding of Christological doctrine. He puts forth the idea that
Christ’s significance is not to be found in his sin atoning sacrificial death on the cross, but
rather as an archetype and motivational example of moral perfection, and that it is our duty
to elevate ourselves to this prime exemplar of humanity (p.31).

One thing that comes through very strongly throughout the entire book is Kant’s staunch
repudiation of any form of substitutionary atonement with regards to the implications of
Jesus’s death, and this will probably rub some of the books more conservative and
reactionary readers the wrong way who hold to this rather common view. He does however
– In typical Kant style – provide a philosophically rigorous explanation to any claim that he
tries to make with regard to this issue and within other similarly controversial arguments he
makes as well, which to his credit is admirable – even if he does at times express it in a way
that is a bit too impenetrable for the casual reader to digest.

Following from this Kant goes on to establish how a person can come to know whether or
not they are in right standing with God (justified), and consequently a part of the Kingdom
of God (saved). Instead of holding that a person can subjectively perceive through feeling or
inner awareness that they are justified and saved, he prescribes that a person should reflect
on the practical outworking of their moral actions over a longer period of time and then
retro-actively judge whether there has been a continual improvement towards the
archetype of the perfect man, i.e. Jesus (p.36).

For the biblically literate reader of this section they will probably find the James 2:14-26
mantra – faith without works is dead – reverberating in the back of their head the whole
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time they engage with this part of the text, and at face value it does seem that this was the
biblical inspiration for Kant’s thought here even though he never explicitly refers to this
portion of scripture.

In this essay he also critiques the moral validity of certain divine acts committed by God in
the Bible which almost place him as a forerunner in the development of the modern anti-
religious sentiment espoused by many of those who identify with the ‘New Atheist’
movement in our present day, who on principle, would reject many of the claims of religious
dogma in light of their ‘immoral’ implications.

The third Essay: The victory of the good over the bad principle and the founding of a
kingdom of God on Earth, is Kant’s attempt at extending the reality of this personal fight
between the good and bad principle out into the realm of society at large. He holds that the
only way humanity can effectively work towards establishing the good principle is by
inaugurating a society which enforces and inspires the good principle based upon its
universal utility (p.50). Tribute should be paid here to Kant’s unpacking of this issue in both
this book and his other works in light of the huge impact his moral thought has had on the
positive development of human rights theory and in the ratifying of notions of equality and
moral autonomy within society.3

In the fourth essay: Service and pseudo-service under the sovereignty of the good principle
or: Religion and Pfaffentum; Kant further drives home his conviction that any form of
historical and ecclesiastical faith must be working towards – and be in submission to – the
pure faith of reason – which in turn, has as its far reaching goal, the eventual jettisoning of
those very historical and ecclesiastical components.

In the opinion of this reviewer, Religion within the limits of reason alone is a quintessential
tour de force of the enlightenment critique of religion. It takes Kant’s insistence upon
reason being the only source of legitimate authority within practice and theory, and uses it
as a hermeneutical razor to slice through all aspects of religiosity which are unhelpful and
dangerous to the development of a more progressive, tolerant, and intellectually open
society.
3
Andrew Fagan, “Human Rights,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed October 25th, 2017,
http://www.iep.utm.edu/hum-rts/
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Kant’s prodigious ability as a rigorous thinker and philosopher serve him well as he
methodically lays out his case against a ritually and mystically based faith and in his
championing of his reductionist understanding of spiritual truth.

Never the less, despite the practical execution of the work being almost flawless, there will
probably be many aspects of Kant’s ideas which will be perceived as being incompatible and
counter-intuitive to those of a more theologically orthodox orientation.

One example as previously mentioned, is his propensity towards reinterpreting key

principles of biblical theology through a highly rationalistic exegesis. So with regards to the
saving regeneration of the human heart through the power of the Holy Spirit; it becomes
about the changing of the structure of ones thinking (recourse to the purest maxim) rather
than the total revolution of one’s entire being and spiritual connection to God through
Christ.

These reformulations will almost seem arbitrary at first reading because Kant does not really
provide much justification for promoting those interpretations – but this probably stems
from the fact that he kind of ‘has to’ lean towards this kind of understanding due to boxing
himself into an automatic hermeneutic that relies solely on logic and practical reason as the
interpretive lense through which he views the world; and therefore, If one were to
challenge this approach they would have to go back and tear down the epistemological
framework that he set up in his previous works – the Critiques of Pure and Practical Reason
and this would be no small feat indeed.

Other criticisms which could potentially be aimed at the text is that in Kant’s enthusiasm for
finding a rationally universal principle which binds humanity to God, he simply reduces
religion itself to moralism, or that he possibly worships moral reason more than he worships
God – and maybe in a sense makes God become reason in some respects. One could even
ask: Is it possible for a person to be antagonistic towards Jesus, God and Religion but still be
saved at a spiritual level because they have orientated themselves towards duty as the
proper and pure motivator of moral action.

These are all big questions with broad ranging theological implications that need to be
grappled with when engaging with the text – but let this not detract or deter the potential
reader – there is still much to be gained through wrestling with a work that has left an
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indelible mark on the development of many aspects of modern theology including the Social
Gospel, Liberation Theology, political theology, philosophy of religion, and postmodern
Christianity to name a few.

REFERENCES
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Henry Cole, trans, Martin Luther on the Bondage of the Will (London, T. Bensley, 1823), p.66

Electronic Resources

Bennett, Jonathan, “Religion Within the Bounds of Bare Reason,” Early Modern Texts.Com, 2013,
page 9, accessed October 21, 2017, http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/kant1793.pdf

Fagan, Andrew, “Human Rights,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed October 25th, 2017,
http://www.iep.utm.edu/hum-rts/