Philosophy of Religion

TheonesteNkeramihigo
[Translation from French by M. Remery]

A. O. 1 THE STATUS OF PHILOSOPHY RELIGION

A. O. 1. 1 DIFFICULTY

Philosophy of Religion is a relatively recent discipline, the history of

which demonstrates its problematic status12. The debate remains
open, especially for what concerns its subject matter and its method.
As for the subject, the question is whether it concerns natural,
positive or historical religion; religion as a phenomenon to be taken in
its essence, or religion as a given fact to be taken in its truth; religion
as a fundamental anthropologic structure or as an autonomous form
specific of conscience, different from human activities like art,
morality, science, philosophy, etc.

Connected to the problem of the subject matter, is the problem of the

method. To study what they believe to be the subject of their
research, the different attempts of philosophy of religion have
resorted to different methods: rational deduction or positive
induction, descriptive phenomenology or transcendental analysis;
hermeneutic of meaning or the criticism of ideologies, etc. Needless
to say, the confusion around the subject matter and method, also
brings about the difficulty of determining the relationship between
philosophy of religion and other disciplines that are philosophical (e.g.
metaphysics, morals, etc. ) or those that have religion as subject (e.g.
the human sciences of religion and theology).

The difficulty in defining the status of philosophy of religion depends

mainly on the theoretical question posed by the concept of philosophy
of religion itself. In fact this concept contains an internal tension,
which has shaped an essential part of Western history as an attempt
to settle the relationship between reason and religion. The couple
‘reason and religion’ has given cause for several sorts of relations:
conjunction or disjunction, alliance or irreducible contrast, faith in
search of understanding or religion within the limits of simple reason.
But the danger that most threatened the existence and conceptual
recognition of the philosophy of religion, is undoubtedly the trap of an
opposition of the rational and irrational in which this discipline falls in
modern times and which gives cause for either absorption of religion
in reason considered as absolute knowledge, or ‘to the exclusion of
reason from the field of religion seen as a sector “sui generis” of
human life, which reason can neither establish nor enlighten.

A. O. 1. 2 Clarification of Terms 13
Facing this situation, we are to undertake the task of terminological
fine-tuning, defining the sense of the term ‘philosophy of religion,’ a
move that will delineate two neighbouring concepts: that of
philosophical theology and religious philosophy.

Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology

Firstly, it is important to identify the difference between philosophy of

religion and philosophical theology (or natural theology). The latter
is a philosophical discipline as old as philosophy itself. Throughout
history, philosophers have deemed that the divine, the theion,
constituted an essential element in their research to understand the
articulation of reality. Kant insists for example, that God, the world
and the soul form three transcendental ideas, which belong in the
field of metaphysics that is called ‘special’. This is why in philosophy
one finds ‘a specific philosophical reflection on the nature of the
Divine and on the manner of its manifestation, which sometimes
double up… to a critique of actually practised religion’14. Even
though as a critique it assumes the existence of a religious discourse,
‘philosophical theology as a method… often back off from actual
religious practices and faith and thus explores a typically
philosophical way of approaching the divine God, making itself truly
worthy of that name.’15

In comparison, philosophy of religion is a much more recent

discipline. In its actual understanding, it dates back to the time of
the Enlightenment as a reaction ‘against the different (failed) plans to
establish a natural theology, centred on the ambiguous concept of
natural religion’16. Regarding its theoretical foundation, Philosophy
of Religion can be defined as ‘the consistent philosophical effort to
effectively study positive religions along with their manifestations,
rites, beliefs, spiritual attitudes, including mental categories and
discourse, in order to highlight their own comprehensibility and to
understand religion in a more global perspective through a sustained
reflection on the religious evolution of man’17. The aim to
philosophically study religious phenomena in its positivity or in its
historical effectivity, distinguishes philosophy of religion from
philosophical theology. The target of the latter being the subject of
religious consciousness, could neglect the various historical
manifestations of the religious phenomenon.

Philosophy of Religion and Religious Philosophy

The difference between philosophy of religion and religious

philosophy allows us to specify once more the objective of philosophy
religion18. The difference between the two disciplines is the posture
which, in the study of religion, the philosopher takes regarding the
parameter of his own faith. ‘Philosophy of religion involves a basic
methodological choice of well-observed neutrality in relation to all
determined religious faith.’19 In the interpretation of religious
phenomena, the philosopher of religion puts his personal convictions
in brackets, that is, he prescinds from that which connects him to a
particular faith. The religious philosopher, on the other hand,
conducts a research of philosophical study within the parameters of
his personal faith explicitly taken into consideration. In this case the
philosopher ponders as philosopher, from within a specific faith, the
philosophical meaning of an expression of assent sustaining his study.

A. 0. 1. 3. Cultural conditions of the origin of the

philosophy of religion20

There are historical factors that give rise to the origin of philosophy
religion as a discipline. The debate on religion evolved within a
cultural conjuncture that is marked by a double caesura: on the one
hand, the philosophers of the Enlightenment and on the other, the
birth of a specific human science of religion. This historical context
is important in better understanding different philosophers of religion
and the contemporary status of the discipline.

Religion after the Enlightenment21

In his study of the status of religion after the Enlightenment, Lὓbbe

lists four major cultural factors that brought about a new way of
looking at religion and drafted a new theoretic framework that
ushered in the birth of philosophy of religion. The Enlightenment led
to a fourfold irreversible break that started the process of the
emancipation of human reason.

1. On the theoretical field, science as a method effectively moved

away from the ideological custody of religion’22. That is, scientific
research proceeds with religious neutrality. This methodological
neutrality will subsequently be extended to other ideologies that
would like to recruit science in defence of their objectives.
2. ‘On the political field, the Aufklärung brought an end to the
institutional protection enjoyed by religious truths’23. Modern
states guaranteed religious liberty. Those with constitutions
affirmed, even without an effective separation of Church and State
clause, on the one hand the principle of difference between the
sphere of religious institutions and the secular sphere. On the
other hand, the same constitution awarded equal civil rights to all
citizens, with no distinction between creeds/religions. While not
being religious indifference, political neutrality before religion,
was an effective answer ‘to the question of the coexistence of
religious faiths, which by definition contain the presumptions of
incompatible truths, and thus always presents a threat to civil
peace’24.

3. ‘Strictly speaking, in the field of cultural reality, it is Aufklärung

that started the process of secularization’25. This movement from
outward institutions to inward conscience pushed the progressive
eclipse of religious meaning in daily life. ‘The phenomenon of
secularization poses a decisive question for the status of religion in
contemporary societies: is secularization a process that will come
to pass, or is cultural secularization an irreversible process that is
here to stay?’25
4. Finally, Enlightenment inaugurated an approach to religion from
the perspective of historical consciousness’27. Modernity is
characterised by an approach to culture from a historical
perspective. As a consequence, ‘religious awareness is
understood within the history that allowed its birth.’ 28 The
recognition of the constitutive historicity of religious awareness
affected disciplined interpretation. The conviction that
presupposed the comprehension of religious truths in their sitz im
leben, in consequence, related these truths with what is credible in
a specific era.
It is above all this final point, in reaction to the Enlightenment, that
philosophers specified a new understanding of the philosophy of
religion. The admission of the historical foundation of religious
phenomenon crystallized a new problem for philosophy of religion:
‘the problem is no longer to construct a ‘religion of reason’ but to
understand ‘the reason of religion’. ‘Thus the discipline to
understand the reason of religion’ defines excellently the fundamental
task of philosophy of religion. This conviction is maintained in the
course. Distinguished from the effort of theological understanding,
the task of philosophy of religion is not to demonstrate the eternal
coherence of a given religious vision of the world, but to study the
reason of religion as a historical human phenomenon.

The Human Science of Religion

In contemporary times, philosophy of religion not only defines itself as

opposed to theology. This Philosophy is also challenged to deal with
religious studies by human sciences. ‘This need of a three-way
conversation between philosophy, theology and human sciences is
undisputedly a distinctive sign of the contemporary epistemological
situation that is known as the ‘hermeneutical era of reason.’ ’ 29 This
epistemological situation outlines the perspective of philosophy of
religion, which sustains a conversation between three types of
rationality: the speculative and conceptual discussion of the
philosopher, the objective discussion of human sciences on the
positivity of the religious fact and the self-implicating discussion of
the theologian about his own faith. Such a philosophy however,
should first undergo a ‘hermeneutical conversion’ that accepts the
need to be established on the truth of ‘hermeneutical reason’. It is
pushed to accept ‘full agreement to the central maxim of the
hermeneutical thought of Paul Ricoeur: ‘Explaining more is to
understand better.”30 Only then can the philosopher of religion join in
this triangular conversation.

A. 0. 2 For an ideal approach

The terminological clarifications and the historical framework of the

birth of the discipline supply the premises from which students can
understand philosophy of religion as ‘the systematic thoughts of
philosophers who are “philosophers of the religious given.”’ 31
Within the limits of this course, it is impossible to present a complete
history of all philosophical thoughts made on religion. On the other
hand, we deem it right to proceed via typological approach which will
allow us to define the significant figures who are of general
importance to philosophy of religion. For each stream we will
present one or more of the most representative authors, pointing out
especially the questions posed and the influence their thinking has
had on philosophy of religion. In this way, through the presentation
of those different types of philosophy, a reflection will be made on the
contemporary status of the philosophy of religion. With J. Greisch,
we suggest the following five ideal-genres: the speculating genre, the
critical genre, the phenomenological genre, the linguistic genre and
finally the hermeneutic genre. To understand better, the change
caused by the Enlightenment approach to religion, it will be important
first to show the stake that was motive for the decision to make
religion a problem for philosophy for it is this that subsequently
pushed the birth of philosophy of religion. This stake involves the
period of the modern construct of ‘natural religion’ as mentioned
above. Some Modern philosophers were tempted to pursue the
philosophical effort of constructing a religion of reason. Philosophers
from the Romantic era made a conclusive turn as a reaction to this
trend. Acknowledging the historical character of religion, philosophy
of religion changed the disciplined study by searching above all to
understand the reason of the religion in its historical reality. This
change of perspective imposes a preliminary chapter, which exposes
the problems of the ‘natural religion’ and the attempts to construct a
religion of reason before presenting the five types of philosophy of
religion as various ways of working out a philosophical understanding
of religion.

A. 1 ORIGIN OF THE MODERN THEME32

In its modern form, philosophy of religion originated from the era of

the Enlightenment, when religion itself became the subject of a
completely autonomous philosophical reflection. Originally it dealt
with the problem of ‘natural religion’ that aims to construct a religion
that is exclusively founded on reason. This modern effort is a but
true rationalization of historical religion.

Two important historical factors shed light on the motivations that

evoked the problem and influenced the solution. On the one hand,
the tragic reality of confessional disagreements and religious wars
precipitated the need to find, apart from different confessions, a way
of amenable reconciliation to bring civil peace. On the other hand,
the conviction that on all fields only a rational research could help
man to dominate nature and to organise society as good as possible.

It is in this context that the idea of ‘natural religion’ was born as an

attempt to answer the ethical-political demand of the time. Jurists
like Jean Bodin33 and Hugo Grutius34 had already supported this idea;
they had already tried to search, in the light of natural reason, for an
elementary religious ground, communal to all positive religions and
open to guarantee coexistence in reciprocal tolerance. The
philosophers moved quickly. Thus Spinoza and Locke undertook,
starting from different theoretical foundations, the same research,
which for the first time led to giving this new vision a complete and
organic expression. As time is limited, we will restrict ourselves to
the perspectives of Spinoza and Kant, who have in common their
insertion of religion into the field of practical reason.

A. 1. 1 Spinoza (1632-1677)

Philosophy of religion in the modern sense, is generally considered to

be born on the date of issue of the Tractatus theologico-politicus of
Spinoza (1670). This work truly can be seen as the first philosophical
work that treats the fundamental problem of philosophy of religion.
The historical context of the Essay,35 as reflected in the preface and
the letter to Oldenburg of 1665, gives insight into Spinoza’s main
reason for this book.

A. 1. 1. 1 Motivation and Stake

According to his own confession, Spinoza wrote his Essay to defend

the liberty of thought against the pressure that suppressed him for
such a long time. He intended to demonstrate that ‘the liberty of the
philosopher neither threatens the true zeal nor the peace in the heart
of the public community, on the contrary, suppression (of the liberty
of thought) brings about the ruin of both peace and all zeal’36. Thus
the liberty of thought is for Spinoza the only way to bring peace to a
community that is torn up by confessional disagreement. It is the
task of the State to ensure this liberty, notably by organising the
(exterior) practice of religion. Taking on this task not only improves
the competence of the State but also effectively puts an end to the
religious controversies which tend to divide and, as a consequence,
ruin the political community and all human undertaking. The plan of
the Essay pursues a double liberation: liberation of the believing
institutions and the political institution from ecclesiastic despotism by
clarifying the true relationship that has to exist between religion and
politics. By accomplishing this effective emancipation, a return to
authentic identities also clarifies the practical field and theoretical
field of religion and politics. The clarification of this double
connection, first between theology and politics and next between
practice and theory, has a double advantage: it sheds light on the way
that will put an end to violence and open the space where the liberty
of thought is achieved. Above all, the interest of this study focuses on
the relationship between religion and politics. Spinoza’s essay gives
importance to this problematic by determining the nature of religion
and the nature of politics thus also clarifying the relationship between
religion and philosophy (ch. 7 and 13-150).

A. 1. 1. 2 Theology and politics37

For Spinoza, theology, being faith or church discourse, is political in

nature. Religion exercises an authority over people, and thus is in a
sense an empire of the spirit. Though surely regrettable, this factual
situation bears witness to the political nature of religion. This
political nature of religion has to be clarified by going beyond the
historical connection (effective political power) that exists between
theology and politics and by demonstrating the legal connection which
has to exist between the two.

An Intolerable Situation

The situation that actually prevails, is characterised by the existence

of an ecclesiastic power which authorises itself by a prestige and a
divine institution that is maintained by an ideological interpretation of
the Scriptures. Such a theology justifies and establishes itself as an
ecclesiastic power based on Scriptures. This authoritative reading
that it accords to itself implies power to legislate sovereignly over
individuals and city-statex on matters of truth and morality. For
Spinoza, this ideological interpretation constitutes fraud. In fact the
theologians make their own philosophical opinions sacred by
pretending to extract them from the Scriptures, which are supposed
to contain these. And ‘by virtue of this so-called divine authority,
they present them as inviolable and use all means to impose them
upon others by violence and falsity. The theological opinions are thus
prejudices, inadequate ideas and confusions which the theologians
introduce surreptitiously in the Scriptures by applying them to the
account of revelation and not of reason. But what they have
accomplished in result, is to transform Scriptures into ‘a collection of
philosophical doctrines and sublime speculations,’ and the Church is
turned into ‘an academy’ and religion into ‘a science, even… a
controversy’38

These theological prejudices strike at natural reason with infirmity.

These biases are obstacles that prevent souls from accessing
philosophical truth. They establish the reign of superstition on
people by imposing beliefs that have a supernatural origin and by
allocating to certain practices a kind of miraculous efficacy.
Superstition is a universal regime that does not only affect the
faithful, but all men. In fact, they normally adopt, according to the
nature of which they are a part, an attitude of passivity before the
action of other parties to which they are connected. The power of
externalities, to which they are exposed, limits and exceeds the force
by which they persevere in their being. This experience, which
provokes in man the consciousness of the incapacity to control destiny
and the feeling of fear mixed with hope, inevitably leads him to
superstition. This is why, in the impossibility of being God, who is the
infinite power of causa sui, man is superstitious by nature. 39

Moreover, by making religion as the subject of controversies,

theological prejudices provoked the grand scandal of division among
Christians and the fostering of hatred between them. This fact
undermines the nature of Christianity itself, which is supposed to be a
religion of love. The cause of these divisions and struggles, however,
are not part of the nature of Christian religion itself, but of its
ideological use in order to satisfy personal passions of glory, power
and wealth. Nevertheless, religious history is characterised by a
regime of intolerance both political and religious that is incompatible
with an authentic and well understood Christianity.

Remedy: a radical criticism of the foundations

In order to overcome this situation, Spinoza proposes to recover

religion’s true practical intention and its necessary insertion in an
economy of politics. The goal is to ensure the survival of the national
community by orchestrating the public practice of religion and by
guaranteeing freedom of thought. Given this objective, Spinoza
proceeds with a criticism of the fundamentals of religion beginning
with a reconsideration of the Scriptures because these are used as the
justification of the political authority claimed by theologians. He
aims to expose whether the dogmatic ecclesiastic interpretation,
which supports the pretension of the power of the religious
authorities, can find a real foundation in the Bible. In order to do this
task, Spinoza proposes a new method, which in essence is a move
from interpretation to explanation of Scriptures. By deconstructing
the mechanism of an ideological exegesis, this method has the
advantages of (1) liberating man from theological prejudices, 2)
showing the essence of religion and (3) establishing a legal
connection between religion and politics, which brings to an end
religious dogmatism and ecclesiastical despotism.

The new method40

To interpret the Scriptures, Spinoza proposes a new method, that of

explanation, similar to the method used to understand nature.
Therewith he breaks with tradition and produces a true revolution in
the approach to the texts. ‘To pull as away from this straying
(mysticism of wild human imaginings attributed to the Spirit), to free
our spirit from the prejudices of the theologians and in order not to
assent carelessly to human interventions taken for divine teaching, we
have to study the true method in the interpretation of the Scriptures
and to obtain a clear vision of it: in fact, as long as we do not know
this method, we cannot know with certainty what the Scriptures of the
Holy Spirit want to teach us. To abbreviate, I propose this method as
not different from what is done in the understanding of nature and
harmonizes with this on all points of view.’41

In a disiplined study of the Scriptures (and maybe simply a text),

Spinoza holds that ‘understanding’ and ‘explication’ do not oppose,
because the Scriptures are in itself a ‘nature with its own laws.’ Thus
the approach to understand Scriptures as that of nature requires from
the scholar the same objective and obeying attitude. Spinoza is
opposed to the tradition of commentary, which is a practice of
submitting Scriptures to a superstitious devotion (heart commentary)
or to visions of power (dogmatic commentary) or lastly to theoretical
anxieties (speculative commentary). In contrast to the traditional
exegesis, the ‘natural method of interpretation’ refuses to impose
upon the bible a heteronomous meaning that come from the outside; it
rather studies an autonomous meaning coming forth from the Bible
itself. This is why Spinoza adopts the Lutheran principal of the sola
scriptura to which he gives another meaning.

According him, ‘all knowledge of the Scriptures must… come forth

from itself’42. In other words, the principle of interpreting the
Scriptures by itself requires the end of an exegesis which exposes the
text to strange influences and which ends in a superfluous polysemy
(multiple meanings) to it. There is nothing else to be searched for in
the Bible but the meaning that is in need of explanation; and this is
accessible thanks to a natural method for bible study that proceeds in
two stages43. To grasp the meaning of the Scriptures, one has first of
all determine “the given” through constant appeal to philosophy and
history. The next task is to thematize the universal doctrine that “the
given” contains. Thus, by establishing the certitude of the given,
thanks to a philosophical and historical inquiry, the natural method
advocated by Spinoza, aims to reach that which is universal and
because of this, determine effectively the essential contents of
religion. ‘Just as, in the study of natural things, one has above all to
stick to the discovery of the most universal realities which are
common for all nature, like movement and rest, as well as to the
discovery of its laws and its rules, which nature always observes and
through which it acts continuously, and subsequently rise gradually
from there to the other things which are less universal; the same is
true in the history of the Scriptures. We search first of all for that
what is the most universal, that what is the basis and the foundation
of all the Scriptures, that which is ultimately recommended by all
prophets as an eternal doctrine and the highest utility for all men.’ 44
Notwithstanding the context (social, political or religious) that
condition the holy books, these nevertheless contain elements/truths
which are universal, accessible for all and constant amidst the
vicissitudes of history. By determining the nature of this universal
element of the religious, that is, constituted as the true principle of
unity of all the Scriptures; Spinoza then defines as the essence of
religion.

A. 1. 1. 3 The Essence of Religion

The universal element which constitutes the unity of the Bible
revealing itself to be the eternal word of God – a word which is also
written in the heart of man, is known in human thought46 – as the
moral essence. The scriptures reveal merely a moral message: the
divine law, which prescribes the practice of justice and charity; and
which teaches that this practice is the condition of our salvation.
This divine law forms the essential content of true religion, which is
the universal or catholic religion, common to all mankind’ 47 and which
is independent of historical contingency. All books of the Bible
merge to highlight this moral teaching, just as; likewise it is at this
point where the Scriptures and reason also converge. Without being
drawn from reason, the universal law, drawn from the Bible
interpreted by itself, matches, by virtue of its universality, the truths
of reason. This is nothing surprising, as moral law is not only written
in a book, but in man’s heart of flesh.
But if this detour along universality allows an approach between
reason and revelation, it can by no means erase their essential
difference. The essential content of the Scriptures is of a practical
order and not speculative. It is essentially an ethical teaching. The
aim of the Scriptures is not to communicate scientific knowledge, but
to demand obedience from man; it condemns rebellion and not
ignorance48. Not only is it given exclusively to scholars, but to all
man without distinction of age or class. The Scriptures is not a book
of wisdom; its objective is not to make scholars but followers’ 49. As a
consequence, what counts in religion is not dogmatic assertion, but
the action of a moral behavior; this is obedience to God, summarized
in the law of justice and charity to one’s neighbor50.
In this sense, obedience is the fundamental element of the Scriptures,
faith is necessarily obedience. Resulting from obedience, in its
essence faith is not the approval of dogmatic propositions of a
speculative nature. It is constituently a life of obedience which is
concretised in love for one’s neighbour. Faith is the execution of the
law of justice and charity. Every man practicing justice and charity
has faith. To value the sincerity of faith, it is not the opinions that
count, but action. ‘It is sufficient that a person, proclaiming true
religious truths, is unruly for his faith to be wrong. Inversely, a man
obedient to God manifests a pure faith, although in the details of the
beliefs he proclaims he could be wrong.’51 Only obedient faith has the
value of salvation.
However, Spinoza deems it necessary to draw from the Bible a certain
number of theoretic assertions, without which obedience would be
impossible and which constitute ‘the herald dogmas of the universal
faith’52. Faith does not require assertions true in itself, but
propositions indispensable to the practice of obedience. Also, to put
faith back to the sphere of practical order, Spinoza defines it by a
reciprocal implication between itself and obedience. ‘Having faith is
simply to form certain thoughts of God, of which the ignorance of
abstinence would be made to disappear by the same move of
obedience; whereas without possible exception in all obedient people
their thoughts must manifest themselves.’53 So faith in essence54 is
obedience, and in its turn, obedience is the essence of faith. For
Spinoza, there is no faith without obedience and no obedience without
faith.
Given this nature of faith, a clear distinction between religion and
philosophy can be made. Here, Spinoza is very clear: ‘between faith
or theology on one hand and philosophy on the other, there is no
relation whatsoever, no affinity at all’55. These two instances are
completely separated and have nothing in common; neither in the
objective, nor in the foundation. Philosophy concerns itself with a
field the truth which it discovers rationally as from common notions.
Theology, studies the obedience of faith coming forth from listening to
the word of God in the Scriptures. This separation has the advantage
of separating philosophy from theology and giving them their
respective essences that escapes all mutual conquest 56and possible
conflicts. To philosophy a total liberty of an intellectual activity is
assured, displayed according to its own laws, without reference to any
element beyond reason. To theology a task is given: not to oppose
people by speculative intentions, but to unite them in obedience to the
word of God and in all that assists the fervour of obedience in our
thought. These two activities can neither confuse nor limit each other;
on the contrary each of them plays an absolute autonomy in the space
of its own existence.

The assertion of essential separation between faith and reason leads

Spinoza to deviate, to pose a wrong problem, the traditional problem
of the relation between the two elements which normally is attempted
to be resolved by establishing between them a relation of servitude,
which subordinates either reason to faith, or faith to reason. The two
solutions are equally wrong; they bank on the misconceived
presupposition that between the two fields a real supposition exists.
Consequently, they confuse two orders of problems which are
absolutely different: the problem of sense, which reveals the
Scriptures; and the problem of truth, which comes uniquely to the
judgement of philosophy. In the study of Scriptures one has to
distinguish between the sense and the meaning of the propositions.
The true sense of the text teaches us nothing about the truth of the
matter. Thus one should not refer to what one believes to be the
truth of the matter to demonstrate the truth of the sense. The latter
is only attained by a critical inquiry, at the same time philosophical
and historical. It is vain to affirm that the Bible contains
philosophical truths which do not come from the philosophical track,
i.e. expressions and proofs, to which we have access thanks to another
natural light. This would be to fall into irrationalism, forgetting that ‘
concerning truth and certitude of things that reveal only speculation,
no spirit, outside of reason, testifies: it is only reason that claims the
kingdom of truth’57. Thus the thesis of the separation of theology and
philosophy results to the impossibility of a dogmatic theology that
claims for itself the right to tell the truth, accusing it of going beyond
its competence by confusing the two orders of truth and of sense.
Doing so, all dogmatic theology is a pseudo-wisdom, a mytho-logy,
containing malformed propositions and as a consequence nonsense
(like the proposition ‘three is a red number’) because they
amalgamate philosophy and revelation. Thus it should be
remembered that, whilst faith speaks about God, it’s purpose is not to
teach us the truth about its nature or its attributes, but to propose to
us a model of true life. But reason should neither forget that it is not
within its competence to ‘decide whether man can reach beatitude,
even without any intellectual understanding, by the simple submission
of the heart’58. If reason cannot demonstrate the truth or the falsity
of the fundamental principle of theology, people are saved by simple
submission,59 this does not mean at all that faith is a blind belief. On
the contrary, it depends on the faithful, on his moral certitude that
bears witness to the value of the teaching contained in Scriptures, i.e.,
the law of justice and charity; and its concurrence with the teaching
of reason60. Furthermore it has to be made clear that life does not
follow mathematical certainty. Otherwise, it is necessary to doubt
the redemption of most people, or to reserve it to a chosen few.
Therefore, to avoid such a pernicious mistake, it has to be accepted
that, even if it is difficult for reason to acknowledge obedience as a
way of redemption, Scriptures and obedience are pedagogically
indispensable to one another.

A. 1. 1. 4 A new theological-political pact

The critique of the foundations of ecclesiastical despotism, thanks to

the new method of exegesis, does not only result in defining the
essence of religion; it shows as well that religion, as it is moral in
essence, necessarily has to be inserted into the political field 61. A
new relation is established as well between the theological and the
political thereby enlarging the authority of the State of religion; an
integral element of the sphere of common action.

According to Spinoza, religion as moral in nature, is essentially

political. In fact, it is up to the State to give the imperative of justice
and charity, practice of which effectively defines religion, an objective
content and validity through legal proclamations of positive laws that
settles the relations between citizens and churches. Since moral is
political of nature, it is established on the sovereign power of the state
that determines laws and defines contravention. Justice and Charity
as contents of religion, only become concrete through their socio-
political insertion as a consequence of the mediation of politics. Only
civil authorities have the right to organize in a practical system the
means of mediations necessary to effectively carry out morality
through the law and thus of religion. This entails the eventual but
necessary disappearance of the Church as an ‘ecclesiastical body’ 62
from the government of city-state.

This right to orchestrate religions flows from the supreme principle

which is the categorical imperative of the power of the state: to
guarantee the continuity (peace and security) of the political
community. In fact, it is this continuity that is the condition and
foundation of all life and common action. As a consequence, the
lasting existence of the community is the foundation of religion as it is
the condition of its existence. This is why religious piety, seen in its
ethical-political nature, ought to aim for the highest good, which is the
conservation of the political community. This is also why, thanks to
its supreme end that the State has the right to organise 63 the public
exercise of piety and religion; exactly to avoid, in the heart of the
nation, infinite divisions provoked by religious disagreements.
However, what is true of the limits of theology ought to be observed
also in politics; both should not deal with “truth” in the sense of
knowledge. Theology and politics are practices destined to organize
the relations between people in the heart of the city-state; they have
to deal with obedience in the field of social interaction and not with
the determination of the nature of things. They have, both of them,
to fight against ‘the temptation to prescribe, on the speculative level,
truths and propositions that are not within the province of their
competence. Otherwise, being an imposition, such meddling not only
betrays despotism of power, but exposes the senselessness of their
wording’64. Therefore the state must not merge philosophy as much
as this merging is avoided in theology, because philosophy and
politics belong to two completely different fields. In the individual
exists an inalienable right, which is irreducible to the sphere of
theological-political power of the State: liberty of thought. This
liberty is a natural right; as a consequence of the constitutive
characteristic of the human being. It is the power by which man
affirms himself and perseveres in his being; or, if you wish, it is the
power of being and action which defines the very essence of man; this
is his effort to persevere in his being.

Unless he would refrain from his humanity, ‘no-one would give up his
liberty to judge or to think that what he wants, and every individual,
by virtue of a right superior to nature, remains master of his own
thinking ’65. Thus the freedom of thought is not one among the rights
that the individual can transfer and delegate to the public authority
during the generating pact of the political community. In the
conclusion of this pact, the individual gives up his power to decide
(i.e., to act according his personal opinion) but never his power to
reason and to judge. Indeed, the giving up of his power is justified by
the necessity to avoid the chaos of diverging opinions and to create a
vitally important minimum of unity that opens the possibility for
coexistence and a social cooperation between individuals. Therefore,
according to Spinoza, the aim of political authority is not despotic
domination that transforms reasonable men into simpletons or
automatons, but the creation of indispensable social condition for the
development of all faculties of their body and mind. In other words,
the limit of the State, as its ultimate end, is to guarantee a peaceful
social space in which each individual can pursue the perfection to
which it is capable. Thus the government must avoid the temptation
to wish to reign over minds by abusively arrogating to itself the power
to define the truth. The state ought to know how to limit its power in
the field of its competence, namely determining the actions of
subjects. So liberty of thought constitutes the limit, i.e. that which
limits and that which strives for political action. ‘The aim of the
organization in society is liberty.’66 Also the State has to promote
liberty of thought, not only because it is inalienable and
indestructible, but also because it is the best guarantee for the
survival of the political community. Just as liberty limits political
power in its turn, the political power limits liberty as its condition of
performance. In fact, liberty of thought must be maintained within
reasonable means that exclude violence and the arbitrary. Rebellion
as the holding of differing opinions and the taking of different courses
of action, is controlled or suppressed for they have the potential to
destroy the pact of civil peace. Thus it can be seen that liberty of
thought, within the limits it is allocated, does not constitute at all a
threat, neither to religion, nor to the public authority, if they are
placed back to the authenticity of their mutual essences. Spinoza can
conclude as well in these terms: ‘If we have succeeded in assuring to
the community the greatest security possible, all devout or religious
fervour should be reduced to the practice of justice and charity; the
legislation of the sovereign Power, both in the sacred field as in the
secular, should strive exclusively for the orchestration of the actions
of citizens, while effectively ensuring the liberty of thought and
expression of each one’67. In this manner, the place of philosophy can
be assured. If liberty is that which limits all political power, that
which is extrinsic to the definition of the political, it is up to the
philosopher and not to the politician to tell us, beyond the law of
justice and charity that unites religion with politics, about the
authentic essence of liberty. In the words of the philosopher who
frees liberty by putting it back to its essence, religion and politics are
superseded. This means that, in the absolute wisdom of philosophy
for Spinoza, his Ethics, which starts where the theological-political
Essay ends, emancipates itself from the true nature of politics and
religious faith. As far as we are concerned, we will not follow
Spinoza in this new adventure. It is enough for us to have found what
are, for him, the meaning and value of positive religion.

A. 1. 2 E. Kant (1724-1802)

A. 1. 2. 1 The Task of Philosophy

Philosophy of religion acquires its status as an autonomous discipline,
methodologically different from theology, through the efforts of
Immanuel Kant. His essay ‘Religion within the limits of simple
reason’ (1793) is effectively a sustained pursuit of philosophical
reason that studies religion. But Kant evades the trap of applying to
religion the results of his three Critiques (Critique of pure reason,
critique of practical reason and critique of judgement). Doing so
would have resulted to a study of religion that extracts it entirely ‘only
from pure reason,’ making as a consequence an abstraction from all
historical revelation. In ‘Religion within the limits of simple reason,”
Kant prescinds from such a rationalization of religion or ‘the
temptation to construct religion from the pure concepts of reason.’
He rather proposes an examination of (Christian) religion that can be
known also ‘by simple reason’68. This is why Kant resorts, in the
preface to the second edition, to the image of two concentric circles to
define the situation and the task he assigns to philosophy in front of
religion. The philosopher must, in all modesty, recognize that
revelation comprises reason, but that reason, which has taken the
part of analysing the true contents of religion, must, from its own
demands, discriminate what is acceptable for it in revealed religion
and what is not. Doing so, remaining between the limits, reason
proceeds with two movements: the centripetal movement which
consists of bringing the (moral) rational contents in the interior circle
of religion, which reason thus accepts as coming from itself. The
centrifugal movement which drives reason in the heart of its power to
accept, conform to the moral demand which establishes it, takes
notice of what is situated ‘beyond reason’, that is properly speaking
already in the supernatural field.

However, this double movement, which characterizes Religion within

the limits of simple reason, shows the central place taken by reason in
the Kantian interpretation of religion. As the conflict of faculties
declares it explicitly, reason is raised up to the supreme criterion of
the comprehension of religion.

‘Reason is, in religious questions, the supreme interpreter of

Scriptures. 69’But the reason meant here is practical reason, not
theoretic, for what is important in religion, is only action and not
knowledge. This is why the teachings of religion are to be measured
not by the function of their theoretical bearing, but by the function of
their moral intention. Thus their moral dimension always has to be
held before the teaching of the Scriptures as these, by their origin, go
beyond reason or purely and simply contradict it. As a consequence,
what constitutes the heart of religion is moral faith for Kant.

So, even where the Kantian philosophy approaches religion as a

‘historical positive phenomenon’ which, though its own nature, is
situated beyond the limits of reason, it searches to account for it
within the margin of the competence of reason and thus within the
interior border of the line that divides the transcendental and the
historical. Also it takes from religion only what is in harmony with its
rational principles; and it is by virtue of the mere demand of its praxis
that practical reason will be made to recognize the existence of what
exceeds it. As a result, in Religion within the limits of simple reason,
Kant spreads the philosophical study of religion in light of the results
obtained in the field of practical reason, namely the autonomy of
critical reason and the foundation of religion on morals.

It has to be acknowledged as well that Kant links religion to hope. In

fact, it is the question ‘what may I hope for?’ that drives his
philosophy of religion. This question is generated within the interior
of moral philosophy whilst reason admits that the junction between
“happiness and virtue,” necessary achievement or moral action, goes
beyond human power. It finds for a second time its origin aside from
ethics whilst reason notices that its power to do good becomes in
reality a non-power due to the evil which attacks it in its own
principle. We intend to show how religion, even when it has an
essentially ethical content and foundation, is basically hope for the
fulfilment of a freedom which, in the search of its full effectivity in
moral acting, is conscious of its insufficiency to complete itself.
Through this double place of the birth of hope, we will draw the
double movement of the Kantian philosophy of religion which tends,
on one hand to bring the contents of religion into the sphere of
practical reason and on the other hand to recognize the
transcendence of religion in its soteriological dimension. This
requires that we consider briefly the link of the ethical foundation that
Kant institutes between religion and morals.

A. 1. 2. 2 The moral foundation of religion

The autonomy of morals

The preface of the first edition of Religion within the limits of simple
reason affirms the central thesis of Kantian morals: the autonomy of
morals in front of religion. The human being does not need religion,
neither to determine its duty, nor to be motivated to accomplish it.
Morals has its foundation in itself as it is based on ‘the unique fact of
reason’, which is categorical imperative in which the legislation of
practical reason and the liberty of will mutually attest. This mutual
attestation of moral legislation and liberty is such that the denial of
one brings about automatically that of the other. Unless one denies
human liberty, one cannot reduce moral law to something else but to
our own practical reason. The practical reason which we are and
which commands unconditionally to act according to a universal
interest, proves that we are free beings and that we have to realize
ourselves as such. The awareness of the obligation to be free reveals
what constitutes the autonomy of morals.

Religious Opening of Morals or Hope

While moral is autonomous in its immediate reality, it nevertheless is

also an openess towards religion as its indispensable complement. In
fact, practical reason, which asks us to act morally, inevitably
demands as Well the totality of conditions which make moral acting
effective. However disposed as he might be to a virtuous life, man
needs inevitably an end towards which he can justly direct his moral
actions. Certainly, this end is not the foundation of moral conduct,
but it is necessarily related to the moral decision, for every decision to
act – including acting morally itself – contains inevitably an aim or an
objective to be reached as a consequence of the action. Thus, ‘from
morals emerges again an end or goal of moral action: because it is
impossible for reason to remain indifferent to the way in which the
question has to be answered: What can result from this ‘well-doing’
which is ours? And, supposing that it is not totally within our power,
towards what end can we orient our efforts, in such a way that we
nevertheless find accordance with it.’70 Thus the will requires what
Kant calls ‘the total objective of pure practical reason’ or, according
another designation, the ‘sovereign good’. To keep the purity of its
moral intention, the will has excluded happiness as the principle of
determination. Only the moral law should motivate its action. But,
for its accomplishment, it asks happiness to be appended to morality.
This does not mean a return to eudaemonism, because for Kant,
happiness will not be the aim of moral acting. The essential aim of
moral acting is virtuous life. Happiness, which is demanded by the
will, is the happiness that adds to the virtuous life as its own
consequence. What is required is happiness which conforms to
morality. Although it is not the first aim of moral life, the joyful life
constitutes the second aim, in virtue of the moral law itself. This
demands that he who “does well” is worthy of happiness as well and,
as a consequence that the happiness he deserves will be awarded to
him as a gift. Thus it is just, following the request of reason, that
happiness necessary sanctions the merits of a just life. So the
connection between a just life and a joyful life, necessarily demanded
by reason for the achievement of the will, constitutes the sovereign
good as supreme and complete good. Doing justice, the will also
makes itself worthy of happiness. It asks and awaits the realization
of the sovereign good; it hopes to participate in the sovereign good, at
the accession of this intelligible world in which ‘the system of morality
is inseparably connected to that of happiness’71.

Kant articulates his third inquiry as: ‘what may I hope for?’ This
question defines the essence of religion in these words: ‘if I do what I
have to do, what may I hope for?’72. This question, which is both
practical and theoretical, opens morals to religion by showing the
fullness of hope that religion sustains. To answer to the question,
Kant notes that reason is obliged to admit theoretically that ‘everyone
has the right to hope for happiness according to the amount in which
he has shown himself worthy in his behaviour’73. Hope expresses the
tension of will towards the obtaining of the sovereign good as an
“agreement of just life and joyful life.” Even if it is necessarily
demanded by practical reason, this agreement is not necessary given
in the usual track of our phenomenal life. In this world we know,
happiness and virtue do not manifest themselves mutually, in the
manner that one will be an integral complement of the other. In the
same way that one does not arise from the other as an effect rising
from its cause. The two realities belong to two specifically different
orders: virtue to the order of liberty happiness to that of nature.
Even where man desires their agreement, it is not in his power to
realize this. Yet, this agreement is indispensable if one does not want
moral laws to be vain fancies and for moral laws to have a real
efficiency in this world. Man inevitably experiences the limits of his
power in the process of his realization of what he ought to do, hope
comes to strengthen and sustain the continuous effort to live a just
life; hope also affirms implicitly the existence of conditions that
guarantee the effective reality of the sovereign good. So it is that
hope results in the practical conclusion of the existence of God and
the immortality of the soul or of the future life. This last affirmation
will not keep us long. It is enough to simply note that it implies the
‘temporal-existential aspect… of liberty’74. It is impossible for man to
realize completely in this life the holy will, which is the condition of
the sovereign good. Also liberty cannot participate in it in as much as
it ‘hopes for an uninterrupted continuation of this progress, just as
long as its existence can go on and even hereafter in this life.’ 75
Rather it allows the continuation along with the affirmation of the
existence of God in order to manifest the dependence of religion on
morals.

The Affirmation of the Existence of God and its Emergence in

Morals
Practical reason prescribes behaviour that is worthy of happiness.
Through a just life, man affirms happiness, not as a product of human
work, but rather as an add-on excessiveness or extra to what man can
aim for. We do not have the power to make ourselves happy, but we
have the duty to make ourselves worthy of happiness. Sure,
happiness appears, in all fairness, as a reward that the virtuous man
merits through his practice of virtue. But we sense as well that
meriting the reward is not yet having it, but merely to await it. It is
not our right to add happiness as a reward to our merits. Also hope,
which tends toward the necessary link between morality and
happiness, springs up from the conscience of human incapacity to
realize the connection that the moral law demands all the same.
Thus it cannot assure itself of the possibility and the reality of
happiness in living a moral life; ‘but by posing principally, as a
cause of nature, a supreme reason, who commands according to
moral laws.’ 76 Kant recognizes a supreme ethic of reason, who is at
the same time the foundation of the natural world; as a ‘necessary
being’ who is himself, the original sovereign being. This being
sustains the principle of the agreement between virtue and happiness,
the sovereign good that is aimed for by moral law and hoped for by
the just man.

As consequence, hope leads to affirming the existence of God as a

‘necessary being and as the original sovereign good.’ This
affirmation constitutes the foundation of the necessary agreement
between morality and happiness which in turn allows for hope
thereby granting an effective reality to morality. But this is, in its
turn, mediated by the ethical concept of the sovereign good being
the necessary union between virtue and happiness. Thus the belief
in the existence of God is a postulate, that is theoretic belief - a
necessity that is articulated by the demand of practical reason. This
is why God is reached essentially under the ethic-religious
qualification of the original sovereign good. It is the adequate cause
of this effect which is manifested to our will ultimately as its
entire objective or end; i.e., the sovereign good. But we get to this
original sovereign good only within the horizon of the sovereign
good which Kant calls as a fundamental concept of practical
reason. If the sovereign good, which awaits us, is derived
differently in a way that we cannot obtain it but from God, even
so it is the unconditional end of practical reason; and as such ,
it is not derived from the knowledge of a divine commandment
which would be anterior to it. On the contrary, the practical
knowledge is first; and only from this is it possible to attain the
affirmation of the existence of God. Thus , For Kant, morality
does not flow from faith in the existence of God as Original
Sovereign Good. The affirmation of God as the Original Sovereign
Good results from moral law. In fact, “God as Original Sovereign
Good” requires, without taking away its unconditionality and its
autonomy, the conditions that make the moral life possible as a
pursuit of the sovereign good. As a consequence, the affirmation
of the existence of God emerges from morals without being its
foundation77. This is why, for Kant, faith is founded on morality
and not morality on faith.

Also, whilst Kant defines religion as the knowledge of all our

duties being divine commandments,78 he carefully ensures that the
contents of these commandments coincide with the essential
laws of both the goodwill and practical reason. The precise
affirmation signifies in the first place that our duties do not
result from the affirmation of the existence of God, but that they
are known and posed in an autonomous way by practical reason.
Subsequently it also signifies duties which find the justification of
their obligatory character in reason, experience the limits of the
human will in search of total accomplishment of the virtuous life,
is led to the affirmation of God as sovereign cause of the
sovereign good and the guarantee of reward. The consideration of
our duties as divine commandments, does not materially add
anything to the knowledge of our duties which are uniquely
defined by reason; it rather gives a perspective which confirms
the hope that animates the virtuous man. Religion, keeping the
hope firmly attached to moral law, confers an objective or and
end; considering duties as divine commandments or, in other words,
through the affirmation of the existence of God, religion strengthens
the human conviction in the reality of the sovereign good and in
the effective value of moral action.

Religion within the limits of morals

As a result, one understands that Kant brings religion within the

limits of morals; where the two have the same objective contents
and differ only in their shape. One can also define moral
foundation as a criterion to determine true religion. Everything that
is in religion that is in harmony with the moral demands will be
retained as valid; the rest will be considered as a superstition or
illusion. Kant explains himself with all desirable clarity: First I admit
the following proposition as a principle which does not need any
proof: all that man imagines to be able to do apart from good
behaviour to please to God is nothing but a religious illusion and
false cult.’79 According to Kant, it is not only that religion has a moral
basis and should be experienced with a permanent moral
intension, but it is that religion is fully at the service of morals.
Historical religion (statutory faith) has no sense and justification
apart from its representations, its beliefs and its institutions as
means of the promotion of a pure religious faith, i.e., morals.
This results to labelling “revealed faith where the statutory faith
precedes the moral religion” in the religious truth as a false cult.
In reality the false cult, through which the moral order is totally
undermined and where that which ought to be the priority is treated
only as a means instead of being commanded unconditionally (as if it
was an aim)80, is an evil which depraves religion of its aim. Instead
of offering to the people the means to realize their hope by
participating with the sovereign good through a life conforming to
the demands of reason, the false cult obliges them to a
superstitious existence which is automatically linked with
obtaining happiness by observing religious practice. Constituted
as a false cult, religion ceases to be the symbolic representation and
means for the realization of a pure religious faith. By believing that
the simple practice is sufficient to please to God, false cult exempts
itself from moral effort and converts religion into a slavish cult of
divinity (or idols) which bring about, among the faithful, a slavish
submission or hypocritical veneration.81 It is therefore clear for
Kant, that the sense of religion is the promotion of a moral life.
The profession of a historical faith is only acceptable if it animates
moral disposition.

A. 1. 2. 3. On the borders of reason

Problematic

As we have just seen, Kant approaches the study of historical

religion with pre-comprehension of its moral foundation. Without
doubt this is why the centripetal movement dominates his
interpretation of religion. In fact, no revealed religion would be
able to contradict the contents and essential demands of practical
reason and as consequence, the contents and essential demands of
moral faith that are rooted in the ethical subjectivity of man,
constitutes a means to the affirmation of the existence of God and
the future life (immortality of the soul) as being true conditions
necessary for the accomplishment of liberty by a just life. Strong
on this pre-comprehension, Kant also aims in his essay, The religion
within the limits of simple reason, to give a moral interpretation of
Christianity, which is precisely in accordance with pure religious
faith.

But this work that is now the aim of his methodological centrifugal
movement of reason, given the problems and contradiction that are
found within the limits of reason, tend towards that which is
situated beyond reason; in the field of the supernatural. This
movement characterizes in fact the second moment in the course
of which the philosophical signification of religion is constituted
beyond the limits of ethics. What impels this movement is the
Kantian consideration of evil. This reveals that liberty, imputed to us
by duty, is in reality a slavish liberty. Thus the consideration of
evil becomes the instance when the second time the question
emerges : what may I hope for? The problem of evil forces us to
link effective reality of liberty to regeneration which is the content
of hope itself. To the challenge of evil which keeps our liberty
enslaved, religion is presented as a response to the need to gain the
means of liberation. Hope is the link that truthfully admits the
radicality of evil and the reception of the means of regeneration. One
hopes that the means, proposed by religion, are really the means of
salvation. These are the means examined by Kant, reflecting on
the specific structure of religion which are at the same time the
mediations of the religious, to know representation(book II),
faith(book III), and institution (book IIII), even if the themes do not
exactly cover the distribution of the book. But previously evil
(book I) was specified as that from which we desire to be delivered.

The religious hope arises from the instance of practical reason. On

the one hand, due to the evil that it confronts, it does not see how it
can do the good it has to do. On the other hand, facing this
situation of impotence, it is forced to admit a supernatural aid,
coming from the outside and that it cannot do anything by itself,
neither from the theoretical point of view, nor from the practical
point of view. As it stays completely outside the limits of reason,
this aid constitute a supplementary (parergron) case and belongs to
the parerga of religion within the limits of pure reason. 82 These
parerga are supplementary because they do not exempt us of what
we have to do ourselves to make us worthy of this aid. But, even
if we are not to ask ourselves about their nature or how they work,
they are essential, for they belong to the conditions of the
recuperation of the good will. Thus Religion within the limits of
simple reason proposes a philosophical justification of hope, with
the zeal of a philosophical interpretation of the symbols of evil
and salvation , as far as it shows the conditions of a reasonable
hope beyond the borders of philosophy. But at the same time,
with the doctrine of the parerga Kant is able to enlighten and
clarify the specific problem of philosophy of religion, namely the
tension between immanence and transcendence. This tension
defines the paradoxical structure of religion. On the one hand, it is
presented to philosophical reflection as an object which can be
defined within the limits of reason; and on other hand it is posed
as the “other of reason” as far as a constituted reality, still
rationally conceivable, which opens man to confident hope to a
possible liberation. We will discuss the kind of hope proposed
by Kant as rationally permitted, by approaching the problem of
radical evil and justification.

A. 1. 2. 4. Radical Evil and Justification

For Kant, religion constitutes an effective response to the

challenge of evil; in fact, its specific intention is to bring about
the means for the liberation of freedom. As such, it sustains hope
as far as it proposes the way to salvation. In order to find out “what
(man) may be hoped for,” Kant defines the conditions of possibility
for the reception of “the religious means of salvation” as an
authentic means of salvation. For this course, it is important to note
that the reason Kant links “religion” to “hope for regeneration,” is
the factual situation that human liberty finds itself, i.e. liberty is
confronted by ‘radical evil , or the impotence that afflicts the very
root of our capacity of doing good. It is this historical condition
of a human liberty, enslaved by evil as if from the beginning, that
defines the point of departure for the Kantian reflection on religion
(beyond the strict borders of reason). There are no other way,
however, to start reflecting on the primordial experience of the
enslavement of liberty other than through the detour of a
consideration of cultural signs (symbols and myths) that mediate the
very reflection as such. Kant hence receives from “outside
philosophy,” the adamic myth, and thereafter attempts to give an
interpretation of this myth within the limits of simple reason. Doing
so, he notices the presence of many irreducible surface antimonies
that contest the rational undertaking. These antimonies will reveal
themselves by going through the four moments of Kantian
discourse: 1) nature 2)radicalism, 3) origin , and 4) the surpassing of
evil.

Nature of Evil
According to Kant evil truly resides in the maxims of our action,
in the subjective principles which we adopt as rules of behaviour
and which justifies our actions. For Kant, these principles give
evidence to our preference; they show our inclination to put
duty above desire , or desire above duty. The moral qualification
of our action is to be found in this preferential hierarchical
realization of maxims. An act is morally good if its maxim is in
accordance with the priority to duty; it is bad in the case of
putting desire over duty. As a consequence, evil consists in an
inversion of priority, an inversion, a subversion to the order of the
maxims.

This way of approaching the problem of evil allows Kant to

reject two misconceptions, which in fact explains away evil as a
human action. The first misconception situates evil in desire or
pleasure as such; the second situates evil in the corruption of
reason. For Kant, desire and reason constitute human reality and as
such, they are innocent; i.e., neither good nor bad. Situating evil
either in desire or reason leads to imputing an ontological reality to
evil and thus making it into a beast or a demon. According to Kant,
evil is a result of human action; it is a bad choice which consists
in the degeneration of a relation, namely the order of priority
between duty or desire. It is a rule the arbitrator gives himself
for the use of his liberty, ie …. a maxim. 83 It should be noted
that this kind of subversion of the maxim does not necessarily
give cause to acting outwardly against the law. It causes mostly
acts which externally conform to the law, but which are
motivated by personal interest. This is why hypocrisy or
dishonesty are for Kant two of the most exemplary examples of
moral evil. Thus, the bad maxim is the opposite of moral order,
the effective opposition of the human free will to the law in its
maxim 84 .
Radicality of Evil

Since man is capable of doing evil, i.e. to form bad maxims, Kant
presupposes as a condition of possibility of the existence in man of
a tendency towards evil. This tendency is the foundation of all
decisions by which liberty chooses in time to oppose to the
moral law. It is the degeneration of the subjective foundation of
the use of liberty. And this depravation is man’s disposition to
subordinate duty to desire as the supreme maxim of action. This
tendency towards evil is the existential condition of human
liberty , but it is a condition which is the work of the same liberty.
In fact, it is a condition resulting in an intelligible act , i.e. a
purely free decision , preceding and determining all bad actions
we execute in time. Though it attests to it, experience cannot prove
this intelligible decision. It could be said that the tendency towards
evil is the bad nature of freedom or the bad being of freedom.
Evil, as a tendency is a way of being of freedom, coming forth
from liberty and affecting the roots of its own ability to decide.
In this, evil is precisely radical and primordial. The tendency
towards evil , being an intelligible act, attempts to express the
antecedence to itself of the committed evil. We experience this
fathomless precedence of evil in the paradox of the admission of evil.
Evert time we do evil; but evil has always been there 85.

So it seems to us that every bad choice proceeds from a

freedom which has ever chosen wrongly and that the
contingence of the bad maxim is the expression of a necessary
evil nature of freedom 86. The paradox here is that at the same time
we are responsible for this bad character of freedom, which always
has been there as subjective foundation of all our bad choices.

However, though radical as an a priori of bad maxims, the

tendency towards evil does not take the place of the original
disposition to good. It deforms human reality but does not destroy
it. According to Kant, evil does not form part of the ontological
structure of man. This is why the disposition to good remains
intact, as it is formed out fro, three dispositions (to animality, to
humanity and to personality) which are primordial (as) they belong
to the possibility of human nature 87. Thus the disposition to the
good , which is the ultimate condition for the respect of the law,
belongs to the indestructible order of the original. So we have a
second paradox: the coexistence in man of the tendency (Hang) to
evil with the disposition (Anlage) to the good. This coexistence of
tendency over disposition expresses the distinction. Kant makes
between the ontological order of human nature and the
accomplishment of liberty. The original goodness of man (or his
disposition to the good) coexist with his historical badness. Just
as Paul Ricoeur will later write about, only backward beings who
are capable of respect are also the very ones who can consciously
do evil. However radical, evil can do nothing but make us
cease to be open to the call of conscience. In this sense, evil
remains contingent though ever present. This paradox can be
called the paradox of the ‘quasi-nature of evil’ 88.

Origin of evil

From the question of the radicality Kant proceeds to study the

origin of this radical evil. He distinguishes two meaning of the
term “origin:” a temporal (historical) origin vs. a rational origin.
The temporal notion of origin is reached via historical or literal
reading of the biblical narrative of the fall. For Kant however, this
contradicts the conception of the nature of radical evil as a
degeneration of the subjective foundation of bad maxims. Searching
for the origin of evil in an historical event, one is on the one
hand condemned to apply the idea of the cause to a free act
and on the other hand to depict the narrative of the fall as a decline
to regression. While it is difficult to refrain oneself from a
historical reading of the Bible, one wants to imagine how the old
testament the presents the contingent character of radical evil.
‘Yet we do not have to search for the temporal origin of moral
decisions, which has to be imputed to us, however inevitable it
is, if we want to explain its contingent existence (and it is for
this reason that Scripture, taking account of our weakness, has
been able to present it thus).89 But it has to be maintained that,
even if it supports the representation of contingency, the search
for temporal origin is not suitable in the case of radical evil. In
fact, radical evil is a bad moral realization which is the result of
a free act - and in this sense contingent - and which expresses
the foundation of the bad use of freedom. So it is uniquely in
the representations of reason that the origin of the tendency to
evil should be philosophically considered.

Adopting the rational origin, Kant sets aside the Augustinian

explanation of original sin by heredity and shows himself as
somewhat “pelagian” in orientation. ‘Searching for its rational
origin, all bad action should be regarded as if man immediately
proceeded from the condition of innocence. For whatever has
been his former behavior and whatever the natural causes
acting on him both from inside and outside of him - even so his
action remains free, not at all determined by one of these
causes, so that they can and should always be judged as an original
use of his will90. Kant holds that his conception conforms to
Scripture in that it does not make a unique event out of the
event of the fall, of which we carry the traces by heredity.

Every time we do evil in Adam, i.e. as Adam. For Kant, ‘Adam is the
archetype, the exemplar of this evil present, actually, which we repeat
and imitate every time we begin the evil in time. 91 But for us to begin
evil, it is at the same time doing it and to continuing it. Radical evil
means that evil actually derives from a bad moral constitution
contracted by our freedom. How are we to rationally study this
acquisition of liberty of a bad tendency that serves as the foundation
of all other bad actions in time? Kant admits honestly that the rational
origin of radical evil is hidden from us. ‘As for the rational origin… of
this tendency towards evil, it remains for us fathomless as the origin
itself has to be imputed to us’.92 In the intelligible field of freedom, the
regression to the infinite is impassable; thus we have to renounce to
justifying the adoption of a supreme bad maxim by supposing the
presupposition of a preliminary bad maxim. This assumption
unleashes an undefined process in the search of the first foundation
and would even risk raising the thought that the nature of man is not
a disposition towards the good. This eventually results to the
suppression of rational liberty itself which identifies itself precisely
with the original disposition to the good. With the admission of the
intractable origin of evil, reason admits its defeat. ‘Thus for us there
is no comprehensible foundation from which we could grasp how
moral evil had been able to come to us in the first place. ’ 93 According
to Kant, the Bible itself encounters this defeat as it situates the origin
of evil outside man, ‘in a promised spirit at the origin of an even more
sublime fate’94. As Scriptures do not tell us how it became evil, this
spirit is the figure of the incomprehensive first beginning of evil in
general.

But at the same time, this ‘seducing spirit’ uncovers the limit of the
human malice. Man has only fallen into evil because of seduction and
fundamentally he is not depraved (even following the first disposition
to the good). 95The theme of seduction rejects the affirmation of the
fundamental depravation of man and clears man of the charge of
being the very source or the origin of evil. Doing so, it is the
foundation of the hope of regeneration, building on the permanence in
man of the disposition to the good. ‘Thus in man who is always of
good will, in spite of the degeneration of his heart, hope for a return
to the good of which he is separated remains.’96 This study of radical
evil becomes itself a component of a justified hope. In fact, despite
the presence of radical evil in man, he is not a devilish being – he does
not identify himself with the spirit of evil - , he keeps a will capable of
moral sense and liberty. Paul Ricouer affirms: ‘thus the admission of
the inscrutability of evil does not close off the road of explanation but
keeps the door of regeneration open’. 97

Surpassing of Evil

Kant dedicates the remains of his book (books II to IV) to the problem
of the restoration of the lost power of freedom. He deals with the
theological themes of salvation, such as conversion, mercy,
justification, the sacraments, and the Church. In it, religion appears
to be manifested apart from philosophy. In fact, religion does not
seem to offer reward, but the operation itself of the radical change of
heart. Thus Kant proposes to examine the structure of religion, i.e.
the channels it offers to the power of regeneration, which is the
representation, faith and institution98. It is not in our interest to pass
through the entire book, only to see how the surpassing of evil is
accomplished, which is the central theme in it, and the solution Kant
proposes in the end. In particular, we wish to show how reason,
beyond the limits of its comprehension, opens the space, at least in a
tentative fashion, to what surpasses it and could have been the proper
field of a revealed historical religion.

The recovery of the original disposition to the good presents itself

above all as an indubitable possibility. In fact, in spite of the evil
profoundly rooted in man’s heart the ethical commandment to convert
himself continues to resound in his conscience with all intensity. In
light of this unbreakable moral link that exists between conscience
and duty, they both attest equally to the existence of a corresponding
power. That is, despite radical evil, man does not cease to take up
the obligation to improve himself and he always has the power as well
to do this. This is why for Kant it belongs to man, as he has the
duty, to work on his liberation from evil; restoring in him the
purity of his moral intention.

However, immediately a question rises; if man can, because he

has to do it to rectify his maxims even unceasingly, does the power
to regenerate the nature of his freedom that has turn bad only
reside in his own efforts? The event of the conversion is just as
incomprehensible as the defeat. How is it possible that a man
with this tendency to evil makes out of himself a good man ?
This surpasses philosophical concepts: how can a bad tree bear
good fruits?99. So it cannot be seen how a man can change his
depraved heart, even if he perceives the obligation in his
conscience to do so. If in the foundation of his maxims man is
depraved, how is it possible that he effects a turnabout in his own
efforts and become a good man by himself?100.

According Kant, doubting the effectivity of our own might does

nothing to dispense man of the duty to effect in himself an
improvement; engaging all his person and all his forces if
necessary. Every acceptance of doubt leading to the suppression
or the weakening of this effort is a surrender to superstition and
the deformation of true religion. This is what happens to the
religions of cult that condemns man to believe that he can make
himself pleasing to God even without his personal moral effort
through the remedy of prayer and other cultic practices. Here
Kant shows himself as inflexible : All that man imagines he can
do more than behaving well to become pleasing to God is
nothing but a religious illusion and wrong cult. 101However,
always in virtue of the moral link between duty and ability, the
person who does all within his might to make himself better, may
legitimately hope that what does not depend on his might will
be completed by an assistance provided from on high. 102 When
it is only allowed to expect this ‘supernatural help’ on this
condition, Kant affirms that it is not absolutely necessary for man
to know what it consists of, all the more because the way of
conceiving it changes inevitably with time. Also Kant adopts the
following principle: it is neither essential nor necessary to anyone
to know what God has done for his salvation, but to know what
he has to do himself, in order to be worthy of this help’ 103.

The hope for a supernatural help opens reason to a religion

which is not anymore completely defined within the limits of
simple reason as moral religion still is. The field that is opened is
no longer that of the postulates of practical reason which are
necessary for moral life. It is that of ‘ transcendent ideas’ as the
effects of grace, miracle and mysteries and means of grace; ideas
that belong truly to historical religion and that Kant, in the final
note of the first part calls ‘ parerga’ or ‘ accessories ‘ of religion
within the limits of pure reason. 104 These ideas , to which reason
is raised, recognizing the insufficiency of its own forces, constitute
the integral parts of this field and limit it . Also reason cannot
appropriate them by considering their speculative or practical use.
Far from increasing our knowledge of the intelligible world, they
proclaim simply the possibility of a gracious event capable of
pulling man from his situation of slavery, they open the field to a
humble faith in divine help that cannot be absent from the
human effort to convert himself. As a consequence, they are the
subject of a ‘reflecting faith’. However, reason cannot make a
practical use of these ‘ideas’. For even if divine help is possible, man
must in no way count on this assistance. It is not a substitute to his
moral effort, and its reception does not depend on any other
condition (e.g. prayer and other cultic practices) other than on
moral behavior. The only thing man can do to obtain the grace of
conversion is his moral effort.

A. 1. 2. 5 Hope as a paradox of effort and gift

Exploring the conditions for the possibility of the restoration of
the original good in man. Kant affirms the indispensable
character of moral effort and acceptability of divine assistance.
However, he excludes the possibility that the man can make practical
or theoretical use of parerga. In fact, this conception only attempts
to find a solution to get out of the fundamental antinomy,
instituted by the theological problem of justification. The antinomy
offers answers to the question posed by radical evil, which is: if
man is radically evil, how can he do what he does? Two theses
face each other in this antinomy; that of justification by faith and
that of the justification of works.

According to the first, only a supernatural and external aid can give
man this capacity thanks to an expiation accomplished by the Christic
event of salvation. In this external expiation salvation is obtained by
faith. According to the second, man himself is responsible for his
salvation by acting in conformity to his duty to reform. This
last thesis, presented in the dynamics of the moral credo,
presupposes the efficiency of liberty remains intact, that is in spite
of radical evil.

Kant intervenes in the debate, avoiding choosing one or the other

thesis. In fact he deems that the antimony is constitutive of faith
and that it is correct to interpret the theses by refraining from both
extremes and accepting on that which is reasonably acceptable. On
the one hand he refuses the recovery of liberty by effusion, thanks to
faith only, of a gift outside of all moral intention. This solution
constitutes ‘the moral assault to human reason’ 105 and mar the motor
of morality, for no gift, not even a divine one, will be able to substitute
for our liberty. On the other hand, moral faith forgets that evil,
precisely because it is radical, has radically marred our liberty. Also
a ‘good disposition cannot proceed from a radical evil that is in the
will; no change of heart will be possible without a gift, without a
fathomless aid’.106 Thus the necessity of keeping together human
effort and the divine gift.

Kant however, can be faulted to have reduced the gift of grace to

human effort. Because for Kant, saving faith is not an effective faith
in the historical person of Christ; the Christ event for Kant is but the
archetype of humanity totally agreeable to God (the son of God)’. 107
This archetype is in itself identical to an Idea of moral reason, serving
as the rule and motif of behaviour. Thus understood, sanctifying
faith does not differ from rational faith; both have the same object,
which is ‘one and the same practical idea’; but only represented
differently. For sanctifying faith this idea ‘represents the archetype
as it is found in God and proceeds from him’, whereas for the rational
faith it represents it ‘as a remainder in us’. But in both cases ‘it
represents the archetype as the rule that guides behavior’. 108

The solution as proposed by Kant finally maintains the priority of the

demand of good behaviour. In fact, according to him, ‘what must be
imputed as a good ethical operation should not see the light of the day
through a strange influence, but only through the best possible use of
our own forces’.109 This solution endangers by practically abolishing
the other aspects of the problem, clearly acknowledged by reason, as
the impossibility of regenerating the marred freedom of man
exclusively by one’s own force. But Kant evades the risk insofar as
he has finally transformed the antimony as a paradox, keeping the
possibility open for a collaboration between grace and freedom in
the work of regeneration. “But the impossibility of grace ( in such a
way that the two moments can co-exist) is not to be proved because
freedom itself, though in concept it contains nothing
supranational , in its own possibility remains for us as unintelligible
as the supernatural, to which one would like to attach to make up
spontaneous destination, but deficient to freedom. 110 The paradox of
the synergy of grace and freedom leads to an essential paradox of
human reality: the presence of a freedom in us which all by itself,
as given to itself. As reason acknowledges freedom, whereas it has
a structure just as unintelligible as that of the coexistence in us of
grace and freedom, it cannot be contrary to reason to also
acknowledge the possibility of that coexistence and, as a
consequence, of their co-action. The paradox of grace and freedom
truly expresses in an even stronger way what the same tension
between immanence and transcendence that already characterizes
the original structure of freedom. Theoretical reasons are not
capable of resolving this paradox that asks to keep these elements
strongly united which our concepts are by nature not capable of
understanding and reconciling, even if God wished to reveal them to
us.111 But , by manifesting the limits of reason, this paradox shows
that it can be sensible to open the heart to a confident hope in a gift
which, in a way only known to God, is capable of regenerating our
efforts without destroying them nor making them superfluous. On
the contrary, this gift would have the capacity to heal and to reinforce
our capacity to do good and as a consequence our freedom. Thus we
may hope for the gift, for Kant neither suppresses nor minimizes the
moral effort; on the contrary the gift presupposes it and brings it to its
total achievement. Such is the philosophical justification of hope he
proposes for our meditation.

A. 1. 2. 6 An open track

The antinomy of justification conducts reason to its limits, thus

opening the way for a completely new and different field: that of the
positive or revealed religion. This field remains problematic, as
reason is incapable of determining its objective nature. It can, at
best, use analogy to determine the link between the field of the
supernatural and the field of the natural. This field of supernatural is
not only incomprehensible for reason, it is also ‘paradoxical:’ i.e., it
contains Contrasting Affirmations that reasons judge’s incompatible,
seen as contradictory, rather than measuring the extent of their
logical compatibility. So rational concepts are not able to express the
paradox of justification and religion cannot speak about it without
turning to symbolic language. Furthermore , Kant expressly declares
that the admission of evil and the confession of salvation is done in
symbolic language. He writes: ‘this divine language might be
mysterious at that point were God could at best reveal it to us in a
symbolic representation.’ More generally , Kant recognizes the
symbolic nature of religious language and founds it on the necessity in
which human reasons finds itself, in virtue of its limitation, to present
super - sensible reality on the model of the sensible . ‘In order to be
able to grasp the super – sensible properties, we always need to resort
to a certain analogy with the beings of nature… It is the schematising
of analogy we cannot eliminate.
To schematize means to procure an image to a concept. There is no
concept of the supernatural; we only have a rational idea of it. This is
why we make use of analogy. Starting from the sensible, through
schematization, one obtains a representation of what goes beyond
understanding and cannot find any adequate intuition in our
experience. So the symbol as an indirect representation of the
rational idea; this idea becomes present through the intuition of the
concept which can have a proportional relation with it. But, as for
Kant the schematising directs itself to the infinite (and not to the
finite), the schematising of analogy can never be determinate. It does
not give knowledge of the nature of the super – sensible reality, it
simply hands a representation allowing us to understand its relation
to us. He simply says this: “the super-sensible reality behaves
morally in our regard as if …” Consequently, for Kant the use of
analogy is valid only as long as we do not attempt to define the
objective nature of the super-sensible reality itself; it is only indicative
of our relation with the super-sensible.

However it should be said that this relation is perceived against the

background of reflective judgement. The symbol evokes a reflection
that could lead to a primordial knowledge different from the
conceptual knowledge that resulting from determinate judgement.
Besides, it is worth mentioning that Kant affirms the presence of
symbol in theoretical language. Our language is full of these indirect
representations, following an analogy the expression of which does
not contain the schema for the concept, but only a symbol for
reflection. This is true for the words foundation (support, base),
depending (being kept up), arising from something (to follow),
substance (as locke said, the support of the accidents) and many other
hypostases, not schematic but symbolic, and expressions of concept to
which an intuition to another concept do not use a direct intuition and
may never directly proceed or correspond. As a consequence, the
keywords of theoretical discourse are impregnated with symbolism.
What is exceptionally true for the theoretical discourse is even more
true and essential for the religious discourse. As Kant declares in the
same paragraph, theoretical knowledge is a symbolic knowledge
already recognized as a simple way of representation (which is
permitted, if it is not a principle to theoretically determine what the
object is in itself, but to practically determine what the idea of this
object must be for us and the suitable use of it). All knowledge of God
is purely symbolic… Unfortunately, this recognition of the symbolic
nature of religious language turns shortly. In fact, Kant brings the
bearing of symbolic language to the analogy of proportionality, the
purpose of which is simply to make known not the nature of the
supernatural itself, but its relation with our moral life. It is this
doctrine of analogy, developed in paragraph 58 of the prolegomena
that Kant in the religion, applies to Christological and Trinitarian
affirmations. These do not teach us anything about the reality of god
in Godself; they simply indicate in an analogical-symbolical language,
God’s behaviour to us from the ethical point of view.

However it can be asked whether the antimony of practical reason,

unleashed by the existential situation of radical evil, does not demand
something more. In fact it leads us to the idea of a supernatural aid
representing a specific paradox. Not only can it not be expressed by
any concept, but no analogy of proportionality with our sensible world
can be imagined by way of its representation. Therefore religious
language that expresses religion has to turn to a symbolism that goes
beyond the simple analogy of what happens in the world. It has to be
symbol with literally the power to unveil the possibilities and realities
that surpass the limits of our expression. But Paul Ricoeur states
correctly that Kant does not dispose of a philosophy of religious
imagination that would have permitted him to work out such a
conception of the symbol.

And yet, he drew its outlines with his doctrine of aesthetical

imagination, which has the power to create and to present aesthetical
ideas, ‘The aesthetical idea (is) a representation of the imagination
which gives a lot to think about, however without some determined
thought, i.e. some adequate concept; no language can express it
entirely, nor make it intelligible. –It can easily be seen that the
counterpart of a rational idea is an opposing concept to which no
intuition ‘(representation of imagination) can be adequate. 118 As a
consequence, with the aesthetical idea Kant conceives the possibility
of a ‘representation of imagination’ no determined thought could
equal, nor, even less, exhaust. Though it is a representation of
imagination, the aesthetical idea is a true idea, as ‘it tends to what is
beyond the limits of experience’. 119 Precisely for this reason no
concept can be completely adequate to it. It is richer that any
concept attempting to grasp it. It gives thought without ceasing. ‘In
one work, the aesthetical idea is a representation of imagination
associated with a given concept and which find itself united with such
a variety of partial representation, freely employed, that one cannot
find an expression that give it as a determined concept; as a result it
leads one to think of a concept of many inexpressible things of which
the sentiment animates the faculties to know, inspiring a soul to a
letter of the language.’120 With his aesthetical ideas as representation
of the creative imagination richer than all conceptual knowledge, Kant
has opened a way that other philosophers took, presenting the symbol
as a product of religious imagination, open to intuition and capable of
expressing supernatural truth, and establishing the inexhaustible
source of conceptual thought.

It is with this possibility, proposed to prosperity, that we finish the

discourse on the Kantian philosophy of religion. Though other
themes would deserve equal attention, we deliberately limited
ourselves to the problem of the generation of freedom. Besides its
central place, this problem has the advantage of revealing the
admirable honesty of Kantian reason that does not hesitate to bow
respectfully before the mystery of God that, at the borders of
philosophy, is announced by taking the initiative of salvation. The
humble confession of the limits of human power has as a consequence
the highlighting of the importance attributed to morals does not keep
Kant from anticipating and opening the field of religion beyond
himself. Hope really constitutes the heart of religion and symbols
form its specific way of expression. However, it is regrettable that
because of his ethical preoccupation his analysis of analogy is
incomplete and thus eclipsing the excessive power of the revelation of
the symbol.
A. 1. 2. 7 Biographical Indication

Text of Kant

Critique de la raison pure, Paris, PUF, 1963. (Canon de la

raison pure); Critique de la raison pratique, Paris, PUF, 1949,
(Dialectique); Critique du judgement, Paris, Vrin, 1960. (49 and 59);
La religion dans les limites de

Literature

Karl BARTH, La theologieproteste au Dix-neuvieme siècle,

Geneve, Labor et Fides, 1969, pp. 135 – 173; Jean-Louis BRUCH, La
philosophiereligiesuse de Kant, Paris, Aubier, 1968; Giovanni
FERRERRI, Ontologia e teologia in Kant , Torino, Rosenberg &Sellirt,
1997; Bernard Haring, Le Sacre et le bien, Paris, Ed. Fleurus, 1963,
pp. 101 – 120; Karl Jaspers, Le mal radical chez Kant, in Bilan et
perspectives, DDB, 1956; Paul RICOEUR, Le conflit des
interpretations, Paris, Seuil, 1969, pp. 393 – 415; Lectures 3, Paris,
Seuil, 1994, pp. 19 – 40.

A. 2 THE SPECULATIVE TYPE

The speculative type is characterized by its attempt to understand

religion (its essence, its historical manifestations, its evolution and its
truth) in the framework of most global metaphysical system. This
system may be admitted (Hegel and Schelling) or implicit
(Schleiermacher). As time is pressing, we will only present the
approach of Schleiermacher, which we in future hope to complete
with the views of Hegel and Schelling.

A. 2. 1. F. D. E Schleiermacher (1768-1834); Religion as

Intuition and Feeling
A. 2. 1. 1 The Status of Philosophy of Religion

Critical Reflexive Discipline

Though he did not publish a work under the title of ‘philosophy of

religion’, Schleiermacher is considered as a pioneer of this discipline.
In his Discourse on Religion121, he developed a true philosophy of
religion through the themes he studied and by assigning to religion a
place in his disciplined system of sciences122. According to
Schleiermacher, philosophy of religion is a reflexive science. As
such, it depends on ethics as far as their subject is human activity,
considered as an expression of religion at work in nature. In its effort
to establish unity between reason and nature, ethics considers the
final being under the predominance of reason. Nature is the work of
reason which ‘dwells’ in it makes it into its body. Thus reason
performs an organizing and constructive activity which makes nature
into its dwelling; it is realized in nature. And by connecting itself to
it, it makes of nature its ‘symbol’ in such a way that it knows itself
through its symbolic activity and as such through its productions. So
ethics proposes a discovery of laws according to which reason
performs its action in history and which expresses the becoming true
of reason in the world. Earth, which occupies a central place in of
Schleiermacher’s system of knowledge, is in fact a reflexive science or
a philosophy of culture and history; and it ‘constitutes the speculative
basis of all the discipline which is concerned with the historical
human existence’123.

Religion, a cultural reality, figures among the subjects studied by

ethics; and the philosophical reflection which studies religion is a part
of ethical reflection. In this way, philosophy of religion differs from
the empirical history of the religions. Its aim will not be to report on
the different religious events one finds in the world, philosophy of
religion aims to show historical events that realize or embody the
“religious form” that is defined by speculative thought. So
philosophy of religion is a critical discipline which realizes the coming
together of the historical and the speculative. Its task is ‘the critical
exposition of historical religious forms in which religion appears in
human nature; it is not a history, for its objective is not to relate the
different religious forms but to show how these, each in their own
way, concretize and instantiate “the essence of all religion” and
thereby to be able to judge whether a particular religion merits this
name’124. It is clear that as a consequence of this, Schleiermacher
effectively sets on to first develop a conception of philosophy of
religion to capture the meaning which is mostly attributed to it. His
objective is nothing but ‘to outline the general essence of religion, just
as it is expressed in all historical religions, and further to examine the
objective value and contents of the truth of the concept of religion
which is thus defined. In itself, this in an indication of the
importance of religion for human culture’. 125

Autonomous Discipline

Though ethics is the very heart of Schleiermacher’s system of

reflexive sciences, philosophy of religion, for him constitutes an
autonomous discipline. Schleiermacher establishes this autonomy by
determining the specificity of religion (and as a consequence of the
philosophy of religion). He accomplishes this by defining religion
positively, first by disassociating it from related disciplines such as
theology, metaphysics and morals.

First of all, philosophy of religion differs from theology. According to

Schleiermacher the latter is a positive science; whose origin is a
determined form of religious experience, it defines a certain type of
thought which corresponds to this point of departure and from which
it deduces beliefs and norms that are authorized and imposed on the
faithful by this way of belief. As such, theology has a practical end; it
serves the government of the church because it aims to order and give
direction to a confessing community. Thus Understood, theology
needs to be preceded by a ‘philosophical theology that should define
religion (which it studies)… starting from the general concept of a
pious community.’126 It is this part of theology which maintains a
necessary relationship with philosophy of religion. Philosophical
theology tries to define a certain type of religious life, it supposes at
least a preliminary knowledge of the reality about religion concerns
itself. This is why it demands beforehand a well-defined general
concept of religion. The opening of the Glaubenslehre with an
introduction which resumes the contents of ethical thought, ‘shows
clearly the importance of conducting theology with religion’. 127

Furthermore, philosophy of religion is different from metaphysics and

morals. In fact, it is a central theme of Schleiermacher that in its
essence religion is absolutely distinct from metaphysics and morals;
though it is just as absolutely united with them. 128 This dissociation is
important, as it harmonizes with the apologetic intention of his
“Discourse on religion.” His essay intends to correct the usual
mistake of confusing “religious phenomenon” by succumbing to the
temptation of reducing religion either to metaphysics and/or morals.
This temptation is, however, understandable given the fact that
religion is always exposed to metaphysical speculation and cannot be
separated from moral demands. But it is important to free religion of
such deforming and alienating conceptions and to recover its original
nature; that essence that is irreducible to metaphysics and morals.
Even when religion unites itself with these two disciplines, i.e., the
universe and the relation of man with it, religion maintains a relation
sui generis with these disciplines making itself a specific reality of
human life, ‘having a province in heart which belongs to itself’, 129
Though it can be said that these three philosophies have the same
subject, their objective differs.

Metaphysics aims to know the universe through the classification of

beings in categories, and to ascend to the first causes and thereby
deducing the necessity of reality. Religion has nothing to do with the
God-being of metaphysics, that is, like a key that unlocks the secrets
and ultimate explanatory principles of the universe. In its turn,
morals have a normative task to deduce from the nature of man and
from his relation with the universe a system of duties prescribed and
forbidden actions. By dissociating religion from metaphysics and
morals, Schleiermacher aims to tread a third way that distinguishes
itself in thought and action, allowing us to understand religion in its
specificity. His decision implies a precise hermeneutical option: the
necessity of a ‘tautegorical’ interpretation of religious phenomena’. 130
This option expresses the firm conviction that ‘even where we do not
completely accept the maxim that religion can only be comprised
through itself, i.e. according the criteria of intelligibility it provides
itself, we always fall into the trap of using deformed grids and norms
that come either from morals or metaphysics’. 131 Schleiermacher
attempts a study that can qualify itself as a phenomenology; that is,
taking as starting point, the phenomenon itself of religious
experience, in what appears to the conscience, he tries to reach the
authentic being, the Sosein of this phenomenon. In other words,
starting from a lived experience or from a testimony of the heroes of
religion; he attempts to capture the essence of the religious
experience, to apprehend what is central in religion and what
constitutes its true nature.

A Speculative Idea Underlying the Discipline

Earlier we have shown how because of its dependence on ethics,

philosophy of religion as a speculative discipline is in search of a
critical way to apprehend the forms of speculative thought realized in
the different historical manifestations of religion. Thus the
interpretation of the religious phenomenon is guided by the
fundamental axiom of the Ethik according to which ‘ knowing and
being are nothing to us but in their relation with each other’. 132 So
there is a corresponding relation between being and knowing. To
specific being corresponds a specific knowledge. To the supreme
being corresponds a supreme knowing which is united and identified
by the two poles. But a supreme being or supreme knowledge does
not have a separate status. The supreme being does not exist in
reality as thing or as an activity; it merely serves as foundation for all
things and all activity. In just the same way the supreme knowledge
is not given in awareness, but constitutes the foundation and interior
source of all specific science. This means that the supreme being
presents and actualizes itself in final beings and that the supreme
knowledge corresponding with it is expressed and actualized in the
knowledge of final beings. This speculative idea, principally of
Spinozan origin, according to Schleiermacher guides the
interpretation of religion. For him the diversity of individual and
historical manifestations of religion is the revelation of the infinite
One. The fundamental conviction underlying his thinking is that the
Infinite is the power of action expressing and manifesting itself in the
heart of the finite and that religion constitutes the privileged place
where this manifestation happens.

A. 2. 1. 2 The Essence of the Religious Phenomenon

The conviction animating the negative and polemic delimitation of

religion is that it has its own field and its singular characteristic which
distinguish it from thought and action. We will now have to look at
how Schleiermacher precisely defines the specific nature of religion,
expressing itself in the spiritual role it takes in man and in history.

The Religious Experience

The central affirmation differentiating religion from metaphysics and

morals, maintains that the awareness of oneself constitutes the
foundation of the religious experience In fact, in terms of the
Glaubenslehre, religion is a certain determination of the awareness of
oneself133. To determine the kind of awareness of oneself that has a
religious character, it is necessary to indicate the characteristics of
such an awareness according to Schleiermacher.

The awareness is a psychological status produced in man as he comes

in contact with the exterior world and/or the presence of other human
beings. Thus the otherness is at the same time the condition of his
birth and constitutive element of his being. In fact, the awareness is
always double: it is the awareness of oneself and awareness of the
world one at the same time. In this awareness the I and the beyond-I
are separated; we become aware that we are a specific existence and
that beyond ourselves others things exist. Thus the awareness
contains a double objective and subjective dimension. It is aware of
the reality acting on it and arousing it (objective dimension); and at
the same time it is aware of the way in which it is affected by this
reality (subjective dimension). Religion belongs essentially to the
subjective moment of the awareness or to the nature of the awareness
of oneself.

A further definition allows us to further determine the context of the

nature of awareness of oneself and to what extent it is religious. The
awareness is not only the certitude of the duality of the I and not-I. It
offers itself at same time as certitude of unity or at least of reciprocity
of awareness of the world and awareness of oneself. This is double:
on the one hand we have the individual unity of the present self (the I
on one hand and the world on the other); on the other hand we have
the unity of their encounter passing all opposition. Not only do I
become aware that I am unified facing the united world, but further I
become aware that I am nothing but one with the universe which is
one in itself. I discover myself as an individual existent in the heart
of an all of which I am part. The unity of the universe should neither
be understood as the theoretical vision of the totality of our
knowledge of the world, nor as the whole object of our will but as the
unity present in the concrete reality of the individual existent acting
in reality and the awareness of the self as a small part of that universe
evokes and constitutes this religious phenomenon.

Moreover it is the awareness that allows for knowing the unity of the
universe as inseparable from the awareness of the infinite. To know
oneself as totally immersed as a part of the universe is to experience
oneself as a finite facing an infinite in the very heart of an infinite.
‘The awareness contemplating the world lets itself to be filled with
sentiments of the infinite of this world, it recognize its finitude in the
infinite by the accepting the actions on it of the infinite. In man and
in all that is finite it perceives the infinite’. 134 Thus the awareness of
oneself in its essence is always awareness of a finite connected to an
infinite, the universe. We can conclude with Simon in the following
words. ‘Thus the awareness of oneself realizes an experience of
Absolute, finding in all objects in the world, acts of man and his
nature, the presence of this infinite, which is united with the universe.
The unity which constitutes us and unites us to the world, this
Absolute can also be called God… The awareness of oneself is
awareness of God, it is Erleben of God, it is the being of God in us.’135
Thus religion is the awareness of oneself experiencing one’s finitude
as the effect of the presence of the infinite acting on it. This is why it
finds the one in the many and the infinite in the finite.
Schleiermacher defines religion as the ‘feeling and taste of the
infinite.’’

Later Schleiermacher would define religion as ‘the sentiment of

absolute dependence. This concept, which would only occupy the
essence of the concept of religion in the Dialektik and the
Glaunbenslehre, is in reality a deepening and a bringing to the fore of
the relation of dependence which binds the finite to the infinite in the
awareness of oneself. The understanding of one’s being both as an
effect and the indwelling of the infinite is simultaneously the
understanding of oneself as being completely in debt towards the
infinite. As we deal with the sentiment of dependence of the finite, it
cannot be anything but absolute. This is why religion is the
experience of an absolute dependence, ours and that of the world.
The fourth proposition of the Glaubenslehre expresses it clearly: the
common character of all manifestation of piety, as different as they
are and by which the latter is at the same time distinct from all the
other sentiments… is that we are aware of ourselves as absolutely
depending or as an in relation with God, which is the same’. 136

The concept of absolute dependence is understood by analyzing the

human experience of freedom which is both spontaneity and
receptivity. In our relation with things and with others we
experience an initiative which implies receptivity. As a consequence,
we have a sense that our freedom is not absolute, as it can only be
affected by receiving what it does not initiate. Our initiative is always
directed towards an object which in a certain way is given to us and
which acts on us soliciting both our reception and our action. As far
as a given object affects our initiative, it causes in us a feeling of
relative dependence. However, the awareness of our limited freedom
is always accompanied by the awareness of our absolute dependence.
The awareness of our freedom is not only awareness of the limit of the
power it exercises, it is also awareness of the fact that our own
spontaneity has its source other than ourselves. Freedom is not only
the relative reception of the object of its initiative; it is in a sense an
absolute reception of its own being. It is this fundamental receptivity
of a freedom which receives itself from a source that is other than
itself that Schleiermacher calls the experience of absolute
dependence. According to him the awareness of this absolute
dependence is awareness of God, as such that God is recognized as
the source of our being and towards whom the feeling of dependence
is directed. God is the source of our spontaneous and receptive
existence. 137 This God grasped in the awareness of the absolute
dependence can only be affirmed as that which is at the origin of our
absolute dependence. The awareness of God implies the awareness
of oneself as dependent; such awareness recognizes the existence of
God as condition and origin of the feeling of absolute dependence.
So it can be affirmed that the existence of God is the condition and
origin of our feeling of absolute dependence. So it can be affirmed
that in the awareness of oneself as absolute dependence, God is
originally given to us, for this awareness is simultaneously the
confession of our radical contingence and the recognition of our origin
in God. With Simon the conception of religion according to
Schleiermacher can be expressed as: ‘religion is defined by this
experience of awareness of myself as awareness of myself in relation
to the world which in turn constitutes the experience myself as a
small part of an all which at the same time a unity, as a finite reality of
an infinite immanence to all finite, as absolute dependence on an
absolute which conditions all existence… Religiousness is a true
seizing of the awareness by the reality of the absolute’. 138 Thus
religion is identified with the awareness of oneself where in its
deepest essence this awareness of its absolute dependence. So it is
rooted in the being of man to whom it is revealed as his deepest
essence which connects him to radical dependence.

Schleiermacher attributes the religious experience to a specific

faculty in man which he calls the ‘feeling and taste for the infinite’ or
the ‘faculty to feel’. Equally he localizes this religious sense not in
reason but in the gamüt (the soul or the heart). To him religion is a
truth that appeals to the soul and not to reason; religion is a case for
the Gemüt. It is in the soul or the heart that the religious disposition
resides, the religious sense which is natural in every man. The term
Gemüt is difficult to translate because of its varied use in the days of
Schleiermacher. However it can be traced back to the mystical
tradition, for example, of Master Eckhart for whom Gemüt contains a
plurality of spiritual powers. It is a deeper reality than the reason
and it is the wellspring of emotion, volition and thought. It is the
inmost part of the human being and it is in this deepest reality of man,
where the religious experience happens. Gemüt is bears two
essential aspects: intuition (Anschaung) and feeling (Gefuhl).

As indicated earlier, the awareness of oneself is both the awareness of

a reality acting on it and the awareness of the effect produced in it by
that reality. Intuition concerns the objective dimension of the
awareness where the feeling points out the subjective dimension.
Thus intuition relates to an object that affects the awareness.
Religious intuition is characterized by its object, which is ‘the
universe as infinite unity and all elements of the universe as infinite
unity and all elements of the universe as revelatory of that unity’. 139
So religious intuition is the capacity to consider all that happens as an
action coming from God or the universe. Every intuition for
Schleiermacher is at the origin, a vision of the world which forms a
singular essence of the infinite. This is why it is impossible to form a
system of intuitions and that, contrary to metaphysics, ‘the proper
task of religion consists in the faculty to reunite the infinite to the
interiority of the individual’. 140

But intuition is inseparable from feeling; this essentially expresses the

interiority of man that is made known to us in the way that we are
affected by the object of intuition. Even the most personal to us,
feeling is not a being in itself; it merely points out the unity of an
intention towards the world and of a sentiment of the self. In the
feeling as sentiment, I become aware of my intimate being and its
tendencies, of the being of the objects afflicting me and the link of co-
naturality between my being and other beings. Thus, in all that
affects the subject, at the very same time an exterior action is posed,
it evokes in us a corresponding interior state or sentiment.

The constitutive feeling of religious experience appears when the

awareness of oneself notices that it is but one with the universe as a
totality comprising our being and that of the world. The religious
feeling makes us experience transcendence as the unity of the
universe as the true subject acting to man, who himself in essence is
receptivity. This action of the universe or of God evokes in us an
‘affection’ which we experience as an absolute dependence. The
sentiment of absolute dependence also forms the essence of religion.
It is the Knowledge of the infinite or of the absolute being of God
which is unveiled in the depth of the human being. This why ‘through
feeling religion is the immediate and original being of God’. 141

The religious feeling, being awareness of our absolute dependence,

finds its origin in the relation being taken absolutely. It is the
awareness of experienced unity of our being with the transcendent
being. And this unity with the transcendent source is experienced
beyond all duality of the subject and the object. The feeling
expresses our primitive relation with the foundation, a relation which
constitutes both the invisible and original birth moment of thought
and will. The feeling affirms the reality of the absolute being that
action (or the practical order can) only postulate.

But at the same time this sentiment provokes thought and action as
far as it links our entire existence to beings and to Absolute Being by
desire and love. This is why the two concepts of intuition and feeling
are coordinated. ‘One cannot experience the infinity of the universe
without having made an image of it and one cannot make such an
image without being impressed by the world.’1 Between intuition and
sentiment, a necessary reciprocity exists: there is neither intuition
without sentiment nor sentiment without intuition. Paraphrasing
Kant, it can be said that without sentiment, intuition is empty; and
that sentiment is blind without intuition.

In conclusion, we should say something about the object of the

religious awareness. To determine the object of the sentiment of
absolute dependence, Schleiermacher uses a great diversity of terms
which he presents as inter-exchangeable: Infinite, Eternal, One and
All, Universe, Spirit of the World, Divine, and God. But most are the
terms Infinite and Universe, which are otherwise identifiable with God
as universe is an immanent or a transcendent reality; whether it is
confused with the world or whether it is distinct from it. It is
important to note that Schleiermacher defines God (Infinite or
Universe) as a function of the feeling of the absolute dependence; that
is, as the absolute reality which conditions the awareness of my
dependence. So God is understood as the source that produces in me
and from whom flows the sentiment I have of being absolutely
dependent. Schleiermacher expresses his conception of the universe
or God primarily through: the concept of activity and that of unity.
God or the Universe is the living and eternal power which produces
all that exists in a continuous activity. It is the absolute unity without
division, which constitutes the unity of all the beings and of every
individual being. In all that is finite, life-giving power of the infinite is
expressed so that for the religious awareness all finite reality is the
symbol of the infinite which transcends it.
12
On the problematic character of the philosophy of religion see the
article of Giovanni FERRETTI, Filosofiadella religion, in the
DizionarioTeologicointerdisciplinare, vol 1, Marietti, 1977, pp 151-
152.
13
Cf. Jean GREISCH, La Philosophie de la religion devant le fait
chrẻtien, in: Introduction ảl’ẻtude de la thẻologie, edited by Joseph
DORE, vol. I Paris, Desclẻe, 1991, pp 244-252.
14
Ibid. p. 246.
15
Ibid. p. 246.
16
Ibid. p. 247.
17
Ibid. p. 247. For a more detailed analysis on the origin of the
concept ‘ philosophy of religion’ cf. K. FEIEREIS, Die Umprägung
der natὓrlichenTheologie in
Religionsphilosophie.EinBeitragzurdeutschen
Geistesgeschichte des 18.Jahrhunderts, Leipzig, 1965; J. Collins, The
Emergency of Philosophy of Religion, New Haven-London, 1969.
18
On this distinction, see H. DUMERY, Critique et religion,
Problẻmes de mẻthode en philosophie de la Religion, Paris, 1957, pp.
7-10.
19
J. GREISCH, La philosophie de la religion, p 249.
20
Cf. J. GREISCH, La philosophie de la religion, pp 252-259; E.
BRITO, Filosofiadella religion, Milano, Jaca Book, 1993, pp 10-12.
21
We retake here the presentation of J. GREISCH, on the principal
positions of the study of H. LÜBBE, Religion nach der Aufklärung,
Graz, Styria, 1986.
22
J. GREISCH, op. Cit., p 253.
23
Ibid. p 253.
24
Ibid. p 253.
25
Ibid. p 254.
26
Ibid. p 254.
26
Ibid. p 255.
27
Ibid. p 256.
28
Ibid. p 256.
29
Ibid. p 258. On this topic see the work of J. GREISCH, L’ Age
hermẻneutique de la raison.coll. ‘Cogitatiofidei’. Paris, Cerf,
1985.
30
Ibid. p 258-259.
31
Cf. Henry DUMERY, Critique et religion, p. 37.

32
Cf. G. FERRETTI, Filosofiadella religion, pp 153-154.
33
Cf. Colloquium heptaplomeres (1593).
34
Cf. De iure belli ac pacis (1625).
35
We use the edition of La Plẻiade: SPINOZA, Oeuvres complẻtes, Paris,
Gallimard, 1954. Useful to consult is: S. BRETON, Spinoza Thẻologie et
politique, Paris, Desclẻe, 1977; S. ZAC, Philosophie, thẻologie,
politiquedansl’oeuvre de Spinoza, Paris, Vrin, 1979; G. RIPANTI,
Ermeneuticadellafede e filosofiadellareligione, in: P. GRASSI (ed.), Filosofia
della religion, pp 23-29.
36
TTP, p 666; See as well the title page of the Traitẻ, p. 662.
37
The word ‘theology’ has most often the meaning of faith, but it means
as well Church or Institution, see as well learned discourse or theological
knowledge. As for the term ‘politics’, this is to be understood as
political thing (res publica), as nation (civitas) and as authority (imperium)
38
TTP ch. 13, pp 852-853.
39
SPINOZA, Ehique, IV, pr. 2, 3, 4. , pp 549-550.
40
Cf. TTP, ch. VII, pp 767-790.
41
TTP, VII, p 768
42
TTP, VII, p 770. ‘The meaning of the Scriptures is founded only the
Scriptures and has to be Revealed by itself’ (p 788).
43
‘In fact as well as the method used in the interpretation of nature
consists essentially of first of all considering nature as an observer
and, after thus having reunited the given certainties, concluding out
of it definitions of natural things, as well for interpreting the
Scriptures it isnecessary to acquire a exact historical knowledge of it
and, once having this knowledge, which is to stay of givens and
certain principles, one can conclude as a legitimate consequence the
thinking of the authors of
the Scriptures. ’ (TTP, VII, pp 768-769).
44
TTP, VII, p 773.
45
The considerations on the essence of religion are dispersed in
chapters 12-15 of the TTP; but it is above all Chapter 13, that gives the
eesentials.
46
Cf. TTP, XII, p 842.
47
TTP, XII, p 846.
48
Cf. TTP XIII, p 853.
49
TTP, XIII, p 858.
50
Cf. TTP, XIII, pp 853-854.
51
TTP, XIII, pp 858-859.
52
Cf. TTP, XIV, pp 865-866. It involves a minimal credo containing the
only theoretical affirmations that as us used by the applicants of reason
practiced by Kant, makes the real obedience possible. And this credo
constitutes the common ground for all positive religions. If desired, this
can be called ‘natural religion’, as it express the dogmas ‘of the faith which
is common to all humanity’ (p 864) and which would not be disputed by any
good man.
53
TTP, XIV, p 862.
54
Here the essence has to be understood in the essence of the Ethics (II,
def. 2). ‘The essence of an object is is that what, being given, makes that
this object necessarily will be composed and that, suppressed, makes that
this object is necessary suppressed, in other words, that without which the
object cannot be, nor understood, and that on the contrary, without the
subject, can now be nor understood. ’ (p 868).
55
TTP, XIV, p 868
56
No mutual limitation is conceivable between the two instances on the
basis of their heterogeneity (Cf. Ethics, I, def. 2, p 364).
57
TTP, XV, p 879.
58
TTP, XV, p 874.
59
Cf. TTP, XV, p 875.
60
Cf. TTP, XV, p 877.
61
We do not explain the political views of Spinoza, which can be found
in ch. 16 and 17 of the T. T. P. . That what is of our interest is the
spinozoian proposition, dealt with in ch. 19, about the relation which,
according to reason, must exist between religion and politics.
62
The ecclesiastical body, being dogmatic, institutional and juridical
structures, has until this moment not had as a tangible result but a
mortal effect of separation.
63
This power to organize comprises all the aspects of religion, dogmatic,
institutional and juridical aspects.
64
S. BRETON, Spinoza, p 150.
65
TTP, XX, p 954.
66
TTP, XX, p 955.
67
TTP, XX, p 955.
68
KANT, le confit des faculties, Preface in KANT, Oeuvres
philosopiques, t. III, Paris, Gallimard, 1986, p. 806, note. We will
be using the abbreviation CF for this work.
69
Cf, p 843
70
KANT, La religion dans les limites de la simple raison, in Oeuvres
philosophiques; t. 3, p. 17. (underlined in the text). We cite from
now on with the abbreviation RE.
71
KANT, Critique de la raison pure, trad. A. Tremesaygues and B.
Pascuad, 1920, p. 628. In abbreviation CRP.
72
CRP, p 625
73
CRP, p 628
74
P. RICOEUR, Cl, p 411.
75
KANT, La critique de la raison pratique, Paris, PUF, 1949, p. 133 (in
abbreviation CRP). 76 CRP, p. 628
77
RE. p 17
78
RE, p 183
79
RE, p 204. ( underlined in the text)
80
RE, p 197
81
Cf, RE, p 210
82
RE, p 70
83
RE, p 31
84
Paul RICOEUR , L3 p 23
85
Paul RICOEUR , L3 p 24
86
Paul RICOEUR , Cl, p 143
87
RE, p 40. The three dispositions arer not only (negatively) good ( they
do not contradict moral law), but they are as well dispositions to the
good(they contribute to its realization)(lb)
88
Paul RECOEUR, L3 p 25
89
RE, p 58
90
RE, 56
91
P. RICOEU, Cl, p 300
92
RE, p 59
93
RE, p 59
94
RE, p 59-60
95
RE, p 60
96
RE, p 60
97
p. RICOEURM L3 p 27
98
Cf. P. RICOEUR, L3 P 28
99
RE, p 61
100
RE , p 64
101
RE, p24. ( Underlined by Kant)
102
RE, p 69
103
RE, p 60-70 ( Underlined by Kan
104
Cf. RE, p 70
105
RE, p 148
106
P. RICOEUR, L3, pp 33-34
107
RE , p 145
108
RE, p146
109
RE, p229 -223
110
RE, p 230. ( I underline)
111
‘As far as concerning the deficiency of our own justice (which counts
before God), reason does not leave us completely without relief. It
 says that he who, in an intention which is truly submitted to theduty,
as far as it is within his power, acts to satisfy to his obligation(which
searches by all means to constantly approach perfect conformity to
the law), may hope that is not within-his power, the supreme Wisdom
will indemnify in whatever way(that can make the intention to
approach to the law absolutely constant), even so without pretending
either to determine it, or to know of what it consists: it can be at
thismysterious moment that God could at the best reveal it to us in a
symbolicrepresentation, of which only the practical element will be
understandable for us, whereas theoreticallywe cannot grasp at all
what kind of relation it is God with man, neither, if he agrees to reveal
us such a mystery, be able to link to it the concepts(pp 205-206. I
underline)
122
For all this see Giovanni FERRETTI, Ontologia e teologia in Kant,
Torino, Rosenberg &Sellier, 1997, pp 196-200. According to Ricoeur,
by transforming the antimony of justification into a paradox through
the only faith and the justification of oeuvres, Kant brings the
welcoming of the gift needs an order to mobilize the deepest buried
resources of the disposition to the good; on the other hand and on the
contrary, that the recourse to these depths of will, hardened by the
radically of the confession of evil, has to dispose to welcome this gift;
as if, at fathomless level one could not anymore distinguish, in the
heart of the disposition to the good, what is the identity of the effort
and the highness of the gift. ’ (L3 p 34).
113
RE, pp 205-206
114
RE, p 180 note.
115
Critique du judgement, $ 59, trad. J. Gibelin, Paris, Vrin, 1960, p
165. In sign: CJ.
116
CJ, 59, p. 165
117
Cf. P. RICOEUR, L3 p 35.
118
CJ, $49, p. 133.
119
CJ, $ 49, p. 133
120
CJ, $ 49, p. 135.
la simple raison, in Oeuvres philisophiques, t. 3, Paris, Gillimard, 1986; Le
conflit des faculties, in Oeuvres philosophiques, t. 3 (Premiere section).
121
F. SCHLEIERMACHER, Uber die Religion. Redenan die
GebildetenunterihrenVerachtern, Hamburg, Felix Meiner, 1961. Trad. fr.
I. J. Rouge, Discourssur la religion a ceux de sescontempteurs qui sont
des espritscultives. Paris, Aubier-Montaigne, 1944. [Discourse]. After the
page indications of the French translation we will indicate between brackets
the page indicatiors of the first German edition published in 1899 by Rudolp
Otto, following the reproduction of 1967.
122
Cf. Marianna Simon, La philosophie de la religion dansl’oeuvre de
Schleiernacher, Paris, Vrin, 1974, p. 29. ; Jean GREISCH, La philosophie
de la religion, pp. 260-275. Our presentation is inspired by those two
authors.
123
M. Simon, o. c. 29.
124
M. SIMON, p. 30.
125
WUNDERLE, Grundzuge der Religionsphilosophie, Paderborn, p.
1928, p. 2, cited by M. SIMON, o, c. , p. 10.
126
M. SIMON, o. c. , p. 51
127
M. SIMON, o. c. , p. 51
128
Discours, pp. 144-150 [41-50]
129
Discours, ppp. 142 [37]
130
J. GREISCH, o. c. , p. 263
131
J. Greich, o. c. , p. 263132 Ethik; ed. Braun, p. 491, p. 524
133
Cf. Marianna SIMON, o. c. , p. 99.
134
Marianna SIMON, o. c. , p. 101. ‘The contemplation of the pious
man is nothing but the immediate awareness or the universal being of
all what is finite in the infinite and by the infinite of all what is
temporary in and by eternal … Searching this in all what has life and
movement, in all becoming and changing, in all action and passion
and not having life in immediate feeling but as this being, that is
religion…’ (Reden, 2nd edition, in S. W. , p 185).
135
Marianna Simon, o. c. , pp. 103-104. The second edition of the
Reden precisely describes religion as conscience of action of God in
all things. ‘Living in the infinite nature of the all, in the one and the
totality, in God, having and possessing all in God and all in God.
“Pious man feels in every action amanating from god the acting
presence of God in humans. ’ (S. W. , I, I, p. 185. )
136
Cited by M. Simon, p. 106.
137
Cf. Glaubenslehre, l, p. 28 ; M. SIMON, p. 106-107
138
M. SIMON, pp. 107-108
139
M. SIMON, o. c. , p. 115
140
J. GREISCH, o. c. p. 265
141
M. SIMON, o. c. , p. 123
142
M. SIMON, o. c. , p 140
143
Cf J Graisch, o. c. , pp. 168-275