Historical and Pure Religion: A Response to Stephen Palmquist Author(s): Douglas McGaughey Source: The Journal of Religion, Vol. 93, No. 2 (April 2013), pp. 151-176 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/669206 . Accessed: 28/03/2013 09:03 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Religion. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 158.104.100.45 on Thu, 28 Mar 2013 09:03:54 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Historical and Pure Religion: A Response to Stephen Palmquist* Douglas McGaughey / Willamette University INTRODUCTION In the preface to the second edition of Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, Kant parses out options for engaging a discussion between two kinds of faith: the first option is historical religion, which draws its doctrines from a particular, historical revelation ða posterioriÞ, whereas the second option is pure religion, in which one self-legislates moral principles ða prioriÞ “abstracted from experience.”1 What makes something pure, according to Kant, is that it is concerned with those elements in the supersensible dimension of experience ðthe “intelligible,” or consciousnessÞ that must be added to phenomena in order for us to understand.