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Kant, Metaphysics, and the Proofs for the Existence of God

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Kant, Metaphysics, and the Proofs for the Existence of God THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO THE NEEDS OF REASON: KANT, METAPHYSICS, AND THE PROOFS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVINITY SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY BY THOMAS SCOTT FERGUSON CHICAGO, ILLINOIS JUNE 2020 TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface iv Chapter I. Why the Proofs?, Why Metaphysics?, Why Kant? 1 I. Metaphysics and Apologetics 3 A. “...quiddam meditationis exemplum” (Anselm) 4 B. “...aliquae verisimilitudines” (Thomas Aquinas) 9 C. “...les fondemens de la Metaphysique” (Descartes) 13 D. Apology Without Doctrine? 17 II. Metaphysics and Idolatry 20 A. What Metaphysics Is 23 B. Ontotheology 31 C. Complications; Or, the Retrogression of the Proofs 36 III. A New Critique of Rational Theology? 45 Chapter II. An Introduction to the Precritical System of Proofs 50 I. Preliminary Comments 51 II. The Precritical Critique of Rational Theology (Beweisgrund III) 57 ​​ ​ ​ III. Kant’s First System of the Proofs 61 A. A Note on Terminology 62 B. The Argument of Beweisgrund III 64 ​ ​ Chapter III. The Proofs from Intellectual Concepts 72 I. The Cartesian Proof 72 A. Perfection and Existence 76 B. “Apud me” and Descartes’ Ontology of Ideas 80 C. Formal Distinction (Descartes on Existence, Part I) 86 D. “Existence is not at all a predicate…” 93 E. Existentiality and the Ens Necessarium 101 II. The Ontological Proof 108 A. Ontology and Necessity 111 B. “…The perception of the infinite is in me earlier than that of the finite…” 116 C. The Activa Facultas (Descartes on Existence, Part II) 126 Chapter IV. The Proofs from Empirical Concepts 133 I. The Contingency Proof 133 A. First Cause and Necessity 136 B. Asking Why, Substance, Need (Descartes on Existence, Part III) 143 C. Cause of Itself 147 D. “...the achievement of the answer....” 160 II. The Physicotheological Proof 164 A. The Failings and Supplementations of Physicotheology 166 B. Descartes and Boyle on Final Causes 178 C. “...true in respect to us humans…” 190 ii Chapter V. The Moral Proof and Rational Faith 197 I. The Moral Proof 201 A. Having Faith, Part I (Hypothetical Necessity) 204 B. Having Faith, Part II (Heads and Hearts) 214 C. “The Highest Good” as Ontotheology 225 II. Rational Faith and the Practice of Theory 238 A. Doctrinal Rational Faith, Part I (An Analogon of the Practical) 240 B. Doctrinal Rational Faith, Part II (The Value of Science) 252 C. The Theoretical “As If” and the Unities of Science 267 Chapter VI. The Rehabilitation of the Proofs and the Diminution of Speculative Theology 280 I. A Critical Return to the Ontological Proof 283 A. The “Supreme and Complete Condition” of Possible Content 286 B. “Subjective Necessity” 290 C. “...this urgent need of reason…” 296 II. A Critical Return to the Contingency (“Cosmological”) Proof 302 A. An Allegedly Transcendental Causality 303 B. Ens Extramundanum 308 ​ ​ III. A Critical Return to the Physicotheological Proof 313 A. “...a mighty spring…” 314 B. Intentional Causality and an Unnoticed Mixture 320 IV. The Diminution of the Speculative System 326 A. “The arguments here are only two…” 329 B. A Proof Without Theology 334 Chapter VII. From Necessity to Need 337 I. The Cartesian Proof: “...need is held for perception...” 339 A. Ein fremden Besitz 343 B. “...moral theology is equally ontotheology…” 353 C. The Felt Needs of Reason 358 II. The Theory and Practice of Rational Theology 370 A. “...a certain ancient opinion…” 371 B. Ontotheology in Practice 379 C. Us 392 Bibliography 398 iii PREFACE It is a terrifying thing to put out a book which perhaps has no audience. I must think that a reader still willing to study a long book on the proofs for the existence of God, if there are any left, will expect that it say something substantive on the question: Do they work? Yet I have ​ ​ nothing to say for an answer, for I find the question to be hopelessly underdetermined. As a reply I can only offer a nest of other questions: What would it mean for them to “work” - to be valid ​ ​ ​ with true premises, to convince someone that some God exists, or something else? And: Which ​ ​ “God” are we talking about, exactly? And: What is the price to pay if they don’t “work,” and ​ ​ ​ ​ who or what pays it? And: Have you considered why you are asking this? This project basically ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ concerns that nest of other questions, so that a reader expecting affirmation or denial may be left unsatisfied (albeit one should also ask what “satisfaction” would look like here). What I will suggest in this book is that the arguments which have manifested concerning God’s existence in the four hundred years since Descartes cannot be taken on their face - that we will never make further philosophical headway on them without considering the “needs of reason” underlying them, the needs which drove the project of rational theology. Yet just with that I fear that I have already lost the readership in philosophy of religion which still remains interested in the proofs, who may well take this entire book as a miserable ad hominem. The validity and viability of these arguments, one might reasonably counter, cannot be either confirmed or refuted by whatever motives may underlie them - and that is true enough, albeit it is no reason to limit all discussions of the proofs to their truth or falsity. Indeed, if we still have not agreed upon any “touchstone” which can come to a final decision after four centuries and yet we iv continue to debate these proofs, then it may be worth reexamining them from a different set of questions. It may be worth asking what the proofs do (considered in their broadest sense), and ​ ​ perhaps do successfully, regardless of their argumentative viability. This will indeed amount to ​ ​ ​ ​ an “ad hominem”, but perhaps a valuable one (in that the “homines” are worth considering). Yet on the other side, the very fact that I still insist on taking the proofs seriously will perhaps lose me all the rest of my readers. In the rest of philosophy, and just as much in theology ​ ​ and religious studies, consideration of these proofs is now looked upon with a certain degree of befuddlement if not outright contempt. They seem to be quaint relics of a bygone age which only a handful of conspiracists still cling to, like flat-earthism or theories of phlogiston - certainly not worth deeper consideration. And yet these “relics” sat in the center of philosophy, and indeed the center of theology and the study of religion, for nearly two centuries, and it is unclear whether we have a full accounting of the effects. That is to say, an investigation of the proofs may not be a matter of idle curiosity for those contemptuous of their presence: indeed, a proper critique of the proofs might have a crucial role to play in those researchers’ own attempts at self-reflection. The proofs, I suggest, must therefore be taken quite seriously, albeit not read just on their face. The approach I take to reinterpret them, as my title indicates, is by way of an exhaustive rereading of Kant, especially his account of rational theology from his early work up until his ​ ​ last working drafts. The conclusions I reach are, indeed, only extensions of what Kant himself writes, albeit often only in the margins and often reread through other authors (especially Heidegger). Even a small improvement on Kant’s achievements is a difficult thing, however, and (I would argue) a worthwhile one. But even if that may yet give me some appeal among the dedicated Kant scholars, given the sheer mass of material they must already deal with and the v “understandable weary sigh that must greet every new study,”1 such scholars may actually be the most difficult audience of all.2 The upshot of this study, if one finds the results convincing, will first be a better understanding of the whole metaphysical context of the proofs; indeed, I am suggesting that ​ ​ metaphysics is the proofs’ proper home, and that Kant’s treatment of them gives us a quite novel way to understand “metaphysics” itself. But not only that: there may be at least two other results from the above, if the hypothetical reader remains patient. First, it confirms that and how the proofs, and the wider tradition of which they are a part, have been the lens through which we have understood “religion” for the past several centuries. It is perhaps no accident that even still religious studies, to the extent that it is willing to perform the old religionswissenschaftlich task of talking about religion “in general” rather than breaking out into individual studies, often remains theoretically bogged down - e.g., it remains divided on whether religion primarily makes claims about how the world is (speculation, existence), or instead primarily provides for morality or happiness or social cohesion or behavioral norms or economic production (practice, action), or somehow both. It is not that such debates and such understandings of religion are completely wrongheaded, but rather that they show signs of a distortion that, I argue, stems from an uncritical absorption of the fundamental concepts of ​ rational theology. To be sure, one sometimes hears the sentiment that religious studies will not become a full-blooded field until it can free itself from the latent influence of “theology,” and while I agree with such a sentiment (and applaud the project of revealing biases and latent presuppositions) I suspect the worry finds a superficial target. On the one hand, theology, as the 1 Pippin, Kant’s Theory of Form1. ​ ​ 2 Albeit given that the question of the proofs ultimately touches on nearly every segment of Kant’s thought (early and late) they are likely to run into them sooner or later, so that they may still find this effort a helpful reference.
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