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Kant's Doctrine of Religion As Political Philosophy

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Kant's Doctrine of Religion As Political Philosophy Kant's Doctrine of Religion as Political Philosophy Author: Phillip David Wodzinski Persistent link: http://hdl.handle.net/2345/987 This work is posted on eScholarship@BC, Boston College University Libraries. Boston College Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, 2009 Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. Boston College The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Department of Political Science KANT’S DOCTRINE OF RELIGION AS POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY a dissertation by PHILLIP WODZINSKI submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2009 © copyright by PHILLIP DAVID WODZINSKI 2009 ABSTRACT Kant’s Doctrine of Religion as Political Philosophy Phillip Wodzinski Advisor: Susan Shell, Ph.D. Through a close reading of Immanuel Kant’s late book, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, the dissertation clarifies the political element in Kant’s doctrine of religion and so contributes to a wider conception of his political philosophy. Kant’s political philosophy of religion, in addition to extending and further animating his moral doctrine, interprets religion in such a way as to give the Christian faith a moral grounding that will make possible, and even be an agent of, the improvement of social and political life. The dissertation emphasizes the wholeness and structure of Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason as a book, for the teaching of the book is not exhausted by the articulation of its doctrine but also includes both the fact and the manner of its expression: the reader learns most fully from Kant by giving attention to the structure and tone of the book as well as to its stated content and argumentation. The Religion provides the basis not only for a proposed reenvisioning of the basis of existing religious creeds and practices, but along with this a devastating critique of them in particularly moral terms. This, however, is only half of what constitutes Kant’s political philosophy of religion; Kant goes beyond the philosophical analysis of the social-political context of religion and pursues, alongside this effort, a political presentation of philosophy which is intended to relieve the reader’s anxieties concerning the tension between philosophy and political life that it is in the interest of the partisans of the church-faith to encourage. Dedicated, in appreciation and with prayer, to the memory of three teachers and one colleague in teaching: Ernest Fortin Robert Rethy Richard Talaska Thomas Dillon Requiescant in pace. i Acknowledgements My first thanks must go to my advisor, Susan Shell. I am grateful for her expertise in Kant, her patience with my method of writing a dissertation, and the generosity which has marked her teaching. The degree to which this dissertation suffers is the degree to which I did not request more help from her, which she would gladly have given. My other readers, Robert Faulkner and Nasser Behnegar, kindly offered helpful suggestions for the improvement of the dissertation. This is not the first time Mr. Behnegar has agreed to help me, even though I did not have the good fortune to be in coursework at the time of his arrival at Boston College. Mr. Faulkner has taught me much about political philosophy, and I am grateful for much more than his agreement to comment on the dissertation. Financial support was given by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Political Science Department at Boston College; the Harry and Lynde Bradley Foundation; the John M. Olin Foundation; and the Goethe Institut. Some of this aid was dispensed through two organizations at Boston College – the Institute for the Study of Politics and Religion (directed by Christopher Bruell and Ernest Fortin) and the Institue of Medieval Theology (directed by Stephen Brown and Ernest Fortin). The directors were not only generous with the funding but also excellent teachers, and I benefited in many ways from the kindess and friendship of their assistant, Shirley Gee. Finally, my present employer, Thomas Aquinas College, made financial arrangments which allowed me some free time in which to complete the work. Another kind of support was necessary for the completion of this dissertation. Many colleagues and friends at Thomas Aquinas College have helped me on my way; I must single out for particular thanks John Goyette, who has hounded me about finishing it since the day we met. My parents and brothers have also offered long-distance and long- standing encouragement. My last thanks must go to Melissa, my wife, who seemed to know what I needed to be told at every step. Without her patience and encouragement, and her willingness to see to matters which did not receive my attention, this would never have been completed. ii Contents 1. From Critique to Doctrine: Introduction a. Interpretations of Kant’s Political Thought in Relation to Doctrine of Religion b. Interpretations of Kant’s Doctrine of Religion in Relation to Political Thought c. The Purpose, Central Themes, and Basic Arrangement of the Religion d. On the Procedure of the Present Study 2. Sublated Knowledge: The Religion and Theoretical Reason a. Experiments with Reason and Revelation: The Second Preface b. Beyond the Boundaries: On the Role of the Parerga c. The Relation of Reason to Miracle and Mystery d. Kant’s Rationalist Position and Methodology 3. Room for Faith: The Religion and Morality a. A Necessary Connection: The First Preface b. The Disposition and Human Nature: Religion Part One c. The Disposition and Grace: The First Parergon d. Morality Extended through (Moral) Theology: Religion Part Two 4. As Soon as He is Among Men: The Religion and Political Life a. The Historical Problem and Human Nature: Rereading Part One b. The Necessity and Nature of Church-faith: A First Reading of Part Three c. The Question of Progress or Regress Answered: Saving Faith and Church d. History and Critique of Church-Faith: The Moral Core of Parts Three and Four e. The Reform of Church-Faith: Scripture Interpretation and Divine Worship 5. An Example of Obedience: The Religion and the Philosopher a. The Philosopher and the Theologian: The First Preface Again b. Conscience in Matters of Faith c. The Public Life of the Religion 6. Christianity from a Liberal Standpoint: “The End of All Things” a. An Overview of the Essay b. Philosophy and Religion c. Philosophy and Poetry d. Philosophy, Religion, and Politics 7. Rereading and Rebinding: Summary and Conclusion Bibliography iii 1. From Critique to Doctrine: Introduction Keeping in mind even such candidates as Francis Bacon’s Wisdom of the Ancients, Giambattista Vico’s New Science, and Friedrich Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo, it is difficult to think of a work by a modern philosopher more striking in its oddness than Immanuel Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason.1 In it, the popular and cliched picture of the ponderous epistemological Kant diminishes as the author writes of eastern religions, Jewish trinitarianism, Iroquois catechumens confounding Jesuit missionaries, virgin conception, and the mechanism of world history. He decries the encroachments of papal ecclesiastics, presents the marks of the true church in terms of the concepts of the understanding, and laments the universal sinfulness of man. Furthermore, the author treats the reader to a Hobbesian-themed ecclesiology, an encomium to sincerity, an account of true and false service to God, and numerous clever interpretations of scripture. More important than all these curiosities, however, is the striking possibility that this very strange book, the published version of his doctrine of religion, is a major, perhaps the major, part of Kant’s work in political philosophy. The goal of the present study is to illuminate the political element in Kant’s doctrine of religion. I shall argue that the Religion is not at all theological or exclusively moral in nature but constitutes Kant’s political philosophy of religion, which, in addition to its ostensible purpose of clarifying, extending, and even vivifying his moral philosophy, reinterprets and represents religion in such a way as to reground the Christian 1 Unless otherwise noted, all translations are mine from volume six of Kants Gesammelte Schriften, edited by the Königliche Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin, 1902-), although I have made use of the suggestions of the Greene-Hudson and the diGiovanni translations. 1 faith for moral-political purposes. The effort of regrounding is necessary to make possible the vision of political life in which politics and morality are not at odds with each other; the chief obstacle of this vision is religion – or, more properly stated, church- faith. The political philosophy of the Religion springs from an initially moral-individual consideration of what determines whether man is good or evil2; the resulting presentation of the moral components of human nature is projected in terms of a moral existence that must be contextualized in terms of both a nonhuman moral legislator (while not compromising the autonomy of morality itself) and of man’s social existence with other men – with a consequent philosophy of God restricted to moral considerations and, much more importantly, an ecclesiology that is not ultimately tied to, and explicitly designed to shed, any historical revelation. In thus presenting a religious culmination of his investigation into morality Kant at the same time offers a critique of existing Christian faith and religious practice, a critique which has an intended and essential connection to social-political life. In supporting this claim, I shall rely on Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason as the expression of the doctrine of religion3 and as a whole and unified book, for the teaching of the book is not merely the doctrinal content as expressed but includes both the fact and the manner of its expression: the reader learns most fully from Kant by 2 Even the initial consideration is cast in terms of the global context of moral decline in all of civilization, and is pursued with the question of whether the human species itself is by nature good or evil.
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