(2000) Phillips & Tessin (Ed.) - Kant and Kierkegaard On Religion

Kant and Kierkegaard on
Religion
Edited by
D. z. Phillips
and
Timothy Tessin
Claremont Studies in the Philosophy of Religion
General Editors: D. Z. Phillips, Rush Rhees Research Professor, University of
Wales, Swansea and Danforth Professor of the Philosophy of Religion, the
Claremont Graduate School, California; Timothy Tessin
At a time when discussions of religion are becoming increasingly specialized and
determined by religious affiliations, it is important to maintain a forum for
philosophical discussion which transcends the allegiances of belief and unbelief.
This series affords an opportunity for philosophers of widely differing persua-
sions to explore central issues in the philosophy of religion.
Titles include:
Stephen T. Davis (editor)
PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGICAL DISCOURSE
D. Z. Phillips (editor)
CAN RELIGION BE EXPLAINED AWAY?
D. Z. Phillips and Timothy Tessin (editors)
KANT AND KIERKEGAARD ON RELIGION
RELIGION WITHOUT TRANSCENDENCE?
RELIGION AND HUME'S LEGACY
Timothy Tessin and Mario von der Ruhr (editors)
PHILOSOPHY AND THE GRAMMAR OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF
Claremont Studies in the Philosophy of Religion

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Religion
Edited by
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and
Timothy Tessin
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Kant and Kierkegaard on religion / edited by D.Z. Phillips and Timothy Tessin.
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Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-312-23234-9 (hardcover: alk. paper)
I. Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804-Religion-Congresses. 2. Kierkegaard, S0ren,
1813-1855- Religion-Congresses. 3. Religion-Philosophy-History-
-Congresses. r. Phillips, D. Z. (Dewi Zephaniah) n. Tessin, Timothy. Hr. Series.
B2799.R4 K35 2000

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Selection and editorial matter D. Z. Phillips and Timothy Tessin 2000

Text Claremont Graduate School 2000
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Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Notes on the Contributors viii

Introduction: Why Kant and Kierkegaard? xi
D. Z. Phillips
Part I Kant, Kierkegaard and Metaphysics 1

1 Kant and Kierkegaard on the Possibility of Metaphysics 3
C. Stephen Evans
2 Kant and Kierkegaard on the Possibility of

Metaphysics - a Reply to Professor Evans 25
Michael Weston
Voices in Discussion 45
D. Z. Phillips
Part 11 Leaving Room for Faith S3

3 Faith Not without Reason: Kant, Kierkegaard and
Religious Belief 55
ferry H. Gill
4 Making Room for Faith - Possibility and Hope 73
M. famie Ferreira
D. Z. Phillips
Part III The Individual 93

5 'The Individual' in Kant and Kierkegaard 95
R. Z. Friedman
6 'The Individual' in Kant and Kierkegaard - a Reply 107

Hilary Bok

D. Z. Phillips
v
vi Contents
Part IV Religion and Morality 129

7 Kant and Kierkegaard on the Need for a Historical Faith:
an Imaginary Dialogue 131
Ronald M. Green
8 The Ethical and the Religious as Law and Gospel 153
Jack Verheyden
D. Z. Phillips
Part V Eternal Life 185

9 Kant and Kierkegaard on Eternal Life 187
John H. Whittaker
10 Kant and Kierkegaard on Eternal Life - a Reply 207
Mario van der Ruhr
D. Z. Phillips
Part VI Philosophy of Religion after Kant

and Kierkegaard 243
11 Philosophy of Religion after Kant and Kierkegaard 245
Step hen Palmquist
12 Kant's Divine Command Theory and its Reception
within Analytic Philosophy 263
John E. Hare
13 Dialectic of Salvation in Solidarity 278
Anselm Kyongsuk Min
D. Z. Phillips
Index 301
Acknowledgements
The symposia in the present collection were presented at the 1998

Philosophy of Religion conference at Claremont Graduate University.
These conferences, the present one being held, the past one being seen
through the press, and the future one being planned, need administrat-
ive support each side of the Atlantic. I am extremely grateful to Helen
Baldwin, Secretary to the Department of Philosophy, University of
Wales, Swansea, and to Jackie Huntzinger, Secretary to the Department
of Religion, Claremont Graduate University, for all their help. I also
want to thank the invaluable help given by graduate students during
the conference. Special thanks are due to my research assistant John Lee
for organizing this help so ably.
The conference would not be possible without financial support. I
gratefully acknowledge the generosity of Claremont Graduate Univer-
sity, Pomona College, and Claremont McKenna College in this respect.
Most of the royalties from Claremont Studies in the Philosophy of Reli-
gion go to the fund which supports the conferences. I am grateful to the
participants, not only for their contributions, but for their agreement
which makes this support possible.
D. Z.P.
Claremont
vii
Notes on the Contributors
Hilary Bok is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Pomona College. She

is the author of Freedom and Responsibility.
c. Stephen Evans is Professor of Philosophy and Dean for Research and

Scholarship at Calvin College. His recent publications include The His-
torical Christ and the Jesus of Faith, Passionate Reason and Faith Beyond
Reason.
M. Jamie Ferreira is a Professor of Philosophy of Religion in the Depart-

ments of Religion and Philosophy, University of Virginia. She is the author
of Doubt and Religious Commitment: the Role of the Will in Newman's
Thought, Scepticism and Reasonable Doubt: the British Naturalist Tradition
and Transforming Vision: Imagination and Will in Kierkegaardian Faith.
R. Z. Friedman is Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of

Toronto. His publications include papers on Kant, Kierkegaard, Mai-
monides, Freud and Nietzsche.
Jerry H. Gill is semi-retired and is presently Adjunct Professor of Philo-

sophy and Religious Studies at Pima County Community College and
Academic Co-ordinator of Borderlands Theological Center, both in Tuc-
son, Arizona. His publications include A Mediated Transcendence: a Post-
Modem Reflection, Learning to Learn: Towards a Philosophy of Education,
Merleau-Ponty and Metaphor, If a Chimpanzie Could Talk and Other Reflec-
tions on Language and The Tacit Mode: Michael Polanyi's Post-Modem Philo-
sophy.
Ronald M. Green is John Phillips Professor of Religion at Dartmouth

College and Director of Dartmouth's Ethics Institute. His publications
include Religion and Moral Reason, Kierkegaard and Kant: the Hidden Debt
and over a hundred papers in scholarly journals.
John Hare teaches at Calvin College, Michigan. He is the author of The

Moral Gap: Kantian Ethics, Human Limits and God's Assistance and papers
in scholarly journals on Augustine, Kant and Kierkegaard.
viii
Notes on the Contributors ix
Anselm Kyongsuk Min is Professor of Religion at Claremont Graduate

University. He is the author of Dialectic of Salvation: Issues in Theology of
Liberation and co-author of Korean Catholicism in the 1970's. He has pub-
lished numerous articles on Hegel, Levinas, religious pluralism and vari-
ous areas of systematic theology.
Step hen Palmquist is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion

at Hong Kong Baptist University. His publications include Kant's System
of Perspectives, Four Neglected Essays by Immanuel Kant and The Tree of
Philosophy. As well as many scholarly papers, mostly on Kant, he has
also constructed an award-winning web site, located at http://
www.hkbu.edu.hk/-ppp/.
D. Z. Phillips is Danforth Professor of Philosophy of Religion at Clare-

mont Graduate University and Rush Rhees Research Professor, Univer-
sity of Wales, Swansea. He is the author of The Concept of Prayer, Faith
and Philosophical Enquiry, Death and Immortality, Moral Practices (with
H. O. Mounce), Sense and Delusion (with Ilham Dilman), Athronyddu am
Grefydd, Through a Darkening Glass, Belief, Change and Forms of Life, R. S.
Thomas: Poet of the Hidden God, Faith After Foundationalism, From Fantasy
to Faith, Interventions in Ethics, Wittgenstein and Religion, Writers of Wales:
f. R. lones, Introducing Philosophy, Recovering Religious Concepts and Philo-
sophy's Cool Place. He is editor of Swansea Studies in Philosophy, of
Claremont Studies in the Philosophy of Religion, and of the journal,
Philosophical Investigations. He is editing the work of Rush Rhees.
Mario von der Ruhr is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Wales,

Swansea. He is co-editor of Philosophy and the Grammar of Religious Belief
and contributor to Can Religion Be Explained Away? in this series. He has
also contributed to a collection on Particularity and Commonality in Ethics.
Jack Verheyden is Richard Cain Professor of Theology and Ecclesiology

at the School of Theology at Claremont and Professor of Religion at the
Claremont Graduate University. He has worked extensively in nine-
teenth century philosophy of religion and theology, especially in the
thought of Schleiermacher and Kierkegaard.
Michael Weston is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Essex.

He is the author of Morality and the Selfand Kierkegaard and Modem Contin-
ental Philosophy as well as articles on religion, ethics and the philosophy
of literature.
x Notes on the Contributors
John W. Whittaker is a Professor of Philosophy and Director of Reli-

gious Studies Program, Louisiana State University. He is the author of
Matters of Faith and Matters of Principle: Religious Truth Claims and Their
Logic and The Logic of Religious Persuasion.
Introduction: Why Kant and
Kierkegaard?
In 1997 the Claremont Conference on Philosophy of Religion was on

religion and Hume's legacy.! No one raised an eyebrow at the appropri-
ateness of the topic, so obvious was it to all concerned. Not so in 1998,
when we discussed Kant and Kierkegaard on religion. Why bring these
two together? After all, is not Kant the advocate of a rational moral
theology, and is not Kierkegaard the irrationalist par excellence where
religion is concerned? Whether one thinks this is a genuine contrast, or
a caricature, the reaction to it is misplaced. This is because, in arriving
at their mature views, Kant and Kierkegaard raise issues which still dom-
inate contemporary philosophy of religion. This is evident in the con-
tributions of the symposiasts in the present collection. No doubt these
issues are discussed after Kant and Kierkegaard by many thinkers of
lesser stature. But that gives us all the more reason to return to them for
enlightenment. This does not mean that we will agree with everything
these thinkers say, but, in philosophy, much of what we learn comes
from working out why we disagree with something that has been said.
The symposiasts in this collection disagree, not simply with various
features in Kant's and Kierkegaard's thought, but with each other. This
made for a lively conference and has made for an equally lively collec-
tion. In this brief introduction, I shall simply list what I take to be the
main issues which the study of Kant and Kierkegaard forces us to face.
I shall do so without naming any of the symposiasts.
The first issue concerns the relation of religious belief to metaphysics.
Is either Kant or Kierkegaard an enemy of metaphysics? The question is
not meant to imply that either would say that one learns nothing from
discussing metaphysical questions. The crucial issue is whether one
gives metaphysical answers to them. It is generally agreed that Kant and
Kierkegaard deny that we can have a theoretical knowledge of God.
God's reality is not to be found among the things we can be said to
know. Religious people say that they believe in God, rather than that
they know that he exists; we have to do with belief rather than know-
ledge. Were it otherwise, it is said, we would be robbed of our freedom
with respect to God. There would be no possibility of coming to believe,
struggling to believe, or losing hold on belief, if this were the case. The
xi
xii Kant and Kierkegaard on Religion
matter would be settled, once and for all. But things are not like this.
Kant says that what we can know is to be found within our experience
and the categories of human consciousness. God is not to be found
there. Kierkegaard agrees, saying that we have no objective certainty of
God's existence.
Kant and Kierkegaard are not content with noting what cannot be
said of God. They also offer alternative, positive accounts. Kant says
that belief in God, as it actually operates, is to be found, not in the
realm of theoretical reason, but in the realm of practical reason. Kierke-
gaard says that the kind of truth to be found in religion is a matter of
subjectivity. Kant and Kierkegaard emphasize the importance of the
character of our beliefs in practice. They ought to be free of impurity
and self-deception.
The problem facing us is that philosophers who seem to agree with
these conclusions on the surface mean very different things by them,
or, at least, draw very different conclusions from them. These differ-
ences take us to the heart of disputes in contemporary philosophy of
religion.
When Kant says that religious belief is to be found in the realm of
practical reason, and Kierkegaard connects faith with subjectivity, some
philosophers do not take them to be denying the metaphysical truth of
God's reality. Religious belief, rather than knowledge, is what is open to
us as finite beings. Some philosophers embrace the view that we are not
only finite, but fallen, our reason being as impaired as other aspects of
our nature. We know in part, and see through a glass darkly. It may be
experience that gives us reason to have religious hopes, but, it is insisted,
what we hope is theoretically determinable; it is simply that it cannot
be determined during our earthly existence. We have good reason to
trust that 'how things are' is such-and-such, but we cannot know 'how
things are'. 'How things are' is quite independent of what we say and
think. As far as religion is concerned, we are put to the test by being
asked to believe now what we shall know later. This view, and various
relations to it, is often called realism.
It is sometimes said, against such a view, that it offers no way of deter-
mining the right to say that we shall know certain things when this life
is over - that we shall know how things are. We do not know how to go
about either agreeing or disagreeing with this claim. In reply, however,
it is said that this criticism is a form of verificationism. It assumes that
whatever we cannot verify is unimaginable. In reply it is said that since
I can imagine what is false, I can clearly imagine what is unverifiable. In
religious belief we may have experiential grounds for believing that
Introduction xiii
something is, or will be, the case, although we cannot know that it is, or
will be, the case. This is so where God's existence and immortality are
concerned.
As against this view it is argued that Kant can be seen, and Kierke-
gaard would be seen, as marking out the conceptual space that religion
occupies. Thus, Kant would be seen as saying that religious belief is a
practical, moral belief of a certain kind. It is true that Kant says that
belief in God's existence and immortality arise from reflection on our
moral experience, but it is important to remember that the beliefs so
generated are themselves practical, regulative ideas. It would be con-
fused to search for their theoretical counterparts, since that places the
beliefs in a category to which they do not belong. Similarly, when Kier-
kegaard says that God's existence is objectively uncertain, he is not
referring to an inadequacy on our part, to be contrasted with the certain
existence of God in itself. Rather, he is saying that in the objective, fac-
tual realm the most we get are uncertainties. But an uncertain God does
not meet the requirements of faith. The 'God' of faith is the God who
could only be experienced, or be conceived of, in the realm of subjectiv-
ity. It would not make sense to talk of God in the objective realm.
The 'objective' realm is not one which has any priority over 'subject-
ivity'. 'Existence' is made up of many realms and it is important not to
confuse them. The philosophical realist wants to speak of a reality
which transcends any conceivable realm, but the attempt to do so is
vacuous. The objection is not to distinguishing between the real and
the unreal, but to the assumption that that distinction is simply given. We
have to look to the ways this distinction is used to see what it comes to -
and it doesn't come to the same thing in every context. When it is said
that we cannot do anything with a context-free conception of 'the real'
or 'existence', this is not an instance of verificationism. Rather, it is the
exposure of the illusion that concepts can have a meaning free of the
surroundings, the applications, in which they have their sense.
The philosophical difference I have outlined affects the second issue
of the sense in which Kant and Kierkegaard leave room for faith. It
could be put, from one point of view, by saying that Kant and Kierke-
gaard tried to extend our conceptions of rationality. They are no longer
seen as philosophers who, because religious belief is not rational, try to
locate it in alternative accommodation. Rather, they attempt to show that
an attempt at a purely rational defence of religion is subject to a rational
critique, whereas a resort to the irrational is simply irresponsible. It must
make a difference whether we believe in one thing rather than another.
In this way, we are shown possibilities that we would miss otherwise.
xiv Kant and Kierkegaard on Religion
The context-free metaphysical concept of 'the real' is abandoned on

this view.
Let me put the issue in a non-Kantian way. Suppose that instead of
the categories of human consciousness, or the limits of human experi-
ence, we speak of the kinds of discourse we find in our language. It is
then important to recognize that the forms of discussion do not say
anything, or describe anything. We make descriptions, and say some-
thing in a form of discourse. Our descriptions and statements may be
true or false, but the discourse in which we agree is the condition of
making true or false statements. Thus, it is within our agreements about
colours that we can make true or false statements about the colours of
things. I may say 'This is red', pointing to a colour chart. This is one
way of teaching the meaning of the word 'red'. I am not describing any-
thing. I am giving a rule for the use of the word. But when I say, 'That
box is red', I am not talking about the word 'red', but about the colour
of the box.
Similarly, religious language is where we find the meaning of the
word 'God'. But when we praise God we are not talking about language,
but praising God. But there is one big difference between this case and
our previous example. If I say 'There is no red box here' I am using the
same form of discourse as someone who says, 'There is a red box here'.
But when I say 'There is no God' I am rejecting a kind of reality. I am
saying that a spiritual reality means nothing. This is not like making a
negative statement within a form of discourse. It is the rejection of a
whole form of discourse.
What bearing does this have on Kant? It has a great bearing, and
affects many of the issues the symposiasts go on to discuss.
As we have seen, Kant locates religious belief, not in the realm of the-
oretical reason, but in the realm of practical reason. In that latter realm,
however, the belief is said to be generated by reflection on the moral
gap between what we are and what we ought to be, and the gap between
virtue and happiness. It is in this way, it is said, that we are led to postu-
late immortality, in which, presumably, the moral gap may be, at least,
made less; and to postulate God's existence, since God is the only one
who can bring about the marriage between virtue and happiness.
How are these postulates to be understood? If we take the realm of
practical reason to be a form of discourse in the sense already discussed,
then any postulate made within it should share the logic of the dis-
course in question. If 'the existence of God' and 'immortality' are postu-
lates of practical reason, it seems that the logic of these expressions
should be the same as that of the discourse in which they are made. If,
Introduction xv
however, the hopes refer to states of affairs which have a theoretical sta-
tus, even if they cannot be verified in this life, we have the difficulty
of ascribing hopes, which have 'theoretical' states of affairs as their
objects, to a form of discourse in which such hopes are not supposed to
make sense. In this way, Kant would be seen as reintroducing theoret-
ical beliefs into the context of practical reason to which, initially, they
were said not to apply.
It is argued, in this connection, that there is a difference between
Kant's first Critique and the second Critique. In the former, religious
belief is treated as a logical possibility, but in the second Critique, we
are told, God and immortality are offered as real possibilities. But it is
the possibility of a hope. What is more, reflection on the moral law
shows that this hope is a necessary one. It follows from the nature of
the moral law. Kant, it is said, is a minimalist in this respect. He offers
us the necessary possibility of a real hope although it cannot be justified
theoretically.
Yet, even if we grant that Kant is a minimalist in this sense, I do not
see how it circumvents the question of the nature of the hope that is a
necessary possibility, or the question of the nature of the object of the
hope. As we saw in the discussion, some could accept this minimalist
picture by asserting that the God and immortality hoped for, while not
theoretically justifiable here, will be theoretically justifiable in the here-
after. In that case, there is no grammatical difference between what is
discussed theoretically in the first Critique and what is the object of a
practical hope in the second Critique. This would mark a real philo-
sophical difference from those who see Kant elucidating a different
grammatical sphere in the second Critique. A parallel disagreement arises
in the treatment of Kierkegaard in our discussion of faith.
The issue can be put in this way: we have already noted that if we had
theoretical knowledge of what is now faith, it would be a denial of our
freedom. Are we to understand this as meaning that what we believe,
say that God exists, does have a theoretical status, but that this is
denied us in this life, so that we may be free to believe or not through
faith? Or are we to say that turning spiritual reality into theoretical
knowledge destroys its very character and that is what faith recognizes?
It does not make sense, on the latter view, to speak of these matters in
theoretical terms. This was a central issue for the conference, as it is in
contemporary philosophy of religion. I suspect that these issues cannot
be resolved in Kantian terms. It would require, as some symposiasts sug-
gest, a rejection of the dualism between the phenomenal and the nou-
menal which lies behind many of these problems. I am reminded of
xvi Kant and Kierkegaard on Religion
similar difficulties which Wittgenstein faced in the Tractatus in his dis-

tinction between the ethical, transcendent will, and the phenomenal
will. He wanted the former to make a real difference to the lives people
lead, but to make that difference it would have to do so in the ordinary
world from which he had banished it, on the mistaken assumption that
the will was an event antecedent to an action, subject, like all actions,
to causal laws. Similarly, Kant's postulates of freedom, God and immor-
tality may require the same radical change of outlook concerning
human activity that Wittgenstein underwent after the Tractatus. But this
is a matter I mention for further reflection and cannot be pursued here.
There is an additional difficulty in Kant's claims that led to a third
issue, namely, the relation of morality and religion. As we have seen,
Kant holds that reflecting on morality necessarily leads to a hope of God
and immortality. This claim depends on viewing morality as a homo-
geneous phenomenon. Once we grant the heterogeneity of morals
such a claim becomes problematic. Any morality would not lead in this
direction.
It is argued that in Kant and Kierkegaard we see attempts to come to
belief in God via a concern with the self. Such an attempt, it is said, is
doomed to failure. What needs emphasizing is not an attempted ascent
from the self to God, but a God-centred perspective from the outset.
The conclusion is that we look in vain for such a perspective in Kant
and Kierkegaard.
How are we to react to this view? The syrnposiasts do so in different
ways. On the one hand, there is the view that there is indeed a similar-
ity between Kant and Kierkegaard in what they say about the indi-
vidual's moral will, but that is how it should be. Both emphasize the
ideal of integrity and freedom from impurity and self-deception. Both
are realistic, however, and realize that our moral endeavours are perme-
ated with risk and uncertainty. Having said that, however, it is argued
that, in some respects, Kant is superior to Kierkegaard. Willing the
good, in Kierkegaard, can be read in one of two ways. The first is a disas-
ter, namely, to claim that as long as we will with infinite passion, we are
guaranteed to do the right thing. The second is more promising,
namely, to claim that, as a matter of fact, it is only by willing in this
way that right actions get done. What the second alternative does not
give us is any reason why we should will in this way in the first place.
Kant has a conception of an objectively right answer that we do not
find in Kierkegaard. So while there may be huge differences between
what Kant and Kierkegaard say about Christ, they are similar in what
they say about the individual.
Introduction xvii
A very different reaction denies that Kant's notion of the objectively

right answer makes sense. Kant's notion comes from the assumption
that morality is a homogeneous phenomenon. But a comparison of a
religious morality with the dominant picture of morality in Kant's
Groundwork should disabuse us of that fact. The most striking contrast in
Kierkegaard is to be found in his discussion of God's command to Abra-
ham to sacrifice Isaac, and Abraham's faith that, somehow or other,
God would give Isaac back to him. I am not sure we know now what to
make of child sacrifice, or what its significance was. Symposiasts dif-
fered in their understanding of it, but I think we should heed Kierke-
gaard's, or his pseudonym's, warning not to take the shudder out of any
account we give. Whatever of that, it would be hard to find any place
for the notion of the teleological suspension of the ethical in Kant's
thought.
Similar issues arise when we turn to Christianity itself. It seems diffi-
cult there to separate what one thinks of the individual from what one
thinks of Christ. For the Christian, it is in Christ that he lives, and
moves and has his being. As one contributor said, 'Maybe there is a tele-
ological suspension of the ethical every time God looks on us.' God is
said to look on us, not as we deserve to be looked at, but in the forgive-
ness of grace. Kierkegaard brings out the difference in the Philosophical
Fragments in his discussion of the difference between following Socrates
and following Christ. Although we will probably fail, it makes sense to
attempt to follow Socrates. But if Christ is the Lamb of God who takes
away the sins of the world, how can we follow that? The grace of Christ
informs the Christian's very conception of endeavour, whereas, for
Kant, Jesus does not really become more than a moral exemplar, although
we are said to benefit from the moral surplus he accrues.
Both Kant and Kierkegaard recognize the fact of radical evil, but Jesus
becomes the exemplar of the moral re dedication which Kant saw as the
means of salvation. Kierkegaard, it is said, turns Kant's argument
against itself since how can grace be available if we do not believe in the
divinity of Christ? Kant was afraid of easy grace, and this fear contributed
to his making Jesus no more than a moral exemplar.
The differences between Kant and Kierkegaard can be brought out if
we remember that what comes between them is Romanticism, with its
emphasis on individuality. Kierkegaard transforms this notion in his
treatment of the individual before God. The background for his work is
the Lutheran Confession. Kierkegaard argues that just as reason did not
prevent Abraham from believing, so Lutherans did not think that the
rejection of transubstantiation should lead to calling the bread and
xviii Kant and Kierkegaard on Religion
wine mere symbols or metaphors. Reason does not prevent one from
assenting to the words, 'This is my body' and 'This is my blood'.
It may be said that Kant on grace is very much work in progress, but
his conception of grace seems to be that of a 'top-up' by God after we
have done what we can. The Christian conception of grace, however,
expresses a very different conception of God's relation to the world. For
Kant we have to be worthy of grace by virtue of our general moral dis-
position. By contrast, in Christianity the gift of grace is a mystery. Some
contributors think that this reference to mystery simply refers to our
ignorance about how it works. Others, however, disagree and regard
'mystery' as a category in its own right. It refers to the 'given' character
of grace. There is no underlying explanation. It is as though we are
offered a way of looking at ourselves and are told, 'There it is! It is
offered freely! Grasp it lovingly.'
These issues lead naturally to a discussion of the kind of hope involved
in belief in eternal life. Some symposiasts argue that we are led down a
confused path if we think this hope concerns the prediction that a soul-
substance will enjoy endless duration after death. They argue that both
notions are conceptually confused. Others agree that the former notion
is confused, but still think that the idea of some kind of bodily survival
after death makes sense, as does the notion of endless duration. The latter
idea certainly deserves further attention, since its intelligibility is simply
taken for granted.
Some symposiasts thought it important to distinguish between two
senses of hope. In one case, we hope for something unrealized on the
basis of our present limitations. In the other sense of hope, it is a spirit
one abides in. In terms of this distinction, hope is either seen as a hope
for survival after death, or as a dwelling in the eternal, dwelling in
eternal verities. Even within the second conception there can be disag-
reement about the nature of the abiding. A dispute we have mentioned
previously returns: is grace an enabling gift which allows us to progress
further than we would unaided; or is grace a gift in terms of which we
understand our lives whether we progress or not, an understanding
which is our God-given salvation? Within the second alternative, there
is a temptation to emphasize the eternal present at the expense of death
as the end of all things. This need not be the case, since death still occu-
pies an extremely important position as 'the end of all things' which
marks the eternal destiny of the soul, what I am for all eternity. The
main issue, however, is whether acceptability in God's eyes depends on
a redirection of the will or whether acceptability is rooted in the God-
given possibility of our being seen other than we deserve ethically.
Introduction xix
I have said enough already to indicate the kinds of questions which

Kant and Kierkegaard have bequeathed to us. In the case of Kant, the
problems are a result of his epistemology. In the first Critique we are
given the limits of perception, but in the second Critique, according to
some symposiasts, we are allowed to peep over them, by means of what
is called the practical realm. As we have already seen, this notion of
'peeping over the boundaries' is logically problematic. Little wonder
that what we are supposed to find there has no clear epistemic status.
Do we find an answer to this problem by extending the Kantian tradi-
tion via a new conception, the analytic a posteriori, or by questioning
Kant's epistemological notion of boundaries and his distinction between
the phenomenal and the noumenal?
When we turn to Kant in the analytic tradition, it is difficult to recog-
nize the philosopher for whom, even in the Groundwork, moral obliga-
tions were the commands of God. We mistakenly see Kant as subject to
the dilemma of a Divine Command Theory Ethics: is it good because
God wills it, or does God will it because it is good? Again, Kant is often
seen as someone who contradicts his initially austere ethic of duty, with
a late appeal to eternal happiness as the telos of moral action. Is it not
important to see Kant in the pietistic context he grew up in? If this were
done, we might find conceptual space in his work for the notion of sub-
missive autonomy in relation to God. Having said that, however, we
would still need to discuss whether the conceptual space provided by
Kant does justice to the notion of grace in Christianity.
Looking at the contributions to the collection, it is clear that while
some symposiasts see Kant and Kierkegaard as far apart, others want to
emphasize what they have in common. While some see the task of
going beyond them as extending their tradition or traditions, others see
our need as one of recasting the dualisms they find in these authors.
Both Kant and Kierkegaard, it is argued, need to give more attention to
the coercive force of social conditions, the political significance of reli-
gion and the religious significance of politics, and to the dangers of too
sharp a distinction between the secular and the sacred.
These future needs are not supposed to convince those without faith.
They are addressed to Christians in the modern world. This raises a
more general issue which appeared at various points in the papers and
in the discussions of them: the nature of moral philosophy and what it
makes sense to expect of it.
Some symposiasts welcomed the fact that Christian philosophers
have gone beyond the notion of philosophy as disinterested inquiry.
What they objected to most in this view of philosophy was the view
xx Kant and Kierkegaard on Religion
that one should divest one's inquiries of any semblance of personal

commitment. They saw this as one result of the secularization of our
times.
Others argued that this is an inaccurate reflection of post-Nietzschean
European philosophy which has sought, whether successfully or not, to
free religion from dependence on metaphysics, something of which
Kierkegaard would have approved. Yet, some argued, within this
tradition, teaching has an ethical purpose. If Kierkegaard is taught well,
it is claimed, the lives of students are transformed. They are brought to
see what is involved in 'choosing a self'.
In a related way, others welcomed the change in the philosophy of
religion in the sixties when, under the auspices of the Society for Chris-
tian Philosophers, Christians no longer felt the need to be defensive
about religion. Others questioned whether this is as great a progress as
some imagine; whether the academy at large is engaged in the discus-
sion of religion as it was in the discussion of religious language from the
fifties to the seventies. Is there not a danger of philosophers separating
off from each other within perspectives whose presuppositions do not
need to be criticized? This is a question which calls for further examina-
tion.
Some contributors argued for a contemplative conception of philo-
sophy, one which is born of wonder at the variety of the world and is
engaged in open-ended dialogue concerning it. This contemplative con-
ception does not entail the view that all perspectives can be assessed in
terms of common evidence or a common rationality.
In this introduction, I mention the main issues which you will find in
the papers and the discussion. I do not apologise for repeating them,
since my purpose, after all, is to give an indication, at this stage, of the
topics which are discussed in far greater detail in the collection.
As you see, each symposium is followed by a discussion. The discus-
sions are the result of notes I took during the conference. They do not
purport to be exact accounts of what various contributors said, and that
is why I have used letters instead of names in the discussions. My aim is
to give you some indication of the discussions which took place. Most
reviewers of previous volumes have found that the discussions added to
the value of the collection. I hope that will be found to be the case in
the present volume.
Up until the previous volume, I included 'Voices in Discussion' as one
long essay at the conclusion of the volume. At the suggestion of a
reviewer, however, I began placing 'Voices in Discussion' at the end of
each symposium. My method is not without its flaws. In some cases, it
Introduction xxi
is easy to identify the speaker to whom my letter refers, but, for obvious
reasons, that cannot be avoided. One reviewer noted that the letters
outnumber the symposiasts. This is because in each session an oppor-
tunity was given for contributions from the audience. Sometimes, when
the same point is elaborated, or a closely related one is made, I have not
hesitated to place it under a single voice if this is philosophically or styl-
istically desirable. That has been done less in the present volume, how-
ever, than in those published previously. The Voices do not take into
account changes in the papers after the conference.
Having come to the end of this collection, you may find yourself
among those who think we need to go beyond Kant and Kierkegaard.
What is clear, however, is that it is extremely difficult to go round them.
Along with Hume, they have determined many of the issues which still
have to be faced in contemporary philosophy of religion. Of course, we
can ignore their questions, but we would be all the poorer for doing so.
Note
1. Religion and Hume's Legacy, ed. D. Z. Phillips and Timothy Tessin (Macmillan
and St. Martin's Press, 1999).
Part I
Kant, Kierkegaard and
Metaphysics
1
Kant and Kierkegaard on the
Possibility of Metaphysics
c. Stephen Evans
Although those philosophers termed 'postmodernist' would seem to

have little in common with logical positivists, one trait these two
groups of philosophers share is a distaste for metaphysics. Though it
may well be true that each group of philosophers has a very different
conception of metaphysics, and even that each in its positive thrust
exemplifies what the other wishes to stigmatize as metaphysics, it
remains true that for each 'metaphysics' is a term of abuse. However,
philosophers should not necessarily shrink from embracing terms of
abuse. One of the things I admire about William lames is his willingness
to do this in his celebrated essay 'The Dilemma of Determinism'. In this
essay, which I will discuss in more detail later, lames makes a present of
the desirable term 'freedom' to his soft determinist opponents and is
content to fight under the banner of the much-reviled 'chance'.! In a
similar spirit of willingness to enlist in an unpopular cause, I wish to say
a good word on behalf of this much-reviled metaphysics. Specifically,
I wish to argue that Smen Kierkegaard was not an enemy of metaphysics.
Rather, Kierkegaard's aim was to show that those metaphysical ques-
tions that are linked to religious faith are real questions that human
beings must answer. They are, however, as Kant had argued already,
questions that cannot be answered from a theoretical or speculative
pOint of view, but that need to be approached from a point of view that
could be called practical, pragmatiC or existential.
1. There is metaphysics and there is metaphysics
Before defending metaphysics, it is first necessary to clarify what I shall

here mean by the term. The word is used by both friends and opponents
for quite a variety of enterprises. There is, of course, the contemporary
3
4 Kant and Kierkegaard on Religion
'bookstore' sense, in which metaphysics is associated with magic,

witchcraft and the occult. This usage we can safely ignore. Metaphysics
is sometimes characterized in terms of its intended object of inquiry.
Perhaps the most central designation of metaphysics would go back to
Aristotle, in which metaphysics is that which 'comes after physics'. But
what does it mean to go 'after' or 'beyond' physics? One answer would
take metaphysics as an attempt to go beyond the limits of human
experience; here metaphysics is the science of the transcendent or the
supra-sensible. If there are Objective Forms or Transcendent Egos, meta-
physics would be the science of such objects. A second sense, which
may partially overlap this first one, gives metaphysics the role of inquiry
into the supernatural. Metaphysics here is the quest for God, angels,
and/or demons. This second sense should not be identified with the
first, since doing so would prejudge the question as to whether experi-
ence of the supernatural is possible.
Alternatively, metaphysics is sometimes characterized in terms of a
quest for a complete understanding of the whole of reality. The meta-
physician on this view has no special region of reality to study, but is
embarked on a quest for a 'metanarrative', an account of the whole of
reality in which science, morality, art and religion all have their place.
(Though one should note that the term 'metanarrative' itself is used in
more than one way.) A variation on this quest to understand the whole
would be what some philosophers term 'ontology', which is a reflection
on the 'meaning of being' rather than an attempt to understand beings,
whether that attempt be local or global. Less ambitious than the quest
to understand the whole would be such local or 'regional' narratives,
in which the metaphysician attempts to understand holistically some
particular area of reality, such as the nature of human beings, or of the
cosmos.
Still another way of categorizing metaphysics focuses on its presumed
epistemic status, rather than on the object of study. A metaphysician
may be seen as attempting to gain a certain kind of knowledge, know-
ledge that is universal or necessary or has some other special character.
For example, the metaphysician may be described, as Kant often does,
as the alleged purveyor of synthetic a priori truth, or in Spinozist form as
the devotee of a strict method of rational proof that is supposed to guar-
antee certain knowledge. Hegel's view of philosophy as a quest for
absolute knowledge that is arrived at by a dialectical method would be
yet another variation on this theme. My own hunch is that it is this
epistemic characterization of metaphysics that is responsible for much
of its current bad reputation.
The Possibility of Metaphysics 5
I think it is pretty clear that there is such a thing as thinking about

the character of the real that does not necessarily include such grandi-
ose epistemological baggage. If one looks at contemporary metaphysical
debates in contemporary analytic philosophy, for example, one finds a
plurality of views on such topics as the nature of personal identity, the
relation of mind to body, and the nature and causes of human action,
and many others. Rival views on all these issues are vigorously defended.
In these debates none of the participants is under any illusion of saying
the last word on the subject; rather, theories are developed and argu-
ments defended with a full understanding that there are rival views in
the neighbourhood and that no particular theory is likely to win
universal (or even majority) assent. The arguments take the form of
showing consistency or inconsistency with various convictions and
commitments people have; a metaphysical view under attack by argu-
ments, even powerful arguments, can always be saved if one is willing
to modify some of those convictions. So it is clearly possible for there to
be such a thing as metaphysical inquiry, thinking about the character
of reality or some region of reality, that does not presume to be some
kind of super-science or absolute knowledge. We might call this simple
form of metaphysics 'mere metaphysics', or metaphysics in the narrow
sense.
I wish therefore to distinguish between metaphysics that presumes to
be absolute knowledge or claims some other kind of grand epistemolo-
gical status because it promises a kind of certainty and finality, and the
more modest kind of metaphysics. Mere metaphysics I shall character-
ize as an attempt to understand the implications of one's life commitments.
Of course it is not just any kind of understanding that is implied here;
nor are all commitments of equal weight. The understanding in ques-
tion does have, I believe, some of the characteristics of metaphysics
as traditionally conceived. It is that kind of understanding that we
describe as 'deep' or 'holistic' because it concerns how we understand
our lives as a whole and the whole of the reality we find ourselves in,
and it deals with issues that we consider specially important. I do want
'commitments' here to be taken in a broad sense, including both theor-
etical and practical matters. We find ourselves with beliefs of various
kinds of which we are convinced and also as enmeshed in patterns of
life from which we would find it difficult to extricate ourselves.
It is, I think, metaphysics in the first sense, metaphysics as the claim
to final and certain knowledge, that is usually what those who think of
Kierkegaard as an opponent of metaphysics have in mind. Michael
Weston, for example, characterizes metaphysics in the follOwing manner:
Plato and Hegel mark the beginning and culmination of a particular

project of human thought, metaphysics, which, for Kierkegaard, in
its claim to reveal the truth of human existence represents a misun-
derstanding, and in its character as a human enterprise, expresses a
deficient mode of human life. 2
What is it about Plato and Hegel that offends Kierkegaard? Is it that

they presume to direct human thought beyond the realm of the empir-
ically knowable to the transcendent? Hardly. Kierkegaard is no positiv-
ist. Is it that Plato and Hegel seek to give a coherent interpretation of
the whole of experience? I think Kierkegaard has nothing against coher-
ence and wholeness as desiderata. One of his first books was a blast at
Hans Christian Andersen for lacking a coherent life-view, an essential
trait for an author in Kierkegaard's eyes. 3 The problem with Plato, and
especially with Hegel, lies rather in claims to finality or completeness.
As Kierkegaard's pseudonym Johannes Climacus expresses it, 'System
and finality are pretty much one and the same, so that if the system is
not finished, there is no system.,4 Climacus goes on to reinforce this
point by comparing systems to pantheism. Pantheistic systems are often
attacked with the charge that they undermine freedom and the distinc-
tion between good and evil. Climacus argues, however, that it is just as
true to say that every system must be pantheistic, just because of the
claim to finality. 5
This kind of systematic metaphysics for Kierkegaard constitutes that
brand of 'speculative philosophy' which aims to achieve the chimerical
standpoint of 'pure thought,.6 However, I do not think Kierkegaard's
polemics against speculative philosophy are an indictment of meta-
physical speculation per se, but rather constitute a vehement rejection
of Hegelianism and other modern philosophies that aim at absolute
knowledge.
Kierkegaard consistently expresses admiration for ancient philo-
sophy, and he is well aware of its speculative character. 7 I believe that
his admiration for this kind of metaphYSiCS is grounded in two charac-
teristics: (1) Ancient philosophers were aware of the speculative char-
acter of their thought; speculation was understood as speculation, not
passed off as the system. (2) Ancient speculation was linked to practical
questions; the Stoics and Epicureans developed theories about reality
that were linked to visions of the good life. (For that matter, the Sceptic
who rejects such metaphysical speculation is also viewed in a positive
light, not merely for his epistemic modesty, but because his scepticism
is put to practical use.)
Mere metaphysics is simply thinking about the nature of things with-

out the epistemological burden of the claim to reach finality and cer-
tainty. The kind of thinking 1 have in mind is beautifully exemplified by
William James in his classic essay 'The Dilemma of Determinism'. (1 cite
James as my example partly because he has become a hero to Rorty and
others who see James as rejecting metaphysics. 1 see James myself as pro-
viding a pragmatic criterion for resolving metaphYSical disputes.) 1 have
already noted how lames chooses in this essay to designate his view by
the ugly term 'chance'. His reasons for doing so are straightforward. One
may quibble about the meaning of 'freedom' and thus about whether an
act is or is not free, but the question as to whether all acts are causally
determined or whether there is an element of indeterminism in the
universe is, says lames, 'a perfectly sharp one'. Therefore, 'the truth must
lie with one side or the other, and its lying with one side makes the other
false'.s The dispute over chance or indeterminism 'has nothing to do with
this or that psychological detail. It is a quarrel altogethel 'lletaphysical.,9
However, although lames thinks that this is a metaphysical dispute in
which one side must be correct and the other incorrect, he claims that
no empirical facts can settle the issue.lO Any conceivable empirical out-
come can be understood, at least in retrospect, as the outcome of a deter-
ministic process but also as one alternative outcome where there were
other possibilities. Nevertheless, this theoretical impasse is not the end
of the discussion. lames proceeds to argue vigorously that in so far as we
are committed to regret as a real and appropriate element in human life
we are committed to the denial of determinism. lames even argues that
those who say we should regret nothing are in the awkward position of
regretting all the regret in the world. A clear understanding of what we
might term our actual life-commitments, in this case a commitment to
seeing regrets as sometimes appropriate, helps us see that it is reasonable
to commit ourselves to one side of the metaphYSical dispute.
It is metaphysics in this Jamesian sense that 1 wish to defend in this
essay. There is no hint here of finality and certainty; no claim to
absolute knowledge but rather a confession that theoretical evidence is
not decisive. However, lames does not see this lack of absolute know-
ledge as a barrier to serious consideration of metaphYSical questions,
and earnest conviction that certain positions on this questions are true.
2. Kant's view of metaphysics
Kant bears, 1 think, a large measure of responsibility for the entan-

glement of metaphYSical thinking with the grandiose epistemological
project. Kanfs philosophy is a curious blend of epistemic humility and

hubris. On the one hand he is much concerned with recognizing and
accepting the limits of human reason. On the other hand, the reason
that is supposed to be doing the critical assessment of reason's power
seems to have few limits. Kant tell us that having solved Hume's prob-
lem, 'not merely in a particular case, but with respect to the whole fac-
ulty of pure reason', that he 'could proceed safely, though slowly, to
determine the whole sphere of pure reason completely and from uni-
versal principles'. In this way, metaphysics could be constructed 'as a
system'.l1 Thus, although Kant judges that metaphysics as a 'science of
the transcendent' does not really exist, he thinks that his own critical
science does achieve the finality and certainty required for science.
This same paradoxical oscillation between sceptical caution and over-
weening confidence seems to shape Kant's use of the term 'metaphysics'.
Kant speaks of 'metaphysics' in at least three distinct senses. At times
metaphysics seems to be a pseudoscience that Kanfs critical philosophy
has exposed. Thus Kant tells us that 'all metaphysicians are therefore
solemnly and legally suspended from their occupations' until they can
answer the question as to how synthetic a priori cognition is possible.1 2
Since Kanfs challenge has not been met, 'there is, as yet, no such thing
as metaphysics,.13 At other times, 'metaphysics' seems to be a name for
Kanfs own critical enterprise. That is, at times metaphysics seems to be
an enterprise that they (the metaphysicians) try to carry out, but at
other times Kant seems to see his own critical inquiry as a kind of 'sci-
ence' that is perhaps to be the new metaphysics, the successor science
to the failed transcendent kind of metaphysics. For example, he claims
that the distinction he has drawn between the 'Ideas of reason' and the
pure concepts of the understanding 'is so important in founding a
science which is to contain the system of all these a priori cognitions
that, without this distinction, metaphysics is absolutely impossible,.14
Here metaphysics seems to be what Kant himself is doing, or at least he
sees what he is doing as providing a foundation for the new kind of
metaphysics.
Despite the limitations of reason that Kant wishes to emphasize, Kant
has a lot of faith in reason as the power to give a final critique of the
powers of the human mind. He thinks he has successfully carried out
the project of constructing a metaphysics in the second sense, or at least
that he has provided all the essential conditions for doing so:
Pure reason is, indeed, so perfect a unity that if its principles were
insufficient for the solution of even a single one of all the questions to
which it itself gives birth we should have no alternative but to reject

the principle, since we should then no longer be able to place impli-
cit reliance upon it in dealing with any of the other questions. IS
On his view, reason should be able to treat questions about the powers
of the human intellect with both completeness and finality. Hence
Kant informs us that he has made completeness his chief aim, and he
ventures 'to assert that there is not a single metaphysical problem
which has not been solved, or for the solution of which the key at least
has not been supplied'. 16
I think that this 'critical' metaphysical project of Kant carries with it
the same kind of claim to finality and certainty that Kierkegaard rejects
when he ridicules the system that is not quite finished. On this key
point Kant stands with Hegel over against Kierkegaard. So if we are to
see a parallel between Kierkegaard's own metaphysics and Kant, we
must look at another side of Kant.
And of course that side is present. Besides speaking of metaphysics as
failed pseudo-science of the transcendent and as successful critique of
the powers of human reason, Kant sometimes speaks of metaphysics in
a third sense, as an enterprise that is closely linked to practical reason. In
speaking of those philosophers who seek an understanding of ultimate
reality, Kant says the following:
If they [metaphysicians] ... desire to carry on their business, not as a

science, but as an art of wholesome persuasion suitable to the com-
mon sense of man, this calling cannot in justice be denied them.
They will then speak the modest language of a rational belief; ... to
assume (not for speculative use, which they must abandon, but for
practical use only) the existence of something possible and even
indispensable for the guidance of the understanding and of the will
in life. 17
Such a description of course corresponds very closely with Kant's

own attempts in the Critique of Practical Reason to show that rational
faith in human freedom, God and immortality is justified on practical
grounds.
What kind of attitude does Kant have in mind when he speaks of
this kind of 'rational belief? Philosophers have of course sometimes
thought that the attitude in question was less than propositional belief
in propositions that have a truth-value. Roger Scruton makes Kant into
a kind of proto-positivist: 'It is a striking conclusion of Kant's thought
that rational theology is not just unbelievable, but unthinkable. d8 If the

content of theology is not only theoretically unknowable, but unthink-
able, then belief in the ordinary sense would seem to be impossible.
This claim of Scruton's is quite mistaken, however. It is true that Kant
says that the ideas of reason, since they are divorced from any possible
experience, are ideas of which we have 'no concept' .19 However, here
Kant is using the term 'concept' as a technical term; he means 'a concept
that allows of being exhibited and intuited in a possible experience,.2o
He certainly does not mean that we cannot think about God, freedom
and immortality as theoretical possibilities. His view is rather that
reason cannot avoid thinking about these thingsY And this is a good
thing too, since if 'reason is denied the right of being the first to speak
of things which concern supersensuous objects/ such as the existence of
God and the future world, a wide gate is opened to fanaticism, supersti-
tion, and even atheistic opinions'. 22
It is vitally important for Kant that the ideas that metaphysicians
strive fruitlessly to gain knowledge about are thinkable. First, as in the
quote above, this rational determination of the ideas is a hindrance to
superstition. Secondly, the ideas turn out to have what Kant calls a
regulative use even within the sphere of theoretical thought. 23 But most
importantly, the fact that we have these ideas leaves open the possibil-
ity that belief in them may be justified on practical grounds:
For if, in some other relation, perhaps on practical grounds, the

presupposition of a supreme and all-sufficient being, as highest intel-
ligence, established its validity beyond all question, it would be of
the greatest importance accurately to determine this concept on its
transcendental side .... 24
It would be a great mistake then to take Kant's 'rational belief' as

acceptance of metaphysical ideas as 'useful fictions', as a simple deter-
mination to think and act as if God, freedom and immortality were
realities. 25 It is true that Kant continuously denies that belief in these
realities can be theoretical in character (except as 'regulative ideas'), but
he means by this that the ideas in question have no value as scientific
explanations. Kant wants to claim that when individuals act practically,
they find themselves rationally compelled to believe in the reality of
these ideas. To think of them simply as useful fictions would under-
mine the actions that require us to have the beliefs in question. Because
rational belief is a form of belief, it is vital that the ideas believed have
genuine theoretical content.
3. Kierkegaard and anti-realism
Does Kierkegaard share this attitude of Kant towards metaphysics?

Many contemporary writers, both among scholars and among those
who write for a broader audience, see Kierkegaard as an 'anti-realist'
who has no concern for the objective truth of propositions. Don Cupitt,
for example, a theologian whose writings have been much discussed,
particularly in the UK, says that Kierkegaard presents contradictory
views of God, but that Kierkegaard is unconcerned about the contra-
dictions because he has no concern for the objective correctness of
views of God. '[T]o suppose that our various images of God can be
checked for their accuracy against an independently-known Original
in order to harmonise them and remove their mutual inconsistencies is
to fall into the absurd and impious fancies of objectifying dogmatic
theology.,z6
There are a number of passages in the Postscript which can be taken as
suggesting an anti-realist view of God, in which God is not regarded as
an objective reality existing independently of human consciousness,
but is in some way 'constituted' by subjectivityY Here is one: 'But free-
dom, that is the wonderful lamp. When a person rubs it with ethical
paSSion, God comes into existence for him.,z8
How can God 'come into existence' for a person? One might think
that a being who could come into or pass out of existence could not
possibly be God. However, this is not so if one thinks of 'God' as a sym-
bol or projection of some human ideal, and the following passage
might be thought to suggest such a view of God:
God is not something external, as is a wife, whom I can ask whether

she is now satisfied with me .... God is not something external, but
is the infinite itself, is not something external that quarrels with me
when I do wrong but the infinite itself that does not need scolding
words, but whose vengeance is terrible - the vengeance that God
does not exist for me at all, even though I pray. (p. 163)
One might construe this fairly obscure passage as meaning that aware-
ness of God's reality is simply awareness of some infinite 'idea' in con-
sciousness, perhaps consciousness of an infinite moral demand, which
has no existence independently of consciousness. On this reading, belief
in God would be something rather like belief in an absolute moral
standard, and while such a standard could be seen Platonically as an
'objective reality', it could also be seen as a kind of subjective ideal to
which a person is committed, an ideal that has no ontological status

other than that of a possibility to be lived.
The question as to whether Kierkegaard is a realist or an anti-realist
clearly hinges partly on how we define the terms 'realism' and 'anti-
realism'. Cupitt seems to think that a realist is someone who claims to
have a kind of unmediated access to Reality, an access that implies the
possession of truth that is final and certain. Thus Kierkegaard for him is
not a realist because Kierkegaard does not admit that we humans have a
special access to God as 'an independently known original', an access
that would provide some kind of absolute knowledge by which to meas-
ure the adequacy of various human conceptions. Realism here is tied to
what is often termed classical foundationalism in epistemology. Cupitt
is hardly alone in thinking about realism in this way. Richard Rorty, for
example, often describes realism as presupposing or entailing a claim
that human beings have some kind of faculty that gives them certain
access to Truth about Reality. It is for this reason, I think, that Rorty
seems to think of Kierkegaard as someone who is on his side in the real-
ism debate, when he identifies Kierkegaard as one who rejects the Soc-
ratic assumption that humans have a timeless 'truth-tracking faculty
called Reason' in favour of the view that the pOint of departure of
human knowers may simply be a contingent historical event. 29 As Rorty
sees it, since Kierkegaard denied we have any special access to Reality,
Kierkegaard is not a realist.
If realism is equated with the Cartesian project of providing absolute
foundations for knowledge, a project that certainly has been dominant
in modern philosophy, then there is no question that Kierkegaard is not
a realist. However, there are other conceptions of realism that do not
coincide with this one. Hilary Putnam and William Alston, for example,
while disagreeing about the truth of realism, agree on how it should be
defined: '[A] distinguishing feature of the realistic sense of "true" is it is
logically possible for even the best attested statement to be false.'30
The realist in this sense wishes to stress that reality is, with the excep-
tion of human beings and those actions and creations and institutions
obviously dependent on human activity, independent of the human
mind. The realist in this sense defines herself over against any 'verifica-
tionist' theory that insists that truth and reality be defined in terms of
what we humans can know or experience. Far from being an epistemo-
logical absolutist, realism in this sense is logically tied to epistemolo-
gical humility, since its defining feature is the claim that reality is not
limited by our human cognitive powers and thus may always exceed
those powers. Of course such a reality may be knowable by humans; the
point of realism is that we have no guarantees. We cannot say with

Peirce that truth is what an ideal community of human investigators
will ultimately agree on, since it is possible for even the best human sci-
entific community to get things wrong.
I believe that this second characterization of realism is by far the most
helpful and fruitful. For the kind of view Rorty presents seems to imply
that we have only two options: either claim unmediated access to Real-
ity that gives us final truth or else admit that there is no such thing as
objective truth about the real. But surely there are options in between
these two extremes. We might, for example, hold that there is such an
objective final truth, but also hold that for finite human beings, such a
truth can only be an ideal to be approximated and striven for. We
might hold that of those strivings and approximations, some are better
than others without claiming that we say this because we have some
kind of final access to the Truth.
I believe that this last attitude I have sketched is precisely Kierke-
gaard's view. One of the most famous passages from the Postscript claims
that 'existence itself is a system - for God'.31 It is true that Johannes
Climacus strenuously maintains that existence cannot be a system for
human beings, unfinished strivers that we are. Perhaps someone like
Rorty will then wonder about the value of such a final truth, since it is
inaccessible to existing human beings. The answer is that such a final
truth is valuable partly because it gives us existing human beings some-
thing to strive for. Even if we humans can never fully realize such final
truth, if there were no such thing as the truth as God sees it, then there
would be nothing for us to strive for or approximate.
Nor does Kierkegaard ever affirm that all of our efforts as knowers are
equally far off the mark. The discussion in the Postscript about objective
truth in the section on truth as subjectivity certainly does not dismiss
the idea of objective truth. It rather claims that for us existing human
beings, such truth can only be an approximation.32 But without the
standard of Truth as reality as God knows it, there would be nothing to
approximate. We strive to get it right and tell it like it is, even if our best
efforts are always fallible, subject to correction, and partially off the
mark. But such striving would look very different - it could not be
thought of in the same way - if there were no such thing as getting it
right.
This claim may seem excessive. Surely, one might think, we can judge
some beliefs superior to others without presupposing some final stand-
ard, just as we can judge a 'philosophy paper to be superior to another
without assuming some absolute standard of comparisonY In general
we certainly can and do judge various things to be comparatively better

and worse without presupposing any absolute standard. There is no
such thing as the absolute best philosophy paper, and no such thing as
the absolute best amount of money, yet we judge paper A better than
paper B, and (at least in some situations) we judge it better to have
money than to lack it.
However, in some cases our ability to rank and evaluate does seem to
rest on some kind of final standard. In some cases there seems to be
some kind of maximum degree of perfection that serves as a basis for
the comparison. There are activities that have a natural goal, and this
goal sets the standard. In archery, the shot closest to the centre wins. In
mathematics, when two sets of lines are compared, one set can be judged
more equal than the other because there is a standard of equality.
I believe that truth is such a standard, and that believing is an activity
where there is a natural goal. Truth is certainly not the only goal we
have for our beliefs, and thus is not the only way we evaluate them.
Beliefs can be better and worse in all sorts of ways. However, when we
say that a belief is more true, we mean to say that it comes closer to
getting it right, telling it like it is. That is why truth is ultimately not
reducible to epistemic concepts. When a belief is true, it is made true by
the way the world is, not by the fact that human beings have achieved
consensus about it, or that it is an intellectually fertile way to think
about things. At least that is what we think when we are trying to find
the truth, and it is the way Kierkegaard thinks about propositional truth
as well.
The Kierkegaardian claim that truth is subjectivity does not under-
mine this commitment to realism. First of all, this famous claim by
Johannes Climacus is limited to what he calls moral and religious truth,
and is not meant to apply to truth in genera1. 34 But more important,
the focus of the discussion is not on the nature of objective proposi-
tional truth at all, but on the question as to what makes a person's life
true:
When the question about truth is asked objectively, truth is reflected upon
objectively as an object to which the knower relates himself. What is
reflected upon is not the relation but that what he relates himself to is the
truth, the true. If only that to which he relates himself is the truth, the true,
then the subject is the truth, the true. When the question about truth is
asked subjectively, the individual's relation is reflected upon subjectively. If
only the how of this relation is in truth, the individual is in truth, even if
he were to relate himself to untruth. 35
This passage, so far from denying that there is such a thing as objective
truth, clearly presupposes that there is such a thing. The question is
whether or not having a relation to that objective truth suffices to make
the individual's life true, and the claim is that it does not. Climacus
maintains rather that if the individual is related in the proper manner
to what the individual perceives as true, the individual will be living
truly even though the individual is related to what is objectively false.
This claim may be vulnerable to criticism in a number of ways; some
may think Climacus naive to believe that the manner in which an indi-
vidual appropriates what he or she perceives as truth is sufficient to
make the individual's life true, though I shall argue below that his view
is defensible in the proper metaphysical context. However, it is in any
case not a denial that there is such a thing as objective truth and it does
not imply that this propositional truth should not be understood in a
realistic manner.
The realistic character of Kierkegaard's thought comes through most
strongly in the emphasis on risk and objective uncertainty. Climacus
argues time and time again that religious faith is a passion and that this
passion, far from being incompatible with objective uncertainty, thrives
on such uncertainty, even demands it. However, the uncertainty and
risk that passion craves is logically linked to the realistic interpretation
of truth as that which even the best human cognitive efforts may miss.
4. Kierkegaard on knowing God
I believe that those who tie realism to classical foundationalist epi-

stemology typically reason as follows: It is pOintless to claim that there
is objective truth if we human beings have no access to that truth. Nel-
son Goodman, for example, while not denying outright the existence of
an objective, independent reality, suggests that this is a claim not worth
making: 'while the underlying world ... need not be denied to those
who love it, it is perhaps on the whole a world welllost'.36 Those who
think this way believe, as does Richard Rorty, that one must choose
between truth as 'contact with Reality' and truth as edifying or 'what is
good for us to believe'.37
Kierkegaard rejects this dilemma, because he rejects the underlying
premise on which it rests, a premise that is held in common by the clas-
sical foundationalist and the contemporary anti-realist. The premise in
question is a conditional proposition: 'Jfthere is knowledge of objective
reality, there must be some way in which certain and final knowledge
about that reality can be obtained.' The classical foundationalist accepts
this principle and goes on to argue that since there is knowledge, there
must be access to reality that provides us with foundational absolute
knowledge. The contemporary anti-realist argues that since there is no
such absolute foundational knowledge, there is no such thing as know-
ledge of objective reality. If we couple this claim with some kind of
commitment to verificationism (taken in a broad sense), then the very
notion of an objective reality becomes dubious and even meaningless.
Kierkegaard, however, rejects this conditional premise. On his view,
empirical knowledge necessarily aims at such objective knowledge, even
though there is no such thing as an 'absolute given' nor any 'absolute
method' guaranteed to lead to final knowledge. There is neither unme-
diated nor mediated absolute knowledge, but the whole enterprise of
knowing loses its point if we cease to think of it as a quest for know-
ledge of reality as it is. Rather, he assumes, in a common sense manner,
that knowledge is an attempt to find out how things really are, inde-
pendently of the knower. For example, in arguing against the Hegelian
view that the past can be understood as necessary, Johannes Climacus
claims that historical events are contingent events and that knowledge
of the historical as necessary would not be genuine knowledge, since it
would involve a change in what is known: 'If what is apprehended is
changed in the apprehension, then the apprehension is changed into a
misunderstanding. ,38
Nevertheless, one might think that even if Kierkegaard is a realist
with respect to ordinary empirical knowledge, he is not a realist with
respect to religious knowledge. To see whether or not this is so, let us
examine the case of knowledge of God. If Kierkegaard accepted the
conditional premise specified above, he would certainly reject any real-
istic account of God, for he clearly rejects the claim that any knowledge
of God that is 'objectively certain' can be had, whether immediate or
mediate. The claim that one can have a direct and unmediated experi-
ence of God is stigmatized as paganism,39 and one of the most famous
sections of Philosophical Fragments argues that no logical arguments for
the existence of God can be conclusive. 4o
However, it does not follow from these denials that God cannot be
known at all. It certainly does not follow that one's beliefs about God
cannot be beliefs about a God who has a reality independent of human
thinking. At least these implications do not follow if one rejects the
conditional claim that knowledge of objective reality depends on
absolute foundational knowledge of that reality. Johannes Climacus
does not think of God merely as a set of subjective possibilities. He sees
God as in fact present in or behind the natural world. However, God's
presence cannot be discerned directly through 'objective reflection' or

'objective data' but can only be grasped through spiritual inwardness.
Climacus says that nature is God's work, but God is not directly pre-
sent in nature. Nevertheless, 'when the individual turns to his inner
self ... in the inwardness of self-activity, does he have his attention
aroused, and is enabled to see God everywhere'Y
So despite the polemic against direct or immediate awareness of God,
Climacus does not wish to deny that an individual can become aware of
God. He simply wants to maintain that such awareness is only made
possible by what he calls inwardness or subjectivity. One of his major
criticisms of objective proofs of God's existence is that they make what
should be certain (to the spiritually developed person) appear to be
doubtful:
For to demonstrate the existence of one who is present is the most

shameless affront, since it is an attempt to make him ridiculous ...
How could it occur to one to demonstrate that he exists, unless it is
because one has first permitted oneself to ignore him; and now one
makes the matter still more crazy by demonstrating his existence
before his very nose? A king's existence or his presence generally
has its own characteristic expression of subjection and submission;
what if one in his sublime presence wanted to prove that he existed?
Would one then prove it? No, one makes a fool of him, for his pres-
ence is demonstrated by an expression of submission ... and thus
one also demonstrates God's existence by worship - not by
proofsY
Of course Climacus does not mean that worship constitutes objective

evidence or a logical proof of God's existence. In this passage the indi-
vidual who has failed to develop herself spiritually so as to become
aware of God's reality is portrayed as spiritually lazy or absent-minded,
ignoring a God who can be experientially present. However, it ought
to be clear that this does not imply that God's presence is obvious or
immediate. The person who 'ignores' God's presence is simply the per-
son who fails to develop those moral and religious capacities that are the
ground of the awareness of God.
So Kierkegaard's claim is twofold: (1) God's reality is both objectively
uncertain in the sense that the truth of the claim that God exists cannot
be settled by detached contemplation or immediately certain experien-
tial data. (2) This same God's reality can be subjectively certain in the
sense that a person who is spiritually developed can be aware of God's
reality and even have a kind of confidence about that reality. How can
the reality of God be both uncertain and certain in this way for the
same individual?
Kierkegaard's answer is that this is the very nature of faith or belief.
Human beliefs in general are objectively uncertain once we go beyond
logical truths and truths about how reality immediately appears to US. 43
Faith or belief is simply the human capacity to resolve this objective
uncertainty and arrive at a conviction. 44 There is a special kind of uncer-
tainty involved in belief in the incarnation, an uncertainty that requires
faith in a special or 'eminent' sense. 45 That special kind of faith should
not obscure the fact that faith in general is simply the human ability to
arrive at conviction about what appears objectively uncertain. There is
what we might call 'Socratic faith', a faith in God's reality grounded in
general human moral and religious experience, and this faith shares in
the general character of faith.
Kierkegaard's view here is not at all strange or bizarre when we turn
our attention away from the modern philosophical tradition and look
at actual human life. All of us do have some convictions, convictions
that may have great strength, and yet we understand that for other
people who do not share the values and assumptions we bring to bear
on the consideration of those convictions, the beliefs in question may
appear uncertain or even plainly false. I am personally absolutely con-
vinced that during the Reagan-Bush presidency the status of the poor
in the United States was severely damaged and the middle class severely
weakened. My confidence in those beliefs is not appreciably weakened
by my knowledge that those who approach the economic data with a
certain set of conservative assumptions find my beliefs dubious. In a
similar manner a person of faith understands that the lack of faith makes
religious convictions seem dubious; nevertheless, if I am a person of faith,
such convictions do not seem dubious to me.
But note that the recognition of the 'subjective' grounds of the belief
in no way entails that the content of the belief must be subjective. My
conviction about the conditions of the poor and the middle class in
the Reagan-Bush presidency is a conviction about how things really
were and are. My conviction about God is Similarly a conviction about
how things are. The objective content of the belief is determined by
the nature of belief itself; it does not rest on or presuppose any special
method that guarantees infallible access to the final truth. I could be
wrong about Reagan and I could be wrong about God. I could protect
myself against a certain kind of risk by transforming my belief about
how things are into a belief about my own future possibilities for
action. However, Kierkegaard says that this kind of evasion of risk is an

evasion of our finitude and historicity. We cannot escape the possibil-
ity that we are wrong and should not try to do so, but that does not
mean we cannot stake our lives around our convictions as to how
things are.
5. Why Kierkegaard thinks belief in God must be rooted in

subjectivity
I think many readers of Kierkegaard go wrong by projecting on to him a
particular intellectual crisis that has been acutely felt by many thinkers
in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This is a crisis that
concerns the intellectual viability of traditional theistic religious beliefs.
Most modern thinkers have accepted some form of 'evidentialism', in
which a belief is justified only if it is held on the basis of sufficient evid-
ence, evidence that is supposed to be objective in the sense of being cer-
tain and available to anyone. To many intellectuals, traditional religious
beliefs are lacking when measured by this evidentialist standard. The
traditional proofs do not work, and appeals to religious experience or to
revelation do not offer the kind of evidence needed. In this situation it
appears necessary either to reject religious truth claims or reinterpret
them in a non-realistic fashion. Those who don't wish to reject the reli-
gious life entirely see themselves as having no alternative but to reinter-
pret them. Having made the best of the situation, they may then try to
put a favourable spin on the outcome by arguing that the non-realistic
reading is better anyway, for religious reasons.46
It is natural enough for thinkers in the above situation to assume
that Kierkegaard is addressing the same set of issues, despite the fact
that he is not. Of course it is not that Kierkegaard thinks that the the-
istic arguments can be rehabilitated, or that claims to experience God
can be SCientifically certified. Rather, the difference lies in the attitude
towards the underlying assumption of evidentialism. Kierkegaard,
along with such contemporary proponents of 'Reformed epistemology'
as Alvin Plantinga, Nicholas Wolterstorff and William Alston, rejects
the idea that belief in God must be grounded in objective evidence, the
kind of evidence called for by the epistemologies of classical founda-
tionalism. 47
Kierkegaard's turn to subjectivity is not motivated by the historical
claim that theism was once intellectually credible but is so no longer. If
the 'modern age' finds it more difficult to believe in God, from Kierke-
gaard's point of view this is due to spiritual deadness on the part of
modern people. It is not that earlier people were more credible and
modern people have higher intellectual standards. The claim that unbe-
lief is due to a lack of intellectual evidence is for him simply part of the
self-deception of the modern age, which would like to disguise its rebel-
liousness and insubordination as intellectual honesty.
For Kierkegaard, subjectivity is no 'second-best' fall-back position
with respect to religious knowledge. It is the ground of all genuine reli-
gious knowledge in all times. Even in the times when objective proofs
were regarded as successful, it was faith that supported the proofs, and
not the proofs that supported the faith.48 The reasons why Kierkegaard
thinks that religious knowledge must be grounded in subjectivity have
nothing to do with the limitations of theistic arguments; it is not
the case that religious faith would suddenly become intellectually more
respectable if a new version of the teleological argument were to be con-
structed that would be rooted in the latest findings of biology. Rather,
religious knowledge is linked to subjectivity because there is an essen-
tial link between the attainment of religious insight and the develop-
ment of religious character.
For Kierkegaard, if religious beliefs were purely theoretical in charac-
ter, then there would be no essential link between recognizing the truth
and becoming a different kind of person. Because God is a God of good-
ness and holiness, and because God desires his human creatures to
develop these same qualities, he has designed the world in such a way
that those creatures can only come to know him if they are engaged in
the struggle to become like him. Ultimately, then, for Kierkegaard the
claim that the knowledge of God is grounded in subjectivity is itself
grounded in a traditional picture of God as the creator who has created
a world with a particular structure.
If one thinks, as Kierkegaard clearly does, that the knowledge of God
is essential for a full human life, and if one thinks, as Kierkegaard also
does, that God loves all his creatures and wants them all to enjoy that
knowledge, then linking the knowledge of God to subjectivity makes
sense. Human beings differ markedly in their intellectual abilities and
in their educational opportunities. Every normal human being, how-
ever, is faced with responsible choices about the character of existence.
Every normal human being struggles with guilt and personal responsib-
ility and the development or failure of relationships with others. If the
knowledge of God is grounded in these experiences, and if it depends
essentially on the honesty and courage with which people face the issue
of who they are and how they should live their lives, then that know-
ledge is in principle available to all. It is certainly not limited to those
who are philosophical theologians. But this picture of religious know-

ledge as linked to subjectivity rests on beliefs about the character and
intentions of a God who is really there and who created humans to
enjoy communion with him.
As noted at the beginning of this paper, Kierkegaard thinks that the
question of how a person arrives at a belief overshadows the question of
what beliefs a person holds. This apparently opens him up to the criti-
cism that a sincere Nazi who passionately embraces his beliefs is 'in the
truth'. However, if my account is right, Kierkegaard may have an
answer to this charge. His position is ultimately not that what a person
believes is unimportant. Having the right beliefs is important, but a
person will only reach the right beliefs if that person is seeking in the
right way.
In all the usual talk that Johannes Climacus is mere subjectivity etc.,
it has been completely overlooked that in addition to all his other
concretions he points out in one of the last sections that the remark-
able thing is that there is a How with the characteristic that when
the How is scrupulously rendered the What is also given, that this is
the How of 'faith'.49
One does not necessarily become the right kind of person merely by
having the right beliefs; in fact, the beliefs cannot even be right in an
important sense if they are not held in the right way. This is so, not
because the beliefs themselves lack objective content or are unimport-
ant, but because God has ordained that it will be this way:
But verily, as little as God lets a species of fish remain in a particular

sea unless the plant also grows there which is its nutriment, just so
little shall God leave in ignorance of what he must believe the man
who truly was concerned ... The thing sought is in the seeking
which seeks it, faith in the concern at not having faith; love, in the
concern at not loving. The need brings with it the nutriment ... not
by itself ... but by virtue of God's ordinance. so
This claim itself must of course be believed in faith. Its truth is by no

means obvious experientially, and the committed Christian cannot see
how it can be completely true in this life. However, that committed
Christian will not see this life as the whole of human existence, and this
belief in the life to come will once more be understood as belief about
what is the case.
Notes
1. William lames, 'The Dilemma of Determinism', in The Will to Believe and
Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (New York: Dover Publications, 1956),
pp. 145-83.
2. Michael Weston, Kierkegaard and Modern Continental Philosophy: an Introduc-
tion (London: Routledge, 1994), p. 1l.
3. See From the Papers of One Still Living, published as part of S0ren Kierkegaard,
Early Polemical Writings, ed. and trans. lulia Watkin (Princeton: Prince ton
University Press, 1990).
4. Smen Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. Howard V. and
Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Prince ton University Press, 1992), p. 107 (trans-
lation modified).
5. Kierkegaard, Postscript, p. 122.
6. See Postscript, pp. 304-9 and 313-14, where a distinction is made between
the kind of abstract thinking found in Greek philosophy, which still pre-
served a relation to existence, and the so-called 'pure thought' of modern
philosophy.
7. See, for example, Postscript, pp. 309 and 311, where we are told repeatedly
that 'Greek philosophy was not absentminded', that 'the Greek philosopher
was an existing person, and he did not forget this' and that 'every Greek
thinker was essentially also a passionate thinker'.
8. lames, 'The Dilemma of Determinism', p. 151.
11. Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, ed. and revised
translation by Lewis White Beck (Indianapolis, Indiana: Bobbs-Merrill, 1950),
pp. 8-9.
12. Kant, Prolegomena, p. 25.
13. Kant, Prolegomena, pp. 4-5.
14. Kant, Prolegomena, pp. 76-7.
15. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New
York: St. Martin's Press, 1965), p. 10.
16. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, p. 10.
17. Kant, Prolegomena, p. 25.
18. Roger Scruton, A Short History of Modern Philosophy (London: Routledge,
1984), p. 139. Of course Scruton's claim here is doubly wrong. Not only is
he wrong in saying that rational theology is unthinkable, as I here argue.
He is also wrong to say it is unbelievable for Kant. For Kant rational theo-
logy cannot be science; it cannot be known. However, it can and should be
believed.
21. Kant says repeatedly that speculative metaphysics is not a mere mistake but
a kind of 'natural illusion' rooted in the nature of reason itself, since reason
cannot avoid concerning itself with the ideas in question. See Critique of
Pure Reason, pp. 7,300 and 327.
22. Immanuel Kant, What is Orientation in Thinking?, in Critique of Practical
Reason and Other Writings in Moral Philosophy, ed. and trans. Lewis White
Beck (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949), p. 302.
23. See Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, pp. 210-11 and many other passages.
24. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, pp. 530-1.
25. Hans Vaihinger is of course famous for developing such a reading of Kant.
See his The Philosophy of As If (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1924).
26. Don Cupitt, The Sea of Faith (London: BBC, 1985), p. 154.
27. In this paper I shall assume that the writings ofJohannes Climacus, though
expressed in the 'voice' of a non-Christian, nevertheless represent an accurate
picture of Christianity as seen by such an individual, a picture that is con-
sistent with Kierkegaard's own views. This assumption is not uncontro-
versial, and anyone who finds it dubious may treat the views I discuss as
'Kierkegaardian' (found in Kierkegaard's writings) rather than Kierkegaard's.
For more on the relation of Kierkegaard to Johannes Climacus, see my Kier-
kegaard's Fragments and Postscript: The Religious Philosophy of Johannes Clima-
cus (Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1983), pp. 6-32; and
also my Passionate Reason: Making Sense of Kierkegaard's Philosophical Frag-
ments (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1992), pp. 3-12.
28. Postscript, p. 138. For a fuller account of this anti-realist reading of Kierke-
gaard as well as criticism of it and defence of Kierkegaard as a realist, see my
essay, 'Kierkegaard, Realism, and Anti-Realism', in The Cambridge Compan-
ion to Kierkegaard (forthcoming).
29. Richard Rorty, 'The Priority of Democracy to Philosophy', in Philosophical
Papers I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 188. This claim
is echoed in Volume II of Rorty's Philosophical Papers as well; see p. 32.
30. Hilary Putnam, 'Realism and Reason', Proceedings and Addresses of the Amer-
ican Philosophical Association (50, 6), p. 485. This is quoted approvingly by
William Alston in his own presidential address, 'Yes, Virginia, There Is a
Real World', in Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Associ-
ation (52, 6), p. 780.
33. I wish to thank my colleague David Hoekema for drawing this objection to
my attention.
34. Kierkegaard, Postscript, p. 199n.
35. Kierkegaard, Postscript, p. 199. (Italics in original.)
36. Nelson Goodman, Ways of Worldmaking (Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett
Publishing Co., 1978), p. 4. There are plenty of passages where Goodman
could be taken as denying outright the existence of any objective reality.
For example, on p. 6 of Ways of Worldmaking he claims that we construct
worlds not out of nothing, but out of other worlds that are clearly con-
structed as well.
37. Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 1979), p. 176.
38. Soren Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, ed. and trailS. Howard V. Hong
and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), pp. 79-80.
39. Kierkegaard, Postscript, pp. 243-5 and 600.
40. Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, pp. 37-44.
41. Kierkegaard, Postscript, pp. 246-7.
42. Kierkegaard, Postscript, p. 545 (my translation).
44. Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, p. 84.

46. See Don Cupitt, Taking Leave of God (New York: Crossroad, 1981) for an
excellent example.
47. Some of the classic texts for Reformed epistemology can be found in Faith
and Rationality, ed. Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff (Notre Dame,
Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983). It is I think a different
question whether or not there might be evidence that is not describable
as evidence according to classical foundationalist conceptions of evidence.
See, for example, William Wainwright, Reason and the Heart (Ithaca: Comel!
University Press, 1995), in which he argues that there might be evidence for
religious truth that can only be recognized as good evidence when the right
kind of 'passions' are present in the individual.
48. See, for example, Philosophical Fragments, p. 42, where it is urged that in the
case of Socrates' argument for God, faith is the basis of the argument.
49. Soren Kierkegaard's Journals and Papers, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and
Edna H. Hong (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975), entry 4550,
p. 351 in Vol. IV.
50. S0ren Kierkegaard, Christian Discourses, trans. WaIter Lowrie (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1971), pp. 248-9.
2
Kant and Kierkegaard on the
Possibility of Metaphysics - a Reply
to Professor Evans
Michael Weston
Professor Evans' paper raises two central questions. Is the ('realist')

account he provides of religion persuasive? And is it, as he wishes to
claim, Kierkegaard's? My answer to each is negative. As to the first,
philosophical realism is not so much mistaken as confused, as is, there-
fore, its negation in anti-realism. In such philosophical theories lan-
guage 'goes on holiday', is removed from the contexts of its application
where it has sense. What is needed to remove the confusions is the recall
of language to those contexts: in the case of 'realist' and 'anti-realist'
theories of religion, the recall to the use of religious language in the reli-
gious lives of believers. As to the second question, I shall suggest that
the peculiar form of Kierkegaard's pseudonymous production is to be
understood as determined by the attempt to remove such confusions in
a situation where they are part of an individual's self-deception that
they are religious or would become so under certain circumstances. The
structure of Concluding Unscientific Postscript, for example, is intended to
precipitate a self-recognition on the part of the reader of her complicity
in a desire to intellectualize Christianity. There is no metaphysics, real-
ist or anti-realist, in Kierkegaard: rather, an antidote to such tempta-
tions. Kierkegaard would have concurred with Wittgenstein's remark
(Wittgenstein, 1980, p. 18e): 'I ought to be no more than a mirror in
which my reader can see his own thinking with all its deformities so
that, helped in this way, he can put it right.'
Professor Evans identifies himself and Kierkegaard with metaphysics

in one of the senses this has for Kant, that which speaks 'the modest
2S
language of a rational belief ... to assume (not for speculative use,

which they must abandon, but for practical use only) the existence of
something possible and even indispensable for the guidance of the
understanding and of the will in life' (Prolegomena, quoted by Evans,
p. 9). Indeed, by the end of the third Critique, Kant has argued that
for this guidance we must believe that we are embodied immortal souls
in a world designed by a benevolent God to fit our capacities for under-
standing and moral action, and that we shall receive a happiness con-
sonant with our moral worth after death which may, by the grace of
God, be the condition of holiness. As Evans rightly stresses, this belief is
not in useful fictions since these would have no binding force for us: 'it
is vital that the ideas believed have genuine theoretical content' (p. 10),
that they are believed to correspond with the way 'things really are'.
The pOSition, then, is that our non-philosophical ways of thinking and
living require for their justification belief in the truth of certain proposi-
tions: that there is a God who is benevolent, that He is the cause of the
world, that we are immortal souls, and so on. But we cannot know these
propositions are true, since they relate to a reality beyond the condi-
tions of possible human knowing. Our epistemic status in relation to
them is one of objective uncertainty which nevertheless requires our
assent in their truth. This epistemic condition for Kant and Evans is
'Faith or belief' which 'is simply the human capacity to resolve this
objective uncertainty and arrive at a conviction' (p. 18). But because
what we believe in this sense is the truth of certain propositions, and
because these propositions are 'synthetic', the truth of their negations is
possible. Hence it is part of such belief that we should at the same time
admit that we may be wrong, that reality ultimately is not how we
believe it to be. Thus, 'I could be wrong about God ... We cannot escape
the possibility that we are wrong and should not try to do so, but that
does not mean we cannot stake our lives around our convictions as to
how things are' (pp. 18-19). Now, since we are concerned with 'the modest
language of a rational belief', it is not clear that, even on the terms of
the argument itself, this 'staking our lives' would be rational. The con-
viction as to how things are is the result of an argument in the context
of a form of inquiry ('metaphysics') where equally learned, gifted (and
so forth) students come to very different conclusions. Hence, rationally,
it might be thought, I should regard my conclusions hypothetically,
since I may be mistaken and may become convinced of this. Perhaps
next month's journals may show me I am wrong. But then if rationally
I should regard my results in this way, in what sense would it be
rational to 'stake my life' on them? As Climacus remarks in another
The Possibility of Metaphysics - a Reply 27
context: 'At that very moment begins the learned, the uneasy, the tim-
orous contradiction of approximation. The approximation can go on as
long as it wants to, and because of it the decision by which the indi-
vidual becomes a Christian is eventually forgotten completely' (Kierke-
gaard, 1992, pp. 607-8). But I don't want to press this issue at present.
Rather, I want to note that this position must end in the following as
the only justifiable expression of religious faith: 'I believe in God, but,
of course, I may be wrong.' Now, this seems to me precisely not an
expression of religious faith. Scriptural exemplars of such expression
give no warrant for such a formulation, indeed, rather the opposite.
(See 'On Really Believing' in D. Z. Phillips, 1993, p. 55.) This philosoph-
ical reconstruction of religious belief has lost touch with the actuality of
religious usage. But such a move to 'language on holiday' is not an
incidental feature of metaphysical thinking.
The sense of metaphysics, as Stanley Cavell has argued (Cavell, 1979),
is tied up with the possibility of sceptical questioning. The sceptic raises
a question of justification in relation, not to particular claims to know-
ledge, but to a whole practice of making claims, giving reasons, explain-
ing and justifying. The sceptic does not question whether you are in
pain, but whether we can ever justifiably claim that any human being,
other than the sceptic himself, is, and indeed, whether he is ever con-
fronted by other sentient intelligent beings. And so forth. The sceptic
sees his questioning as directed towards presuppositions he takes to be
involved in any of the ordinary claims we make about other people,
things in our environment, the past, and so on. These presuppositions
have the form, as a presupposition must, of propositions: 'there are
"other minds''', 'there is an "external world''', 'there is a "real past'''.
These propositions are synthetic and so are either true or false. But the
sceptic claims we cannot determine their truth or falsity since they are
presupposed by all the propositions (of that particular kind) whose
truth and falsity we ordinarily claim to be able to determine. Having
stepped (apparently) outside of all our practices, there appears to be
nothing in terms of which justification could be given. Do the judge-
ments we ordinarily claim to be true really correspond to the way
things 'really are'? How could we ever know? Metaphysics is a response
to the sceptic's question, whether claiming, in the kinds of rationalist
metaphysics Kant objected to, that we can indeed know 'the way things
are in themselves' through the use of reason, or in Kant's more modest
form, that, although it is true we cannot know this, nevertheless we are
required to believe that this ('we are embodied immortal souls etc.') is
indeed the way things really are. The metaphYSician of whatever stamp,
like the sceptic, claims that our ordinary ways of determining truth
presuppose the 'truth' of some further propositions which lie, therefore,
outside their possible reach. These propositions relate to 'the way things
are', which as outside the scope of our ordinary talk of truth and falsity,
reality and unreality, refers to 'things as they are in themselves, reality
as it really is'.
This whole intellectual structure, sceptical or metaphysical, is, how-
ever, confused. The picture of 'things as they really are in themselves' is
mythology. It cannot, as it apparently desires, point beyond our ordin-
ary language since it is itself expressed in it (how else?). To say 'how
things really are' is simply to speak truly. 'The truth' is what a true pro-
position says. But to say 'p is true' is simply to assert p, whilst emphasiz-
ing that this is being done on appropriate grounds, to insist that I am
justified in asserting p. (See P. Winch, 'Im Anfang war die Tat', in
Winch, 1987.) Hence, the issue of what 'true' and 'truth' amount to is a
matter of understanding what 'p' means and what counts here as appro-
priate grounds. But that has to be seen in terms of what we mean by 'p'
and what we count as appropriate grounds. The metaphysician, how-
ever, wants 'the truth' to mean something beyond any ground we take
to be appropriate since it is intended precisely to determine whether
those grounds really are grounds for justification at all. But this is an
empty gesture. The metaphysician or sceptic has himself to be seen as
questioning, raising doubts, and (in the case of the former), as answer-
ing. A proposition is asserted. But, as Cavell points out, 'not just any-
thing people will do will be asserting, calling', 'to say (or think)
something is the case you must say or think it and "saying that" (or
"thinking that") has its conditions' (Cavell, 1979, p. 239). The sceptic
wishes to question our knowledge in its totality, but in order for his
questions to have the alarming consequences he proposes (and which
the metaphysician wishes to counter) he must allow his questions to
arise naturally. But this he cannot do. The oddity we experience in his
questioning, which the sceptic takes for illumination, is produced by
his abandoning the conditions for his asserting, questioning, etc., that
is, for doing something with his words. So he asks how we can know
someone is really in pain in a situation where the question 'why do you
think this expression of pain gives a false picture of it?' has no answer
(Cavell, 1979, p. 216). Or, in order to raise the question of whether we
really do know there is a fire (table, chair, etc.) here, he must first claim
that we think we 'know' it (that we are making a claim to knowledge) in
a situation where 'how does he know it?' has no answer, or not the
right kind of answer, where the 'reasons' that are given (he just looked
at it, he must glance at it a hundred times a day) are unable to act as

reasons, to remove doubt (ibid., p. 217). Anything we may offer as a
'reason' must be inadequate, but only because the conditions for 'ques-
tioning', 'claiming', 'giving a reason', and so on, are themselves absent.
In order to question our knowledge in its totality, the sceptic must start
out from normal cases where the conditions for claiming and question-
ing are satisfied, otherwise what he addresses will not be our know-
ledge. So he must affirm allegiance to those conditions. But then he
wishes to understand himself and be understood as questioning and
claiming to know where those conditions no longer apply. In this way,
he fails to do anything with his words, words which could ('Is she really
in pain?' 'Is there really a chair here?') constitute a claim in other cir-
cumstances, but one which would not then do what the sceptic wants.
The sceptic does not really 'question' or 'claim', that is, do what counts
here as questioning or claiming (see, too, Winch, 1987). So 'the reason
that no basis is satisfactory, is not that there isn't one where there
ought to be, but that there is no claim which can provide the relevance
of a basis. The reason we cannot say what the thing is in itself is not
that there is something we do not in fact know, but that we have
deprived ourselves of the conditions for saying anything in particular'
(ibid., p. 239). But if there is no intelligible question here, there can be
no (metaphysical) answer either: in both scepticism and metaphysics,
language has 'gone on holiday'. The sceptic tries to ask whether a whole
practice of assertion, questioning, giving reasons, and so forth, 'really
corresponds with the way things are'. That is, he wants to ask whether a
whole form of language is 'true', and formulates this in the claim that
the use of this language presupposes that a proposition ('there is an
external world', 'there are other minds') is true. But it is propositions
which are true or false, not the language in which they are expressed. As
Wittgenstein says (Wittgenstein, 1968, 1.241), 'It is what human beings
say that is true and falsei and they agree in the language they use.' But
the language, which the sceptic himself must use, doesn't agree with
anything, cannot be said to be 'true' or 'false'. What 'questioning',
'asserting', 'truth', 'falsity', 'reality', and so on, mean has to be seen
within the form of language we are concerned with, a language the scep-
tic and metaphysician must themselves be within. What 'belief'
amounts to in religion has to be seen within religious uses of language,
not determined by the requirements of an illusory position beyond our
practices. It is not surprising that when these requirements dictate what
we philosophically say we should end up with formulations which both
distort the actual use of language, and in ways which have no bearing
on our lives. The religious believer is meant to say 'Our Father which
art in Heaven (although possibly not)', or we are meant to say 'She's
terribly cut and crying out, but whether she's feeling anything, of
course, I can't know', but then this is to make no practical difference.
The sceptic and metaphysician both claim that the religious believer's
worship and her religious life in general, all her use of religious lan-
guage, rest on the belief that there really is a God to worship and for
that language to be about. 'God exists' is here meant to be a claim about
'what really is in itself' and which underlies the possibility of truth for
all other religious utterances. As such a claim, it could be false. But this
is precisely such a distortion of religious use. The religious believer is
not prepared to say 'God may not exist' (see 'On Really Believing', in
Phillips, 1993). It is not 'a matter of fact' that God exists. God is said to
be 'eternal', but this doesn't mean 'always exists' since something
which always exists might not have done. To say 'God exists, but might
not have done' is to utilize the language of physical objects, animals
and people. But a physical object or a person is one of a kind. God,
however, is not one of a 'kind', is not 'an object', even a unique one,
since a unique object might not have been so. But then 'God' is not a
'name' (see Rhees, 1969). The 'reality' of God is not something shared
with anything else, as would be suggested by the sceptic's and meta-
physician's gesturing towards 'reality as it really is' in which God is
meant to participate. God has 'divine reality', and what this means
must be seen in the way we speak in religious contexts of 'truth', 'fals-
ity', 'belief' and 'unbelief'. The usage here of the latter term is suggest-
ive. I may believe there is a Yeti. You may believe there is not. But we
wouldn't speak of 'unbelief' here since we both share a common form
of language within which the claim is being made: we share common
criteria for what we are talking about, standards of evidence, reason giv-
ing, and the rest, which will be exemplified in the other ways we talk
about animals. But 'There is no God' (said by one person) is not related
to 'There is a God' (said by another) as -p is to p. They are not contra-
dictory opinions within a shared form of language. To come to 'believe
in God' is not to come to believe that what one thought was false
('There is a Yeti') is true, according to standards already accepted, but of
coming to inhabit a new form of language, coming to have new con-
ceptions of what can be said. 'Coming to believe' is 'converSion', a
'turning around' of one's life. 'Belief' here is not, as the sceptic or meta-
physician claim, an 'epistemic' notion. 'I believe there is a Yeti' is an
admission I am not in a position to say 'I know'. This inadequacy is
judged in terms of where my pOSition would be (in terms of the sort of
thing we are talking about) adequate, where if you claimed to doubt my

claim the onus would be on you to indicate something defective in my
position. But 'I believe in God' is not a confession of inadequate
grounds. It is a confession of faith. And that confession is an expression
of 'certainty', not an 'epistemic' certainty where it would be appropriate
for you to ask how I knew, but an 'existential' certainty, that this is
where I stand. If you said 'You don't really believe there is a Yeti',
assuming you were not suggesting I was pretending, you would be say-
ing that I didn't have the evidence for this to count as a 'belief': it is per-
haps a hope or a daydream. But if you said 'You don't really believe in
God', assuming again you weren't suggesting I was play-acting, you
would justify this by pointing to the way I lived, to what I said and did,
not to my inability to come up with the right 'evidence' or 'arguments'.
You would be suggesting I was self-deceived about the kind of life
I lived. 'What does it mean that all these thousands and thousands call
themselves Christians as a matter of course? These many, many men, of
whom the greater part, so far as one can judge, live in categories quite
foreign to Christianity! ... at the bottom of this there must be a tre-
mendous confusion, a frightful illusion' (Kierkegaard, 1962, pp. 22-3).
Kierkegaard suggests, not that these individuals' claim to believe is not
supported by their possessing evidence or argument, but that their claim-
ing to believe is at odds with their lives, is a form of self-deception.
Kierkegaard's practice of writing in the pseudonymous authorship is
directed towards prompting a self-recognition of such illusion on the
part of his readers. It is a practice which would make no sense if 'belief'
here were an 'epistemic' notion. Kant quite consistently writes in his
own name works setting out, in a disinterested manner, an intellectual
argument to justify an epistemic claim. But for Kierkegaard one form
this 'frightful illusion' can take is precisely to think that believing in
Christianity needs the support of such arguments.
11
In the Preface to Concluding Unscientific Postscript (Kierkegaard, 1992),

]ohannes Climacus, the pseudonymous author, says it is a postscript to
his previous work, Philosophical Fragments, a book which has been com-
pletely ignored. This is, he adds, entirely as he wished, but he still
worries this wish may yet be 'frustrated by some mistake' (p. 5). The
Introduction makes clear the nature of the feared mistake: it is to think
that 'erudite and scholarly work' can be a preparation for religious faith.
Such an idea is a 'delusion' which would 'change faith into something
else, into another kind of certainty' (pp. 11-12), that form (epistemic)
of 'certainty' which is appropriate to intellectual and scholarly matters.
This 'delusion' is to be revealed by the 'dialectician' (clearly in the
Socratic rather than the Hegelian sense) who reveals the contradiction
between such matters and the issue of faith. Thus, Climacus as dialecti-
cian in Part One of the Postscript is concerned to distinguish between
the senses which 'belief', 'certainty', 'truth' and related notions have in
historical and philosophical (speculative) contexts from those they
have in religious, specifically Christian, ones, by showing the confu-
sions involved when the 'truth' of Christianity is construed as the
object of historical or philosophical research. In the latter, 'truth' is
'objective'. That is, the object of research is the standard, and the sub-
ject who conducts the research is to do so 'disinterestedly', imperson-
ally so as to claim universal validity for her findings. Such a claim,
whether of certainty, or that the result is the best possible hypothesis
available at present, or that the issue is doubtful, must be justifiable by
the production of equally impersonal evidence. But our relation to the
'truth' of Christianity can't be like this, since this 'truth' would be one
for our lives and we cannot regard our own life 'disinterestedly' as an
'object'. What is at issue here is the very subjectivity of the one who
raises the question itself. Hence the sense of 'question' must itself be
different: it is the question of the meaning of one's own life, and so the
issue can only be present where the individual has such a 'problem':
that is, in the context of a certain kind of radical despair. We can recog-
nize the 'objective truth' but it remain a matter of indifference to
us, but we can't intelligibly say 'I know Christianity is true, but so
what?' To imagine that the 'truth' of Christianity is a matter for dis-
interested inquiry is to be confused. 'Christianity, therefore, protests
against all objectivity; it wants the subject to be infinitely concerned
about himself. What it asks about is the subjectivity; the truth of Chris-
tianity, if it is at all, is only in this; objectively, it is not at all. And even
if it is only in one single subject, it is only in him' (p. 130). The 'truth'
of Christianity is 'in' the subject. To say 'Christianity is true', therefore,
is always a personal utterance: it only has a sense in the first-person.
'The truth of Christianity' has no impersonal sense and there is no
general problem which is that of 'the truth' of Christianity: hence, one
cannot 'become a Christian' (and Climacus poses the 'question' of the
Postscript as that of what it is to 'become a Christian') by first inquiring
whether Christianity is 'true', assuming that if one could find out then
one would know whether to become a Christian or not. The sense of
the 'certainty' of faith is different from the 'certainty' of an objective
result. Existential certainty 'can be had only in the infinite in which ...
(the individual) cannot be as an existing person but at which he is con-
stantly arriving' (p. 81); 'The infinite and the eternal are the only
certainty, but since it is in the subject, it is in existence' (p. 82). The
'infinite' and the 'eternal' are 'in' the subject, characterize the kind of
certainty at issue. Such certainty is a matter of how the individual lives
in that this how is not dependent on 'objective results' and so on how
things turn out. In this sense, she lives in God (God is not 'something
external').
Professor Evans notes how things said later in the Postscript appear to
contradict this. But such contradictions are the deliberate result of Cli-
macus engaging in Part Two in exactly the kind of intellectual inquiry
he has just shown to be confused, one which results in the revelation
of Christianity as 'the truth' for the existing individual. 'I shall now
describe subjective reflection in its search back inward into inwardness'
(p. 199). Now, according to the sense of 'subjectivity' in Part One, 'sub-
jective reflection' could either mean a reflection (disinterested) into the
categories of subjectivity, one result of which is to show that no disin-
terested inquiry can show the 'subjective truth', or a reflection by an
individual about her own life in relation to a 'problem' in the existen-
tial sense (some form of despair). But 'subjective reflection' in Part Two
is neither. It is a diSinterested inquiry into subjectivity which claims to
reveal the 'subjective truth' and so constitutes (according to Part One) a
confusion. The results of this inquiry are summarized on page 230:
'if ... subjectivity is truth and subjectivity is existing subjectivity, then
Christianity is a perfect fit. Subjectivity culminates in passion, Christian-
ity is paradox, paradox and passion fit each other perfectly.' Reflection
on the nature of subjectivity reveals Christianity as its truth. Climacus'
argument is that only the passionate involvement which is Christian is
adequate to satisfy the individual's need for meaning for her life as a
whole, so that all the individual's attempts at living a meaningful life
find their telos in Christianity. (The Hegelian form of this is clear
enough.) Only as a Christian does the individual become a self and so
becomes who she is. This argument is presented concretely in the form
of a pseudo-Hegelian dialectic of individual existence through which
Climacus expounds the other pseudonymous writings (Kierkegaard,
1992, pp. 251-3) and which seems to be as follows.
In Either/Or, Judge William criticizes the aesthete A for failing to be a
self through attempting to live his life in terms of constant possibility.
In order to attain selfhood, the individual must make herself actual, by
imprinting the very form of the'!', of that which she always is, upon
her possibilities, and so 'choosing choice itself'. Such a choice is a rela-

tion to the eternal since it is a decision not dependent upon events
within the individual's life. Only through a relation to the eternal can
the individual choose her life as a whole and so choose herself. But, Cli-
macus asks, how is this choice in relation to the eternal to take place?
The individual who realizes what is necessary despairs of their former
life which was not characterized by the choice of the eternal. But 'in
despairing, I use myself to despair ... but if I do this I cannot come back
by myself' (p. 258). That is, if you have lived not choosing the eternal,
you may despair of this previous life. But how are you, being the person
you have become, now to will the eternal? You are, ex hypothesi, not
such a person who can will that. Hence in recognizing the demand to
be a self, the ethical demand, the individual realizes her inadequacy.
What is recognized is, on the one hand, the 'infinite requirement of the
ethical' (p. 267), and, on the other, that one would have to be trans-
formed in oneself in order to will it. Having recognized we must
'become who we are', become our selves, we are now forced to realize
we cannot do this just because of who we are. We can, therefore, recog-
nize the ethical requirement only in a turning inwards to practise
renunciation of the temporal, what Climacus will call in chapter 4 the
'infinite resignation' of Religiousness A. But Christianity offers us abso-
lution from 'sin', the 'dreadful exemption' due to our 'heterogeneity
with the ethical'. Through believing in the reality of the God-man, that
'The eternal truth has come into existence in time' (p. 230), we believe
in our own salvation, in our own participation in the life of the God-
man, of living life fully in relation to the eternal. Only so can we
become what we are, a 'self', through attaining, in a full relation to the
eternal, meaning for our lives as a whole in time. But this belief in the
God-man is 'the paradox': it is the belief that the eternal came to be in
time, which is, Climacus says, a contradiction. 'At its highest, inward-
ness in an existing subject is passion', passion to be a self, to live one's
life as a whole, 'truth as paradox corresponds to passion', since this pas-
sion is to live fully in relation to the eternal in time, and to believe this
is to believe in the reality of the paradigm, the God-man, whose being,
as both fully human and fully divine, is a paradox (p. 199). This, then,
provides a definition of faith: 'there is here the certainty that, viewed
objectively, it is the absurd, and this absurdity, held fast in the paSSion
of inwardness, is faith ... The absurd is that the eternal truth has come
into existence in time, that God has come into existence' (p. 210).
Now, there are (at least) three things to be said about this. Firstly, the
appearance of a 'necessary' sequence of stages is illusory, the product of
The Possibility of Metaphysics - a Reply 3S
an abstract thinking which removes the notions in which individuals

live from their existential situation. Climacus argues that only if the
individual has a relation to the eternal does she have a relation to her
life as a whole since to relate to the temporal is to relate to what is
internal to that life. But say someone is attached to certain temporal
outcomes and their preservation. It is true they can fail her, in which
case perhaps she attaches herself to something else. Maybe this attach-
ment and its preservation lasts out her life, or perhaps it doesn't, but she
thinks it was worthwhile and lives then in her memories. Either way,
she is content. How can we say that she 'really' desired a meaning for
her life as a whole which is contradicted by what, when she reflects on
her life, she is content with? Of course, we may have particular reasons
in this case to suspect self-deception, but what Climacus is proposing is
that we know a priori that any such life is self-deceived. This is to objec-
tify the notion of the 'meaning' of life. It is to forget the lesson of Part
One, that there is no general question of the meaning of life to which
there could be a general answer. Such a question and such a response
are always personal, raised in the context of someone's life. To have
such a question is not to be confronted by a matter for disinterested
inquiry: it is to be in despair. And what counts here as an 'answer' lies
in the disappearance of the despair, which may of course involve a rad-
ical change of life. Only if we ignore the essential first-person context
where these notions have sense can we say a priori that she is 'really'
aiming at something which she rejects and which her life denies. What
is true is that she did not relate her life to God. But this does not show
she was 'wrong', made a 'mistake', in the light of what the 'truth' about
life really is, for, in connection with life's meaning these judgements
themselves are personal, are essentially in the first-person. There is no
'objective' position from which they can be made: they are always
made by someone in terms of their involvement with their own life. To
think there is such a position and so the possibility of such impersonal
judgements is to forget that one is oneself an existing individual: it is,
just as much with the speculative philosopher, to have 'forgotten ...
what it means to be a human being, not what it means to be human in
general, for even speculators might be swayed to consider that sort of
thing, but what it means that we, you and I and he, are human beings,
each one on his own' (Kierkegaard, 1992, p. 120). Climacus' necessary
sequence is produced by taking terms (self, meaning, choice, commit-
ment, and so on) whose sense is given by the forms of existence in
which they are lived, and then using them in terms of one form of
existence about another, making it appear that that sense is already, in
a manner hidden to the individual concerned, 'implicit' in the latter.

But this is to abstract the terms from the forms of existence within
which they have their sense and so to obscure the nature of what a rad-
ical change in the form of one's life involves, the existential difficulty of
taking on ethical commitment or religious passion. It was precisely
because of this that Climacus had earlier stressed the necessity of a
'leap' in such cases of radical change of life.
Secondly, this 'argument' is subject to Climacus' earlier criticisms of
philosophical, in particular Hegelian, interpretations of the truth of
Christianity (on which this present schema is clearly modelled). It pro-
vides an argument to be disinterestedly evaluated. And this means that
seeing its truth and appropriating that truth are separate issues: one
may always remain indifferent to the conclusion. But to say 'Christian-
ity is true' is to express interest, whether of acceptance or revolt. It is to
emphasize this that Climacus earlier distinguishes between the (illus-
ory) objective issue of the truth of Christianity and the 'subjective issue'
which is 'about the individual's relation to Christianity' (p. 17). 'The
inquiring, speculating, knowing subject accordingly asks about the
truth but not about the subjective truth, the truth of appropriation'
(p. 17), where, that is, 'truth' is 'appropriation' by the existing indi-
vidual. 'Thus, there is not a question of the truth of Christianity here in
the sense that if this was decided the subjective individual would then
be ready and willing to accept it. No, the question is about the subject's
acceptance of it' (p. 129). To approach Christianity thinking that first
one must establish its truth as a necessary preliminary to deciding for or
against it is precisely not to encounter it as an 'existence-communica-
tion': 'with regard to an existence-communication, existing in it is the
maximum and wanting to understand it is a cunning evasion that wants
to shirk its task' (footnote, p. 371). For then begins, as I quoted Climacus
earlier, 'the uneasy, the timorous contradiction of approximation' which
can continue 'as long as it wants to', in which 'the decision by which
the individual becomes a Christian is eventually forgotten completely'
(pp. 607-8).
Thirdly, the apparent intellectual demonstration of the superiority of
Christianity ends in explicit nonsense, as if what is required is believing
in a contradiction. But in the context of an intellectual argument, no
sense can be given to 'believing a contradiction' since a contradiction
cancels its sense, it says nothing. Christianity indeed expresses, as Cli-
macus later notes, an 'existential contradiction'. Christianity proclaims
our salvation by grace alone, so that we can have no claim on it. In that
sense, it is beyond the power of the individual. We are required to live
as nothing before God, which indeed contradicts any human sense of

value. But to express this as if it were a 'paradox' for the understanding,
a contradiction in terms, is a confusion of existential (subjective) and
intellectual categories. (See Con ant, 1993 and 1996; Mulhall, 1994; and
Weston, 1999.)
What, then, are we to make of this apparent attempt to demonstrate
the existential superiority of Christianity against the explicit denial of the
possibility of any such thing in Part One and Section One of Part Two? Is
Climacus just confused? But any such simple reading is prevented by
Climacus himself. These apparent demonstrations are contained in a
text which constantly invites us to reject them. For example: 'the ques-
tion about what Christianity is must ... be raised, but it must not be
done in a learned or partisan manner on the presupposition that Christi-
anity is a philosophical theory ... The question must therefore be raised
in terms of existence, and it must be able to be answered ... briefly ... it
would indeed be a ludicrous contradiction if an existing person asked
what Christianity is in terms of existence and then spent his whole life
deliberating on that - for in that case when should he exist in it?' This,
coming on page 370 of an even larger work apparently addressed to that
issue, is, and is obviously intended to be, ludicrous. As Climacus remarks
in his Conclusion: 'I am a friend of difficulties, especially of those that
have the humorous quality, so that the most cultured person, after hav-
ing gone through the most enormous effort, essentially has come no fur-
ther than the simplest human being can come' (p. 607). This remark
hints at how we are to take the apparent demonstrations, since the cul-
tured person who reads the book is to realize they are in the same posi-
tion in relation to 'the truth' of Christianity as the 'simple' who would
be unable to read it. Climacus' own comment on a review of his earlier
Philosophical Fragments, contained in a footnote to the text in which he is
developing his own pseudo-Hegelian dialectic, gives the game away. 'The
report is didactic ... consequently the reader will receive the impression
that the pamphlet is also didactic. As I see it, this is the most mistaken
impression one can have of it. The contrast of form, the teasing resist-
ance of the imaginary construction of the content, the inventive auda-
city (which even invents Christianity) ... the indefatigable activity of
irony, the parody of speculative thought in the entire plan ... of all this
the reader finds no hint in the report. And yet the book is so far from
being written for nonknowers, to give them something to know, that the
person I engage in conversation in this book is always knowledgeable,
which seems to indicate that the book is written for people in the know,
whose trouble is that they know too much ... When this is the case, the
art of being able to communicate eventually becomes the art of being able
to take away or to trick something away from someone' (p. 275). Since
the second part of the Postscript is said by Climacus to be another
attempt at what Philosophical Fragments did, we can apply this to the text
we are reading. It, too, is written for people who 'know too much' and
its form of communication is not to give them something more to know
(an intellectual demonstration of the superiority of Christianity) but to
take their presumed knowledge away, to 'trick' them out of it. The dem-
onstrations of the Postscript are themselves a 'parody' whose intention
is to get the cultured reader to recognize this and so to recognize that
their desire for an intellectual justification for Christianity, apparently
defeated in Part One but which the 'enormous effort' in trying to under-
stand the demonstrations of Part Two shows they still harbour, is a desire
for an illusion and one which prevents them relating to the existential
communication of Christianity in the way any simple person must. That
communication is the person of Christ who summons us to give up all
we have and follow Him, to take Him as 'the Way, the Truth and the
Life'. To require a justification (a 'metaphysics' which shows through a
disinterested reflection on 'existence' and 'subjectivity' that this really is
'the truth') is not to give up everything. This is why Climacus appends
to the book its revocation: 'everything is to be understood in such a way
that it is revoked, that the book has not only an end but has a revocation
to boot' (p. 619).
III
In The Point of View for my Work as an Author (Kierkegaard, 1962), Kier-

kegaard affirms that he had always been 'conscious of being a religious
writer' (p. 21). This religious authorship consisted in the publication,
generally more or less simultaneously, of pseudonymous works and
'upbuilding discourses' in his own name. This is at least the initial sense
of 'direct' and 'indirect' communication. 'Direct communication was
present from the first for the Two Edifying Discourses of 1843 were actu-
ally simultaneous with Either/Or' (My Activity as an Author, in Kierke-
gaard, 1962, p. 145). As a religious individual, Kierkegaard speaks in his
own voice, for himself, in the upbuilding discourses, but indirectly,
through pseudonyms, in the pseudonymous writings. In the latter, it is
Kierkegaard who is 'indirectly' communicating, and these communica-
tions are referred to by Kierkegaard as ones 'in terms of reflection'
which 'beguile a person into the truth' (My Activity, in Kierkegaard,
1962, p. 144).
The distinction between reflective and upbuilding communications is

explained by Kierkegaard in his Journals (Kierkegaard 1967, entry 641):
'Reflections (overveielser) do not presuppose the qualifying concepts as
given and understood; therefore they must not so much move, mollify,
reassure, persuade, as awaken and provoke men and sharpen thought ...
Reflections ought to be a "gadfly"; therefore their tone ought to be quite
different from that of upbuilding discourse, which rests in mood, but
reflections ought in the good sense to be impatient, high spirited in
mood. Irony is necessary here and the even more significant ingredient
of the comic ... An upbuilding discourse about love presupposes that
men know essentially what love is and seeks to win them to it, to move
them. But this is in fact not the case. Therefore the reflections must first
fetch them up out of the cellar, call to them, turn their comfortable way
of thinking topsy-turvy with the dialectic of truth.' In the upbuilding
discourses, Kierkegaard speaks in his own voice as a Christian to others
who are assumed to know what Christianity is, in order to 'win them to
it, to move them'. But 'reflections' are directed at those who think they
understand what Christianity is, and indeed think they are Christians,
but who are deceived in this. 'Supposing now it is a fact that most
people, when they call themselves Christians, are under an illusion'
(Kierkegaard, 1962, p. 25). The task of the 'reflections' is to intervene in
this illusion. In Christendom, where Christianity has been proclaimed
for centuries, 'one does not reflect oneself into Christianity, but one
reflects oneself out of something else' (My Activity, in Kierkegaard, 1962,
p. 144). And we can see what the reference to 'dialectic' means in his
Journals, entry 641, when Kierkegaard writes at entry 6228 that if one is
to do this one must communicate 'not as one who enthusiastically pro-
claims Christianity but as a dialectician does it, in Socratically starving
the life out of all the illusions in which Christendom has run aground.
For it is not that Christianity is not proclaimed, but it is Christendom
which has become sheer expertise in transforming it into illusion and
thus evading it.' Socrates 'had no doctrine, no system and the like'
(entry 4275) but got his interlocutors to recognize that they did not
know what they thought they did. Kierkegaard's reflective communica-
tions are intended as vehicles through which those under the illusion
that they are Christians when they are not can recognize this, and thus
attain a certain self-knowledge, that they evade Christianity whilst
apparently affirming it. 'If ... according to our assumption, the greater
number of people in Christendom only imagine themselves to be Chris-
tians, in what categories do they live? They live in aesthetic, or, at
the most, in aesthetic-ethical categories' (Kierkegaard, 1962, p. 25). And
obviously part of what is meant here by 'aesthetic' is that these people

are Christians only in imagination and not in actuality. This aesthetic,
imaginative relation to Christianity takes at least two forms, the 'poet-
ical' and the 'speculative'. Kierkegaard identifies different parts of his
pseudonymous production as interventions in these respective illu-
sions. 'The movement away from the poetical constitutes the total
significance of the aesthetic production within the totality of the
authorship; the movement away from speculation is that of CUP' (Kier-
kegaard, 1962, p. 75).
'Away from the "poet"! or away from having a relation to or from hav-
ing one's life in that which the poet declaims ... ' (Kierkegaard, 1962,
p. 74). For the poet and her reader, the ideal exists only in possibility, in
imagination. 'What is it to be a poet? It is to have one's own personal
life, one's actuality, in categories completely different from those of
one's poetical production, to be related to the ideal only in imagina-
tion' (Journals, entry 6300). It is this relation Kierkegaard diagnoses
as characteristic of most people in Christendom in relation to the
ethical and religious. 'Ethics has been completely transformed into the
esthetic. We see it and admire it in the theatre, in the medium of ima-
gination, but in life it has no home' (Journals, entry 953). But this is an
illusion, since the ethical and religious relate to how one lives one's life.
To 'admire' them would be to attempt to live accordingly, or to feel
guilt at not doing so. To admire them aesthetically is to reject their
implication for the admirer's life and so to show that the admiration is
make-believe. But if so, then such admirers live their lives, like the poet,
in other categories. 'It is undeniably the safest and most comfortable
thing to join up thoroughly with tradition, to do as the others, to
believe, think, and talk as the others and prefer to go after finite
goals ... to lack primitivity ... to accept everything automatically as
common practice and let it suffice that it is common practice, con-
sequently to evade responsibility for doing likewise - this is dishonesty'
(Journals, entry 656). The 'admiration' of the ethical and the religious is
thus an evasion of responSibility, of living as if what they do is, as it
were, determined for them by social opinion. 'One now becomes a man
simply and solely by aping "the others" instead of by primitivity' (Jour-
nals, entry 649.4). It is this which characterizes the dishonesty of the
age as forgetting 'what it means to be a human being' (Journals, entry
649.3), 'forgetting' that each human being is an individual who must
live their own life. This responsibility is evaded wherever an individual
claims to regard the significance of their lives as determined by some-
thing other than themselves, something other than 'how' they live
their own lives. This 'how' is to be their own 'truth', the 'truth for you',
the 'truth' which is true as lived. The intellectual way of evading such
responsibility is thus to assume there is 'the truth' of human life in
terms of which the significance of one's own life would be determined,
an 'objective truth' rather than the 'subjective truth' of 'truth for you'.
In this way, the illusion of the modern age is to have 'abolished the "I",
the personal "I'" (Journals, entry 656) through making 'everything
objective' (ibid.). Kierkegaard's 'indirect' communications are directed
towards intervening in this illusion, in recalling his readers to them-
selves, to the resposibility they have for their own lives, to regaining a
'primitive impression' of existence.
This in itself suggests that it is mistaken to regard the pseudonymous
works as presenting 'possible' forms of existence. This is indeed what
much literature does for Kierkegaard. The 'more artistically finished the
novel becomes, the less it enters into life, the more it pampers and cod-
dles people by dealing enjoyably with such things in the realm of the
imagination. To believe that the artistic helps one into actuality is just
as mistaken as to believe that the more artistically complete the
sermon, the more it must influence the transformation of life - alas, no,
the more it influences life esthetically, the more it influences away from
the existential' (Journals, entry 827). And in general, the presentation of
possibility does not enter into the transformation of life: 'The fact is
that when I understand something in possibility, I do not become
essentially changed, I remain in the old ways and make use of my
imagination; when it becomes actuality, then it is I who am changed,
and now the question is whether I can preserve myself' (Journals, entry
3346). The pOint of the 'indirect' communications is that they should
enter into the actuality of the reader's life through occasioning a self-
recognition of an illusion in relation to the ethical or religious. In this
way, the only model Kierkegaard recognizes is Socrates. The Socratic
dialogues 'end without a result' (Journals, entry 4266), and in this they
'are a reproduction of Socrates' maieutic skill which makes the reader or
hearer himself active, and therefore they do not end in a result but in a
sting' (ibid.). They enter into the actuality of the reader's or hearer's
existence through leading them to a moment of self-knowledge, that
they do not know what they claim. And it is this character of Socrates'
activity which distinguishes him from the poets and underlies his rejec-
tion of them. 'What Socrates really meant by wanting to have "the
poets" expelled from the state was that by writing in the medium of the
imagination instead of precipitating men into ethical realization in actu-
ality, the poets spoiled them ... or kept them from it ... Plato himself is
a misunderstanding. Only Socrates managed to hold his uncomprom-

ising position of continually expressing the existential, constantly
remaining in the present' (Journals, entry 4275). It is because of this, as
noted above, that Socrates had no 'doctrine, no system and the like, but
had one in action' (ibid.). He had, that is, a 'doctrine' of communication
in relation to the existential, exemplified in practice, but no doctrine to
communicate. His communications were directed to exposing the illu-
sion that his interlocutors claimed to believe, that in relation to the
conduct of their lives 'it suffice[dJ that it is common practice'. 'Socrates
is precisely the subjectivity who is supposed to overthrow Greek object-
ivity', the objectivity of tradition.
Such communication is intended to intervene in the actuality of the
reader's life and not to provide an occasion for imaginative contempla-
tion of possibility. It is rather intended, that is, to effect self-knowledge,
and this is the character of the pseudonymous authorship. Such self-
knowledge consists essentially in the removing of illusions and the
attendant recognition of responsibility for the significance of one's own
life. People 'have forgotten completely what earnestness is and ...
regard as nonsense that which leads to self-knowledge, turns a person
out of his delUSions, etc.' (Journals, entry 649.3). The removal of such
illusions leaves the individual alone, to make what they will of their
lives, since the nature of the illusion is that this responsibility for their
lives lies with tradition, history, 'the objective truth', and so on. The
formula for such communication is 'To stand alone - by another's help'
(Journals, entry 650.15) so that the communicator must 'disappear', for
the recipient must remove the illusion themselves.
The communication must therefore go through a 'double reflection'.
The first is the reflection in which the communication is made, the
reflection of the communicator who formulates the communication in
such a way as to invite the other to recognize their illusion, and the
second is that in which it is recaptured in the illusion dispelling activity
of the reader (Journals, entry 649.21). The communicator 'stands behind
the other man, helping him negatively' (Kierkegaard, 1962, p. 43) so
that 'the entire work is repulsion' (Journals, entry 6574). The ethical and
ethico-religious is related essentially to personality and 'can only be
communicated by an I to an I' (Journals, entry 656). When 'everything
becomes personal, the accent falls upon what it means to communic-
ate' (ibid.) and such communication 'is a placing together of dialectical
contrasts - and then not a single word of personal understanding' (Jour-
nals, entry 679). The contrastive form of such communication lies in
the contrast between what the communication is apparently about (the
ethical and religious) and how it is said, since what is to be recognized is

that the ethical and religious cannot be communicated in that form.
(One might say, if the ethical and religious can only be communicated,
in relation to this audience of adults in Christendom, indirectly and so
in the way Kierkegaard does (for it is he who is the communicator) then
there must be something amiss with the way the pseudonyms commun-
icate it.) The reader is invited, for example, into an aesthetic presenta-
tion of the ethical, as 'possibility' to be contemplated in imagination, in
such a way that there are sufficient indications in the text for the reader
to recognize the contradiction and so to recognize their own disposi-
tion to aestheticize the ethical. Or, as in the Postscript, they are invited
into an intellectual presentation of the religious in such a way that they
can recognize the disparity and so their own inclination to intellectual-
ize the religious. Through the activity of reading, precipitated by the
internal problems presented by the text, the reader is brought to recog-
nize their own tendency towards existential illusion and so to a form of
self-understanding. But this is all, since the pOint of the exercise is to
leave them with the recognition of their own responsibility for their
lives. The 'communicator always dares influence only indirectly', for
'ethically there is no direct relationship' Uournals, entry 649,21-2). And
this is indeed the form of communication Climacus claims for himself:
it is a matter of saying 'something to a passerby in passing, without
standing still oneself or delaying the other, without wanting to induce
him to go the same way, but just urging him to go his own way ... such
is the relation between an existing person and an existing person when
the communication pertains to the truth as existence inwardness' (Kier-
kegaard, 1992, p. 277). Such a communication could hardly be of a
'metaphysics'. 'What I have to say may not be taught; by being taught it
turns into something entirely different' Uournals, entry 646).
References
Cavell, Stanley, The Claim of Reason (Oxford, 1979).
Conant, ]., 'Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard and Nonsense', in T. Cohen and P. Guyer
(eds.), Pursuits of Reason (Lubbock, 1993).
Conant, J., 'Putting Two and Two Together', in T. Tessin and M. von der Ruhr
(eds.), Philosophy and the Grammar of Religious Belief (London, 1996).
Kierkegaard, S., The Point of View for my Work as an Author, trans. W. Lowrie (New
York, 1962).
Kierkegaard, S., Journals and Papers, trans. H. and E. Hong (Bloomington, 1967).
Kierkegaard, S., Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trailS. H. and E. Hong (New

Jersey, 1992).
Mulhall, S., Faith and Reason (London, 1994).
Phillips, D. Z., Faith and Philosophical Enquiry (London, 1970).
Phillips, D. Z., Wittgenstein and Religion (London, 1993).
Rhees, R., Without Answers (London, 1969).
Weston, M., 'Evading the Issue: the Strategy of Kierkegaard's Postscript', Philo-
sophical Investigations 22(1999): 35-64.
Winch, P., Trying to Make Sense (Oxford, 1987).
Wittgenstein, L., Philosophical Investigations, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford,
1968).
Wittgenstein, L., Culture and Value, trans. P. Winch (Oxford, 1980).
Voices in Discussion
A: 'Metaphysics' is a reviled term for many philosophers. But it depends

what we mean by it. I pointed out the different things 'metaphysics'
amounts to for Kant. I do not have to support all these uses. In fact,
I want to support a modest conception of metaphysics - I call it 'mere
metaphysics', which is no more than thinking about things, working
out the implications of life's commitments.
In this sense, I want to show that Kierkegaard is not an anti-realist
enemy of metaphysics. To assume that he is would be false to Kierke-
gaard. This misunderstanding can be avoided if we see that a false prem-
ise is often ascribed to him, namely, that if there is to be knowledge
of anything we must have a method capable of giving us absolute know-
ledge. Since Kierkegaard has no such method, people conclude that
he must be an anti-realist.
Kierkegaard is a realist. There is a 'whole' which is reality. Kierkegaard
says that reality is a system for God, but that we, as finite people,
can't reach it. We can't reach God's reality theoretically, but we can
be subjectively certain about it. How can it be uncertain, yet subject-
ively certain? For Kierkegaard, everything other than logical truths is
uncertain.
This is true to human life. We find that our most fundamental commit-
ments are not shared by others. But the recognition of these subjective
differences does not mean that the content of the commitments is not
objective. What is objective does not depend on an infallible method
for reaching truth.
I find B hard to understand. He is opposed to metaphysics as a
super-science, but that is not my conception. He looks for an answer to
scepticism, but I do not think there is one and I am not seeking it. An
externalist realizes this. The modest metaphYSician uses language as
we do ordinarily - metaphysics makes explicit what we presuppose in
ordinary life. Isn't it obvious that faith is connected with beliefs? Recit-
ing the creed is a performative act, but that does not mean doubt is
ruled out. This is because religious beliefs depend for their truth on God
really being there. In the case of prayer, for example, it involves believ-
ing that God is, in some sense, at the other end.
B tells me that God is not an object. Of course, he is not an empirical
object, but in so far as he is a particular God is an object. What is more,
4S
those who deny God are certainly contradicting those who believe that
he exists.
Belief is an epistemic notion. If I say that I believe in the Abominable
Snowman, but admit to having no evidence, it does not follow that I do
not have the belief. We often look to the life to see what a person
believes, not to the evidence.
For Kierkegaard, the problem is not evidence, where belief is con-
cerned, but self-deception. He holds that no evidence is necessary, but
it is still belief and he can be right or wrong about it. It is connected
with having the proper attitudes.
I think B confuses the stance from which these questions must be
addressed, with the nature of the questions. Just because the stance is
subjective, it does not follow that the questions aren't real questions, or
that I can't be wrong.
I don't agree at all with B that the second half of the Concluding Unsci-
entific Postscript is a parody of intellectual inquiry. If that were so, it
would be a parody which has misled many great minds in their reading
of Kierkegaard.
B: I am concerned to identify something which is taken for granted in
disputes between realists and anti-realists. The former say that for the
believer God is real. Well, of course, who is denying that? The question
concerns what that means. The believer thinks that belief in God is true or
justified if and only if there is a God. Well, yes, who would deny that?
Metaphysics, however, is an extrapolation from such ordinary talk.
Real words are taken out of their ordinary contexts. A offered us a pic-
ture: the propositions of language refer to reality, whether or not we
can find this out in all cases. Here we see a separation of 'the real' from
epistemological considerations - that is what I am concerned with. This
separation is an illusion, and yet it is what realism presupposes. 'The
book is on the table only if the book is on the table' - sure. But we can
only make sense of this if we look at the conditions for such assertions.
If the book was not on the table, but you keep on saying, in the pres-
ence of the empty table, There is a book on the table', your words have
become quite empty. You would not be making an assertion at all. We
wouldn't know what you were saying. It is only when we know what
the conditions for assertion are that we can speak of doubt.
What is essential to note is that these conditions are not simply
given. We must look to the context to see what distinctions between
truth and falsity amount to. Distinctions between the real and the
unreal are extremely varied. You can't just ask in the abstract, 'Is it like
that or not?'
Given all this, I tried to look at the use of expressions in religion. We

may find here the expression, 'Maybe there's no God', but that does not
tell us yet what kind of doubt this is.
I wanted to pOint out that God is not one of a kind. He is not one
more real thing, as though he were an extra one. To say this is not to
deny that God is real, but to see what sense, if any, saying he is real has.
Coming to God is coming to a new existence, to something new. We
must then inquire to see what doubt and reality mean there. I'd say that
belief in God in this context is nearer to a belief in justice than to a
belief that some being exists on a planet. God intervenes in life spiritu-
ally as a spiritual norm or standard.
According to A, Kierkegaard believes that God is real, but, for some
reason, does not do it directly. Kant does it theoretically, by locating
the religious in practical reason, whereas Kierkegaard does it through
the pseudonymous works. But when we look at the pseudonymous
works we see that they address illusions - the illusion of thinking you
are a Christian when you are not. But that illusion is not that of think-
ing Christianity is well founded when it is not. That is what the Post-
script addresses. In the first part, the argument is that those who are
attracted to the illusion of realism are attracted to a cunning evasion.
They can only end up with a hypothesis. And once we assume this, the
task of debating such a hypothesis becomes unstoppable - we have to
look at Kant, Hegel, Derrida - and it amounts to what Kierkegaard calls
infinite approximation.
The second part of the Postscript is a deliberate set-up. It shows you
this intellectual illusion at work. Time and again you think you have
reached a conclusion only to have it denied. There is the illusion of a
final conclusion about to be, but never actually reached.
Why do we do this? It is because we are in the grip of the intellectual-
ization of Christianity. Kierkegaard wants us to recognize this.
C: I suppose one way of pressing A's kind of realism is to ask for its cash
value. We are told that here there is an ideal knowledge which, because
of our finite minds, we cannot grasp. The suggestion is that beyond our
possibly flawed suppositions there is 'the truth of the matter', as philo-
sophers of A's persuasion are wont to say. Indeed, the suggestion seems
to be that apart from the truths of logic everything is uncertain. 'How
things are', how the world is, is quite independent of us, independent
of how we speak and think.
I'm asking for the cash value of that remark. It looks like a general
epistemological claim, in which case I'd ask for an account of what
could be meant by a smell, as it is in reality; a colour, as it is in reality;
a loud or quiet noise, as it is in reality; a dazzling or subdued light, as

it is in reality. Could we give an account of any of these concepts with
no reference whatsoever to how these concepts are formed in our
experience?
Some have reacted to this by saying that these are all secondary qual-
ities, and that these do not belong to 'how things are'. But my point
applies also to concepts such as mountains or valleys. Are we to say that
how we see landscapes has nothing to do with the formation of such
concepts?
What is the idea of reality behind A's way of talking? It is a 'this',
which cannot fall under any description, since any description is
epistemologically at a distance from 'it'. And does this 'this' cause us to
think in the ways we do? But, then, it might cause us to think incor-
rectly, so that we are permanently cut off from reality. What happens
then to our ordinary distinctions between understanding and not under-
standing, between truth and falsity? These are the questions which
A has to answer if his realism is to be maintained.
D: My question is: how do we settle all this? It seems pretty clear to me
that believers think that God is real, and that they understand perfectly
well, in an ordinary way, Anselm's distinction between existing in the
mind alone, and existing in reality. They believe God really exists. Now
if Band C want to deny this, it seems to me they are obviously mis-
taken, but where do we go to settle such a dispute?
E: I don't think the dispute can be settled if we stick to the stark con-
trast between 'independent of us' or 'dependent on us' in epistemology.
Similarly, if we say that God's existence is entirely different from other
kinds of existence, why use the word 'existence' at all? It is odd to say,
as B does, that 'God exists' says nothing. It isn't like saying 'God is
"whoops'" - that says nothing. So something is being said, although I agree
that then its grammar needs to be made expliCit.
F: We know how to handle the notion of 'independence' where mater-
ial substances are concerned. There are epistemological standards we
have to meet and, were that not the case, we wouldn't be able to handle
'real' and 'unreal' at all. So in the case of a material substance I may say
that I've arrived at the truth of the matter, or, at least, that there is a
truth to be aimed at. But if someone said that this is all there is to faith,
I'd object.
A: You ask me for the sense of 'real' which I am working with when
I say that God is real. You say that the word 'existence' is not used in
the same way in all contexts, but surely something in common is pre-
supposed, namely, that there is something to be right or wrong about.
That is what makes it a belief, and we can have doubts about it. Indeed,
it may be false. There is a story Kierkegaard tells about a pastor who, see-
ing his flock weeping because of conviction of sin, said, 'Don't worry
little flock, it may all be an illusion.' That is a real possibility.
F: Sure it is, but you need to distinguish between making a mistake
within a way of thinking and coming to the conclusion that a whole
way of thinking is an illusion. When we look to religious language
games we may find that belief there does not mean 'hypothesis'. But
this does not mean, that it could not be false. Things other than hypo-
theses can be false. B needs to say more on this.
Q: There is a danger in saying that what we mean by God's reality is to
be found in our inter-subjective discourse, namely, that this does not
do justice to God's incomprehensibility. God is always more than we
can say.
G: I take the point that conditions for assertability vary and that, with-
out them, our words would mean nothing. Taking these differences
into account B says that we see that God is not a thing. What I do not
see is how that must lead to the conclusion that we are not making
assertions where God's reality is concerned.
B: What I was protesting against was the attempt to separate notions of
truth from epistemological considerations. It is then assumed by A that
I am denying something, say, God's reality. But I am not denying any-
thing. I'm exploring the meaning of 'real' or 'unreal' here.
G: I recognize that. What I do not see is the relevance of that point to
the issue of whether assertions are being made.
B: Well, I don't think assertions, so conceived, have a natural home in
the way believers speak. I do not think they go around asserting that
God exists.
What the realist does is to use the assertion in a way which is innocu-
ous if it refers to a natural context, as when he says that no one would
pray to God unless he thought there was a God to pray to, but, then, in
his philosophizing, use that phrase in a way which distorts its religious
use. The realist keeps moving back and forth, in confusing fashion,
between innocuous statements to which everyone would agree, and the
metaphysical use which is not innocuous, but confusing. Suppose
someone said, '5herlock Holmes exists.' Fine. But we need to know
something about fiction before we know what saying that amounts to.
The same goes for 'God exists.' You have to look to religious contexts.
H: I think you are assuming that to be a realist one must embrace a
correspondence theory of truth. That is not so. I'm a realist, but I do not
accept that theory.
B: I just want people to pay attention to the constant moving back and
forth between natural, innocuous uses of 'real' and what the realist does
with that term.
By the way, people seem to assume that if one wants to reject realism
one must be an anti-realist. But if realism is a confusion, its negation
would be equally confused. My main point is that the realist talks as
though the meaning of 'real' is simply given, as though no grammatical
work needs to be done.
A: B says the use of 'real' is often platitudinous. Well, a great deal is at
stake. Those who believe in God think that there is such a being and
those who deny this proposition, such as Bertrand Russell, do not.
e: But then what does 'assenting to a proposition' amount to? In an
earlier conference it was asserted that in the three days for which
Russell thought the ontological argument was valid, Russell believed in
God. But, surely, Kierkegaard would regard that as a joke, as an intellec-
tualized displacement of religious belief.
I: It seems to me that the distinction between conceptual and factual
issues clouds the discussions between A and B: A wants to insist on fac-
tuality, and B wants to insist on clarifying our concepts. But it seems
clear, does it not, that unless we are clear about the concepts we are
using, we don't know what it means to determine what is the case in
situations governed by those concepts.
Take the notion of 'the end of time', or infinite duration. I may under-
stand 'the end of this conference', 'the end of the semester', but I'm puz-
zled if I try to think of 'the end of time' as though it indicates a time.
A: I do not think the burden of proof is on me. I am being told that
I can't imagine this or that - endless duration, or survival after death.
Well, I say I can imagine it quite well. Just because I can't verify it, it
doesn't mean that I can't imagine it. The ancients thought that the
motion of the planets was eternal. That was false, but it was certainly
imaginable.
J: But the difficulty is deeper. You assume that we know what the fact
means, but that while some can imagine it, others cannot. But what
fact? The difficulty comes in spelling out the intelligibility of what is
being said.
A: Socrates said that no wise man would insist on the details of life after
death, yet he still believes it is true. So it could be factually true, while
being conceptually problematic.
F: But we can ask certain questions to clarify the grammar. For example,
Does it make sense to think of the Day of Judgement coming at a certain
date? This may cast light on the notion of 'the end of time'.
G: I certainly do not want to defend the view that anything can be an

assertion no matter what the surroundings, or no matter what sur-
roundings are absent. On the other hand, I am not sure how legitimate
it is to say that I cannot have a general belief or conception unless I can
provide specific particulars.
C: The trouble here is that we may imagine certain pictures in the way
A suggests. The problem is in the use they have. For example, Wittgen-
stein said he could imagine himself even with some queer kind of body,
being judged before a divine judge. The picture is in the foreground, but
its application is in the background. When we philosophize we are led
astray by what is in the foreground and distort the actual use. By the way,
I take Socrates to be saying that no wise man would take talk of the next
world in the misleading foreground empirical sense. But he is saying
there is truth in it. To see that one would have to see what the picture
has to say about the moral destiny of the soul.
K: I have benefited from your work A. You say on p. 20 of your paper,
'For Kierkegaard, subjectivity is no "second-best" fall-back position with
respect to religious knowledge. It is the ground of all genuine religious
knowledge in all times. Even in the times when objective proofs were
regarded as successful, it was faith that supported the proofs, and not
the proofs that supported the faith.' I think that is excellent, but then
on the very next page (p. 21) you say, 'But this picture of religious
knowledge as linked to subjectivity rests on beliefs about the character
and intentions of a God who is really there and who created humans to
enjoy communion with him.' This latter remark seems to vitiate the
insight of the first remark. Why make the second comment?
A: Perhaps because I knew that B was going to answer me! Kierkegaard
insists that our best efforts to know are finite and imperfect. But this
doesn't bring him to epistemological despair. He has faith that if we
have the right kind of subjectivity we will be led to right beliefs. Kierke-
gaard does not believe in moral luck. He does not believe in spiritual
luck either.
Part 11
Leaving Room for Faith
3
Faith Not without Reason: Kant,
Kierkegaard and Religious Belief
ferry H. Gill
In an effort to avoid the extremes of salvation by 'works', on the one

hand, and salvation by faith 'without works' at all, on the other hand,
Reformation theologians adopted the slogan 'Faith not without works'.
In like manner, in order to avoid the extremes of the standard dicho-
tomy between reason and faith, especially as expressed in the tradi-
tional interpretations of Kant and Kierkegaard, I here choose the title
'Faith not without reason'. In addressing the question of how to under-
stand the sense in which Kant and Kierkegaard can be said to have
left room for faith, I would like to propose a fresh way of looking at
the issues involved, along with some of the ramifications attendant
thereto. First, however, a brief reminder of the main features of the tra-
ditional interpretations of the thought of these two giants of modern
philosophy.
Generally speaking, both Kant and Kierkegaard have been understood as

thinkers who sought to limit the claims and efforts of human reason to
questions which pertain to the concerns of the sCiences, both formal
and empirical. Both thinkers are taken to agree that matters of moral
value and religious faith, including theology, lie outside the range of
our cognitive capacities. By setting up this barrier between the cognitive
and non-cognitive realms, Kant and Kierkegaard are said to have,
in Kant's words, 'set reason aside in order to make room for faith'.
Although they each established this 'separate but equal' policy for
reason and faith in their own way, both seem to have done so in order
to liberate and legitimate faith as autonomous in human existence
quite apart from metaphysical speculation.
ss
Kant's epistemology, as set forth in his Critique of Pure Reason, is based

on the idea that knowledge is composed of two aspects, namely content
and form. With the Empiricists he maintained that the content of
knowledge is supplied by sensory experience, but in agreement with
Rationalism he also maintained that the form or structure of knowledge
is supplied by the mind. Kant asserted that the mind plays an active
part in the formation of experience by imposing upon the data of sensa-
tion certain fixed 'categories'. Thus what is known is the result of sens-
ory perceptions after they have been filtered through or organized by
the built-in categories of the understanding. Both of these elements are
necessary but neither is sufficient for knowledge to obtain. Kant saw
this way of putting the matter as a way to establish the viability of
science, Hume to the contrary notwithstanding, since it provides an
account of causal judgements, as a function of the structure of the mind
which is rational without being metaphysical. The formal sciences of
logic and mathematics are also vindicated in this way.
Kant's account of metaphysics does not conclude with the same
positive results as his account of mathematics and science. Since both
mathematics and science are attempts to conceptualize about the world
of empirical experience, the phenomenal world, their reliance on the
categories of the understanding is entirely appropriate. The results of
the application of these categories to the phenomenal world are reliable
because the phenomenal world derives its structure from the categories
in the first place. Metaphysics, however, is traditionally defined as the
study of reality as it is in and of itself, the noumena, or 'Ding-an-sich',
quite apart from the limitations imposed by the structuring of the
mind. In such an endeavour it is clear that the application of the cat-
egories of the mind would be completely inappropriate, since these
categories would by their very nature distort our understanding of the
noumena.
If the categories of the understanding cannot be used in the search
for metaphysical knowledge, what may be used? According to Kant,
there are no means of cognizing what lies beyond the structure of the
mind, because by definition it stands beyond the reach of all under-
standing. In short, metaphysical knowledge is a contradiction in terms.
Thus it is that Kant goes on to develop his profound criticisms of the
standard arguments for the existence of God. However, not unlike
Hume, who concluded his critique of the notion of miracles by affirm-
ing that Christianity is based on faith not reason, Kant concluded that
the prohibition against any possibility of religious knowledge actually
clears the way for a proper understanding of religious faith.
Faith Not without Reason 57
Kant's treatment of morality is most clearly set forth in his Critique

of Practical Reason. The type of reasoning employed in ethical matters
is neither formal nor empirical in nature, on the one hand, nor is it
speculative, on the other hand. Rather than having any sort of concep-
tual understanding as its goal, ethical reasoning has moral action as its
goal. Although this form of reasoning is not regulated by conceptual
categories, it is predicated on what Kant calls the 'categorical imperat-
ive' of duty. Each and every person is confronted and governed by the
command 'Do the right thing', and according to Kant all decisions and
actions are to be judged solely on the basis of whether or not they are
made in response to this imperative. This line that Kant drew between
pure and practical reason was clear and impassable.
Finally, Kant's account of religious faith seems to fit smoothly into
the epistemological and moral dichotomy outlined above. Traditionally,
religious faith had found its home in the realm of knowledge and more
particularly in the field of metaphysics; it had been construed as assent-
. ing to a set of specific beliefs about ultimate, or noumenal, reality. This
view of faith led to endless interpretive disputes and left faith open to
the criticisms of logic and science. By delineating the limits of cognitiv-
ity in the way that he had, Kant claimed not only to have rescued faith
from its attackers, but to have redirected its focus away from empty
speculation towards its true purpose, namely, moral activity. Kant did go
on to argue that the existential experience of the moral life, of follow-
ing one's duty, makes it 'possible' but not necessary to postulate the
existence of God as the source and adjudicator of the moral law and the
opportunity to fulfil it if one is unable to do so in this life due to mitig-
ating circumstances. This famous moral 'argument' for the existence of
God is for Kant not grounded in cognitivity but in the practicalities of
ethical decision-making.
Turning now to Kierkegaard, it is fairly clear to see that in his effort to
counteract the Idealism of Hegelianism, which had effected a marriage
between philosophical reason and Christianity, Kierkegaard relied heav-
ily on an epistemological position essentially similar to that developed
by Kant. That is to say, he espoused an absolute dichotomy between
knowledge and faith, assigning religion to the realm of volition, feel-
ings and morality. At least, this is the way he has generally been under-
stood. The ins-and-outs of this epistemological posture are developed in
Philosophical Fragments, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, and Fear and
Trembling. The skeleton of the argument is laid out rather starkly in the
first, and it can be used as the basis for the following summary. In
the next section of this paper I shall present a quite different reading of
Kierkegaard's approach to the relationship between reason and faith,

one which takes the three pseudonymous authors of these three main
works more seriously than they have generally been taken. But for now
we shall stick to the more familiar view.
In the first chapter of Philosophical Fragments Kierkegaard, writing as
]ohannes Climacus, sets forth the idealist epistemology and contrasts it
to that of New Testament Christianity. Classical idealism maintained
that knowledge is obtained by rational, introspective dialectic. Plato's
doctrine of 'recollection', Descartes' concept of 'intuition' and Hegel's
notion of 'the truth as the whole' all exemplify this approach. The pre-
supposition underlying such doctrines is that knowledge is a matter of
the learner becoming aware of that which is already within the mind.
In other words, it is assumed that there is an essential unity between
the knower and reality, one which enables the mind of the former to
reflect the latter, even though this unity is very often hidden amongst
the vicissitudes of sensory experience, etc. The logical corollary of this
position is that time, history and individual existence must be viewed
as incidental and essentially irrelevant to truth and knowledge; they are
but accidental 'occasions' for reflecting universal truth. To put it differ-
ently, the original and basic relationship between the mind and reality
is said to be one of harmony and continuity, with particulars serving
merely as triggers by which to re-establish this unity.
Over against this view, Kierkegaard sets an alternative position which
maintains that time, history and individual existence are essential to
coming to the knowledge of the truth. Although he introduces this
position as a 'thought project', it is clear that Kierkegaard takes this epi-
stemological view to be that of New Testament Christianity. The under-
lying presupposition of this approach is that knowledge is a unique
achievement which actually effects something in the knower or 'learner'
that was not there previously. The particular temporal experiences of
the existing individual thus become extremely important as decisive
mediators of knowledge. According to this approach, the original rela-
tion between the mind and reality is one of discontinuity or distance,
not unlike that resulting from Kant's epistemology.
Moving on to chapter 2, Kierkegaard develops some of the theological
implications of the epistemological position outlined above. He main-
tains that in a view which places real value on the particulars of time
and individuality, not only is the learner without knowledge at the
outset, but he or she is even without the basic condition or ability to
receive knowledge. Thus, unless God supplies the condition of receptiv-
ity, which Kierkegaard calls 'faith', whereby the truth can be received,
Faith Not without Reason S9
the learner will always remain without knowledge. Moreover, the

'teacher', God, must supply this condition by descending to the level of
the learner, not by insisting that the learner ascend to the level of the
teacher. All of this renders the specific relationship between the learner
and the teacher, what Kierkegaard calls the 'Moment' (when knowledge
is obtained), extremely decisive. For without it, what philosophers call
the 'egocentric predicament' that consigns the would-be knower to
scepticism, can never be overcome.
The idea that the mind of the knowing subject can ever transcend the
egocentric predicament and move from ignorance of reality to know-
ledge of it presents itself as a 'paradox' which cannot be comprehended
by human reason. This paradox is essentially the same as that presented
by Plato in the Meno: either the learner already has knowledge of the
truth, in which case it cannot be acquired, or the learner does not have
this knowledge, in which case it will not be recognized as such when
encountered. In either case, knowledge would seem to be impossible.
Christianity claims to resolve this dilemma, not by resorting to 'recol-
lection' as do Plato et al., but by affirming that it is God, the teacher,
who overcomes the paradox in the Incarnation by providing both the
condition for receiving the truth, namely faith, and the truth itself.
The Incarnation itself, of course, presents a paradox of its own when
it asserts that God, the Infinite and Perfect One, became a human being
in the person of Jesus. As with Kant, Kierkegaard concludes that reason
alone cannot take us beyond its built-in limits to a knowledge of reality.
In his Appendix to chapter 3, Kierkegaard asserts that the only way out
of this sceptical dilemma is for reason to admit its limitations and set
itself aside in order to make room for faith. This does not mean that the
learner comes to understand the paradoxes involved, but only that by
reason they are understood as paradoxes and are embraced by faith.
Kierkegaard refers to faith as a 'happy passion'.
In chapters 4 and 5, and in the Interlude between them, Kierkegaard
focuses on the implications for the notion of faith of this epistemolo-
gical position. Since faith itself is not a form of knowledge at all, it can
in no way be dependent on a knowledge of the historical circumstances
concerning Jesus, whether in the case of the disciples who were con-
temporaneous with the Incarnation or in that of those of who have
come after. ]\ior is faith to be understood as an act of the will, as the
popular notion of the 'leap of faith' would have it, since such an act
presupposes the ability to grasp the truth and it has already been estab-
lished that humans do not have this capability. Even this condition for
receiving the truth, understanding it, must be given by the teacher,
namely, God. Faith, then, is entirely a gift of God. Like Kant, Kierke-
gaard has set aside reason in order to make faith both possible and
necessary.
Having laid out the skeleton of his position in the Fragments, Kierke-
gaard proceeded to 'clothe' it with religious significance in his Conclud-
ing Unscientific Postscript, under the pseudonym ]ohannes Anti-Climacus.
Here he delineates the dichotomy between objective knowledge and
subjective faith even more forcefully. Put bluntly, the point is simply
that a relationship to eternal truth can in no way be dependent on
either speculative philosophy or empirical reason because it is strictly
a matter of personal commitment and faithfulness in living, not cognit-
ive activity. 'Christianity does not lend itself to objective observation
precisely because it proposes to intensify subjectivity to the utmost.'
By way of summary of this brief review of the standard interpretation
of the approach to the relationship between reason and faith offered by
Kierkegaard, it can be said that he distinguishes between the two, not in
order to call attention to two forms of knowledge, but in order to set
faith, as a mode of existence, over against all forms of knowledge. He is
not opting for subjectivity in matters of objective knowledge, but for
subjectivity in matters of human existence, or faith, which is in no way
involved with epistemological considerations. Thus, in Kierkegaard's
view, the realms of faith and knowledge are entirely separate, thus they
can neither support nor conflict with one another.
That this position is essentially Kantian should be fairly clear by now.
The basic dichotomy between what we can have knowledge of and
what we cannot, the role of reason in pointing out its own limitations,
and the association of matters of religious faith with those of ethical
values and personal decision-making are all central to the thought of
both of these important thinkers. Moreover, together these emphases
have formed the fulcrum of what we have come to know as the 'modern'
understanding of the relationship between reason and faith, one which
avoids the more traditional conflicts between them by granting to each
its own domain. Each is autonomous in its appropriate arena and nei-
ther can interfere in the business of the other.
11
On the basis of the foregoing summaries of the standard interpretations

of Kant and Kierkegaard, it is easy to see why they both can be said to
have set theoretical reason aside in order to make room for faith. What
I should like to do now is offer an alternative interpretation of the
thought of both of these thinkers which sees them as presenting a view

of faith that is not opposed to reason. According to this interpretation,
religious commitment is understood more as 'Faith, not without reason'
than as faith instead of reason. I shall consider Kant's version of this
possibility first and then turn to Kierkegaard's.
Two years after publishing his first Critique, Kant put forth his Proleg-
omena to any Future Metaphysics as a more simplified rendering of the
argument contained in the former work. While there are variations in
the Prolegomena from both editions of the Critique of Pure Reason, it
basically follows the same development of thought and presents the
same results. The way these results are presented, however, both in con-
cept and vocabulary, is occasionally quite distinct. This is especially
true with respect to the 'Conclusions' of the Prolegomena, wherein the
treatment of the limitations which must be placed on metaphysics in
general and natural theology in particular are set forth.
What is of special interest for my purposes here is the specific way
Kant discusses the distinction between 'the bounds' and 'the limits' of
pure reason as they pertain to what can be known and said about God,
along with his introduction of the notion of analogy as a means of
understanding the 'positive' aspect of his overall negative conclusions
concerning natural theology. I am particularly interested in Kant's
remarks on these topiCS because they seem to suggest a way of overcom-
ing the strong dichotomies established by Kant himself between the
phenomenal and noumenal worlds, on the one hand, and between
faith and reason, on the other hand.
By way of providing an account of why it is that we continually strive
to know and speak of the transcendent, Kant introduces the distinction
between 'the bounds of reason' and 'the limits of reason', a distinction
which he does not make in the first Critique. In the 'Conclusion' to the
Prolegomena Kant says that 'bounds always presuppose a space existing
outside a certain definite place and enclosing it', much like a fence or
the walls of a room. They are impositions which confine the range of
our activity from without, they crowd us in. Limits, on the other hand,
'are mere negations which affect a quantity so far as it is not absolutely
complete', perhaps as a tether or a horizon might restrict our range of
activity or vision from within our standpoint, so to speak.
Now, human reason, according to Kant, experiences the restrictions
imposed by the categories of the understanding as limits when it is
working in the areas of formal and empirical science, but as bounds with
respect to the 'things in themselves'. In the former case there is no
incompleteness in principle or quality, but only in quantity, regarding
what can be known, while in the latter case this is not true. Thus in the
latter case the very incompleteness suggests something beyond itself. As
Kant says: 'Metaphysics leads us towards in the dialectical attempts at
pure reason, not undertaken arbitrarily ... but stimulated thereto by the
nature of reason itself.' It is nature itself that has endowed us with the
predisposition to seek 'not only the bounds of the use of pure reason,
but also the way to determine them'.
In Kant's view, then, it is the transcendental Ideas (of God, freedom
and immortality), which we can neither keep from thinking nor ever
give content to, that lead us, not only to the acknowledgement of the
reality of the bounds of reason, but to their location and nature as well.
The very possibility of such ideas leads us to 'the spot' where experi-
ence, structured by the categories of the understanding as the phe-
nomenal world, 'touches the void (that of which we can know
nothing, namely the noumena)'. Kant's use of embodied, kinaesthetic,
and tactile metaphors at this juncture is especially significant in its
own right, and I shall return to it momentarily. The main point here is
that whereas limits are experienced exclusively as negations, bounds
carry as well a positive significance. The point at which what we
know, phenomenal reality, 'connects' with what we do not know,
noumenal reality, is the pOint at which we are rationally forced to
think the transcendental Ideas, even though we can never rationally
know them, content-wise. These Ideas necessitate positing the exist-
ence of the noumena, of things-in-themselves, beyond our experience
in the phenomenal world because they 'actually have reference to
something distinct from them ... as appearances always presuppose
an object in itself, and therefore suggest its existence whether we can
know of it or not'.
On his way to proposing what might be called a 'chastened theism',
Kant makes a further distinction between attempts to project human
characteristics directly on to God, what he calls 'dogmatic anthropo-
morphism', and 'symbolical anthropomorphism', which reason not
only allows but requires. This latter, which leads to a transcendental but
not to a transcendent metaphysics, only attributes characteristics of human
experience to the relation of God to the world, not to God's nature as
such, and thus is concerned with language rather than with noumenal
reality itself. The crux of this distinction is presented in terms of the
notion of analogical predication. To speak of God as 'Supreme Under-
standing and Will' in relation to the world is not to convey knowledge
of divinity as it is in itself, but only as it is known to us, just as to speak
of a shipbuilder or a commander as wise and powerful, respectively,
says nothing about them as such, but only in relation to their ship or
regiment.
This shift from the idea of analogy of attribution to that of analogy of
relationality allows Kant to move beyond the limited deism generally
associated with his approach to a theism which yet avoids attributing
human characteristics to divinity. For his brand of theism only speaks
of God on the basis of analogies drawn from the categories of the under-
standing in a formal rather than in a material manner. Rationality, for
instance, is attributed to God, not directly and per se, but as the ground
of all rationality as it is experienced in the world. Thus we speak of the
world as if its existence and nature are the result of the wisdom of a
Supreme Being by analogically transferring the ground of causal rela-
tionships from this world to its source. Kant calls this 'chastened' or 'crit-
ical' theism 'the true mean between dogmatism, which Hume combats,
and scepticism, which he would substitute for it'.
Kant returns to the spatial and kinaesthetic metaphor of a boundary,
which differs markedly from the static, passive imagery of the first Cri-
tique, in order to underscore his contention that the brand of theism he
is promoting signifies a positive cognitive dimension as well as a negat-
ive one. He stresses the point that a boundary 'belongs to that which
lies within as well as to the space that lies without' itself and thus yields
'an actual positive cognition which reason only acquires by enlarging
itself to this boundary'. The bounds of reason constitute a relation as
well as a negation between the phenomenal reality of our experience
and the noumenal reality beyond our experience. In this way Kant can
be understood as making room for faith, but a faith which is not
entirely without reason. I would submit that such a faith alone may be
called responsible.
It is helpful to bear in mind that the term 'limits' in the title of Kant's
book Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone should actually be trans-
lated 'bounds'; Kant works out his distinction between the phenomenal
and the noumenal, and thus his understanding of the place of faith, in
relation to boundaries, not limits. Thus the title of P. F. Strawson's
excellent work on Kant's philosophy, The Bounds of Sense. I am indebted
to Professor Stephen Palmquist for bringing this important point to my
attention.
I should like now to explore the possibility of understanding Kierke-
gaard's approach to reason and faith in a way quite different from the
standard interpretation. My overall claim is that in his pseudonymous
writings Kierkegaard was not seeking to contrast reason and faith, but
was intent on 'deconstructing' this traditional dichotomy in its entirety.
In brief, while establishing that objective reason alone cannot provide

the basis for religious belief by means of the content of his writings, Kier-
kegaard was also demonstrating the inviability of the irrationalist
approach to belief by the style in which he wrote. What he said
undercut the rationalist approach and how he said it demonstrated
the absurdity of the fideist posture.
This way of looking at Kierkegaard's philosophical work sees him as
seeking to enable the reader to realize that Christian commitment is
neither a matter of reason alone nor of faith alone; the 'leap of faith' is
every bit as irresponsible as the attempt to 'prove' the truth of Christi-
anity. By setting aside both of these standard ways of coming at this
issue, Kierkegaard hoped to focus the real existential character of reli-
gious belief. The main concern here is with faithfulness as a way of life,
not with 'proofs' or with 'leaps'. This faithfulness need not be con-
trasted to rationality as such, but only to the idea that faith must be val-
idated by reason. Thus it may be seen as 'faith not without reason', and
believers can be responsible in their faith without falling victim to
rationalism.
This interpretation of Kierkegaard's approach to reason and faith
necessitates taking his pseudonymous authorship very seriously. It
simply will not do to take his philosophical writings, written by Clima-
cus, Anti-Climacus, and de Silentio, as straightforward expressions of
Kierkegaard's pOSition, since they themselves warn against doing so.
Moreover, such a reading fails to do justice to Kierkegaard's sophistic-
ated notion of 'indirect communication'. However, when these works
are construed as obviously overstated irrationalist attacks on an equally
overconfident rationalistic approach to Christianity, one finds oneself
confronted with the question which lies at the heart of religious belief,
namely, that of whether or not one is going to live a life of faithfulness,
a life which can and must incorporate both reason and commitment
but which cannot be exclusively defined in terms of either of them
alone.
First, consider de Silentio, the author of Fear and Trembling. The name
itself stands as a warning against taking the content of the book,
namely, an exploration of the nature of faith, in a straightforward manner.
Indeed, it serves as an excellent example of Kierkegaard's favourite con-
ceptual device, namely, irony. For, despite de Silentio's overt and repeated
acknowledgement that faith cannot be conceptualized, he proceeds to
give a rather thorough analysis of both Abraham's faith and its concep-
tual consequences in relation to ethical obligations, etc. He has not
been silent; it is difficult to imagine that this irony was unintentional.
Faith Not without Reason 6S
In addition, the analysis given of 'the teleological suspension of the eth-

ical', itself a rationalistic mouthful which ought to signal that some-
thing is amiss, trades on a conceptual ambiguity which contradicts its
own main point. For the notion of transcending the category of duty is
itself dependent on what can only be described as a 'higher duty', as the
term 'teleological' makes quite obvious. The so-called 'suspension' of the
ethical is justified in terms of a higher end or rationale, namely, obedi-
ence to God.
Next, consider Climacus, the author of Concluding Unscientific Post-
script. He repeatedly describes himself as a 'humorist' who is 'climbing
from below' towards an understanding of what it means to become a
Christian, without himself having yet achieved that state. It would
seem clear that the account of Christian belief offered from such a vant-
age point should not be taken as reliable, let alone as Kierkegaard's
own view. Climacus' humour is obviously ironic. More importantly,
although the main theme developed by Climacus is that 'an existential
system is impossible', both the structure and the content of the Post-
script qualify it to be classified as an existential system. Its structure is
that of a philosophical argument and its content consists of a very thor-
ough analysis of what it means to think subjectively or existentially.
Here again we see Kierkegaard employing indirect communication by
embodying postures that themselves have to be transcended once they
have been understood. Religious belief is neither about being exclu-
sively rational nor about being exclusively non-rational; it is about
being faithful.
Finally, consider Kierkegaard's own remarks about his pseudonymous
authorship in The Point of View for My Work as an Author. He makes it
clear that these 'noms de plume' not only allowed him the necessary
distance between his personal life and his work, but they also served to
attract a good deal of literary attention amongst those he was seeking to
influence. At a much deeper level, however, this mode of indirect com-
munication served Kierkegaard in an existential sense. For by this means
he was able to present, rather than merely describe, various 'modes of exist-
ence', and such presentation to the task of facilitating existential encoun-
ter. Spiritual truth cannot be communicated directly, by description,
but can only be suggested or evoked indirectly by example, analogy,
parable and metaphor. Indirect communication preserves the sanctity
and integrity of the individual so necessary to the spiritual dimension
of existence. It alone creates a viable arena for responsible commitment.
For Kierkegaard to write books which explain and defend religious
belief would violate both the character of faith itself and the spiritual
integrity of the reader. Instead, he wrote books under various pseud-

onyms which, while purporting to explain what faith is and is not, also
display a version of what faith is not, namely, irrational belief. It is
important to bear in mind that Kierkegaard's writings are two-edged. With
one edge, their content, they undercut the possibility of conceiving of
faith in a rationalistic way. With the other edge, their form, they under-
mine the possibility of construing faith as an arbitrary act of the will in
a cognitive vacuum. It is this second edge that has been ignored in the
standard interpretations of Kierkegaard's approach to reason and faith,
which generally seek to place faith entirely outside of cognitive consid-
erations. It is my claim that in locating faith beyond both rationalism
and volitionalism, Kierkegaard sought to focus our attention on faithful
living. This move does not render reason and belief irrelevant, but
rather allows them to play their natural role in human cognition and
responsibility.
The mistake of most of those who defend Kierkegaard against the
charge that he is an irrationalist is to write as if he actually expresses his
own views directly in his pseudonymous works, or as if he merely over-
stated his case in these works in order to strike a more balanced posi-
tion. Either tack is a mistake because they both rob these profoundly
creative works of their artistic and existential power: the first by inter-
preting Kierkegaard primarily as a philosophical or theological thinker
and not a literary one, and the second by failing to take seriously the
paradoxical character of the pseudonymous authorship. In light of his
own remarks about indirect communication, Kierkegaard's works must
be taken as authentic embodiments of various extreme points of view, or
modes of existence, and not as balanced or knowingly overstated posi-
tions. As a literary artist, he has created dramas and characters in which
absurd approaches to Christian belief are both attacked and defended,
both ridiculed and embodied, in order to liberate religious commitment
from rationalism and volitionalism.
III
It is time now to return to the broader issue introduced at the outset of

this essay, namely, the sense in which Kant and Kierkegaard can be said
to have left room for faith. As I indicated in section one, according to
the traditional reading both of these thinkers left room for faith by first
setting aside reason. Having decided that reason can have no possible
bearing on religious belief, pro or con, both Kant and Kierkegaard are
usually interpreted as providing a secure and appropriate non-cognitive
basis for religion. The difficulty, in my view, with this dichotomy

between reason and faith is that it tends to render religious belief both
irrelevant and irresponsible; it is at once too convenient and too insular.
On the other hand, as I suggested in section two, there is another way
to interpret the thought of Kant and Kierkegaard, one which allows for
a more organic or integrative understanding of the relation between
reason and faith. In Kant's case, this alternative reading can be based on
his distinction between the 'limits' of reason and the 'bounds' of rea-
son, together with his introduction of the notion of analogy, as found
in the Prolegomena. In Kierkegaard's case, this reading can be grounded
in the literary character of the pseudonymous works, which seek to con-
front the reader with existential possibilities, rather than to provide a
systematic analysis of the relation between faith and reason. These 'dra-
mas' are parabolic in character.
The crux of the matter is that in both of these cases we are offered an
opportunity to think of cognitivity and religious belief in a mode quite
distinct from that which lies behind the more customary approach to
such matters. Generally the issues surrounding the question of the rela-
tion between reason and faith are approached on the basis of the assump-
tion that knowledge is either logical or empirical in nature, while faith
is viewed either as mental assent or as strictly volitional in character.
Thus the whole question is usually formulated in an intellectualist and/
or voluntarist mode of thought; in the former case faith takes the short
end of the stick, while in the latter reason is set aside in order to make
room for faith.
However, in the mode being suggested by the analogic and parabolic
turn reflected in the work of Kant and Kierkegaard, respectively, a mode
which I prefer to call the 'metaphoric', the central question can be recast
in a way which requires neither the subjugation of faith to reason nor
the separation of one from the other. The metaphoric mode of thought
is one in which the unfamiliar is introduced by means of the familiar,
the unknown in terms of the known. Moreover, as Aristotle clearly saw,
it is this mode of thought which lies at the heart of all cognition, since
it is by means of it that we make the initial connections and distinc-
tions between and amongst the various aspects of the world around us.
Thus the metaphoric mode of thought is logically prior to the dicho-
tomies entailed by the intellectualist and voluntarist modes of thought.
In suggesting the pOSSibility of a bridge between the efforts of reason
and the concerns of religion, based on the 'two-sided' character of the
notion of the 'bounds of reason' and 'symbolical' or analogical'anthro-
pomorphism', Kant opens the way for a fresh definition of cognitivity.
Likewise, in developing the notion of indirect communication by

means of his pseudonymous authorship, which presents but does not
explain the dynamics of faith, Kierkegaard points us in a fresh direction
with regard to understanding the nature of faith. In the pages that
remain I should like to explore the contours of such fresh directions
and definitions for the relationship between reason and faith. I cannot
claim that Kant and Kierkegaard would necessarily agree with these
explorations, but I would claim that their respective works render them
possible and even fruitful.
Kant's fundamental distinction between bounds and limits, together
with his subsequent development of it in terms of the former providing
a positive cognition of the reality of the noumenal realm and divine
existence, is of special interest. This is so because it represents a rather
sudden shift from the predominance of passive and static that charac-
terize his previous accounts of such matters, especially in the first Cri-
tique. There the categories of the understanding, which constitute the
bounds of reason, are always treated in terms which imply limited or no
activity on the part of the knower. In spite of the fact that the hallmark
of Kantian philosophy is generally said to be its emphasis on the active
part the mind plays in shaping experienced reality, it remains true that
Kant's treatment of the structure and structuring of the mind is itself
characterized by such inert images as eyeglasses, filter systems and pass-
ive sense perception.
Thus Kant's image, in the Prolegomena, of boundaries which are
approached and whose surface is contacted by the embodied knower is a
rather remarkable and I must say welcome departure from his usual
visual imagery. For far too long the history of Western thought, at least
since Plato, has been dominated by the root metaphor of knowledge
being a kind of passive visual experience of the real. Kant's first Critique
has strongly contributed to this tradition, and thus his employment of
more kinaesthetic and tactile images here in the Prolegomena is an
important development. Unfortunately, he did not explore this possib-
ility far enough, nor in the right direction.
What is needed at this juncture, in my view, is an extension of this
active, embodiment motif so as to construe our cognitive relationship
with reality as interactional rather than as observational. Following
Kant's 'hints', I would propose thinking of the knower and the known
as inextricably connected as two dancers holding hands and moving in
the dark. As one of these dancers, the knower is unable to disengage
him or herself from the dance in order to confront the other dancer,
reality in and of itself, directly. Nor is the knower free to create any type
of dance he or she wishes, for reality often has an agenda of its own as
well. Nevertheless, through interactive co-operation, conflict and res-
olution, the two dancers together create the world as we know it, and
thus the knower comes to 'know' reality.
The same issue arises when Kant speaks of our reasoning analogically
from the world to its cause as we do from a watch or a ship to its maker.
He focuses on the relationship between the artifact and the creator, and
only in passing mentions that between 'a regiment and its commander'.
What is surprising, however, is that Kant never notices that the relation-
ship in the former case is a one-way, causal and thus passive one from
the point of view of that which is made, while in the latter case this is
not true. A commander does not cause or create a regiment in a one-way
fashion; rather, the relationship between the two is an interactive, per-
sonal one that far exceeds the limitations of mere causal connections.
Kant would have been well advised to pursue this interactive example
more thoroughly.
The significance of all this for our purposes here is indeed consider-
able. Clearly, the results of one's approach to natural theology are going
to be different depending on the sort of root metaphor one begins with.
Kant's initial commitment to a visual metaphor led him to an inter-
pretation of the bounds of reason whose inherent passivity and staticity
renders the cognitive gulf between the human and the divine essen-
tially unbridgeable. Had he followed up on his more interactive, rela-
tional motif, employing movement and touch, he might have been able
to develop an interpretation of the bounds of reason which enables our
knowledge of reality, including God, to be more viable and positive. If
we begin by assuming a fundamental gap between the knower and the
known, between ourselves and reality, it is little wonder that we can
never fully exorcise the demon of scepticism. What, it must be asked, is
the rationale for such an initial assumption? Given the ]udaeo-Christian
belief in the image of God in human nature, as well as in the created
structure of the world, it would seem more likely and profitable to begin
by assuming an interactive relationship between ourselves, the world
and God.
When the issue is approached from this angle, the concept of 'things in
themselves' has no function whatsoever. There is nothing left unex-
plainable or unknowable in principle; what we can know, we know
through interaction, and what we cannot know we have no need or way
to talk about. This is neither a limitation nor a lack, it is simply the nature
of human cognition. We are led into thinking that we are somehow
falling short of true knowledge by first positing 'things in themselves'
and then lamenting that we cannot know them. The very distinction
Kant makes between how things are in themselves and how they are
known by us is itself made within the structures and functions of
human cognitive activity. Had Kant taken a more relational image for
his model of knowledge at the outset, he might never have had to speak
of reality, including God, as independent of its interaction with those
cognitive agents whose participation contributes to that reality's essen-
tial character.
For his part, Kierkegaard develops and demonstrates the metaphoric
mode of expression and reasoning by juxtaposing his attack on ration-
alism, the message of his pseudonymous works, and his voluntarist
alternative, the medium of these same works. The elements of this jux-
taposltioning cancel each other out, leaving the reader free to discern
the basic truth that faith is neither a matter of reason nor unreason;
rather, it is a mode of existence based in trust and characterized by faith-
fulness. It certainly is not mere mental assent, but neither is it an
emotional state nor a superhuman act of the will.
A brief analysis of the New Testament use of the terms which are gen-
erally translated 'believe' (pisteuo) and 'faith' (pistos) should make it
clear that the above definition of religious commitment harmonizes
rather nicely with the original Christian meaning. The former usage
divides into two categories depending on the particle used directly after
the verb. Sometimes it is followed by 'that' (hoti), in which case the
meaning is that someone believes that something or other is in fact the
case. This is usually said to signify the cognitive aspect of faith as
expressed, for example, in stating a creed or theological doctrine. At
other times the verb 'to believe' is followed by a preposition meaning
'in' or 'on' (en or eis). This is generally understood as signifying the
commitment aspect of faith, as when a person puts their trust in
another person or in God. Thus the dichotomy between 'belief in' and
'belief that'.
However, I do not think that there is as much difference between
these two aspects of belief as the standard way of posing the dichotomy
claims. There clearly is a great deal of commitment involved in cognit-
ivity, since any such judgements entail accrediting one's own rational
powers, what Michael Polanyi has termed 'the personal dimension' of
all knowing. Likewise, there is a great deal of cognitivity in any serious
commitment, otherwise it is impossible to tell the difference between
trust and credulity. Some would have us believe that 'belief that' must
precede 'belief in' and others would say just the opposite. I am con-
vinced that it is impossible to separate these two dimensions of human
experience, either in life or in thought; they function in a reciprocal

relationship with each other and if either one of them is absent some-
thing vital is missing from belief.
An excellent model for understanding the symbiotic character of
these two dimensions of belief is that of interpersonal relationships.
One's commitment to another person hardly arises in a cognitive
vacuum. Rather, it arises within a physical and historical context of
interaction between two (or more) people who are striving to be open
and honest with each other. At the same time, it is also true that to a
large degree the quality and depth of the relationship is a function of
the attitudes which the persons initially bring to their encounter. Thus
belief in and belief that arise reciprocally and simultaneously within
human experience, as symbiotic poles rather than separable aspects.
The usage of the term for 'faith' (pistos) in the New Testament also
divides into two, albeit different, categories. If it is preceded by the defin-
ite article, the term is used to denote the Christian world-view and/or
lifestyle as a whole. The more interesting uses of the term, however, are
those in which faith is characterized as an element within an individual
or group's way of life. Almost invariably such characterizations involve
something that is tangible (something that can be seen or heard), active
(something gets accomplished thereby), and quantitative (something
one can have more or less of). Moreover, people in the New Testament
are upbraided for not having faith and praised for having it. Thus faith is
characterized as a responsibility.
The significance of all this is that in about one-half of the passages in
which this term appears, it is generally translated as 'faithfulness' rather
than as 'faith'. It is my contention that this translation can and should
be used in every case, since the characteristics listed in the above para-
graph clearly pertain to behaviour rather than to some psychic state or
volitional orientation. States and orientations are not tangible, active or
quantitative, and are not the sort of thing one can be required to have.
Faithfulness, on the other hand, as a form of behaviour, is all of these
and can be required of persons. In the same way as Jesus' urging his dis-
ciples to love their neighbours requires us to interpret agape as a way of
life rather than as an emotional state, so his urging them to 'have faith'
makes it necessary to interpret faith as a form of life, as faithfulness.
I submit that a great deal of confusion surrounding our talk about
religious faith stems from a failure properly to interpret and/or translate
the term pistos. If we think of faith as a mental state or disposition, we
are constantly in the position of having to choose between defining it
as 'believing what you know is not true' and trying to 'grunt it up' by
sheer willpower. In essence we run the risk of confusing faith with

hope! Let me offer a few translations of New Testament texts that have
been particularly troublesome in terms of getting a grip on the meaning
of religious commitment, by way of confirming the behavioural inter-
pretation of pistos and thus of the religious mode of existence: 'Jesus,
seeing their faithfulness, said to them ... ' (Matt. 9:2); 'The just shall live
by faithfulness' (Rom. 1:17); 'Now faithfulness is the assurance of things
hoped for ... for by faithfulness the men of old received divine approval'
(Heb. 11:1, 2); and 'If you have faithfulness no bigger than a mustard
seed, you will be able to move mountains' (Matt. 17:20).
Thus, the New Testament notion of faith as a quality of life (rather
than as mere assent to a set of beliefs or as an act of volitional super-
erogation) can be seen to fit quite well with Kierkegaard's presentation
of faith by means of the juxtapositioning of his pseudonymous authors
against the content of their writings. Religious faith is neither believing
in God on the basis of pure reason alone, nor is it believing in God with-
out any reasons at all. This dilemma is a false one. Faith is as faith does!
In conclusion, let me sum up my overall proposal. My initial claim
was that the standard way of defining both reason and faith, as
expressed in the traditional interpretations of Kant and Kierkegaard,
establishes an unbridgeable gap between them. Thus both Kant and
Kierkegaard, as well as those who come after them, found it necessary to
set reason aside in order to make room for faith. Next, I suggested that
there is perhaps a more fruitful way to read these two great thinkers,
one which allows us to avoid this traditional dichotomy by means of
what I termed the 'metaphoric mode' of thought and expression. Kant,
in his Prolegomena, introduces a way of speaking about our knowledge
of reality that suggests a reciprocal, interactive mode of cognition
which does not begin by separating the knower and the known. Kierke-
gaard, by means of his notion and practice of indirect communication,
forces us beyond the 'reason or faith' dilemma by intimating that faith
is really a quality of life, namely, faithfulness.
Using these two fresh ways of thinking about reason and faith,
respectively, I have concluded that these two crucial dimensions of
experience are not actually opposed at all. If reason is construed in its
broadest and deepest sense, that is, as responsible cognition, and faith is
seen as commitment embodied in behaviour, then it is possible, indeed
preferable, to view reason and faith as partners rather than antagonists.
The choice is not between reason and faith, but between both of these
extremes and 'Faith not without reason'.
4
Making Room for Faith - Possibility
and Hope
M. Tamie Ferreira
From my graduate school days when I first read ]erry Gill's work,
through the days when he introduced me to the Society for Philosophy
of Religion and encouraged me as a scholar, I have had reason both to
admire and be grateful to him. I continue to benefit from his ways of
thinking in this rich and provocative paper, 'Faith Not without
Reason'. I find congenial Gill's suggestion that Kant and Kierkegaard
both made 'room for faith' by mitigating or undercutting dichotomies
between reason and faith, as well as between intellect and volition. In
part this is because I would expect affinities between Kant and Kierke-
gaard (based on the principle that 'the enemy [SK] of my enemy [Hegel]
is my friend'), and in part because I expect great minds to undercut or
transcend traditional dichotomies. I am in sympathy with his claim
that both Kanfs understanding of the 'bounds' of reason and his view of
analogical or metaphorical uses of language preclude the need to oppose
reason and faith starkly, and hence the need to set reason aside. More-
over, I have elsewhere argued at length that one can find in Kierkegaard's
writings resources for transcending the dichotomy between intellect
and will, between passive and active. 1 Thus, I am in sympathy with his
suggestion that Kierkegaard points us beyond a rationalist/volitionalist
divide. In principle, then, I could affirm and further develop Gill's 'pos-
sible and fruitful' readings, but what I want to do here instead is sketch
an alternative way in which to see Kant and Kierkegaard making 'room
for faith'. My alternative is not intended to undermine Gill's readings,
but in the process of developing my alternative, I will, in effect, raise
some questions about Gill's readings.
Since I find Gill's construal of faith as 'faithfulness' important, my
alternative will suggest that Kant and Kierkegaard made 'room for
faith(fulness)' by using categories of possibility and hope to transcend
73
the traditional dichotomies which pit reason against faith.2 If we make

sure to distinguish the phenomenology of hope from that of mere wish-
ing, it should be possible to do justice to the Biblical claims that
'faith(fulness) is the substance of things hoped for' (Hebrews 11:1) and
that 'love hopes all things' (I Corinth. 13:7).
In the case of Kant, I will consider the dimension of hope in general,
the role of possibility and hope in the postulates concerning God and
immortality, and the specific role of hope in the account of revealed
religion suggested in Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone. This
alternative is not itself a critique of Gill's account, but it explores an
area which I think has been neglected and it carries in its train a quali-
fication of Gill's conclusion concerning Kant's postulation of God.
In the case of Kierkegaard, I will suggest briefly how the categories of
possibility and of hope play a role in some of his writings (pseudonym-
ous and non-pseudonymous). Again, while this emphasis on possibility
and hope does not constitute a direct critique of Gill's account, it leads
me to suggest a qualification concerning his appeal to pseudonymity
and indirect communication. Gill paints his picture of Kierkegaard's
strategy of indirection in very broad strokes, so I am not sure exactly
how his readings of individual texts might play themselves out.
Whether or not we end up disagreeing, I will, in any case, follow Cli-
macus' lead and try to perform a service by making this issue of indirec-
tion 'difficult, as difficult as possible, yet without making it more
difficult than it is'. 3 That is, I will indicate some of the complexity in
the appeal to indirection, nuancing it by revealing (only) some of its
levels and dimensions.
1. Kant and hope
(a) Kant's Critique of Pure Reason obviously highlights the marked con-
trast between theoretical and practical approaches, but it does not leave
us with a simple opposition. Kant also reminds us of a third dimension
when he adds to the questions 'What can I know?' and 'What ought
I do?' the following question - 'What may I hope?'4 While the first
question, he says, is 'merely speculative', and the second is 'purely
practical', the third - 'If I do what I ought to do, what may I then
hope?' - 'is at once practical and theoretical, in such fashion that the
practical serves only as a clue that leads us to the answer to the theoret-
ical question, and when this is followed out, to the speculative ques-
tion.' The character of human anthropology in general and of religion
in particular is not complete without accounting for hope: 'all hoping is
Making Room for Faith 75
directed to happiness, and stands in the same relation to the practical

and the law of morality as knowing and the law of nature to the theoretical
knowledge of things.' His conclusion is that 'just as the moral principles
are necessary according to reason in its practical employment, it is in the
view of reason, in the field of its theoretical employment, no less neces-
sary to assume that everyone has ground to hope for happiness in the
measure in which he has rendered himself by his conduct worthy of it.'
Hence this first Critique concludes, via the notion of hope for the happi-
ness ingredient in the Highest Good, that 'God and a future life are two
postulates which, according to the principles of pure reason, are insep-
arable from the obligation which that same reason imposes upon us.'
(b) The Critique of Practical Reason explores these two postulates further
and suggests that Kant makes 'room for faith' precisely by guaranteeing
an affirmation of possibility. What kind of affirmation of what kind of
possibili ty?
Consider some textual warrant for the claim that reason in its practical
employment postulates the possibility of God and immortality. In the
preface we find Kant insisting that 'The idea of God and immortality ...
are the conditions of applying the morally determined will to the object
which is given to it a priori ... Consequently, the possibility of these
conditions can and must be assumed in this practical context without
our knowing or understanding them in a theoretical sense' (emphasis
mine, 4). Contrasting the postulates of mathematics with those of pure
practical reason, he writes that the latter 'postulate the possibility of an
object (God and the immortality of the soul) from apodictic practical
laws, but therefore only for the use of a practical reason. The certainty
of the postulated possibility is not in the least theoretical ... it is a neces-
sary assumption, rather, with reference to the subject as conforming to
the objective practical laws of reason. Thus it is merely a necessary
hypothesis' (emphasis mine, 11, n. 9). These claims in the preface are
later reiterated when Kant says that 'through the practical law ... there
is postulated the possibility of those objects of pure speculative reason
whose objective reality could not be assured by speculative reason'
(emphasis mine, 134).
Now, presumably, some kind of possibility had already been assured
by theoretical reason's inabilitv to rule out God and immortality, so
what is involved in this case is the guarantee - because of practical
needs - of a kind of possibility which exceeds that reached in the first
Critique. The character of this 'objective reality [which] could not be
assured by speculative reason' is clarified in a footnote in the first Critique
in which Kant contrasts 'real' possibility with 'logical' possibility. He

writes:
I can think whatever I please, provided only that I do not contradict

myself ... This suffices for the possibility of the concept, even
though I may not be able to answer for there being, in the sum of all
possibilities, an object corresponding to it. But something more is
required before I can ascribe to such a concept objective validity, that is
real possibility; the former is merely logical. This something more
need not, however, be sought in the theoretical sources of know-
ledge; it may lie in those that are practical. 5
In other words, it is not the case, as Gill suggests, that for Kant the
experience of the moral life 'makes it "possible" but not necessary to
postulate the existence of God' (Gill, p. 57). Rather, I suggest that Kant
argues for the necessity of postulating the possible existence of God.
I agree with Gill in rejecting the interpretation that Kant intends to
justify the necessity of postulating the existence of God, but I think
there is, nevertheless, a crucial difference between arguing for the pos-
sibility of postulating the existence of God and arguing for the necessity
of postulating the possibility of God. 6 Kanfs references to 'practical
belief' in God's existence seem to amount to the necessity of postulat-
ing the possibility of God's existence coupled with the desire for it -
and this is what hope amounts to. That is, 'practical belief' in God's
existence cannot equal 'theoretical belief' in God's existence - 'practical
belief' means hope, which depends on the theoretical affirmation of the
real possibility of God and immortality. The possibility of God and
immortality is all that is affirmed because the practical postulate is the
'theoretical proposition' which is inseparably tied to duty.7 On his own
terms, whatever Kant means by the 'positive cognition' we gain at the
boundary of reason cannot go beyond that.
(c) Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone (hereafter RWLRA) reaf-
firms the relevance of possibility: 'Indeed, the minimum of knowledge
(it is possible that there may be a God) must suffice, subjectively, for
whatever can be made the duty of every man.,g In addition, however,
the recognition of the radicality of evil in us prompts a corresponding
sensitivity to our possible needs and hence an intensification of the lan-
guage of 'hope'. As we all know, RWLRA is devoted to exploring the
complexity of the problem generated by the fact of evil, its origin and
the locus of responsibility, and the requirement that any moral good
we attain must be imputable to us. I suggest that RWLRA's discussion

extends the domain of the possibility and legitimate hope involved -
Le. hope goes further than hope for God and immortality. Hope now
addresses the domain of grace. While the discussion of the postulates in
the second Critique assumes that a God would proportion happiness to
virtue and also that given enough time (and God's glance, which takes
the progress as if completed), we could be sufficiently virtuous, RWLRA
wonders how we can be virtuous at all.
In the General Observation ending Book One, Kant notes: 'Granted
that some supernatural cooperation may be necessary to his becoming
good, or to his becoming better, yet whether this cooperation consists
merely in the abatement of hindrances or indeed in positive assistance,
man must first make himself worthy to receive it, and may lay hold of
this aid (which is no small matter) - that is, he must adopt this positive
increase of power into his maxim, for only thus can good be imputed to
him and he be known as a good man' (first emphasis mine, 40). He
continues: 'For despite the fall, the injunction that we ought to become
better men resounds unabatedly in our souls; hence this must be within
our power, even though [even if]9 what we are able to do is in itself
inadequate and though we thereby only render ourselves susceptible of
higher, and for us inscrutable, assistance' (40-1). Kant's response to this
dilemma is: 'he can hope .. . ' (emphasis mine, 43), we have 'reasonable
grounds for hope', we may 'reasonably hope' (60).10 In other words, the
radicality of evil in us points to the need for hope which goes beyond
the hope for happiness and extends to the hope for assistance in being
virtuous.
When Kant writes that one 'must be able to hope through his own
efforts to reach the road which leads thither ... ' (46), he is not arguing
for radical independence, autonomy or sufficiency. Our 'own efforts'
are necessary, but not necessarily sufficient. What it means to hope that
through our 'own efforts' we can become better still allows outside
assistance: 'It is a basic principle that each must do as much as lies in
his power to become a better man, and that only when he has not bur-
ied his inborn talent ... but has made use of his original predisposition
to good in order to become a better man, can he hope that what is not
within his power will be supplied through cooperation from above. Nor
is it absolutely necessary for a man to know wherein this cooperation
consists' (emphasis mine, 47). Thus, even the hope of being virtuous
includes the hope for what may be beyond one's 'own efforts'.
But does this mean that Kant claims it is necessary and legitimate to
believe either that we need supernatural assistance or that there will be
supernatural assistance? On my reading, Kant replies 'no' to both these

questions. He writes: 'a man's own moral improvement is one of the
tasks incumbent upon him; and heavenly influences may cooperate
with him in this, or may be deemed needful for the explanation of the
possibility of such improvement - yet man cannot comprehend them;
he can neither distinguish them with certainty from natural influences,
nor draw them ... down to him' (emphasis mine, 82-3). He repeats: 'it
is not denied that beyond all that we can do there may be something in
the mysteries of the highest wisdom that God alone can do to trans-
form us into men well-pleasing to Him. Yet even should the church
proclaim such a mystery as revealed, the notion that belief in such a
revelation ... and acknowledgment of it ... are in themselves means
whereby we render ourselves well-pleasing to God, would be a danger-
ous religious illusion' (first emphasis mine, 158-9). The attitude Kant
recommends to such grace-filled assistance or cooperation parallels his
recommended attitude to the 'parerga to religion within the limits of
pure reason', which 'do not belong within it but border upon it':
namely, Reason holds that 'if in the inscrutable realm of the supernat-
ural there is something more than she can explain to herself, which
may yet be necessary as a complement to her moral insufficiency, this
will be, even though unknown, available to her good will' (emphasis
mine, 48).
I am suggesting that Kant's view is that not only can we not say what
the assistance would consist in, but that we cannot even say that we do
need help, for that too would go beyond what we can theoretically
ascertain. l l What we can affirm is that if assistance is necessary to us, we
have reasonable grounds for hope that we will receive whatever may be
necessary. That is, it is possible that we need assistance, but we neither
know nor have the right to claim either that we do or what specifically
We might need. Our practical needs do warrant an extension of what we
can say theoretically, but to claim unconditionally necessary possibility
(or 'real possibility') is already such an extension. We 'make room for
faith', but we do not thereby go beyond what is legitimate because we
do not claim either that we do need help or that we can hope for a
specific kind of help.
Thus, hope is within the limits of reason, called for by moral needs,
yet belief in supernatural assistance is not within, but borders upon,
reason. Herc, his metaphor of conccntric circles is apt: since 'revelation
can certainly embrace the pure religion of reason, while, conversely, the
second cannot include what is historical in the first, I shall be able
[experimentally] to regard the first as the wider sphere of faith, which
includes within itself the second, as a narrower one (not like two circles
external to one another, but like concentric circles)' (11).
All this, I think, suggests that RWLRA legitimates a postulate in addi-
tion to those legitimated in the second Critique. I suggest that Kant makes
'room for faith' by eliminating the obstacles to postulating the possibil-
ity of God, of immortality, and of any assistance we may need, as well
as by showing the need to postulate those possibilities. Without these
postulations we cannot reasonably devote ourselves to the moral enter-
prise, but none of these postulations constitutes a theoretical belief in
more than the real (more-than-Iogical) possibility of any of the three.
In sum, Kant legitimates a faith which is a hope - a hope for the
happiness we would deserve if we did what we ought to do, and addi-
tionally, a hope for any assistance we might need in order to do what
we ought (be virtuous). He allows the postulation of such assistance
because the demands of duty carry in its train an inseparable theoretical
corollary (the affirmation of the possibility of assistance). He locates the
basis and the limits of hope: Reason 'does not dispute the possibility or
the reality of the objects of these ideas', but they cannot be appropriated
'as an extension of her domain'; we can neither 'define these things the-
oretically' nor, he says, do they have a 'practical application' (48).12 Thus,
he allows us to hope for such assistance as we might need, but cannot
theoretically define, as long as it does not affect our practical striving
(except in the sense of preventing despair).
An alternative proposal to Gill's would thus claim that Kant under-
cuts the dichotomy between reason and faith precisely by highlighting
the practical interests of reason which require (are premised on) the
theoretical affirmation of real possibility. Practical needs imply the
necessity of the possibility of assistance, and require a hope, but do not
ever obliterate the distinction between theoretical and practical employ-
ments of reason. We do not need to set reason aside, because reason has
a practical employment which supports a theoretical affirmation of the
real possibility (a necessary possibility) of God, assistance, etc.
Before turning to the rest of Gill's project, I want to make one sugges-
tion concerning any purported parallel between Kant and Kierkegaard
on practical reason. I would argue that it is not enough to show that
both appreciate the practical (moral, existential) needs in our life. They
can both do that without making the same distinction between theoret-
ical and practical employments of reason. That is, it may be that Kant's
insistence on the terminology of the practical employment of reason
shows that something important is at stake for him in refusing to let
practical interests be contrasted with rational interests. Kierkegaard, on
the other hand, never makes an explicit distinction between theoretical

and practical reason - the various facets of the 'understanding' seem to
be lumped together, without an overwhelming concern to keep the
gold star of 'rational' in play. The difference might be expressed as
follows: for Kant, reason is the rubric extending over both kinds of
interests - so moral and religious needs are not at odds with reason. For
Kierkegaard, on the other hand, there may be no stake in keeping every-
thing under the single rubric of reason. It may be that he is perfectly
willing to say that not everything legitimate needs to be awarded that
gold star. His emphasis on passion could be seen as giving up the import-
ance of the category of 'rationality' and refusing to need to extend it to
cover practical concerns. 13
Thus, Kant can readily be seen as challenging the dichotomy between
faith and reason, precluding the need to set reason aside, by keeping
everything as a version of rationality. Gill doesn't propose that Kierke-
gaard undercuts the dichotomy in the same way. Rather, he suggests
that Kierkegaard undercuts it with his literary strategy - indirect commun-
ication and pseudonymity. Because it is so refreshing to see Kierke-
gaard's literary strategy taken seriously, I want to address this issue, but
first I want to indicate briefly how one can see categories of possibility
and hope in Kierkegaard's writings.
2. Kierkegaard and hope
(a) Hope and possibility

At the end of his paper Gill warns us that an emphasis on propositional
accounts of faith can mislead us: 'In essence we run the risk of confus-
ing faith with hope!' Although it is, of course, useful to distinguish the
virtue of hope from other virtues, it is connected to them, as the
Biblical injunctions imply: 'faith is the substance [the constancy] of
things hoped for' (Hebrews 11:1) and 'love hopes all things' (I Corinth.
13:7). In what follows I want to indicate briefly why one could say that
Kierkegaard, like Kant, made room for faith-as-hope, precisely because of
the role possibility plays in Christianity.
Kierkegaard connects hope and possibility in a journal entry in 1845
in which he writes that 'the dialectic of hope goes this way: first the
fresh incentive of youth, then the supportive calculation of understand-
ing, and then - then everything comes to a standstill - and now for the
first time Christian hope is there as possibility.'14
I cannot begin to rehearse here the variety of ways in which Kier-
kegaard highlights notions of possibility. Admittedly, many of his ref-
erences are to the negative connotations of aesthetic possibility with

its danger of dissipation and loss of self, but he nevertheless carves a
significant place for a positive concept of possibility in both ethical and
religious development. IS One rich locus for this positive concept is The
Sickness Unto Death, by Anti-Climacus (admittedly a pseudonym, but an
unusual one I6 ). He writes: 'What is decisive is that with God everything
is possible ... This is the battle of faith, battling, madly, if you will, for
possibility, because possibility is the only salvation. m In ways reminis-
cent of Kant's formulation of the dilemma posed by radical evil, he con-
tinues that 'The believer sees and understands his downfall, humanly
speaking ... but he believes ... He leaves it entirely to God how he is to
be helped, but he believes that for God everything is possible. To believe
his downfall is impossible. To understand that humanly it is his down-
fall and nevertheless to believe in possibility is to believe.' To believe in
possibility is to believe - to believe is to believe in possibility.
The object of belief is 'the being of God', but he explains: 'since
everything is possible for God, then God is this - that everything is
possible ... For prayer there must be a God, a self - and possibility - or a
self and possibility in a pregnant sense, because the being of God means
that everything is possible, or that everything is possible means the
being of God.' This construal of radical, absolute possibility can, I think,
provide a hermeneutic for understanding Anti-Climacus' traditional
formulation in Practice in Christianity: 'Let all this suffering come; I have
my hope in God - certainly not as in my earliest youth, but in another
and more deeply inward way.,18
An 1840 journal reference to 'the humble courage which dares to
hope everything 1l9 is elaborated in detail in his late work, Works of Love,
signed by S. Kierkegaard (1847).20 In a substantial deliberation on hope
(pp. 246-63) we find the following accolade and analysis of hope. The
deliberation opens with a bold announcement: namely, 'Christianity's
hope is eternity' (248). It then works its way back to this conclusion,
first with an ode to possibility: 'Possibility, this marvelous thing that is
so infinitely fragile ... so infinitely frail ... and yet, brought into being
and shaped with the help of the eternal, stronger than anything else, if
it is the possibility of the good!' (251). Then he makes this more
specific: 'To relate oneself expectantly to the possibility of the good is
to hope' (249); conversely, 'anyone who lives without possibility is in
despair' (252).
Christianly speaking, 'To hope is composed of the eternal and the
temporal, and this is why the expression for hope's task in the form of
eternity is to hope all things, and in the form of temporality to hope
always' (249). 'Christianity's hope is eternity'! And in Biblical fashion,

he does not contrast faith with hope, but rather contrasts both faith
and hope with love, which is the greatest.
In the attempt 'to define more accurately what it is to hope', he con-
trasts hoping with 'wishing, craving, expecting'.21 'To hope relates to
the future, to possibility, which in turn, unlike actuality, is always a
duality, the possibility of advance or of retrogression, of rising or fall-
ing, of good or of evil' (249). That duality is more than simply logical
possibility ('Yes, it [a bad thing] certainly is possible, but then the
opposite is also possible' - 254); he intriguingly suggests that 'the pos-
sibility of the good is more than possibility, because when someone is
so bold as to assume the impossibility of the good, possibility dies for
him altogether' (253-4). As we saw above, 'to relate oneself expectantly
to the possibility of the good is to hope', and 'that everything is possible
means the being of God'.
(b) Room for faith through pseudonymity

Let us return now to Gill's interpretation of how Kierkegaard made
'room for faith' through pseudonymity. Gill writes: 'in his pseudonym-
ous writings Kierkegaard was not seeking to contrast reason and faith,
but was intent on "deconstructing" this traditional dichotomy in its
entirety.' This deconstruction is accomplished by a strategy which
manipulates a tension between message or content, on the one hand,
and form, style or medium, on the other. This strategy is able to be
appreciated fully only if we take the pseudonyms 'more seriously than
they have generally been taken' (Gill, pp. 58,64).22
Gill wants to do justice to the indirect communication and pseudonymity
of Kierkegaard's works. So do I. Indeed, so should we all. But I need to
raise a question about the way in which he explicates their relevance.
Like Kierkegaard's Climacus in the Postscript and Kierkegaard himself in
the journals, Gill highlights the contrast between the what and the
how. 23 While the notion of content, message, or what, seems straightfor-
ward enough,24 it is not always clear exactly what Gill means by the
how, and it is this ambiguity in the how which I wish to explore a little,
in order to reveal some complexity in the notion of indirection.
Gill's summary refers to 'Kierkegaard's presentation of faith by means
of the juxtapositioning of his pseudonymous authors [how] against the
contel1t [what] of their writings' (p. 72).2:; Working back through the
essay, we can get more specificity concerning the how. Earlier Gill
equates the pseudonymous authors with the 'medium': 'Kierkegaard
develops and demonstrates the metaphoric mode of expression and
reasoning by juxtaposing his attack on rationalism, the message of his

pseudonymous works, and his voluntarist alternative, the medium of
the same works. The elements of the juxtaposition cancel each other
out' (p. 70). Still earlier, Gill notes that 'he [SK] wrote books under vari-
ous pseudonyms which, while purporting to explain what faith is and is
not, also display a version of what faith is not, namely, irrational belief'
(p. 66). Moreover, the pseudonymous writings by Climacus and de
Silentio, by 'their content, they undercut the possibility of conceiving of
faith in a rationalistic way', while with 'their (orm, they undermine the
possibility of construing faith as an arbitrary act of the will in a cognit-
ive vacuum' (p. 66)i this second bit, Gill says, is usually 'ignored'
(p. 66). He explains: the' content' of Kierkegaard's writings established
that 'objective reason alone cannot provide the basis for religious
belief', while his' style' demonstrated that the 'irrationalist approach to
belief' was not viable (p. 64). Finally, the strategy is described as one in
which 'what he said undercut the rationalist approach and how he said
it demonstrated absurdity of the fideist posture' (p. 64).
First, I must confess I have trouble assessing Gill's precise thesis
because this list of various formulations which I've just recited contains
what strike me as two very different kinds of claim. In the first case
(p. 70) a third option (metaphorical expression) is said to be demon-
strated by Kierkegaard's juxtaposition of an attack on rationalism along-
side a voluntarist alternative. Similarly, on p. 66, it is what faith is not,
namely, irrational belief, which is displayed. In both these cases the
style is one in which the option o( irrational belief is displayed. In the next
three cases (pp. 66,64,64), however, the style or form is said to
undercut the irrationalist approach. Again, those strike me as two different
kinds of claim, and I am not sure which Gill wants to keep, or whether
he thinks Kierkegaard sometimes uses style to do the first and other
times the second. In any case, the two need to be distinguished if we are
to make any sense of what 'style' is said to be achieving.
The heart of the matter is that Gill has contrasted 'rational' (proof)
approach with 'irrationalist' Cvoluntarist', 'fideist' or leap) approach.
He has aligned or treated as equivalent the how notions of style, form,
medium and display. But it does not seem clear to me what exactly is in
tension with the message. What is the 'form' or 'style' at issue?
One important thing to be noted about 'style' or 'form' is that the use
of pseudonyms does not exhaust the art of indirection (indirect commun-
ication). Use of pseudonyms, a practice not uncommon in Kierkegaard's
day, is clearly one kind of indirection, and its importance has certainly
not always been appreciated. Gill is quite right that identification of
Kierkegaard with any of the pseudonyms is illegitimate. In a statement

signed'S. Kierkegaard', we find the warning to the reader that 'in the
pseudonymous books there is not a single word by me. I have no opinion
about them except as a third party, no knowledge of their meaning
except as a reader ... I am just as little, precisely just as little, the editor
Victor Eremita as I am the Seducer or the Judge ... I am just as little,
precisely just as little, Johannes de Silentio as the knight of faith he
depicts, and in turn just as little the author of the preface to the book.,z6
He is, he says, the author of the other authors, the creating individualities
who are the pseudonyms. This literary strategy, which one can denote
his style, or the form, of many of his writings, can be understood as
displaying an alternative to rationalism precisely because the use of pseud-
onyms is an affirmation that some things cannot be communicated
directly - that is, there are limits to a rationalist approach. One could
read the use of pseudonyms as a way of displaying the inadequacy of a
rationalist approach, and this is one way of understanding what it
means to say that Kierkegaard's style or form (of pseudonymity) displays an
irrationalist alternative.
This is, therefore, one way in which the how could provide or display
or constitute an irrationalist alternative. You could say that the strategy
of using pseudonyms always presents a content in a way which is ultim-
ately unintelligible, or at least ultimately indeterminable. Kierkegaard
uses de Silentio, a silent author, to narrate a story, or versions of a story.
A silent narrator is a way of creating tension between form and content -
the pseudonymity equals a form displaying an attack on rationalism.
But it is not so easy to see what it would mean to say that Kierkegaard's
how or style undercuts an irrationalist approach. Perhaps one might do
this by saying that the use of pseudonyms presents a content in a form
which can be read, rendered intelligible at some level. For example, one
could argue that Climacus in both Fragments and Postscript presents a
pedantic,systematic or rationalist style account of an irrationalist faith
construed in terms of 'paradox', 'crucifixion of the understanding', the
irrelevance of historical information, and the inappropriateness even of
faith seeking understanding. This would constitute a conflict between
rationalist style and irrationalist content. Perhaps this would be an
example of style undercutting an irrationalist approach by having a ration-
alist form. But this would ignore a great deal in both the style and con-
tent of both texts.
For a more significant way of construing how the how or style or form
undercuts an irrationalist approach, we need to look at another level of
indirection - a level at which each created author (the pseudonym)
Making Room (or Faith 8S
himself uses indirection. That is, Gill has emphasized the level (A) at
which one can say that Kierkegaard uses indirection by employing
pseudonyms - but there is another level (B) since Climacus himself uses
indirection. Indeed, it is Climacus who revokes the Postscript in the
'Understanding with the Reader' he appends to the Postscript and it is
Climacus who explains the limits of direct communicationY
Here, at the level (B) at which the pseudonym himself uses indirec-
tion (has a style, employs a form) one can distinguish two sub-kinds of
indirection, two ways in which style or form can be in tension or jux-
taposed to content. For shorthand, we could say that one is form vs.
content (BI); another is content vs. content (B2).
Bl. Form vs. content: One could say that Climacus' pedantic, systematic
style in Fragments contrasts with the irrationalist content or message of
the non-Socratic alternative. This, however, ignores the details of the
text: the way in which Climacus also offers there a poetic version of his
story, retelling the systematic tale of the Teacher, Learner and Moment
in terms of Love between Maiden and King, and Lilies of the Field. This
suggests another category of pseudonymic CB) indirection: a tension or
juxtaposition between two styles or between two contents.
B2. Style vs. style; content vs. content: In Fragments, Climacus offers first a
'Thought-Experiment' and then a 'Poetic Venture', and one can even
see the third chapter, 'A Metaphysical Whimsy', as echoing both
dimensions. One could see the form of the text as a creative tension
between two styles; one could say that the tension between the two
styles performs a heuristically useful function by stressing us to the
point of acknowledging another option (Gill's metaphor?). Moreover,
one can see in Fragments a distinctive style in the juxtaposition between
a rationalist content (the Socratic position) and an irrationalist content
(the non-Socratic alternative). Thirdly, one could see a tension between
the form and content internal to the exposition of the non-Socratic
alternative. Any of these could account for Climacus' self-assessment of
the book when in his 'Glance at Danish Literature' in the Postscript
he highlights 'The contrast of form, the teasing resistance of the ima-
ginary construction to the content, the inventive audacity (which even
invents Christianity) ... the indefatigable activity of irony, the parody
of speculative thought in the entire plan, the satire ... ' which mark the
Fragments. 28
Gill's conclusion that 'works by Climacus and de Silentio' are extreme,
obviously overstated irrationalist attacks on an extreme overconfident
rationalist approach, does not refer to Kierkegaard's use of pseudonymic

style (since he says Kierkegaard is not offering 'knowingly overstated
positions' (Gill, p. 66)). Nor can it refer to the tension between Clima-
cus' style and his message - at least, not without ignoring a variety of
styles and a variety of messages in the Climacan works. Gill says 'the
elements of the juxtaposition cancel each other out' (p. 70), hence
faith is not to be construed as either a matter of proof or of a leap. But it
does not seem easy to make the case that Climacus' message is an attack
on proof while his style is a display of the leap or irrationalist approach
(or even an undermining of the irrationalist approach) since Climacus
himself points to the limits of both the rationalist account and the fide-
ist account. That is, there are messages about and cautions against both
proof and leap contained in the pseudonymous author's account. This
is more a case of a what vs. what than a how vs. what.
In the end, then, there are a good many forms and a good many
contents, and a good many ways to play them off against each other
in creative tensions and juxtapositions. Indirection makes room for
faith(fulness) by not presenting 'results', but rather by attempting
instead to communicate 'capability' or to 'enable,.29 Gill is right to turn
us in this direction - the direction of indirection - but the turn can be
misleading if we are not careful to allow for the various levels of indirec-
tion (rather like a series of boxes within boxes). Kierkegaard describes
himself as an 'imaginative constructor' who creates other imaginative
constructors - in each case this created 'imaginative constructor is a poet-
ically actual subjective thinker and what is imaginatively constructed is
his psychologically consistent production'.30 Moreover, the pseudonym
employs the tension between form and content as well, and here the
indirection is the communication of capability which may result from a
conflict between two messages (rationalist and voluntarist) as well as
from a conflict between medium and message.
Notes
1. This includes the tension between passion and leap, and the role of imagina-
tion in holding elements in paradoxical tension; see my Transforming Vision:
Imagination and Will in Kierkegaardian Faith (Oxford, 1991).
2. I say this in full recognition of Gill's warning at the end of his paper that pro-
positioni:\l accounts of faith risk confusing it with hope.
3. Sitting in a cafe with a Cigar and pondering his life, Climacus reports: 'Suddenly
this thought crossed my mind: You must do something, but since with your
limited capabilities it will be impossible to make anything easier than it has
become, you must ... take it upon yourself to make something more difficult.
This idea pleased me enormously; it also flattered me that for this effort
I would be loved and respected, as much as anyone else, by the entire com-
munity' (pp. 186-7). Johannes Climacus repeats the idea three times: 'I ven-
ture according to my poor ability to take on the responsibility of making it
difficult, as difficult as possible, yet without making it more difficult than it is - I
take the responsibility upon myself. One can certainly do that, in an imaginary
construction' (Concluding UnScientific Postscript, trans. Hong and Hong, Prince-
ton University Press, 1992, p. 381, emphasis mine; also pp. 186-7 and 557).
4. KrV, A 805/B 833, p. 635. The remainder of the paragraph uses material
from A 804-12, pp. 635-9.
5. KrV, Bxxvi, note, emphasis mine; note that Kant treats 'objective reality'
and 'objective validity' as equivalent (in the Preface to the Critique Of Prac-
tical Reason, Kant contrasts what can be thought without contradiction
with what has 'objective reality'; he also puts in opposition the claims that
ideas can gain 'stability and objective reality' with the claim that 'their pos-
sibility is proved').
6. More detail can be found in my 'Kant's Postulate: The Possibility or the
Existence of God?', Kant-Studien, 74 (1983).
7. Kant's description in the second Critique of a 'practical postulate' as a neces-
sary assumption or hypothesis of practical reason (11, n. 9) was elaborated
later in his definition of it as a 'theoretical proposition, which is not as such
demonstrable, but which is an inseparable corollary of an a priori uncondi-
tionally valid practical law' (122).
8. RWLRA, p. 142 note; also see p. 60.
9. The English translation is misleading; the German reads '(olglich miissen wir
es auch konnen, sollte auch das, was wir tun konnen . .. " and so means 'even
if ... ' - as such it does not assert that we need something.
10. Other references to 'hope' are found on pp. 162 and 170, as well as continu-
ing references to 'grace'.
11. Although RWLRA, p. 132, seems to affirm our 'inability', it can be argued
that the pOint he is making concerns the condition of being well-pleasing
before anything could be done to make good an inability.
12. 'Hence,' he concludes, 'we can admit a work of grace as something incom-
prehensible, but we cannot adopt it into our maxims either for theoretical
or for practical use' (49).
13. Note that Kant does not, as Gill claims (p. 57), divide pure and practical -
Kant specifically makes a pOint of noting the lack of parallelism in the titles
of the critiques and contrasts pure theoretical with pure practical, or pure
reason with empirically conditioned reason.
14. Soren Kierkegaard's Journals and Papers, trans. Hong and Hong (Indiana
University Press, 1975), Vol. 3, p. 247 (1845); hereafter JP.
IS. See my Transforming Vision for a detailed account of these positive apprecia-
tions of ethical uses of imagination.
16. Kierkegaard later identified himself with this particular pseudonym in 'Til
det nye Oplag at'lndovelse i Christendom, Faedrelandet, no. 112, Onsdag, 16
May 1855.
17. The Sickness Unto Death, trans. Hong and Hong (Prince ton University Press,
1980), p. 38; the immediately following quotations are from pp. 39-40.
18. Practice in Christianity, trans. Hong and Hong (Prince ton University Press,
1991), p. 195.
19. JP 3: 246 (1840).
20. Works of Love, trans. Hong and Hong (Princeton University Press, 1995); fur-
ther parenthetical page references in this paragraph are from this volume.
2l. Works of Love, pp. 250, 262.
22. On the other hand, it is worthwhile noting that at times he keeps his own
name on the title page until the day before it goes to the publisher, e.g.
Philosophical Fragments and The Concept of Anxiety.
23. A particularly interesting discussion of the what and the how is found in the
JP 1: 317-18.
24. Even this is not quite true, since Climacus does periodically indicate that
the how and the what are inseparable, that the right how constitutes the
right what, that the relevant how can only fit one thing (Concluding Unscien-
tific Postscript, pp. 610-11, 613-14 note).
25. Here and in what immediately follows the emphases are my own.
26. These claims are found in 'A First and Last Declaration', which is appended to
Climacus' appendix in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript; this 'declaration'
is not paginated as is the rest of the book, and it is signed'S. Kierkegaard'.
27. Concluding UnscientifiC Postscript, pp. 619, 621; the sections in which he dis-
cusses 'possible/actual theses by Lessing', esp. pp. 73-80.
28. Concluding Unscientific Postscript, footnote, p. 275.
29. See the lectures and comments on direct and indirect communication, JP 1:
267-319; especially note pp. 273-89, pp. 303-18.
30. 'First and Last Declaration'.
V oices in Discussion
E: I wanted to suggest a different way of reading Kant and Kierkegaard.

I am intrigued by L's reply and the suggestion that what Kant is arguing
for is not the possibility of postulating the existence of God, but for the
necessity of postulating the possibility of God. I certainly agree that
hope is central. It gets us away from thinking of faith as rational or irra-
tional, and directs us to seeing faith, rightly, as faithfulness. Thus under-
stood, faith is action.
I suggested that there is a similar emphasis in Kierkegaard. A rational
defence of religion is undercut by a rational critique. An irrational
defence is exposed as irresponsible. The juxtaposition of these altern-
atives produces a vacuum in which the reader is asked to make a decision
about a form of life which is neither rational nor irrational. The pseud-
onymous works are negative in that they show how certain perspectives
negate themselves. That is the point of them. Thus, they clear the ground
for a responsible commitment.
L: I am sympathetic to E's claim that both Kant and Kierkegaard try to
make room for faith by transcending the distinction between rationality
and irrationality. So why not settle for that? I want to press the matter
further and to raise some disagreements I have with E.
I think hope remains in Kant's first and second critiques, but what he
remains is a strong minimalist. Kant is not trying to argue anyone into
faith. He distinguishes between logical possibility and real possibility,
and he makes the transition from one to the other in the context of
practical reason. Kant allows us to hope for God, immortality and grace.
So he is not talking about a theoretical belief. There is a huge difference
between a theoretical belief and a practical belief. E recognizes this, but
I want to make a stronger claim than he does, because you can't describe
a practical belief in terms of a theoretical belief.
It seems to me that E sees Kierkegaard as achieving indirectly what
he can't achieve directly. He sees the irrational leap as having positive
content, whereas I think Kierkegaard's communications are always indir-
ect, they are enabling.
E: I do agree that the logic is different with the shift to practical reason. I
also agree that there is more than one level of indirect communication.
L: Nevertheless, I do think we have a real disagreement. I don't think
it's enough to say that our different emphases simply depend on which
89
Critique we are talking about. In the first Critique, it seems to me that

Kant is discussing belief in God as logical possibility. In the second Cri-
tique, God is a real possibility. This something more lies in the practical
sphere. But Kant is not seeking to justify anything. By reflecting on eth-
ics, he is asserting the necessity of the real possibility of God. The needs
of the moral law make it necessary - but it is the necessity of a hope.
C: I see Kant, in the first Critique, as showing negatively where belief in
God does not belong, but also as attempting to show, in the second Cri-
tique, where such a belief does belong.
My difficulty is in seeing how religious belief does emerge from reflec-
tion on morality. Clearly, Kant's assumptions depend on treating mor-
ality as a homogeneous phenomenon. Once we admit that there are
many moralities, and that their characters differ, it is difficult to see
how reflecting on them necessarily leads to the real possibility of God.
But if Kant is talking about a religious morality, he could be seen as
attempting to clarify, whether adequately or not, the grammar of reli-
gious faith.
L: Don't forget I did not say that such reflection leads to the necessity of
postulating God's existence, but to the necessity of postulating the pos-
sibility of God. This is a practical necessity. There is no theoretical justi-
fication for it.
M: In fact, if God's existence could be theoretically determined it would
rob a human being of freedom. One is only free if it is a practical mat-
ter. Religious belief is rational, but not necessary. It arises only if you
take in moral interests. A theoretical resolution of the matter would not
allow freedom in these contexts.
C: I think that is right, but I still think that the necessity Kant sees as
resulting from reflection on morality, even if, as L says, it is the necessity
of a hope, does depend on a conception of morality as a homogeneous
phenomenon.
G: The difference between a theoretical and a practical belief is in the
kind of justification you'd provide in the justification of the belief.
A: But if we say that Kant is a minimalist, that he offers no more than a
possibility, necessary or otherwise, it is essential to say that it is the
possibility of a God who theoretically exists. The minimum is not ideal.
The content of the belief is derived from its theoretical status, and
Kant's minimalism is not meant to deny or diminish that theoretical
content.
N: Kant never sets aside reason - he would never say that. He denies
that matters of faith are matters of knowledge, but that is because they
are matters of practical reason.
E: I should have said that he put aside theoretical reason. Kant is telling
us not to go beyond the bounds of practical reason. He is telling us not
to venture out beyond the categories we are acquainted with.
N: No, I disagree; the limits are the limits of what we can know, but not
of what we can think. We are encouraged to launch out beyond what
we can know - that is the dialectic.
0: I do not think that practical belief is merely belief in a real possibil-
ity. That real possibility is groun-ded in a fundamental belief. 'I will that
there be a God' cannot be equated with 'I create God'. It means that
I must appropriate God. We can compare the matter with belief in the
ethical commonwealth. The hope is that it is coming. Belief in God is
the same.
L: I do not think Kant is concluding that we need grace and are going to
get it. The most Kant concludes is that if we need grace, we'll get it. We
do not know enough to say that we will get help, but it is a real possib-
ility. I do not see that Kant needs to go further, and he'd be in trouble if
he did.
0: I do not think it is only a real possibility. The grace is available.
L: It is available, but he does not say we need it. It is available only if we
need it.
0: The reason he says we cannot 'know' this is his idiosyncratic view of
knowledge.
P: Kierkegaard is not trying to establish what we know. The point of the
pseudonymous works is that the teacher must disappear. Where values
are concerned, we must find something for ourselves.
L: But the teacher must not disappear too soon. To write a book and
revoke it is different from not writing a book at all.
P: Are you saying that there are many Kierkegaards?
L: There are as many Kierkegaards as there are characters in his pseud-
onymous works.
Q: My problem is that E seems to minimize the differences between
Kant and Kierkegaard. Think of what faith means for Kierkegaard. Do
we find that in Kant? I sympathise with much of what L says, but I can-
not find Christianity as a historical religion in Kant. Revelation is out
for him. Even the Holy One must be brought to the bar of reason.
'Moral autonomy' does not seem to be what Kierkegaard means by
faith. For him, reason tells us what faith is not.
E: Kant gets caught in a trap he sets for himself. I was simply trying to
get him out of that trap. I wanted to say what you do about Kierke-
gaard, but I wanted to give him a break by reading him through the
pseudonyms.
L: Let me revise my remarks to P. There are not many Kierkegaards. His

is a single authorship, but he created characters we must take seriously.
As for Q, of course there are enormous differences, but these may over-
whelm us and blind us to other things.
E: Do historical considerations matter very much in the end for Kier-
kegaard?
L: I think they do. It is archetypically important that Jesus actually
existed, was crucified, and so on. Were that not the case, the archetype
would lack power.
E: But how are you going to establish that?
A: Kierkegaard is not an evidentialist in this respect, but it is a real belief
for him nevertheless.
E: I do not think Kierkegaard's faith is based on anything.
A: It is based on God's act. God creates faith. It is not based on evidence.
E: The recognition of the historical reality of Jesus is not to locate it in
history. The point is that Jesus is a I given' in history.
M: When speakers have referred to faith as the necessity of a real possib-
ility, this can be contrasted with the fact that faith in Kierkegaard is a
matter of faithfulness. But that faithfulness is God's faithfulness - that is
what can be relied on. Karl Barth makes the same point in his comment-
ary on Romans.
R: One difference that remains is that whereas Kant thinks that, in some
sense, religious belief and hope emerge from reflection on morality, it is
hard to see any such relation between faith and Kierkegaard's pseud-
onymous works.
C: I agree. That is why I said that it only has a surface feasibility in Kant
because he assumes that morality is a homogeneous phenomenon.
Once that is denied, once we see that there are different moralities, includ-
ing anti-religious moralities, Kant's way of arguing becomes problematic.
Part III
The Individual
5
'The Individual' in Kant and
Kierkegaard
R. Z. Friedman
This topic, 'the individual' in Kant and Kierkegaard, suggests a familiar

conflict. Kant, it would appear, makes the first move and sets the stage
for Kierkegaard's rejoinder. Kant mounts a defence of religious faith by
arguing that its content is identical to that of rational morality. The
principle of morality is a rational principle and it is, Kant contends,
identical to the Golden Rule. Kierkegaard responds with a bold and
decisive move of his own. In Kant's defence of religion, he argues, the
individual must subsume himself under the moral universal. This is a
poor interpretation of faith; the Biblical account of the apparent will-
ingness of Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, for example, reveals an individual
who, in order to obey the command of God, suspends the moral univer-
sal and becomes the individual raised above the universal. Either the
individual defines his relationship to God through the universal and
takes comfort in the justification and confidence that the moral univer-
sal affords, or the individual accepts that his relationship to God may
include the possibility that he might be singled out for a command that
runs counter to the demands of morality and that he might be required
to rise, in fear and trembling, above the universal.
The material moves to a by now predictable conclusion. In Kier-
kegaard's view, Kant's defence of religion amounts to paganism, Le. the
individual is required to do only that which the moral universal demands
and no more. In Kant's view, on the other hand, Kierkegaard's defence
of the individual amounts to fanaticism, i.e. the individual is required
to adhere to the moral universal but must suspend it if he is commanded
by God to do so, and he and only he is in a position to determine
whether or not he has been commanded. So a paper on the topiC of the
individual in Kant and Kierkegaard would seem to have a rather predict-
able task. It would either decide with Kant that the individual freed
95
from the universal and hence from reason is but a creature forced into a
natural state and doomed to subjectivism, a menace to himself and
others, and an offence to God, or it would decide with Kierkegaard that
while religion requires the moral rational perfection of the individual,
this perfection is not the absolute relationship to the absolute that we
see at work in Abraham, that religion is precisely the task by which the
individual relinquishes the comfort of the universal for 'the climb to
the infinite'.
In this paper, however, I would like to pursue another approach to
the topic of the individual in Kant and Kierkegaard, one more in keeping
with the approach I have taken in my previous papers on these two
thinkers.! Rather than seeing their views of the individual as being in
opposition to each other, I would like to see them as stages in the devel-
opment of a common philosophical tradition, one that makes the indi-
vidual (as opposed to nature, God, the polis, or history, for example) the
central feature of philosophical reflection. One can trace this tradition
to the thought of the seventeenth century; it is a tradition integral to
the rise of modern philosophy and it is a tradition that persists into our
own time. It is at once deeply affected by the sceptical rejection of the
claims of human knowledge, particularly with regard to the claims
of metaphysics, and yet eager to take human decision-making and
responsibility very seriously. Both Kant and Kierkegaard operate within
this tradition and both do much to advance its cause. This is the first
point I wish to make in this paper. The second point calls attention to a
certain ambiguity in this tradition, an ambiguity which Kant and Kier-
kegaard do much to advance. (He gel would have called this ambiguity a
contradiction at the core of the tradition of 'the individual' that works
its way through the development of this tradition, ultimately produ-
cing its failure.) The individual that emerges is both metaphysically
blind and yet necessarily active. This ambiguity is at work in both Kant
and Kierkegaard, in an emphasis on bold choices and actions commit-
ted independently of metaphysical knowledge, as is the case in Kant, or
in an emphasis on the mechanics of choosing, as is the case with Kier-
kegaard. Kierkegaard's position is, I think, an extension of Kant's posi-
tion, and his view of the individual ends less with the 'absurd hero'
than with 'psychological man', the individual confronting himself and
caught up in the dynamics of his own decision-making.
The key to' Kant's philosophical elevation of the individual is his ana-
lysis of morality. Morality, Kant knows, has been a part of philosophy
almost from its origins among the pre-Socratic philosophers, and of
'The Individual' in Kant and Kierkegaard 97
course he knows that morality is a central feature of religious teaching.

Yet Kant is convinced that the unique nature of morality has not been
understood and that the task of distinguishing morality from the other
forms of practical activity falls to him in the critical philosophy. When
properly understood, Kant thinks, morality imposes its own distinct
requirement - namely, that the individual do the right thing for the
right reason. 2 This is often referred to as duty for duty's sake, and Kant
certainly uses this expression, but 'conscience' is closer to the mark.
Conscience is Kant's great discovery. It is, as he sees it, in the individual.
The individual as such has an immediate and direct awareness of the
moral law. No matter how unlearned an individual may be, he may yet
claim to know what morality demands of him. Each individual is a
moral authority, and nothing (no religious or political authority, for
instance) can present itself to him as more learned in the demands of
morality than he is, and certainly no one can claim to be a moral author-
ity to whom others must submit.
The principle at work in the conscience of the individual is not
unique to that individual, Kant argues, but is a universal principle
equally present in all individuals. In Kierkegaardian terms, the moral
law is discovered in the subject but it does not derive from the subject-
ivity of the subject. The moral law is an objective principle discovered
in the subject, Kant says. Furthermore, it is neither an analytic proposi-
tion nor a generalization from experience. The moral law is an a priori
synthetic proposition. 3 It is not, however, a proposition that, in the
manner of space, time and the categories of the understanding,
explains the conditions that make (phenomenal) experience possible.
The moral law is not an element of transcendental knowledge, it
belongs to transcendent knowledge. The moral law is a metaphysical
principle. 4 Kant's contemporaries might well have wondered whether
Kant had found the source of morality to be an innate idea, if, having
found reason to support an empiricist account of human knowledge,
Kant had opted for a rationalist account of human morality. They
might be right. Conscience is in the individual, and while conscience
does not expand our metaphysical knowledge of the world, it does
present human beings with a metaphysical principle - a principle of
choice, conscience or the will.
The possession of conscience accords to the individual a unique sta-
tus, that of being an 'end', and membership in a 'kingdom of ends'.s
Conscience elevates the individual above nature, although the indi-
vidual human being has a status and a value higher than the forces that
re-claim him for nature. In the world of nature and sense the individual
is required to conduct himself as part of that world, to make decisions

that enable him to preserve himself, contribute to his preservation and
well-being, to become a part of various social configurations, to submit
to various kinds of authority. At the same time, however, the individual
is also required to direct himself in accordance with a rational principle
that is within him and informs his life. While one may be inclined to
look at Kant's moral individual as burden.ed by the limits imposed by
the law, Kant thinks that the presence of the moral law in human
beings is the most interesting feature of their existence. Conscience
reveals the individual to be a metaphysical creature toiling away in the
world of nature and sense, an odd situation the oddness of which Kant
is well aware. The human being must experience himself to be both
inside and outside nature, a metaphysical agent in the natural world.
Kant's defence of the individual was not lost on Hegel, who argues
that Kant sought to advance the status and cause of the individual
above that of the state. Hegel thought that Kant was not the defender of
a moral universal that would devour the individual and exhaust his
individuality, as Kierkegaard would argue, but was himself a moral sub-
jectivist. As Hegel sees it, Kant believes that each individual has the law,
the same law, but each individual is yet given the right, indeed must
insist on the right, to interpret that law for himself, and in this way
each individual becomes a law unto himself. Conscience, if played out
as Hegel believes Kant's analysis has done, amounts to anarchy.6 Hegel,
in contrast, defends the view one finds in Hobbes 7 and Spinoza,8
namely, that morality makes sense only in social and political contexts,
only where there are groups of people whose social lives require regula-
tion, and only where there is an authority capable of ensuring conform-
ity to the rules.
As Hegel understands it, Kant has attempted a bold synthesis of the
individual and reason and has failed. He is left with a reason under the
authority of the individual thought capable of judging what is and
what is not rational. In Hegel's view, Kant is far closer to Kierkegaard
than Kierkegaard imagines. This may well still be a long way from
Kierkegaard's notion of the absurd - the elevation of the individual
above the universal; nevertheless, Kant's defence of the individual,
Hegel concludes, provides a clear instance of irrationality in the name
of reason. Kant's great discovery, conscience and the absolute value of
the individual, is not simply a fortuitous event in the development of
Kant's work, and it cannot be adequately explained by reference to the
Pietist home in which Kant grew up. Kant was a careful reader of his
modem (seventeenth- and eighteenth-century) predecessors. He takes
his bearings in terms of their work, inheriting many of their questions,

and builds his answers in response to them and often employing ele-
ments of their positions. His discovery of conscience and the absolute
value of the individual owes much to his reading of Hume's critique of
knowledge, particularly of metaphysics. It is also a response to two
interpretations of morality: the classical tradition with its emphasis
on knowledge as the Highest Good (a morality with a metaphysical
content), and another tradition in which morality is thought to be a
structure of social regulation backed by a system of rewards and punish-
ments. Both of these interpretations of the nature of morality are found
in Spinoza. The first, elaborated in the Ethics, is a morality for the philo-
sophical few, and the second, found in A Theologico-Political Treatise, is
a morality for the unphilosophical many.
There can be certain knowledge, Hume argues, i.e. in Kant's language
a priori analytic propositions, but these are not descriptive of the world.
All knowledge of the world comes from experience, and while there can
be descriptions of the world based on observation, i.e. a posteriori
synthetic propositions, these cannot claim to be certain. There are no
a priori synthetic propositions and hence no certain knowledge of the
world. 9 Scepticism is Hume's conclusion, a conclusion that had a great
impact on Kant, as he himself acknowledges. IQ Kant responds that
mathematics and science offer instances of a priori synthetic proposi-
tions. How are such propositions possible? Kant's answer: the experi-
ence, and hence our scientific knowledge, of objects presupposes space,
time and the categories of the understanding (among them causality).
The study of the conditions which make experience possible is tran-
scendental philosophy. But while this enterprise will explain the object
that we experience (the phenomenon), it will not help us at all with
regards to the object as it is independent of what we experience
(the noumenon). Transcendental but not Transcendent Knowledge is
pOSSible; hence, metaphysics is not possible.
Kant does not abandon the issue of metaphysics, however. I think it
is his refusal to do so that leads him to a consideration of morality and
the individual, not an abiding interest in morality and the individual as
such. In the Ethics Spinoza argues the case for a Highest Good he identi-
fies with intellectual perfection and the intellectual love of God. Meta-
physical knowledge (scientia intuitiva) is a real possibility for human
beings, he claims.ll The individual in possession of this knowledge will
perhaps not be happy in the conventional sense of the word, but he
will be reconciled to the world. There is another morality that Spinoza
labours over in A Theologico-Political Treatise, a morality of piety and
obedience, rooted in the Biblical ideal, the Golden Rule. 12 It will not
make human beings wise, but it will make them good. It will also ensure
conformity to rules of social conduct and to those rules necessary to
maintain political stability. A morality of limit and denial, it would be
ineffective, Spinoza believes, unless conjoined with a system of rewards
and punishments, and this in turn will require the introduction of God,
without whom the rules would go completely unheeded. This morality
does not take that knowledge seriously, but it does take choice seriously,
as it does the social and political need to direct or even compel choice
such that consequences thought to be beneficial will be produced while
other consequences will be avoided.
Kant rejects the philosophical morality of Spinoza's Ethics. He denies
the possibility of metaphysical knowledge, the pOSSibility of the intel-
lectual love of God, and he denies that knowledge is the highest good.
A human being thought to be wise but not good does not command
our admiration, Spinoza observes, while one who is good but not wise
may yet command and receive our admiration. The critique of a meta-
physical morality would seem to point Kant in the direction of the
second of Spinoza's two moralities, the morality of choice elaborated in
the Treatise. And indeed Kant moves in this direction. But he rejects the
idea of moral choice as the product of the expectation of reward or the
fear of punishment, does not accept that morality might be understood
in terms of the consequences produced by those choices. As I have
pointed out, Kant denies the primacy of religious and political author-
ity and insists on the autonomy of the individual. The foundation of
this autonomy is conscience. Its principle is an a priori synthetic prin-
ciple, a law of reason. It is a metaphysical principle, not one that
expands human understanding but one that insists on directing the
will. Kant's resolution is to admit the absence of metaphysical know-
ledge and therefore to deny the possibility of the classical tradition of
morality with its emphasis on knowledge as the goal of human life. But
Kant also rejects the social-political model of morality with its view of
the uneducated masses who, lacking knowledge, must be made to
experience the full weight of a system of fear and rewards in an effort to
ensure their conformity to societal expectations. Kant denies the possib-
ility of Spinoza's metaphysical morality in the Ethics, but he also refuses
to accept Spinoza's morality of social obligation in the Treatise. His solu-
tion is a metaphysical morality rooted in obligation.
This is classical Kant, bold and eclectic. But his individual is now not
embarked on the climb to metaphysical knowledge or to the intellec-
tual love of God. And the individual is now not simply a creature for
whom morality is the regulation of life. The individual, bereft of the

possibility of metaphysical knowledge, is nevertheless driven by a meta-
physical principle and must recognize himself as a metaphysical entity
in the world of nature. A blessing or a curse? Kant obviously thinks it a
blessing. The individual cannot be understood to be making his way
towards the realization of metaphysical knowledge. Wisdom is not his
end. But he is not for this reason simply a creature picking his way
through an obstacle course of fears and desires. Conscience and its prin-
ciple require us to think of the individual as directing himself in accord-
ance with reason and destined to the perfection of himself as a rational
moral creature. Some might think it a curse.
In his essay 'What is Enlightenment?' Kant observes that 'enlighten-
ment is man's release from his self-incurred tutelage,.13 Enlightenment
is freedom rather than the possession of knowledge. Enlightenment, as
Kant sees it, is not far removed from Spinoza's ideal - that each indi-
vidual ought to be free to think what he will and to say what he thinks.
For Kant, enlightenment suggests a social and political arrangement but
not an expansion of metaphysical knowledge. Kant's legacy may be an
individual thought to be metaphysically blind yet one whose powers of
moral judgement are guided by a law of reason - an individual convinced
of both his metaphysical ignorance and his metaphysical status and
rectitude. 'I do not know the truth and I will never know the truth but
I do know (out of my own inner resources alone) what is good and
further I know that I must will it.'
For Kierkegaard the curse may actually be a blessing. The purpose of

Kant's analysis is to turn the individual's attention from the world to
conscience, from natural law to moral law, but, in Kierkegaard's view,
the individual's experience of the moral law must give way to a yet
more compelling experience. Applying the law does not lead to a
simple resolution of moral perplexity. The task of moral worthiness is
not simply a matter of applying the will. It requires a clarity of applica-
tion that Kierkegaard thinks is not possible. Kant is a metaphysical scep-
tic but not a moral sceptic. Kierkegaard is both a metaphysical and a
moral sceptic. The individual, turned from the world to himself, must
experience within himself an inability not simply to determine his will
in conformity with the law, but to determine what he is required to do.
The example of Agamemnon, Kierkegaard believes, must surely tell us
something about the limits of morality - that moral obligations are
often in conflict with each other and that the cost of moral success in
one area is moral failure in another. 14
For Kierkegaard this perplexity about morality - how it promises not

metaphysical knowledge but moral worthiness, yet delivers not moral
worthiness but moral failure - must lead to a more fundamental per-
plexity about the individual's awareness of himself as subject to the
moral law, namely, it is only the individual's perception of himself as
being in violation of the moral law that allows the law to have a hold
on him. ConSCience, Kant argues, would not make sense without the
presence of a rational principle of correct willing, and Kierkegaard
believes that conscience would not make sense unless the individual had
some prior and yet more fundamental experience of himself as being in
the wrong. Original sin is not a fall from innocence into moral wrong, it
is the awakening in man as a natural creature of the pervasive sense that
his is an existence not right with things and that it is his task to make it
right. 1s Obligation pOints to moral scepticism, and this points to failure,
which in turn points to a fundamental anxiety that the individual expe-
riences with regard to his very existence.
The curse, the unravelling of the Kantian moral self, may be a bless-
ing, but there is no doubt in Kierkegaard's mind that the blessing, a
defence of religion in which the individual is given the task of perfect-
ing himself in accordance with the moral universal, is also a curse. Kant
may appropriate a morality of choice and liberate it from a system of
rewards and punishments. He may insist on the freedom and autonomy
of the moral individual. He may argue the case for the presence in the
individual of a rational moral law. He may re-direct the individual from
nature and metaphysics to an awareness of the dynamics of his moral
existence. But Kant goes on to insist that this morality, saved from
those who misunderstand it, is the core of Christianity. And this, for
Kierkegaard, is the problem. Moral worthiness or goodness becomes
religion's unique task. The Golden Rule is now not simply one of its
important tenets - it is its exclusive core. And here Kant's religion, often
referred to as a moral religion, looks very much like Spinoza's moral
religion. God plays a role, but the core of religion is not knowledge of,
or faith in, or even love of God, but the execution of the demands asso-
ciated with morality, specifically the Golden Rule.
This is a moral religion, a social religion, or, I would put it, a 'hori-
zontal' religion. Kant's moral individual does not ascend to God. Kant's
moral individual does not perfect himself so that he might confront
God. He perfects himself, and God is a necessary element in his under-
standing of how this process of perfection can be understood to be pos-
sible. The impossibility of metaphysical knowledge makes a religion of a
'vertical' kind impossible. There can be no ascent to God as one finds it
in the medieval tradition or in Parts IV and V of Spinoza's Ethics.

Against the horizontal religion Kierkegaard defends 'a vertical religion'.
Without the vertical ascent, religion is simply the achievement of
moral goodness, and as such religion must be seen not to expand mor-
ality but simply to duplicate it. Religion, as Kierkegaard sees it, has at its
core a direct obligation to God, an obligation that is not mediated by
the moral law but is the direct command of God, 'an absolute relation-
ship to the absolute'. For Kierkegaard, the renewal of religion as a ver-
tical ascent to God and the defence of the individual go hand in hand,
for it is the individual called upon to place himself above the universal
that is the vehicle of the ascent. His task has less to do with the social
gospel than with Dante's Paradiso. His goal is not love of his neighbour
but a confirmation of his faith that only a direct confrontation with
God will provide. Kierkegaard wants to push aside the modern Kantian
archetype of the individual (the neighbour, everyman, the citizen, reli-
gious man as rational man, the individual who takes refuge in reason
and the universal) and replace him with an individual determined to
accept and execute what Kierkegaard thinks to be his unique fate - that
he should accept the unique demands of his individuality and climb to
the infinite, a task for the strong few, who would be knights and heroes.
This move conforms with the analysis that Kierkegaard builds so
laboriously in the Postscript. Lessing, Kierkegaard tells his readers, rejects
a knowledge that might be achieved in favour of the pursuit of a know-
ledge that cannot be achieved. 16 Better, perhaps in a sense closer to the
truth, Kierkegaard thinks, to have a life incomplete, unsatisfied, restless,
eager, fuelling a pursuit that gains its justification not from what it may
possess but from the perverse joy of seeking what that life will never
possess. The comments on Lessing allow Kierkegaard to advance the
main theme of the Postscript - namely, his insistence that Christianity is
not 'bad thought' that must be saved from itself by the mediating hand
of philosophy but, rather, the contention that truth is not something
known but truth is a life that would know the truth that cannot be
known, and Christianity is the invitation to live it. It is an invitation
Kierkegaard thinks will find few takers.
The promise of the vertical ascent, however, is not realized. Faith is a
life of decision in which decision moves the individual only to the
point of the next decision, a point no higher than that of the previous
decision. There is no progress in the ascent, only the lifelong renewal of
the decision to ascend. As is the case with Kant's moral-rational indi-
vidual, Kierkegaard's religious-absurd individual must deal with his will,
his choices, and not with the direction in which these choices might
take him.17 The rejection of the horizontal religion for the vertical
ascent fails, and Kierkegaard leaves us with a horizontal religion of a
psychological kind - the individual in conflict with himself with regard
to the either/or. Either he is subsumed within the moral universal, con-
fident that in obedience to the universal he serves God, or he believes
that he is, as the very individual he is, raised above the universal to
serve a God he must believe may not exist and who, even if He does
exist, may not address the individual as the individual now believes
that he is addressed.
In summary, as interesting as it is to see Kant through the lens afforded

by Kierkegaard, it is perhaps more interesting to see Kierkegaard
through the lens afforded by Kant. It is Kant who makes the individual
the central feature of philosophical analysis. The moral law to which
the individual must submit is discovered to be a law within the indi-
vidual. Conscience is Kanfs great discovery. And Kant makes this move
based on a reading of modern philosophy - the impossibility of achiev-
ing metaphysical knowledge and the identification of religion not with
knowledge but with morality. Kant's metaphysics of the will is both an
accomplishment (for it produces a remarkable interpretation of moral-
ity) and the recognition of a loss - namely, the impossibility that the
human mind might acquire metaphysical knowledge. Eager to defend a
moral everyman (Le. the 'virtuous grocer'), Kant leaves an ambiguous
legacy - the metaphysically blind but metaphysically empowered
individual, a legacy that could also be seen as spawning Hegel's World
Historical Figure, Nietzsche's Dionysian Hero, even Camus' Existential
Anti-Hero.
It is Kant's position that gives Kierkegaard the two main elements of
his teaching on the individual- namely, the acceptance of metaphysical
scepticism and the emphasis on the dynamics of the will. Kanfs indi-
vidual is the morally good person, the end-in-himself who treats others
as ends and members of a kingdom of ends. Kierkegaard's rejection of
Kant on the individual is bound up with Kierkegaard's attempt to deny
the ultimacy of a social-moral or 'horizontal Christianity' and to empha-
size a 'vertical Christianity', in a sense an attempt to return to the pre-
modern religion in which knowledge of God was thought to be possible.
His new individual is not the citizen, the good person, the Kantian
grocer, the Hegelian valet, but the hero who climbs to the infinite.
But the vertical ascent in Kierkegaard is not a matter of knowledge, for
knowledge is not only not possible (as in Kant) but it is also not desir-
able (as in Lessing). The vertical ascent is made through the will. But the
will provides not for an ascent but only for the opportunity to decide
to ascend. Climbing is renewing the decision to climb. Kierkegaard's
individual tries himself (in the name of God, who may not exist, and
hence he tries himself before himself) and goes nowhere. Even more
than Kant's metaphysically ignorant but metaphysically empowered
individual, Kierkegaard's individual is a strikingly modern figure, a vari-
ation on the theme of psychological man.
When Kant and Kierkegaard are seen not in opposition to each other
but as stages of the same process of development, we are left with the
idea of an individual who is, of course, not the rational individual
working through his life as the task of subsuming his choices and deci-
sions under the moral universal, Le. the Kantian individual. But neither
is he the Kierkegaardian individual - the Knight of Faith who has
understood the limits of reason and passed beyond them as he makes
his ascent to the infinite. The individual's primary task is faith - Le. the
choice to ascend to God. But God is not knowable. Scepticism cannot
be disputed. And so the individual is left with the choice to ascend. This
is less the Kierkegaardian individual, the Knight of Faith in embryonic
form, than psychological man - the individual turned back on himself,
wrestling with himself with ever increasing intensity in a world that is
known to be unknowable and before a God who, if He exists, is known
to be unreachable.
Notes
1. 'Kierkegaard: First Existentialist or Last Kantian?', Religious Studies, Vo!. 18,
Spring 1982, pp. 159-70; and 'Kant and Kierkegaard: the Limits of Reason and
the Cunning of Faith', International Journal (or Philosophy o( Religion, Vol. 19,
1986, pp. 3-22.
2. See Chapter 1 of Kant's Groundwork o( the Metaphysic o( Morals, published as
The Moral Law: Kant's Groundwork o(the Metaphysic o(Morals, trailS. H.]. Paton
(HutchiilSon University Library, 1948), pp. 61-73.
3. Ibid., pp. 84-8.
4. Ibid., Chapter 3, pp. 114-31. And, more importantly, 'The Preface' to Kant's
Critique o(Practical Reason, trailS. Lewis White Beck (Bobbs-Merrill Company,
Inc., 1956), pp. 3-14.
5. Groundwork, pp. 95-6.
6. Kant's position, Hegel writes, 'makes caprice into a law and ethical behaviour
into obedience to such caprice'. G. W. F. Hegel, The Phenomenology o( Spirit,
trailS. A. V. Miller (Clarendon Press, 1977), p. 260.
7. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. C. B. MacPherson (Penguin Books, 1968), p. 188.
8. See Spinoza's Ethics, Part IV, Proposition 35, Proof and Scholium, and Proposi-
tion 37, Scholium 2, published as The Ethics and Selected Letters, trailS. Samuel
Shirley, ed. Seymour Feldman (Hackett Publishing, 1982). In A Theologico-

Political Treatise Spinoza observes that 'no society can exist without govern-
ment and force, and laws to restrain and repress men's desires and immoderate
impulses'. Published as A Theologico-Political Treatise and A Political Treatise,
ed. R. H. M. Elwes (Dover Publications, Ine., 1951), p. 74.
9. See David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Section VII, Book I, ed. L. A.
Selby-Bigge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), pp. 263-74; and Section 5 in
An Inquily Concerning Human Understanding (Hackett Publishing Company,
1977), pp. 25-37.
10. See, for instance, Kanfs remarks in The Critique of Practical Reason, pp. 52-7.
11. Ethics, Part 5, Propositions 25-32.
12. See Chapter XIV, 'Definitions of Faith', in A Theologico-Political Treatise,
pp. 182-9.
13. On History, ed. Lewis White Beck (Bobbs-Merrill Company, Ine., 1963), p. 3.
14. Smen Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and
Edna H. Hong (Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. 56-9.
15. 'Anxiety', Kierkegaard observes, 'is the psychological state that precedes
sin.' The Concept of Anxiety, ed. and trans. Reidar Thomte (Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1980), p. 92.
16. Smen Kierkegaard, Concluding UnScientific Postscript to Philosophical Frag-
ments, Vo!. 1: text, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Prince-
ton University Press, 1992), pp. 106-9.
17. Louis Mackie, in 'The Loss of the World in Kierkegaard's Ethics', pursues a
similar line of argument. He notes, 'Kierkegaardian rhetoric drives the indi-
vidual, not to the encounter with the Absolute Reality and Power ... but
only further back into his own inwardness.' In Kierkegaard: a Collection of
Critical Essays, ed. josiah Thompson (Anchor Books, 1972), p. 282.
6
'The Individual' in Kant and
Kierkegaard - a Reply
Hilary Bok
I agree with Professor Friedman's central claim: that in their conception

of the individual and in the central role that conception plays in their
views, Kierkegaard and Kant are not nearly as far apart as one might
think. Both make the individual conscience central to their work; both
deny that we can use metaphysical knowledge as a substitute for moral
choice; both therefore conclude that righteousness is not a matter of
speculation but of the will. So I intend not to criticize Professor Fried-
man's paper, but to add some supporting considerations. In so doing
I will pretend that no one ever told me that Kierkegaard and Kant were
at odds, and try instead to figure out what Kierkegaard's conception of
the individual actually is, how far Kant could accept it, and what
accounts for the remaining differences between the two.
There are various strands in Kierkegaard's conception of individual-
ity. First, being an individual requires that one squarely face the ques-
tion 'what should I do?', and resist the temptation to substitute other
questions for it - questions like 'what do people commonly do in these
circumstances?', 'what does world-history require at this juncture?', and
so forth. Here Kierkegaard and Kant are clearly in agreement: both would
regard this sort of substitution as an evasion. Moreover, Kant would
accept Kierkegaard's specific objection to the idea that we can use either
world-history or any other sort of speculative knowledge to replace
moral choice: that no form of knowledge available to an observer can
encompass the present. Kierkegaard's arguments for this claim parallel
Kant's reasons for thinking that one cannot know the noumenal self,
and both draw the same conclusion from this claim: that we cannot use
speculation as a substitute for moral choice.
Second, being an individual requires inwardness, and inwardness
requires at least that we will what we will wholeheartedly. One can
107
mean one's volitions as one means one's words - deeply or virtually not
at all. George Orwell writes: 'When one watches some tired hack on the
platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases - bestial atrocities,
iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to
shoulder - one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live
human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly
becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker's
spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes
behind them.,1 Kierkegaard, who sometimes wondered whether he was
talking to a man or to a walking-stick,2 would recognize this feeling.
And just as there is a spectrum ranging from Orwell's tired hack to, say,
a very great poet who weighed her every word and meant each of them
entirely, so there is an analogous spectrum of increasing depth of com-
mitment to the things one wills, extending from those 'objective think-
ers' whom Kierkegaard suspects might be walking-sticks in disguise,
who will what they will with such thoughtless indifference that they
can scarcely be said to will at all, to an individual who chooses with
infinite passion and inwardness.
In his main moral works, Kant is more concerned with the question
which maxims we can permissibly will than with how we should will
them. This is surely at least a difference in emphasis between the two.
One might think that, for Kierkegaard, it must be more than that. 'The
objective accent falls on WHAT is said, the subjective accent on HOW it
is said,3; and the difference between objectivity and subjectivity can
never be a mere difference in emphasis. I will leave aside for now the
question what conclusion we should draw from the fact that Kant does
not place the importance of willing in earnest front and centre, as Kier-
kegaard does, and whether, in particular, we should conclude that in
so doing he shows himself to be an objective thinker. At the moment
I want to claim only that Kant both recognizes the need to will in earn-
est, and regards it as crucial.
At least part of what Kierkegaard calls 'inwardness', Kant calls 'charac-
ter'. According to Kant, we say that a person has this or that sort of
character when we want to describe the sort of person he is. But when
we say that a person has character, without qualification, we mean that
he 'has tied himself to certain practical principles which he has unalter-
ably prescribed for himself by his own reason,.4 While Kant takes char-
acter to be what 'defines (a person) as an individual and no one else',5
he would agree with Kierkegaard that it is uncommon: a person with
character is 'a rarity that calls for respect and admiration',6 even if the
principles to which he commits himself are the wrong ones. 7
'The Individual' in Kierkegaard and Kant - a Reply 109
Kant writes:
The person who is conscious of the character in his mode of thinking

does not have that character by nature, but must always have acquired
it ... (T)he establishment of character is, similar to a kind of rebirth,
a certain solemn resolution which the person himself makes. This
resolution and the moment at which the transformation took place
remain unforgettable for him, like the beginning of a new epoch.
This stability and persistence in principles can generally not be effected
by education, examples, and instruction by degrees, but it can only
be done by an explosion which suddenly occurs as a consequence of
our disgust at the unsteady condition of instinct. Perhaps there will
be only a few who have attempted this revolution before their thirti-
eth year, and fewer still who have firmly established it before their
fortieth year. Wishing to become a better person in a fragmentary
manner is a vain endeavor because one impression fades away while
we labor on another. The establishment of a character, however, is
absolute unity of the inner principle of conduct as such ...
(U)ninhibited internal truthfulness toward oneself, as well as in
the behavior toward everyone else, is the only proof of a person's
consciousness of having character. And since having character is the
minimum requirement that can be expected of a rational person,
and at the same time also the maximum of his inner value (of human
dignity), then being a man of principle (having a certain character)
must be possible for the most ordinary human mind that can thereby
be superior to the greatest talent, thanks to dignity.8
Character 'is the distinguishing mark of a reasonable being endowed

with freedom'.9 It 'has an inner value and it is above all price'.lO The
capacity to have a character is what Kant calls our humanity, that in us
which must always be respected and never acted against, the source of
our dignity, the image of God in us, and as such an appropriate object
of reverence and awe.
In light of these passages, I think that the reason Kant does not give
greater emphasis to character cannot be that he underestimates its
importance. Instead, I think there are two related reasons for his failure
to emphasize this pOint, one personal and the other intellectual. As to
the first: I think that Kant himself generally meant what he willed. And
just as someone who generally meant what she said might take it for
granted that the crucial point was to say true things, and that the
requirement that one actually mean what one says was somehow too
fundamental to be insisted on, someone who was not inclined to will

half-heartedly might find it difficult to give due weight to the fact that
others are.
The intellectual reason for Kant's reticence on this point is that it is
not clear that the requirement that we fully will what we will is a
straightforward moral requirement like, say, the requirement that we
speak the truth. To see why, consider the need to have a conscience.
Kant claims that this cannot be required of US,11 since if someone did
not already have a conscience, ethical requirements could have no
purchase on him. What, one might ask, is the status of the need not just
to have, but to listen to our consciences? Unlike having a conscience,
heeding one's conscience is something that a morally accountable
agent could fail to do; and therefore it is not incoherent to suppose that
it is a duty. On the other hand, to think of it as a duty like any other
would be wrong, both because to have a conscience at all is already to
recognize, on some level, that its voice is authoritative, and because
someone who did not already heed her conscience, at least to some
extent, would not be moved by arguments to the effect that she was
morally required to do so.
Likewise, while there can be no moral requirement to have a will,
since beings without wills are not subject to moral requirements, it is
not incoherent to suppose that we might be required to fully will what
we will, since this is, as Kant and Kierkegaard agree, something a moral
agent might do more or less well. However, such a requirement would
be unlike other, more standard moral requirements, in the same way as
a requirement that we heed our consciences. For to have a will at all is
to accept the idea that one can determine one's conduct for oneself;
and if one did not already on some level accept the idea that one should
fully will what one wills, not just incline towards it with one part of
oneself while taking it back with another, nothing anyone else could
say could convince one.
Kant discusses both the need to listen to our consciences and the
need to have a character in ways that make it clear that he regards them
as both fundamental to the moral life and in some way too obvious to
insist on. If my account of why he does so is right, then one might say
that Kant sees the fact about inwardness that makes Kierkegaard con-
clude that our need for it can be communicated only indirectly. How-
ever, since Kant was not in the least inclined towards Kierkegaardian
strategies of indirection, he remains, for the most part, silent, though
he makes it clear that he regards what he is silent about as crucial. One
might ask whether it is not irresponsible to remain largely silent about
something so important. I will take this point up later. For now, I want
only to claim that Kant recognizes and grants full weight to this aspect
of Kierkegaardian inwardness.
Third, inwardness requires risk: 'the contradiction between the infinite
passion of the individual's inwardness and the objective uncertainty'. 12
Clearly Kant can agree with Kierkegaard in so far as the uncertainty in
question concerns God's existence. If we could prove the existence of
God, Kant writes, we would act in conformity with His will, but we
would do so for the wrong reasons. '(M)ost actions conforming to the
law would be done from fear, only a few from hope, and none at all
from duty, and the moral worth of actions, on which alone in the eyes
of supreme wisdom the worth of the person and even that of the world
depends, would not exist at all. As long as human nature remains as it
is, human conduct would thus be changed into mere mechanism in
which, as in a puppet show, everything would gesticulate well but there
would be no life in the figures. 1l3 We can only achieve a practical (Kierke-
gaard would say: a subjective) certainty, which cannot be used to justify
our moral commitment since that commitment is its basis. And it is only
because this is true that we can live as free individuals whose conduct
has worth in the eyes of God. Here, I think, Kant and Kierkegaard are in
complete agreement.
However, Kierkegaard requires not only that we stake ourselves, with-
out relying on proofs, when we affirm our belief in God, but that we do
so in our particular choices about what to do. Ethics, for Johannes de
Silentio at least, involves resignation of one's particularity in favour of
the universal, and though this resignation is 'spun with tears, bleached
with tears ... sewn in tears', it 'gives protection better than iron or
steel'.I4 And one of the reasons it protects us so well, he thinks, is that
when we remain within the ethical, we can be sure of having done the
right thing, and sure that this will be recognizable by others. If we place
ourselves under the protection of the universal, we may have to give
up our child, our beloved, even our life; but we will not have to face
the dangers that faith presents us with, the dangers both of error and
of incomprehensibility. But in avoiding those dangers we relinquish
inwardness, and thereby lose the most important thing of all.
I will not consider here the question whether Johannes de Silentio's
conception of ethics as involving only the negative movements of resig-
nation reflects Kierkegaard's own views. IS Nor will I ask whether moral
risk is in fact desirable, since it seems to me that, desirable or not, it is in
any case a real phenomenon which any adequate moral theory should
be able to account for. It might seem that Kant's moral theory cannot
account for it. This would not follow simply from the fact that Kant
thinks that we can justify claims about what we should do. Abraham's
choice would not become risk-free if he could justify the claim that we
should always do God's will, a claim that Abraham's friends and family
would presumably accept. The danger involved in his choice reflects the
impossibility not of justifying that claim, but of determining what, in a
given instance, God's will is. Likewise, the fact that we can, according to
Kant, justify general moral claims, would not show that Kant's moral
theory is risk-free if it were not always possible to know, in a given
instance, what those claims require that we do. Kant sometimes seems
to think that it is possible to know this: that there is always a way of
responding to any situation which we can know to be beyond reproach.
This is, I think, false. But it is false for reasons that Kant can account for.
On Kant's view, it is possible to determine whether any given maxim
is permissible or not. But this does not ensure that we can be certain of
acting rightly in any given situation. For Kant denies that we can ever
know what our maxims actually are. 16 This is not a problem when it is
obvious what morality requires: in such cases you act rightly, try to do
so for the right reasons, and hope for the best. However, there are cases
in which it is not obvious what we ought to do, because while it is clear
that we ought to do whatever satisfies some description - say, doing
what is best for one's child - it is not clear which of the choices avail-
able that is. Sometimes this uncertainty is due to unavoidable ignorance
of some facti if in such cases we choose the wrong course, that cannot
be held against us. But sometimes we have all the facts we need, and the
problem is interpreting them. When you throw the book at a student, is
it heartlessness or tough love? When you send soldiers under your
command to risk their lives in a dangerous tactical manoeuvre, are you
being brave enough to take the brilliant gamble that wins the war, or
throwing other people's lives away to prove to yourself what a daring
commander you are? When you break your engagement, are you spar- .
ing the woman you love a lifetime of misery or just losing your nerve?
In such cases, if we have the facts we need to decide what to do, we
are accountable if we choose wrongly. For if we choose wrongly this is
due not to ignorance, but to the fact that self-love or cowardice have
corrupted our judgement.
A Kantian would say that in such situations we can be assured of act-
ing rightly if our maxims pass the Categorical Imperative test, and that
that depends not on whether we have described our choices accurately,
but on whether what we will in the situation as we understand it is
permissible. However, since we cannot know what our maxims are, the
fact that Kant holds that our conduct should be judged not by its con-
sequences but by our maxims gives us no security in the kinds of situ-
ations I described above. Moreover, others cannot know our maxims any
more than we can; for this reason, if the moral status of our conduct
depends on our maxims, we cannot prove to other people that we acted
rightly. This is true for the same reasons that prevent Abraham from
justifying his conduct to others. There is a description which, if it could
be shown to apply to Abraham's action, would justify it: namely, doing
the will of God. Likewise, there are descriptions of what Kierkegaard did
to Regine Olsen according to which his conduct was justified. If he
could have shown those around him that, for instance, in breaking
off his engagement he was in fact sparing Regine a lifetime of sorrow,
and that that was why he had done it, he would have justified his con-
duct to them. The problem in both cases is that the agent can neither
know himself nor prove to others either that that is what he is doing or
that that is why he is doing it. For this reason, if there are situations in
which we cannot know either what we should choose to do or that we
are choosing on morally acceptable grounds, then we cannot look to
ethics for safety, nor can we assume that if we act rightly, we will be
understood.
Still, one might think, there is one way in which Kant's ethics is safer
than Kierkegaard's. For the Categorical Imperative will clearly not
require certain things of us: lying, theft, killing our children. Kierke-
gaard's God, by contrast, is not a principle but a person, who might in
principle command any of these things of usY But even this distinc-
tion between the two is less sharp than it seems at first. For in both
cases there is one thing that will not be asked of us. Kant holds that we
will not be asked to violate the moral law. Likewise, it seems hard to
imagine that Kierkegaard would allow that God might ever command
us to renounce inwardness itself. And surely the reason for this is the
same in both cases: both Kant and Kierkegaard assume that we cannot
or will not be required to give up what makes us persons, and the persons
we are; that the God who made us persons will not ask us voluntarily to
assume the status of a thing.
Kant and Kierkegaard disagree, of course, about what makes us per-
sons, and the persons we are. For Kant, it is our practical reason, while
for Kierkegaard it is inwardness, which in turn depends on our ability to
relate ourselves to the absurd. Here, surely, is a crucial disagreement.
But again, it is important not to exaggerate it. There are ways in which
Kant thinks that our practical reason is incomprehensible. We cannot
understand how we have the ability to legislate moral law: how our
pure reason can be practical. We cannot coherently answer the question

where our fundamental maxims come from, nor can we render sin com-
prehensible to ourselves. Finally, we cannot understand how, given the
fact of our sinfulness, it is possible for us to become morally good. We
must, Kant thinks, have faith that grace will be vouchsafed us, without
trying to understand how this is possible, without trying to understand
its workings as parts of the sensible world, and without deluding our-
selves into thinking that it can be predicted or controlled. In all these
respects Kant and Kierkegaard are united on the paradoxical, incompre-
hensible nature of the source of the laws that govern our wills.
What Kant says we can understand using our practical reason is not
how reason is practical, how temporal beings like ourselves might have
pure practical reason, how we can move from sin to salvation, or how
our sins will not condemn us, but what we should do. Kierkegaard, for
his part, is not (I assume) committed to the claim that what we should
do is incomprehensible or absurd from any point of view (e.g. that even
God cannot understand His will), but only that it can at times be incom-
prehensible to us. Nor does Kierkegaard claim that even we are ever with-
out any understanding of why we should do what we should do. Like
Kant, Kierkegaard accepts a general formula describing what we should
do: we should choose with infinite inwardness, which requires that we
submit ourselves to God, and therefore that we do His will. The problem,
as Kierkegaard sees it, is not understanding this justification, but seeing
what the general description 'doing God's will' actually applies to.
Kierkegaard does not suppose that we must act in the complete
absence of justification. Nor does Kant deny that we must rely on our
own judgement in determining what, in particular, duty requires of us.
Instead, they differ on two more specific points. First, Kant thinks that
we can use his formula to generate a test for maxims, thereby rendering
the requirements of duty more determinate, and making more precise
the questions we must use our judgement to answer. Kierkegaard has no
such procedure. Second, Kant holds that we can rely on our reason to
spell out what duty requires, and thus that we will be able to under-
stand why duty requires some particular action. For Kierkegaard, by
contrast, there is no reason to suppose that we will always be able to
understand why some particular action should be God's will, and thus
that we have no assurance that the relation between the general
description 'doing God's will' and the particular requirement that we
do this will be comprehensible to us.
These are genuine differences. However, I think that there is some
reason to think that Kant's position on these points is preferable, even
in Kierkegaard's own terms. To see why, consider Kierkegaard's claim

that subjectivity is truth, and that when one chooses with infinite
passion and inwardness, one must choose correctly. This claim can,
I think, be understood in either of two ways. First, one might think that
choosing with infinite passion and inwardness is what makes a choice
right. Here one would be taking this claim as analogous to the claim
that when one designates an heir, one cannot designate wrongly. The
point would be not that one has some sort of magical power that enables
one always to pick the person who is, independently, one's heir, but
that designating someone as one's heir makes it so. Second, one might
think not that choosing something with infinite passion and inward-
ness makes it right, but that only the right things can be chosen in this
way. Here one would take this claim as analogous to the claim that one
can be wholly in love only with a person: the idea is not that with suffi-
cient passion one can transform whatever one falls in love with into a
person, but rather that one cannot have this particular sort of attach-
ment to, say, an oyster.
There are (familiar) reasons to hope that Kierkegaard did not mean to
adopt the first option. Most obviously, it is difficult to accept the view
that we might, in principle, will anything - sadism, selfishness, what-
ever - with infinite passion and inwardness, and that if we do so, we
have by definition chosen correctly. This is surely offence with a ven-
geance. Moreover, the idea that infinite passion makes any choice the
right one would transform our understanding of our moral lives in ways
that anyone who is at all attracted to Kierkegaard's views should
find unacceptable. Consider how the story of Abraham is altered if he
could be wrong to think that his command was of God only if he failed
to embrace the sacrifice of Isaac with sufficient passion, or how the
difficulty of being a disciple of Christ would appear if anyone who
believed with sufficient passion that someone was an incarnate deity
were automatically right. If the objective truth of the disciple's or
Abraham's views is produced by their passion, it is hard to see what
they risk in adopting those views, or why, in holding to them despite
objective uncertainty, they could be said to demonstrate faith or
inwardness.
For this reason, I think that Kierkegaard's claims on this pOint can be
defended only if we interpret them in the second way: if, that is, we
take him to hold that there are only certain things which one can will
with infinite paSSion, that these things are in fact the things we should
will, and that this is why, when we choose with infinite passion, we
choose correctly. We could account for those passages which seem to
support the first interpretation if we added the further claim, which

Kierkegaard clearly accepts, that we can genuinely will the right thing
only if we will it with infinite passion and inwardness: that inwardness
not only ensures that we choose the good, but is a prerequisite for
choosing it in the right way. If Kierkegaard were to accept this inter-
pretation of the claim that subjectivity is truth, however, he would
need to provide some account of why, exactly, the only thing we can
choose with infinite inwardness is the good.
Kierkegaard seems to me to provide two different answers to this
question. The first is that infinite inwardness requires infinite risk, and
thus a relation to an absolute paradox. 'The greater the risk the greater
the faith; ... the less objective security the more profound the possible
inwardness. When the paradox is paradoxical in itself, it repels the indi-
vidual by virtue of its absurdity, and the corresponding passion of
inwardness is faith.ds To take this claim as a reason for thinking that we
can only will Christianity with infinite inwardness, one would have to
think that Christianity is the most paradoxical belief there is. But this
seems plainly false. Supposing, for the sake of argument, that it is
absurd to believe that a historical figure should be the eternal God,
there is no additional absurdity in supposing that Christ, in particular,
should be that historical figure. After all, the Philosophical Fragments
explain at length why an incarnate deity should be expected to appear
in just that form. Would it not be still more paradoxical to suppose that
the God of love chose to become incarnate as, say, Newt Gingrich? Or
that omniscience took the temporal form of a tin can? Or, since the fact
that these beliefs are about God makes it at least comprehensible that
our eternal happiness might depend on them, would it not be still more
paradoxical to suppose that our eternal happiness depends on relating
ourselves with infinite passion and inwardness to some less promising
paradox, like the belief that Newt Gingrich is a tin can? These problems
are not solved by supposing that inwardness requires, not paradoxicality,
but uncertainty, since uncertainty requires that there be several options
which are equally well-founded, and thus this account would not allow
us to claim that choosing with infinite inwardness ensures that one
chooses correctly. Nor would it help to say that given objective uncer-
tainty, one maximizes inwardness by choosing the riskiest course. For
this allows one to explain why choosing with infinite inwardness
ensures that we choose Christianity only if Christianity is the riskiest
choice to make, given objective uncertainty about its truth. Pascal did
not think so, and it is not obvious that the reasoning behind his wager
is wrong. 19
Fortunately, Kierkegaard provides a second set of reasons for suppos-

ing that when one chooses with infinite passion and inwardness, one
must choose correctly.20 These turn not on the claim that Christianity is
either the riskiest or the most paradoxical belief, but on the idea that
inwardness requires a coherent will. When we will in earnest, we must
will what we will wholeheartedly, and not with some part of our minds
simultaneously will the opposite. 21 The only thing we can will in this
way is the good, which in turn resembles or is God. These are suggest-
ive remarks, but unfortunately Kierkegaard does not, to my mind, ad-
equately explain why the good is the only thing we can will without
incoherence or double-mindedness. It is at this point that Kant's moral
theory can help. For if we banish from our minds the idea that Kant and
Kierkegaard are deeply opposed, we can see Kierkegaard's claim that we
should will what we will wholeheartedly and without at the same time
willing the opposite as an obvious relative of Kant's claim that we
should will only those maxims that we can will without contradiction.
If we translate Kant into Kierkegaard's idiom, we might say that Kant is
interested in figuring out which maxims we can will without double-
mindedness.
Moreover, Kant's argument for the Categorical Imperative is not
opposed to Kierkegaard's views. For it turns at bottom on two claims,
both of which Kierkegaard accepts. The first is that others are persons
like myself, and what I will for myself I must be prepared to will for
them. Kierkegaard accepts this claim: he writes that 'to have individual-
ity is to believe in the individuality of every other person',22 and asks
'Do you do unto others what you will that they should do unto
you? ... Do you wish, that there should be another law for you and
yours than for the others? Do you wish to find your consolation in
something other than that in which each man without exception may
and shall find consolation?,23 in a context that makes it clear that to
answer 'no' to the first question, or 'yes' to those that follow, is to
confess to double-mindedness. The second is that we should will what
we will without contradiction or inconsistency. That Kierkegaard would
accept this claim is clear: to will something and its opposite is virtually
the definition of double-mindedness. Given these two claims, however,
it is a short step to Kant's central conclusion: that we cannot permissibly
will any maxim which we can will only if we also will that its opposite
hold as a general law to which we permit ourselves an exception. For if
we cannot regard our own wills as binding on us without admitting the
claims of other beings to determine their conduct - if we share our
humanity with others, or (as Kierkegaard would say) if we must regard
every human being as our neighbour - then we cannot legitimately

regard ourselves as exceptions to practical rules. This, in turn, means
that if we will some maxim that we cannot will as a universal law, we
can do so only by simultaneously willing that its opposite hold gener-
ally or by blinding ourselves to what we will. In either case, to will such
maxims is incompatible with inwardness as Kierkegaard describes it;
and the features of those maxims that make them incompatible with
inwardness are the same features that lead Kant to say that they are
impermissible. If this is right, then we can regard the Categorical Imper-
ative not just as fitting in with Kierkegaard's views, but as developing a
precise account of what can be willed with full inwardness, an account
which Kierkegaard himself does not provide, and which he badly needs.
Arguably, one reason Kierkegaard does not provide this account him-
self is that he does not have a clear conception of the distinction
between theoretical and practical reason (or, arguably, a clear concep-
tion of practical reason at all). He takes reason as a whole, considers
various ways of deriving claims about what we should do from what
Kant would call theoretical reason, rejects them, and concludes that to
believe that we can derive claims about what we should do from
'reason' so construed is both wrong and a moral evasion. Kant would
agree both with Kierkegaard's rejection of these attempts to use theoret-
ical reason to solve practical questions and with his reasons for rejecting
them. But because he does distinguish sharply between theoretical and
practical reason, he does not have to conclude that reason as a whole
cannot help us to determine what we should do. He insists that we can
use practical reason, which, if I am right, is a category that Kierkegaard
does not have clearly in mind.
If we concern ourselves solely with how we should choose, and not at
all with what we should choose, we cannot maintain the sense of risk and
the degree of passion that Kierkegaard requires. Choosing with full pas-
sion and inwardness, that is, reqUires that there be right and wrong
choices. However, Kierkegaard would reject, on both moral and epi-
stemological grounds, any account which holds that claims about what
we should choose can be justified without regard to how we should
choose. Only an account of what we should will that is based, not on
speculation or on any kind of knowledge available to an observer, but on
the requirements imposed on us by willing and choosing in the right way
would solve this problem. Kierkegaard does not provide such an account,
but Kant does. In so doing he allows us to explain the importance of
making the right choice on the basis, not of speculation, but of the require-
ment that we will wholeheartedly and without double-mindedness, and
thereby prevents the view that this requirement is crucial from collaps-
ing into the view that caring enough about something makes it right.
I said earlier that I would return to the question why Kant remained
largely silent about the importance of developing what he calls charac-
ter. Part of the answer, as I noted earlier, is that it is hard to see how the
importance of character might be communicated directly to someone
who did not already accept it. However, this cannot be the whole
answer, since if 1 am right to say that Kant appreciated the importance
of character, then it is hard to see how he could simply have remained
silent about it.
As I noted earlier, strategies of indirection are alien to Kant. But there
is another way to give one's writings an educative function, one that
involves, not strategy, but a kind of instinctive courtesy and an unwill-
ingness to go along with pretence, and that consists in assuming that
one's readers do mean what they will and in showing them what this
entails. I have argued that the Categorical Imperative marks out what
one can will wholeheartedly and without double-mindedness. More-
over, one cannot fully understand the Categorical Imperative without
coming to appreciate the dignity of persons, which consists in the fact
that they can have what Kant calls a character, that they can will in
earnest, and so become the governors of their lives, or, as Kierkegaard
would say, in their capacity for inwardness. One might therefore sup-
pose that the task of understanding why we should obey the Categor-
ical Imperative, and of disciplining ourselves to live by it, might itself
help to clarify both what inwardness requires and why we should try to
develop it. Kant's own account of moral education suggests that he held
this view. But if this is right, then Kant's moral writings might them-
selves provide an education in the importance of developing character
and of willing in earnest. If Kant's readers already recognize the import-
ance of this task, then they will learn from his writing what they should
will if they wish to perform it. But if they do not, his writing might in
addition reveal to them a conception of what it means to be an indi-
vidual, and of why it matters to be one, that they had not previously
imagined; and it might awaken in them a desire to live up to that ideal:
to be not just 'something like a subject so called', but 'a subject in
truth,.24
Notes
1. 'Politics and the English Language', pp. 135-6.
2. Concluding Unscientific Postscript, p. 175.
4. Anthropology, Ak 292.
5. Ibid., Ak 285.
6. Ibid., Ak 29l.
7. Ibid., Ak 292.
8. Ibid., Ak 294-5.
9. Ibid., Ak 285.
10. Ibid., Ak 292.
11. Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, Ak 400-1.
13. Critique of Practical Reason, Ak 147.
14. Fear and Trembling, p. 45.
15. It is worth noting that Johannes de Silentio's views on this point are in
complete opposition to the view of the ethical expressed in, say, Either/Or,
in which it is precisely the willingness to choose oneself in all one's parti-
cularity that marks the ethical life.
16. Grounding, Ak 407.
17. As C. S. Lewis writes of Asian: He is not a tame lion.
19. Kierkegaardians will presumably say that these objections are unfair to Kier-
kegaard. I think that this is true. But this is not because they are not good
objections to the view that the degree of inwardness or passion that it is
possible to have in adopting a particular belief depends on the paradoxical-
ity or riskiness of that belief, but because Kierkegaard himself does not con-
sistently maintain this view, and thus good objections to it are objections
only to a one-sided caricature of his position.
20. It is worth noting that the view that inwardness requires paradox is most
emphatically stated in those pseudonymous works that purport to describe
Christianity from the outside, while the idea that it requires a coherent will
is more clearly stated in those works published under Kierkegaard's own
name. The first set of writings aim to force a choice on us and to heighten
the possibility of offence; it is not surprising that they highlight the fact
that Christianity is in certain respects paradoxical, and that Christians
should embrace this feature rather than simply tolerating it or explaining it
away. On my reading, however, it is the second set that tell us what Kierke-
gaard thinks is involved in living as a Christian, as opposed to becoming
one.
21. See, for instance, Purity ofHeart is to Will One Thing, p. 57.
22. Works of Love, p. 253.
23. Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing, pp. 205-6.
References
Kant, Immanuel, Anthropology From a Pragmatic Point of View, trans. Victor Lyle
(Dowdell: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978).
Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Practical Reason, in Kant, Practical Philosophy, trans.
Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
Kant, Immanuel, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, in Kant, Practical Philo-
sophy, trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
Kant, Immanuel, Metaphysics of Morals, in Kant, Practical Philosophy, trans. Mary
Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
Kierkegaard, Smen, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trailS. David Swenson and
WaIter Lowrie (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1941).
Kierkegaard, S0ren, Fear and Trembling, trans. Howard Hong and Edna Hong
(Princeton: Prince ton University Press, 1983).
Kierkegaard, Smen, Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing, trailS. Douglas Steere
(New York: Harper and Row, 1956).
Kierkegaard, Smen, Works of Love, trailS. Howard and Edna Hong (New York:
Harper and Row, 1962).
George OrweIl, 'Politics and the English Language', in Orwell, Collected Essays,
vo!. 4, ed. Sonia Orwell and ran Angus (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
1968).
P: Kierkegaard goes in the direction he does because he believes that

Kant has embraced paganism. Although reason may be used as a critique
of reason, we must still embrace the absurd. For Kant the individual is
subsumed under a universal moral law, whereas, in Kierkegaard, the indi-
vidual is raised above it.
But I haven't continued in this direction in my paper, pitting Kant
and Kierkegaard against each other. This is because I have become less
impressed with Kierkegaard's emphasis on the individual. To try to
bring this out, I have tried to see them as part of a common tradition.
I want to argue that Kierkegaard continues the paganism he finds in
Kant.
At first, this seems an unlikely suggestion. For Kant, religion provides
the conditions which make morality possible, whereas, for Kierkegaard,
faith is autonomous. But, like Kant, Kierkegaard moves away from tack-
ling scepticism and concentrates on the will. Of course, Kierkegaard
goes further than Kant, as his discussion of Abraham shows. For Kant,
autonomy is found in the rational will of the agent. Kierkegaard makes
personal decision more central.
What disturbs me now about this way of doing philosophy is its
emphasis on the individual. For Kant, the important issue is not whether
I am related to God, but whether I am in conformity to the moral law.
The person is turned in on himself. In Kierkegaard, too, the individual
is central, but now the issue is how to be a subjective thinker. The
Knight of Faith is a person who struggles to maintain his own faith.
Again, as with Kant, God is not at the centre.
In Kant, the natural self is pitted against the rational self. It is a battle
that never ends. It takes eternity: a never-ending struggle between two
parts of the self. Again, in Kierkegaard, in each and every moment we
must ask whether we are making progress towards being a Christian.
There seems to be no character formation here. One moment seems to
carry no implication for another moment.
So both Kant and Kierkegaard give up the battle against scepticism
and concentrate on the individual will. On the one hand, the indi-
vidual aims for the truth. On the other hand, the individual carries total
responsibility. This ascribes too much power to the individual. This
122
leads to a kind of horizontal religion: I'm either thinking of myself or

my relation to others. In this tradition, psychological and social aspects
predominate, and the relation to God disappears.
G: We can appreciate the differences between Kant and Kierkegaard
only by first seeing what they have in common. As P says, they do
emphasize the individual. To be an individual, according to Kierkegaard,
we must ask, 'What should I do?', and ask it in earnest. Although this is
not so central in Kant, willing in earnest is clearly important for him.
Both agree about the necessity of risk. Kierkegaard requires risk in the
individual choices we make. This may not be so obvious in Kant, but he
says that we must exercise judgement in seeing whether a situation falls
under a morally relevant description, and we may not know. Our motives
may be cloudy, so that involves risk.
When I was working for a 'shelter' organization for women, I had to
exercise judgement on whom to let in. Should I admit a crazy woman
where this might lead to violence? You had to decide, sometimes, on the
basis of a telephone conversation, what to do. One had to guard against
a false conception of compassion, and a too-ready tough-mindedness. A
wrong judgement might lead even to loss of life, so you were staking a
great deal on your judgement. So both Kant and Kierkegaard recognize
risk, except that what God can will, for Kierkegaard, is wider than what
Kant would be prepared to allow.
Yet, even with Kierkegaard, there is one thing that God will not ask of
you - he will not ask you to sacrifice your inwardness. God's will is not
paradoxical, though the Incarnation may be.
I think that Kant is superior to Kierkegaard in certain respects. We
have an account in Kant, but not in Kierkegaard, of why willing the
truth with earnestness is important. For Kant, morality is not just a mat-
ter of willing in the right way. He has a conception of an answer that is
objectively right.
D: But Kant would not accept anything like the teleological suspension
of the ethical. He would say that the pseudonym de Silentio is just
wrong.
P: I have no trouble in accepting Fear and Trembling. The understanding
attained by Abraham is anti-rational. I think Kant would have more
trouble in accepting Kierkegaard than G suggests. This is because Kant has
a rational moral theory. There is no theory of any kind in Kierkegaard.
D: Do you see any problems for the other pseudonymous works if you
reject Fear and Trembling?
G: I don't see why there should be. I simply do not like that work. After
all, de Silentio's view of the ethical contradicts that of Judge William.
s: And when we look at the other works, we see very important similar-
ities between Kant and Kierkegaard. Purity of Heart, for example, is full
of Kantian echoes. Kierkegaard tells us that to will the good is to will
one thing. Is not this the distinction between the categorical and hypo-
thetical imperative? The will, as Kant would say, must be free of self-
deception. When Kierkegaard makes love central in Works of Love, is not
love of the neighbour, of other members of the ethical commonwealth,
the most noble subject for universalizability for Kant?
Q: I think there is a difference. The dignity of all people for Kant con-
sists in their rationality, but God is involved in Kierkegaard's notion of
the neighbour.
C: Another way of making the same point is to say that for Kant the
moral law is characterized by its universalizability. On some readings, at
least, it seems to be a formal requirement. Whereas in Kierkegaard, it is
not good because it is universalizable, but universalizable because it is a
command to love.
P: And that is why I do not see how Kant's rational morality can be
equated with Kierkegaard's conception of faith.
G: But I have pointed out how risk is involved in Kant's moral theory.
P: But those risks are still subsumed under the conception of a general
law.
G: You stake a lot on your moral judgement.
P: Maybe, but it has nothing like the particularity of faith in Kierke-
gaard. Kant has a general principle, whereas what Kierkegaard emphas-
izes is the struggle to do God's will. As you said yourself, de Silentio is
very different from Judge William, and the latter has a kind of Kantian
ethic.
M: There is one topic which has not been mentioned in the present
discussion. There is a difference between Kant's treatment of the indi-
vidual and Kierkegaard's. What comes between them is Romanticism. It
might be said that Schleiermacher was the first theologian to attempt to
engage philosophical ethics with it.
One feature of Romanticism is its emphasis, not on the individual,
but on individuality. Kant sees the individual as a repeatable instance,
but he does not see concrete individuality. Kierkegaard takes over this
romantic notion, but engages with it in his own way.
F: That particularity, which is the opposite of a rational faith, is seen in
Kierkegaard's discussion of Abraham. Like Paul, Abraham hopes against
hope, and his faith is counted for righteousness. Abraham believed that
he would get Isaac back even though God has commanded him to sacri-
fice him. This is the man who had already believed that Sarah would
give him a son in old age - the same son that he is now asked to sacri-
fice. Abraham lives in God's promises.
T: Doesn't what F has just said take the sting out of the story of Abra-
ham? Kierkegaard warns us not to take the shudder out of it, or, at least,
his pseudonym does. But if he is convinced that God will give Isaac
back to him, either in this life or the next, doesn't that take the sting
out of God's command? The real sting would have been in his fulfil-
ment of the command.
N: I have considerable sympathy with that point. I'm uneasy with the
notion that he gets Isaac back. A more Kierkegaardian reading would be of
someone authenticating his relationship with God. As it is, 'believing that
he will get Isaac back' sounds like gathering evidence for obedience to God.
P: But he is asked to sacrifice Isaac.
E: On some readings that is not what God wants Abraham to do. The
whole story is taken as showing the need to move beyond child sacrifice.
A: I think Abraham's conviction that he would get Abraham back is
extremely important. De Silentio says that to live for the eternal is to
give up everything. Infinite reSignation is not enough. When Abraham
believes that he will get Isaac back he is showing the strength of his
faith. He is making a break with probabilistic ways of thinking. Faith
cannot be equated with probabilistic calculation. Crazy promises are
made to Abraham: that Sarah will give him a son, that Isaac will be given
back to him. But because God makes the promises, he believes them.
P: I think the ways we are discussing child sacrifice are extremely
modern, and I doubt whether we are capturing the Jewish conception
of what that sacrifice was.
c: Perhaps we are being rationalistic in thinking that we can grasp it
nowi that we can make that notion of sacrifice live.
But whatever of that, it is important to recognize, as A says, that one
may be asked to give up everything by God, but I wouldn't claim that
this is realized very often. G claims, however, that Kant and Kierkegaard
share a common conception of inwardness, and that this is shown in
their view that this is the one thing one cannot be asked to sacrifice.
Kant would say that moral autonomy can never be sacrificed, and Kier-
kegaard would say that God can never ask us to sacrifice our inward-
ness. And G agrees with this, I think. But, now, doesn't the Passion
come to a sacrifice of this kind if inwardness? The poet R. S. Thomas has
the following lines:
And God held in his hand

A small globe, Look he said.
The son looked ...

On a bare
Hill a lare tree saddened
The sky. Many people
Held out their thin arms
To it, as though waiting
For a vanished April
To return to its crossed
Boughs. The son watched
Them. Let me go there, he said.
(The Coming)
Some say that the last words from the Cross were, 'My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me?' Jesus dies the death of a common crim-
inal, misunderstood by everyone.
G: I take that point, but by loss of inwardness I meant the destruction
of the self, such that one's actions do not come from oneself at all, so
that one is reduced to a vegetative or purely animal state. Whereas Jesus
goes willingly to the Cross.
C: I was referring to what happens on the Cross. There have been cases
where people have prayed to follow him there. Simone Weil said that
every time she thought of the Crucifixion she committed the sin of envy.
She prayed, rightly or wrongly, to embrace senility for Christ. She
emphasized that on no account should such a fate be actively sought
after, but should it come as a result of loving God, so that one's self-
destruction is a revelatory vehicle, it would be a privilege.
Now, Simone Weil's prayer is not one that will pass my lips, but I do
not think it is something you can find in Kant.
D: Maybe there is a teleological suspension of the ethical every time
God forgives us. Grace is the possibility of seeing us in other than a
merely ethical way.
G: I don't deny these differences. I said that there are huge differences
between Kant and Kierkegaard in what they say about Christ. But this
should not blind us to the common ground in what they say about the
individual.
C: But the remark that D just made about God's suspension of the
ethical with respect to us should show the difficulty, in Christianity, of
separating Christ from notions of the individual in the way you suggest.
'Not I, but Christ who dwelleth in me' - there is an internal relation
here between the identity of the individual, how he thinks of himself,
and Christ. This is brought out in Kierkegaard's discussion of the dif-
ference between following Socrates and following Christ. Some would

insist that Jesus cannot simply be the exemplar of a good man. If he is
the Lamb of God who died for the sins of the world, how can I do that,
or even attempt to do it? I can only follow Christ in the eucharist. In
other words, Christ as Saviour and Redeemer will be constitutive of my
very conception of endeavour.
G is worried if Kierkegaard claims that willing with infinite passion
guarantees the rightness of an action. But, again, this makes that pas-
sion look like an external boost to the will, whereas, for Kierkegaard, it
is a passion which belongs to a will that is religiously formed.
G: As I see it, both Kant and Kierkegaard see the self as a construction. It
is something we have to work at. It is not simply given. But the moral
character of the actions is constituted by what human beings have in
common.
M: I just do not see Kierkegaard as agreeing with Kant on that, and that
is what others in the discussion are also pointing out.
N: I agree with M. You might say that in Kant the universal is individu-
alized, whereas in Kierkegaard the particular is universalized. But I want
to pursue another matter. G attempts to find the risk-taking she finds in
Kierkegaard in Kant's insistence that descriptions that we give of situ-
ations, and hence the judgements that we make concerning them are
risky. Her main example was whether she should admit a particular
woman into sheltered accommodation, if she thought the woman was
crazy. I do not see any doubt here about maxims. The doubt is surely
over a factual matter: is the woman crazy or not? This is different from
the existential question, 'Is this command from God?'
G: I agree that if my problem is only factual I wouldn't have felt any
moral risk. The reason it was a moral risk was that although I have
enough data, I am not confident about my judgement. I wonder
whether I am in the grip of a false conception of compassion, or a pre-
mature tough-mindedness. I do not think that existential uncertainty is
different in kind.
N: Suppose I said, 'God has told me to let the. woman in although she is
crazy?'
G: Since I am an atheist, that is not going to happen. I would want a
reasonable justification for the decision.
N: Doesn't that mean that the believer has his justifications and you
have yours?
G: Before I say that I'd need to see an analogy between them.
U: You won't find that analogy because, as others have said already, in
one case you have a theological conception of the self, and in the other
case you do not. That is what B was urging in his opening dispute with
A at the beginning of the conference. In the one case we have a love
that is given in grace, whereas in the other, love of a fellow being seems
to come from universal moral criteria.
G: I do not see how a love ethic can escape universalizability.
V: That is why you think Kierkegaard has more empathy for Judge Wil-
liam than for de Silentio. I think the reverse is true. I find myself prefer-
ring the seducer to the judge. But Kierkegaard's sympathies are surely
with de Silentio who embraces the absurd.
G: I'll make only one point about Judge William and de Silentio. Does
either include a practice related more to the particular than to mere
possibility? It is Judge William who gets on with it, and he is right.
V: Those who stress individuality are relating the constitution of the
self to the will. The only freedom is in the unilateral moment. That is
why the analogy is with God's actions.
G: But I emphasized that there is a difference between saying that if
I will with infinite passion the action is right, and saying that, as a matter
of fact, it is only willing of that kind that leads to right actions. I have
argued that there is good reason for hoping that Kierkegaard means the
latter not the former.
Part IV
Religion and Morality
7
Kant and Kierkegaard on the Need
for a Historical Faith: an Imaginary
Dialogue
Ronald M. Green
1 January 2027. Immanuel Kant and S@ren Kierkegaard unexpectedly find

themselves sharing a corner in the Delta Medallion Club at Denver Airport.
Snow has delayed their flights for several hours.
The two great scholars of philosophy and religion are familiar with one
another's writings. Thanks to the work of Gill, Glenn, Mehl, Perkins, Green,
and others in the last quarter of the twentieth century, it is now well known
that Kierkegaard constructed much of his thinking on the foundation of Kant's
philosophy. 1 Kant's familiarity with Kierkegaard is more recent: one aspect of
the education programme he has gone through in the decade since his 'rean-
imation' was accomplished by means of modem genetic science and computer
technology.
A waiter takes their order and returns with two bottles of Tuborg beer,
glasses, and a bowl of Goldfish crackers.
Kant: I really enjoy these little crackers, don't you?

Kierkegaard: One of the best of the modern 'inventions'!
Recognizing that they have an opportunity to pursue a topic dear to them, the
two thinkers quickly turn to ethics and its relationship to religion.
Kierkegaard: Let me say, first of all, how pleased I am to have this

chance to express my thanks to you. As you know, during my lifetime
I was unable to be as public as I would have liked about my reliance on
your work. The Danish attitude towards rationalism in general and to
Kantianism in particular was so negative in my day. I never joined this
chorus of voices. I took a strong stand of opposition to the Hegelians
131
who made light of your work, and I took pains to insert brief but very
positive things about your philosophy and your character in my writ-
ings. 2 But I admit I never credited you properly.
Rant: I understand. Frankly, I'm not sure what I would have done in
your place. As you know, despite my reputation for moral rigour, I made
my own compromises with strict veracity. One of these was my pledge
to King Frederick to obey his edict not to publish the Religion within the
Limits of Reason Alone. Without saying so, I interpreted this as a pledge
to Frederick just so long as he remained alive. Many have since remarked
that I was a bit ]esuitical in my reasoning.
Rierkegaard: Since you raise the subject of the Religion, let me say here
how much this book influenced me. During my student years it was a
ray of light in the darkness. Here was the undisputed moral rationalist,
the father of the modern concept of moral autonomy, affirming the
'radical evil' in human beings and our need for divine grace to achieve
moral fulfilment!
Rant: It's interesting that you should say that. I confess I was initially
unhappy with my conclusions in the Religion. I thought I had said all
there is to say about rational religious beliefs when I wrote the Critique
of Practical Reason. A moral governor of the universe, the possible con-
tinuance of our life beyond death to accomplish our perfection in moral
virtue - I honestly believed that these were the only religious concepts
we needed to complete the moral life.
Rierkegaard: What was it that changed your mind? You know that
many have said that the Religion was nothing more than your effort to
pacify the orthodox, including your manservant Lampe.
Rant: That's amusing, and unfair to Lampe. He was no fool and disliked
priest craft as much as I did. In fact, the Religion was really a surprising
consequence of an idea already present in the second Critique. It was an
idea I initially resisted, because I feared its practical implications. I yielded
to it only when I became convinced of its truth and power. 3
Rierkegaard: What was that idea?
Rant: That in relation to morality we are radically free. In the second
Critique I began to explore a basic problem in rational moral justifica-
tion. We know we are bound by the moral law whose voice is command-
ing. We also know we are 'creatures of needs' who are compelled to seek
the satisfaction of our desires, the sum of which constitutes our happi-
ness. 4 Indeed, one purpose of morality is to create the rule of law that
permits all persons the ordered pursuit of their happiness. But the ques-
tion is, how are we to reason when the dictates of the moral law run
counter to our valid rational concern with our well-being?
The Need for a Historical Faith 133
Kierkegaard: One would think that you would reply that we must obey
the dictates of the moral law which by its nature requires the subordina-
tion of individual ends to the common good.
Kant: That's certainly right. But the question is, how do we rationally
justify the priority of moral reason? We can't appeal to the individual's
happiness in this context, since this is just what he or she is being asked
to subordinate. Nor can we appeal to the satisfaction that comes with
virtue (what I termed 'self-contentment' in the second Critique). The
person who chooses to act virtuously certainly experiences this, but this
is because they have already chosen to give prime importance to their
moral self-estimate. The question is, why should they do this? Finally,
we cannot argue that objective, self-disregarding reason (what I call 'pure
practical reason') dictates this priority because it is just this 'pure reason
whose supreme authority is being questioned. Indeed, this may be the
only instance in all of rational justification where the authority of pure
reason can be impugned. In other words, we find here a situation in
which all rational justification runs in circles.
Kierkegaard: So you are saying that we cannot be compelled by reason
to accept the priority of the moral law?
Kant: Exactly. This doesn't mean we can avoid the command of moral
reason. Certainly we can never unequivocally justify anyone's unfettered
pursuit of personal happiness. Such a policy is insanity and would soon
defeat itself. But the priority of moral reason nevertheless defies
strict rational justification. It was to eliminate this problem, I argued in
the second Critique, that our practical reason leads us to entertain certain
religious beliefs. To the extent that we believe the world may be ruled
by an all-powerful and just moral governor who unerringly rewards our
virtue (and punishes our vice), we have a reasoned basis for always giv-
ing priority to our morally commanding reason.
Kierkegaard: You are not saying that morality requires us to hold these
beliefs?
Kant: No, not at all. That would be to find rational necessity where, as
I have said, none exists. These beliefs are a way of holding together all
the conflicting dictates of our practical reason. If we wish to make our
reason harmonious with itself in its theoretical and various practical
employments,S we can act morally and subscribe to the religious beliefs
that assist us in doing this. But, as I put it, such a position is a choice, 'a
voluntary decision of our judgment ... itself not commanded' by reason. 6
Hence our reason permits us to adopt morality and its attendant reli-
gious beliefs, but it also permits us, if we are willing to live with conflict
at the core of our reason, to abandon morality and these same beliefs.
Kierkegaard: I take it that this is the truth in the traditional Christian

teaching that wickedness begins with unbelief.
Kant: Precisely. And it is also the source of the radical freedom I spoke
of. This is not just a freedom to do as we wish. We have that freedom in
any case if we are prepared to act irrationally. But here we have a free-
dom to act immorally in a way that cannot be rationally condemned.
We have a rational freedom for immoral choice.
Kierkegaard: And this is the idea that you resisted until you turned
to it in the Religion?
Kant: That's right. You might say that in the second Critique I devoted
myself to developing and defending morality's associated religious
beliefs. But I failed to dwell on the implications of the sheer voluntari-
ness of these beliefs and the depth of our rational freedom in this area. In
the Religion the implications of this voluntariness were moved to the fore.
Kierkegaard: Can you briefly spell out those implications?
Kant: They proceed in sequence. First, there is the fact that since we are
not required by our reason to give priority to the moral law, there is
every reason to believe that on occasion we will fail to do so. Second,
there is the moral requirement that we must guarantee unerring obedi-
ence to the moral law if we are to claim any moral worth for ourselves
at all. The third implication follows from these two: since we can and
will fail to uphold the priority of the moral law, we cannot sustain any
claim to moral worth.
Kierkegaard: Can you please explain your second point?
Kant: Our need to guarantee unerring obedience to the moral law?
Kierkegaard: Yes.
Kant: Very simple. We must guarantee unerring right willing because
moral worth is an all or nothing affair. One cannot be just a 'little bit'
immoral. Even one act of wrong willing evidences a fundamentally
immoral disposition, one that places other considerations before the
moral law. This is what I called an underlying evil maxim.7 If I
may use a metaphor from an area I have just learned about, a person
who occasionally subordinates morality to self-interest is like a com-
puter that occasionally miscalculates sums. Such unreliability makes
both the person and the machine worthless. This is why, in the Religion,
I termed this ever-present tendency to such an inversion of motives 'the
radical evil' of the human will: an evil that lies at the very root of our
morally legislative disposition and that corrupts us fundamentally. In
religious terms, if we think of our duties as commanded by a morally
legislating God, this evil is sin.
Kierkegaard: But you are not saying that we must sin?
The Need for a Historical Faith 13S
Kant: No. Absolutely not. This is a matter of free choice, a choice that is
even less required by reason than the choice of morality. But it is a ration-
ally possible choice. And what is possible may become actual. It is this
possibility that weakens our confidence in any judgement of moral worth.
Kierkegaard: Does the problem stem from the fact that we possess
many personal desires?
Kant: Yes and no. We are creatures of needs, pulled by inclinations that
occasionally war with our moral reason. Without such inclinations,
there would be no incentive to disobey morality. We would then have a
holy will like God himself. But these inclinations do not themselves
explain our wrongdoing. We always know ourselves to be free to resist
them and they can sometimes even lead us to virtue. 8 Nor does the
problem arise just because we face stress, hardship or want. We inex-
plicably choose to invert the priority due morality in good times as in
bad. This is why Scripture presents the fall of man as occurring once,
inexplicably and without necessity, but in a way that foreshadows the
recurrent fall of all who follow. For if even one of us succumbs to this
misuse of freedom, who can confidently assert that he will not also do so?
Kierkegaard: This, of course, is the philosophical reinterpretation of
the doctrine of original sin which you present in the Religion.
Kant: Yes. It is the first of several such philosophical reinterpretations
of orthodox teachings that I endeavour there. But I want to stress that
I'm not looking to the historical fact of Adam's sin. The explanation of
sin as an inheritance from our first parents is the most inept one I can
imagine. 9 No person can be imputable for the wrongful deeds of
another. Adam is each one of us. Experience teaches that at some point
we each 'fall' freely into the choice of immoral conduct, and even one
such fall calls fatally into question the constancy and worth of our
moral disposition, convicting us in our own eyes of sin.
Kierkegaard: This is an ingenious argument. I've pushed you because
I wanted to hear your own synopsis of in sights that have had a great
impact on my thinking. As you may know, I drew heavily on your argu-
ments to ground my repeated assertion that philosophical ethics leads
to its own undoing. For example, in The Concept of Anxiety I said, 'Ethics
points to ideality as a task and assumes that every man possesses the
requisite conditions. Thus ethics develops a contradiction, inasmuch as
it makes clear both the difficulty and the impossibility.do Or, again, 'An
ethics that ignores sin is a completely futile discipline, but if it affirms sin,
then it has eo ipso exceeded itself. tl1 In all this, it was your development
of the ideality of ethics, the rigour of the moral demand, and the inevit-
able but imputable fact of moral failure that informed my thinking.
Kant: Yes, but we must be careful. In reading your work, it seems to me

that you go much further than I was willing to go.
Kierkegaard: Why do you say that?
Kant: Because you use these ideas as a springboard to defend orthodox
Christian teaching, especially faith in a historical saviour. But just as
I vehemently deny that it does us any good to look at the Fall in histor-
ical terms, so I deny any importance to historical events or revelations
in the process of our moral redemption. Everything we need for our
moral salvation resides within us as a part of our practical reason.
The conversation is interrupted as a waiter asks whether they wish another

drink. He tells them that the weather has lifted and that flights will probably
be resuming in the next hour or two.
Kierkegaard: Well, then, it seems that our time is short. This difference
between us is so important that I would like to focus on it immediately.
Let me say that I simply do not understand your position. It seems to
me in clear contradiction to almost everything you say.
Kant: What do you mean?
Kierkegaard: As I understand your argument in the Religion, you frankly
acknowledge that we must accept the conclusion that we are 'infinitely
guilty' for our defection from the moral law. 12
Kant: Yes.
Kierkegaard: And that as a consequence, we merit infinite punish-
ment?13
Kant: That's right.
Kierkegaard: You further concede that there is a substantial place for
divine grace in the process of our moral redemption. That when we reach
the depths of our moral self-esteem, we are driven to the possibility of
grace as the sole way of escaping moral despair and rationally resuming
our moral striving?
Kant: I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the phrase 'sole way'. The sole
way we can regain our lost moral course is to re dedicate ourselves to
upright willing. We cannot look to anyone else to do our moral work
for us. Let me add here that it is perfect nonsense to believe that our
moral debt can be discharged by another person, even if he be declared
to be the Son of God. Moral evil is no transmissible liability that can be
made over to another like some commercial debt. 14
Kierkegaard: I understand your insistence on this pOint, and I might
say that I am not a proponent of the scholastic-dogmatic view of atone-
ment. We must ourselves suffer and atone. But there are other ways that
God's grace can work in us through Christ besides this kind of substitu-
tionary atonement. The problem is that there seems to be no real place
for divine activity in your scheme. Where does grace fit if we can
achieve moral conversion on our own? I'm sure you've become familiar
with modern writers who perceive a deep incoherence in your views at
this point. Gordon Michalson, for example, draws on the views of Alis-
dair MacIntyre to argue that you are merely caught between two dis-
crete traditions of thought: your orthodox past and an Enlightenment
perspectiveY Nicholas Wolterstorff, John Hare and others maintain
that, on the one hand, you recognize the depths of our moral incapa-
city to achieve enduring rectitude and our need to rely on a power bey-
ond ourselves, but that, on the other hand, you refuse to relinquish a
Stoic insistence on moral responsibility and imputability.16 Hence the
contradictions in your arguments and your reluctance to look to saving
grace to accept our sins and redeem our will.
Kant: But I do look to saving grace. Hare, Michalson and these other
modern writers totally miss my point here. I fully admit a role for God's
involvement in our moral life through divine grace. First, I appeal to
God's timeless intuition to ground our hope that our individual acts of
renewed moral willing are in fact part of a course of unvarying rectit-
ude. Second, I look to God for the confidence that our new, upright
disposition will remain constant, and I regard this very disposition,
which I call our Comforter or Paraclete, as a sign of God's support.17
Third, though I may not have made this point very clearly, I argue that
we may also look to God to accept the penitent suffering we undergo
during our moral conversion as adequate to repay the infinite wrong we
have done. This is the proper place for a concept of vicarious suffering,
which arises out of our own moral concepts and reflects the suffering
the new, morally reformed person undergoes in leaving behind the old,
morally corrupted self. IS
Kierkegaard: Let me say that I find your rationalist interpretation here
of vicarious suffering very interesting.
Kant: Thank you, I regard it as one of my more penetrating deductions
of a concept. But let me make clear how important the reliance on God
is even in this rationalized conception. We must hope that our suffering
will satisfy our moral debt. We cannot make this judgement ourselves
without appearing to escape a merited punishment. In contrast, a moral
governor of the universe who truly knows our frailty and our place in
the larger moral order can judge us less harshly than we must judge our-
selvesY Hence, grace (or what classical theologians might call 'God's
righteousness') permeates my account and is essential to it.
Kierkegaard: And yet you still will not relinquish the insistence on
individual moral reform and rededication as a first step in this process?
Doesn't that return us to the critics who claim you place the emphasis
on autonomous human willing rather than God's prior initiative on our
behalf?
Kant: Absolutely not. Don't tell me, Kierkegaard, that you, too, fail to
see my point here?
Kierkegaard: No, in fact, I think I fully understand. My disagreement
with you lies elsewhere and has to do with the role of the historical
saviour. But I'm trying to become very clear about precisely what you
are saying. Let me sharpen the question: How do you reply to the claim
that your whole account focusing on human moral willing and rededi-
cation (supplemented by grace) seems opposed to a traditional con-
ception of grace, according to which we are first accepted and revived
from moral death and only then empowered to accomplish moral
rededication?
Kant: I see no conflict between these two accounts. They are one and
the same. Whether it is grace that reanimates the will or willing that
exhibits grace, is all the same. In both cases the emphasis must be on
our willing. This is the lens through which we mortals perceive divine
effects. More than this we cannot know and cannot say. As I observe
over and over again in my writings, we have no knowledge of noumenal
things. We cannot understand how our freedom is compatible with the
realm of causality to which we belong. 20 We cannot say where or how
the divine intervenes in spatio-temporal reality, though we can certainly
hope and believe that it does. We may even have to entertain a belief in
grace if we are rationally to resume what has previously been so ill-fated
a task. But we cannot achieve knowledge about how grace works (that
lies beyond our cognitive capacities). This and other related subjects
belong to the mysteries of faith. 21 We are best advised not to spend time
worrying about such matters. All this becomes idle speculation if it does
not manifest itself in upright willing.
Kierkegaard: Then you are saying that it is rationally permissible to
regard the divine as immanent in moral reasoning. 22 You further seem
to hold that our sense of unbending obligation means (on the principle
of ought implies can) that we possess the ability to renew our willing;23
and that this sense of obligation, along with the very reanimation of
our moral efforts it induces, may be taken as evidence of God's graciOUS
intervention on our behalf.
Kant: Exactly. Our willing and grace are one and the same, depending
on how they are conceived. No priority can be placed on them in time
The Need for a Historical Faith .139
or logic. I might add that anyone familiar with my thinking would see
this as a basic feature of my philosophy. For example, as early as the
Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals I try to show that our sense of
freedom (given to us through the imperative of the moral law) is evid-
ence of our 'citizenship' in an intelligible realm.24 I never deny nou-
mena nor their presence in spatiotemporal realities: but I argue that our
only insight into them is through the lens of our 'natural' moral experi-
ence. The same is true of grace.
Kierkegaard: Then in a sense you are a 'pure mystic' of reason, like one
of those people you have a young friend describe in an appendix to The
Conflict of the Faculties. 25
Kant: You are indeed a careful reader of my work, Kierkegaard!
Kierkegaard: Perhaps too careful. For now I must tell you that, though
I well understand your arguments in the Religion concerning grace,
I must disagree with your conclusions about revealed faith and the his-
torical saviour. In fact, you might say that much of my work is a devel-
opment of this disagreement.
Kant: I am fascinated to hear you say that. Please explain.
Kierkegaard: Gladly. But before getting to specifics, let me see whether
you agree that your argument in the Religion and The Conflict of the
Faculties has two prongs. One maintains that the concept of a historical
saviour contains ideas that are morally repugnant. The other maintains
that such a historically based faith is not really needed.
Kant: I would like to see how you flesh out this broad categorization of
my argument, but it seems correct.
Kierkegaard: Then let's take the first prong: that the concept of a his-
torical saviour is morally unacceptable. In the Religion you develop your
understanding of the Son of God as an archetype in our reason of the
ideal of a humanity well-pleasing to God, but not as a historical
person. 26 Indeed, you deny that a living individual, however righteous,
can ever be understood as anything more than a naturally begotten
human beingY This, I take it, is another implication of your denial of
our knowledge of noumenal reality.28
Kant: Quite right.
Kierkegaard: But then you go on to say that if we were to elevate even
a holy and righteous person to the status of a God-man, this would
actually hinder our ability to adopt that person as a model for imitation
because it would place him beyond all our normal human frailties and
burdens.29
Kant: Exactly. The effort to elevate a holy man in this way really defeats
itself by rendering him utterly inapplicable to us. How can we learn to
overcome bitter adversity, temptation and fear if our model possesses a

holy will and divine assurance of his own redemption from suffering
and death? Although I didn't say this in the Religion, I would add here
that this impulse to elevate a man to the status of God can become an
excuse for moral sloth and turpitude. Since we are merely weak and
imperfect creatures, why should we aspire to moral perfection if only a
God-man can accomplish it?
Kierkegaard: These are powerful points, but I believe they are funda-
mentally mistaken.
Kant: Why?
Kierkegaard: First, because you misconceive the nature of our saviour,
Jesus Christ. You ignore the teaching that he is 'fully God and fully
Man'. In his human nature, he entirely enters into our trials and temp-
tations, and he never draws on his divinity in the struggle towards
goodness. Have you forgotten his prayers in Gethsemene? His agony of
doubt and abandonment on the cross? Yet despite this, he never suc-
cumbs to sin, never relinquishes his holy mission. Christ for us is fully a
model: never beyond what lies within our reach as human beings. And
yet he is, in a sense, a negative model, as well.
Kant: A negative model? Do you mean that we should not imitate him?
Kierkegaard: No just the opposite: we should and must imitate him, but
we do not. Hence, Christ highlights our sin and deepens our remorse
over our culpability for the abandonment of God's holy ways.
Kant: How intriguing. I confess I never saw things this way. But it is cer-
tainly a morally commendable idea.
Kierkegaard: More than commendable. I would say it is necessary for
any moral life that seeks completion. Without this demanding, holy
example to sharpen the requirement, we succumb to excuses and sink
into the very moral lassitude you denounce. This is why I maintain
throughout my work that a Christian ethic is truer to morality than any
merely autonomously conceived moral law. 30
Kant: But you are not saying that we can dispense with autonomous
reason?
Kierkegaard: No, moral reason interpenetrates our religious concepts.
It leads us to an awareness of the inadequacy of our unaided efforts. But
moral reason alone easily slips away from the requirement and provides
opportunities to soften our self-judgement. Your own work provides
many examples of how rational ethics has evaded these problems. The
Stoic misuse of the concept of self-contentment to minimize the full
challenge of moral commitment is one example. Your own evasion of
the full implications of your discovery of the depths of sin is another.
Kant: My own evasion of the implications of sin?

Kierkegaard: Yes. Although you do an excellent job in the Religion and
The Conflict of the Faculties of establishing the depths of our defection
from the moral law, your own solution to this problem - moral rededi-
cation without prior confession of God's saving act in Christ - is inad-
equate to the problem you develop. This returns me to the other prong
of your argument against a historical saviour: the claim that such an act
of salvation is unnecessary for us. I believe that just the opposite is true:
that we cannot effect our full moral conversion without belief in such a
saving act.
Kant: What is your argument for this?
Kierkegaard: In fact, you are the one who supplied me with the argu-
ment, both in the Religion and The Conflict of the Faculties. You know
that I poured over both these works and even copied out passages and
bits of humour from them into my journalsY Your bold moral denun-
ciation in both texts of Abraham's willingness to obey God's command
in Genesis 22 was a major stimulus to my presentation of the ethical in
Fear and Trembling.
Kant: I'm aware of your attention to both my works. But how do they
contribute to your criticism of me?
Kierkegaard: Reading and rereading these two books, I came to see
them as a progressive involvement with the question: How are we to
recover from the depths of moral self-judgement which our reason dis-
closes to us? In the Religion, your answer to this revolves around your
rationalized and moralized conception of divine grace as evidenced in
our own sense of unbending obligation to moral reform and renewal.
Grace enters to provide a rational grounding for what might otherwise
appear irrational.
Kant: Quite right. In the Religion divine grace provides us with an answer to
the question 'How is moral reform logically possible?' just as a priori
knowledge enters in the first Critique as an answer to the question 'How
is experience logically possible?' and as freedom enters in the second
Critique as an answer to the question 'How is morality logically
possible?'
Kierkegaard: But you will admit that in both the Religion and Conflict
you equivocate about the extent to which we must openly confess to
ourselves our full reliance on God's grace?
Kant: What do you mean?
Kierkegaard: On the one hand, you develop the depths of our sin. You
point out that we must judge ourselves guilty of infinite sin. You
acknowledge that if we were to stand before a righteous judge, we would
pass judgement on ourselves with the greatest severity.32 You even con-
cede that but for our inability to see beyond the limits of this life, we
would reasonably go from mere comfortlessness about our eternal state
to 'wild despair,.33
Kant: That is all true. I also say, as you acknowledge, that we find the
confidence we need to carry on in our reformed moral disposition, a
disposition which for us is grace enough.
Kierkegaard: But what allows us to regard this as anything more than
self-deception? Recall your own remark that 'man is never more easily
deceived than in what promotes his good opinion of himself'.34 Isn't
this reliance on our disposition an evasion of the depths of the problem?
Kant: I acknowledge that our sense of requirement and empowerment
may occasionally be self-deluding. But what is the alternative? To
acknowledge ourselves as fatally mired in sin? To give up and abandon
reform? What is the profit in that? What is wrong with taking our in-
dwelling sense of obligation as a sign of grace and proceeding from that?
Kierkegaard: Two things. First, it is an invitation to those who feel any
moral urgings at all to ignore the significance of their defections from
the moral requirement. Second, it provides licence to repeat the errors
of the past and even to seek new occasions for self-assertion under the
guise of moral renewal.
Kant: Granted that is a risk. But, again, what is the alternative? Total,
wild despair? Self-indulgent wallowing in our own moral incapacity
and wickedness? Let me take a leaf from your book, The Sickness unto
Death, and ask whether what you are counselling doesn't amount to
'despair of the forgiveness of sins,?35
Kierkegaard: I appreciate your attention to my work. But I think you
miss my point. My aim in The Sickness unto Death was to drive us to
God's forgiveness in Jesus Christ. It is to avoid this, that the prideful,
demonic personality despairs over forgiveness and wallows in condem-
nation. The willingness to accept forgiveness in and through God's
atonement for us in Christ is the alternative both to despair and to shal-
low, autonomous moral self-renewal. Furthermore, it is an alternative
that doesn't enervate but energizes the moral life.
Kant: How so?
Kierkegaard: First it forces us to strip away all our self-deception and
naive confidences and greatly intensifies our sense of the requirement.
As I showed in the Philosophical Fragments, there is all the difference
between a teacher who merely reminds us of what we already know and
one who shows us how deeply we are in error. 36 Second, the fact that
God has actually entered time, suffered and died on our behalf provides
us with a real basis for the confidence that we can be and have been
forgiven. In saying this I am again drawing on your writings.
Kant: How so?
Kierkegaard: First, I employ your point in the first Critique that there is
a significant difference between logical possibility and real possibility.37
Many things are logically possible. They belong to what I call the sphere
of 'ideality' or 'concept existence,.38 But only some things are actually
given to us in experience, as you say, and hence really are possible. A
God-man and our enduring moral redemption are both logically pos-
sible. Your work shows that. Neither can be refuted, unless we succumb
to a dogmatic empiricism that denies that noumena can be expressed in
time. But it is one thing to say that something is logically possible and
quite another to say that it has come to pass. My point is that the depth
of our valid moral despair requires real, not logical possibility.
Kant: You make a powerful case.
Kierkegaard: Actually, once again it is your case. You develop it in The
Conflict of the Faculties.
Kant: Do I?
Kierkegaard: Yes, in an oblique way. Do you recall the imaginary
dialogue you present there in the form of a series of objections by a
defender of revealed faith to 'a rational interpretation' of the Bible?
Kant: I would have to search my memory.
Kierkegaard: Let me help you. I actually have a copy of the text here on
this wonderfullaptop computer I purchased.
Kierkegaard withdraws a portable computer from his travelling bag and places
it on the table before them. He types several keystrokes, and smiles with satis-
faction.
Kierkegaard: These computers are wonderful things, aren't they? You

and I owe our very existence to them. But here is the dialogue, just as
I remembered it. One of the objections you consider is stated as follows:
'To believe that God, by an act of kindness, will in some unknown way
fill what is lacking to our justification is to assume gratuitously a cause
that will satisfy the need we feel (it is to commit a petitio principii); for
when we expect something by the grace of a superior, we cannot
assume that we must get it as a matter of course; we can expect it only if
it was actually promised to us ... So it seems that we can hope for that
supplement and assume that we shall get it only in so far as it has been
actually pledged through divine revelation . ... ,39 This seems to me to be
a powerful argument.
Kant: What is my rationalist reply?

Kierkegaard: What you say is the following: 'A direct revelation from
God embodied in the comforting statement "Your sins are forgiven
you" would be a supersensible experience, and this is impossible. But it
is also unnecessary with regard to what (like religion) is based on moral
principles of reason and is therefore certain a priori, at least for practical
purposes. There is no other way we can conceive the decrees of a holy
and benevolent law-giver with regard to frail creatures who are yet striv-
ing with all their might to fulfill whatever they recognize as their duty;
and if, without the aid of a definite, empirically given promise, we have
a rational faith and trust in His help, we show better evidence of pure
moral attitude and so of our receptivity to the manifestation of grace we
hope for than we could by empirical belief.' Now, my dear Kant, I hope
you will agree with me that this reply, so central to our disagreement
over the need for faith in a historical saviour, is a pastiche of misleading
and unrelated ideas.
Kant: Isn't that extreme? What is wrong with these remarks?
Kierkegaard: Take the first part of the reply that a direct revelation
from God regarding forgiveness 'is impossible'. Certainly this mis-states
the matter. It is by no means impossible that a statement or revelation
to the effect that we are forgiven should come from God. It is only
impossible that we should know that such a statement is from God.
Your whole philosophy rejects an empiricist dogmatism that rules out
the possibility of noumena amidst phenomena.
Kant: Of course you are right. What I meant to say is that it is imposs-
ible for us to make an assertion with any claim to 'knowledge' that a
particular communication (whether through words or events) actually
proceeds from God.
Kierkegaard: On this matter there is no disagreement between us. In
the Philosophical Fragments 40 and elsewhere I emphatically deny that the
contemporary believer who witnesses Christ in his midst has any
advantage over those of us, centuries later, who attest in faith to the
meaning of that life. We are talking here about faith, not knowledge.
For you it is a rational faith based on moral concepts. For me, it is a
moral faith graciously given by God. But surely it is misleading to say,
as you do here, that such a revelation itself is impossible, when what
you mean is the far more modest observation that we cannot possess
knowledge that a revelation is from God. I might add, by the way, that
where God's forgiveness of us is concerned, we are not talking about a
single oracular assertion (out of the mouth of a fanatic like Swedenborg)
but about the entire record of Christ's holy life - and death.
Kant: You're right about all this. My reply here mis-states my point.
Kierkegaard: Your subsequent assertions are no more helpful. You say a
direct revelation from God that we will receive his help is unnecessary
because there is 'no other way' we can conceive the decrees of a right-
eous law-giver with regard to 'frail' but morally striving creatures like
ourselves. But this merely restates your position. It is no reply at all to
the objection that even when we have good reason to 'expect some-
thing by the grace of a superior we cannot assume that we must get it as
a matter of course'. I think what the objector is trying to say here is that
it is morally presumptuous on our part to interpret our need as somehow
creating a requirement for God to meet it. Such presumptuousness is
deeply contradictory to the humility that should characterize those
who have come to recognize their sinfulness. But if we have no right to
presume that God will aid us, we return to the question of how those
who are mired in sin can gain the reasonable confidence they need to
renew their striving. Revelation can provide this by offering some evid-
ence (not certain evidence but enough to justify confidence) that God
has committed himself to our redemption.
Kant: An interesting moral point. I like to think of myself as a master of
practical rational arguments, but I am not accustomed to having moral
reason turned against me as you do here. I confess that I can see noth-
ing wrong in what you say.
Kierkegaard: Your final point in this reply strikes me as equally uncom-
pelling.
Kant: Are you referring to my assertion that we show better receptivity
to the manifestation of grace if we rely on faith and trust in God's help
rather than on any definite, empirically given promise?
Kierkegaard: Yes. I'm aware of how central this assertion is to your
practical philosophy. An analogue to it appears at the end of the second
Critique when you say that we are better off lacking knowledge of God's
existence because this affords us the opportunity to develop a purer
moral disposition unaffected by the certainty of reward or punish-
ment.41 I take it that you are trying to say the same thing here: that our
moral sensibilities are sharpened by the absence of security regarding
our redemption. In terms familiar to us both, you are saying that we
must work out our salvation in 'fear and trembling'.
Kant: Again you impress me with your grasp of my writings.
Kierkegaard: But I must say that this is the one place where such uncer-
tainty may be inappropriate. Recall that our morally committed person
who has come to see the depths of his or her sin does not face a problem
of false confidence and assurance, but just the opposite: a paralysing
state of self-condemnation in which every buoying reflection must be

rejected as merely another expression of self-deception. Here, it seems
to me, strong medicine is needed. And since there is nothing morally or
cognitively wrong with perceiving the Gospel record as a sign of God's
love for us, we are fully warranted in making the events of Christ's holy
life, death and resurrection the conceptual starting point for our moral
rebirth. Acceptance of these beliefs is merely another expression of your
own insistence on the priority of practical reason, and it is an extension
of your willingness to accept noumenal beliefs on grounds provided by
compelling convictions of our practical reason so long as these beliefs
do not violate theoretical reason.42 In this case, practical need triumphs
over not just the ordinary cautions of theoretical reason (which does
not easily admit belief in a God-man, though it cannot condemn such a
belief) but over moral reason and its reluctance to qualify moral auto-
nomy in any way.
Kant: Your arguments are very compelling. If I hesitate to accept them
with enthusiasm it is because during my life I witnessed so many fanat-
ical Christian believers who insisted on making this belief in saving
grace the starting point, but who then engaged in 'passive surrender' to
grace 43 and never thereafter demonstrated the effort of moral renewal
to which it was supposed to lead.
Kierkegaard: I share your concern. My own writings, as you may know,
criticize those Christians who appeal to grace and then forget the
'requirement'. But it is one thing to object to such weakness and misuse
of concepts and another thing to reject those concepts themselves. The
reply to our tepid Christians is not to ignore the Gospel but to preach it
in its full depth and rigour. That is what I tried to do during the last
phase of my life in what is called my 'attack on Christendom'.
Kant: I am familiar with your efforts. They showed great courage and
perseverance.
Kierkegaard: Thank you, though I know I was also motivated by more
than a little bitterness. I would like to accept your compliment, but
I realize that 'man is never more easily deceived than in what promotes
his good opinion of himself'.
Kant: A question. I am now in a better position to understand the
outlines of your sustained philosophical defence of revealed Christian
faith. I am even persuaded that the concepts you develop may be
acceptable to our morally legislative practical reason. But you are not
saying that these beliefs are required by reason, are you? If so, I would
have two problems with such a position. First, as I indicate in The Con-
flict of the Faculties I am opposed to the imposition of dogmas. These
dogmas, so dear to ecclesiastical faith, involve matters that we can

never settle with certainty and are an invitation to needless strife and
conflict. Second, to go beyond those concepts directly given to us by
our practical reason and require beliefs based on revelation is to exclude
from moral salvation whole sectors of humanity not privy to such
revelation. In other words, these revealed beliefs lack the universality
appropriate to fundamental moral concepts. 44
Kierkegaard: You raise a question to which I have given little thought.
It is the question, really, of whether Christian faith itself, especially a
confession of belief in Christ, is required for our moral salvation. Let
me begin to answer your question by observing that it is really two
questions.
Kant: How so?
Kierkegaard: First, it is the question of whether we need some real evid-
ence in experience on which to build a commitment to moral renewal.
That is, must our moral rededication be accompanied by certain specu-
latively and empirically warranted beliefs to ground the confidence that
we are anything other than morally doomed? To this question, I must
give a strong affirmative answer. Everything both you and I have said
about the totality of moral despair leads me to believe that without
some warrant beyond the voice of conscience, we must end in the para-
lysis of self-condemning moral despair. I might add here that your own
writings repeatedly affirm the need for some rationally-based confid-
ence (a reasonable hope 4S ) in at least the possibility of assistance in our
moral renewal.
Kant: I grant that. Although I try to dissuade my readers from dwelling
on this matter (because I believe it has too often distracted us from the
practical task at hand), I do observe that reason cannot put such 'specu-
lative' questions aside lest it be accused of 'being wholly unable to
reconcile with divine justice man's hope of absolution from his guilt'.46
I take it that you would argue that such 'speculative' matters, bound up
with the question of whether we have been and can be saved, are far
more important than I am inclined to admit.
Kierkegaard: Yes, though I see myself as developing, rather than con-
tradicting, your position. Let me also add a point here that is familiar to
you. If I say that we are required by reason to accept some beliefs that
make possible the completion of our moral task, let it be clear that such
beliefs are voluntary ones. Like all the religious beliefs you signal in
your work, we accept them in the face of objective uncertainty in order
to render coherent our freely accepted commitments. They may be ration-
ally 'required' in the limited sense that if we make such commitments
and choose to be rational we must harbour these beliefs. But they are by
no means required of one who refuses to make such commitments. As
in all such matters, it is passion and choice that are foremost.
Kant: I fully understand that.
Kierkegaard: But to return to your earlier question of whether we are
rationally required to believe in Christ, there is a second question impli-
cit in this. This is the question of whether, in addition to having a well-
founded belief on which to base our moral rededication, this belief
must focus on God's activity in Jesus Christ. In other words, to what
extent is this single historical faith requisite for salvation?
Kant: I see that question. It is one that preoccupies me. Let me repeat
my specific apprehensions. How can we make human beings' moral
redemption depend on a faith known only by some, with all the impli-
cations this has for dogmatic tyranny, exclusion and oppression?
Kierkegaard: I share your concerns. Let me say, as odd as it may seem,
that this is not a question which I really addressed in my writings.
Remember who my intellectual opponents were. First, the cultured
despisers of Christianity, especially the Hegelians, who denied that we
even needed the faith of the Gospel for our ethico-religious life. These
were the smug, unthinking and very distant heirs to aspects of your
philosophy, convinced that we are the best of men living in the best of
times. Against them I used the moral rigour I learned from you - some-
thing wholly lacking among the Hegelians - to intensify the moral
demand and to develop the importance and value of historical Christian
faith. But at no time was I called on philosophically to defend the
rational necessity of Christian belief in general. My second set of oppon-
ents were the lax residents of 'Christendom' who hardly needed to be
told that Christian faith is necessary. What had to be assaulted was
their confidence that they already had such faith by virtue of their pos-
session of a baptismal certificate or the fact of their birth in a 'Christian'
nation. Hence, a defence of Christian faith against other religious or
philosophical positions was never really my concern.
Kant: I understand that. But how, then, do you answer my question?
Do you believe that a faith in the promise of God's forgiveness through
Christ will alone meet our rational requirements for salvation?
Kierkegaard: This is a difficult question to answer. Frankly, I'm not
sure. On the one hand, like you, I think, I would probably say that
what matters is not our words or even beliefs but our ethico-religious
passion. A person who comes to despair over the rigour of the ethico-
religious demand and who then avoids despair's complex evasions
and accepts the requirement fully is on the road to salvation. On the
other hand, I personally find it hard to see how one can come to
know either the requirement or the possibility of meeting it apart from
Christ.
Kant: Would you say, then, that it is impossible to do so? Are there per-
haps other philosophical or religious paths that might take us to these
insights? Perhaps they exist in religious traditions that you and I know
little about? If you have read my Religion carefully, you will note that
I frequently try to suggest that basic Biblical insights have their coun-
terparts in other religious traditionsY Are the concepts requisite for sal-
vation also to be found elsewhere? This is important, because it would
address my inSistence that the religious-moral conceptions we require
must be universal, although these beliefs might take different forms for
different peoples.
Kierkegaard: I suppose that is possible. But I repeat, this was never my
concern, never a part of the challenge I faced. My life task was not to
convert the heathens but to remind those living in Christendom and
claiming to be Christians of the meaning - and the demands - of their
faith.
Kant: I understand that. In this sense, at a different moment in
the development of Christianity, we were not so far apart. For my con-
cern in fighting against historically based ecclesiastical faith was
to combat the dogmatism that had led to moral laxity, conflict, and
violence.
The waiter approaches to say that both men's flights have come up on the
departure screen of the Club's computer and that they had better start for their
boarding gates.
Kant: Well, my dear Kierkegaard, we must break off in mid-course. Per-

haps we can turn to some of these larger questions another time. This
has truly been a pleasure. I genuinely hope that this is only the begin-
ning of a sustained conversation between us. I would like to invite you
to Kbnigsberg for a more formal discussion of these matters with others
in attendance, but, as I'm sure you know, my natal city, though
renamed, is still being reconstructed and lacks the resources for an
adequate scholarly meeting.
Kierkegaard: Perhaps some time in Copenhagen? Or better yet, why
not San Francisco, a charming city with good wine and a far more pleas-
ant climate than either of our Baltic homelands.
Kant: Agreed! Auf Wiedersehen.
Kierkegaard: Auf Wiedersehen. Farvel!
Notes
1. Jerry H. Gill, 'Kant, Kierkegaard and Religious Knowledge', Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research, 28 (1967-8), pp. 188-204; also his article on
'Kant' in Kierkegaard and Great Traditions, vo!. 6 in Bibliotheca Kierkegaard-
iana, ed. Niels Thulstrup and Maria Mikulova Thulstrup (Copenhagen: C. A.
Reitzels Boghandel, 1981), pp. 223-9; John D. Glenn, Jr., 'Kierkegaard's
Ethical Philosophy', Southwestern Journal of Philosophy,S (Spring 1974),
pp. 121--8; Peter J. Mehl, 'Kierkegaard and the Relativist Challenge to Prac-
tical Philosophy', Journal of Religious Ethics, 14: 2 (1987), pp. 247-78; Robert
L. Perkins, 'For Sanity's Sake: Kant, Kierkegaard and Father Abraham', in
Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling: Critical Appraisals, ed. Robert L. Perkins
(Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1981), pp. 43-61; Ronald M. Green,
Kierkegaard and Kant: the Hidden Debt (Albany, NY: The State University of
New York Press, 1992). Also, R. Z. Friedman, 'Kierkegaard: First Existentialist
or Last Kantian?', Religious Studies, 18: 2 (June 1982), pp. 159-70; Jeremy
D. B. Walker, To Will One Thing: Reflections on Kierkegaard's 'Purity of Heart'
(Montreal and London: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1972); also his
Kierkegaard's Descent into God (Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen's Uni-
versity Press, 1985); Alastair Hannay, Kierkegaard (London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1982); William D. Peck, 'On Autonomy: the Primacy of the
Subject in Kant and Kierkegaard', Ph.D Thesis, Yale University, 1974; e. Ste-
phen Evans, Subjectivity and Religious Belief (Washington, D.e.: University
Press of America, 1982); Geoffrey Clive, 'The Connection between Ethics
and Religion in Kant, Kierkegaard and F. H. Bradley', Ph.D Thesis, Harvard
University, 1953.
2. Kierkegaard's favourite descriptor for Kant is '<erlige' (honest). See, for
example, Soren Kierkegaards Papirer, 16 vols. (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1909-
78), vnr 2 A 358 n.d.; vnr 2 B 81 n.d., 1847; Xl A 666 n.d., 1849; X2 A 501
1850.
3. In offering this view of the relative novelty of Kant's efforts in the Religion
to explore the extent of our rational freedom from morality, I disagree with
Dennis Savage's estimate that 'Kanfs theory of radical evil in the Religion
contains nothing basically new as compared with his theory of moral good
and evil presented in his [earlier] ethical works.' - 'Kanfs Rejection of Divine
Revelation and His Theory of Radical Evil', in Philip]. Rossi and Michael
Wreen, eds., Kant's Philosophy of Religion Reconsidered (Bloomington: Indi-
ana University Press, 1991), p. 73.
4. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Lewis White Beck (Indiana-
polis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1959), p. 21; Critique of Practical Reason, trans. Lewis
White Beck (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1956), p. 24.
5. Critique of Judgement, trans. J. H. Bernard (New York: Hafner Press, 1951),
p.187.
6. Critique of Practical Reason, p. 151.
7. Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans. Theodore M. Green and
Hoyt H. Hudson (New York: Harper & Row), p. 16.
8. Religion, p. 51.
9. Ibid., p. 35.
10. The Concept of Anxiety, trans. Reidar Thomte (Princeton: Prince ton Univer-
sity Press, 1980), pp. 16f.
11. Fear and Trembling, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. 98f.
12. Religion, p. 66.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Gordon E. Michalson, Jr., Fallen Freedom (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1990).
16. Nicholas P. Wolterstorff, 'Conundrums in Kant's Rational Religion', in Rossi
and Wreen, eds., Kant's Philosophy of Religion Reconsidered, pp. 48-9; John E.
Hare, The Moral Gap: Kantian Ethics, Human Limits, and God's Assistance
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), pp. 60-2.
18. Ibid., p. 68.
19. Ibid., p. 131, n.
20. Religion, p. 135, n.
21. Religion, pp. 129-38.
22. 'Inward divine revelation is God's revelation to us through our own rea-
son.' - Forlesungen iiber die philosophische Religionslehre (hrsg. P6litz), 2. Ausgabe
(Leipzig: Taubert, 1830).
23. 'A change of heart such as this must be possible because duty requires it.' -
Religion, p. 60.
24. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Part HI.
25. The Conflict of the Faculties: Der Streit der Fackultiiten, trans. Mary J. Gregor
(New York: Abaris Books, 1979), pp. 127-39.
27. Ibid., pp. 57-9.
28. This conception parallels Kierkegaard's denial that the 'contemporary' is in
any way privileged. See for example, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans.
Howard V. Hong and H. Edna Hong, 2 vols. (Princeton: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1992), pp. 96-8; Philosophical Fragments, trans. Howard V. Hong and
Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Prince ton University Press, 1985), p. 63; Training
in Christianity, trans. WaIter Lowrie (Princeton: Prince ton University Press,
1941), pp. 43-4. The similarity between Kant and Kierkegaard on this mat-
ter is noted by Gordon Michaelson, Jr. in his Lessing's 'Ugly Ditch': A Study of
Theology and History (University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State
University Press, 1985), p. 17.
29. Religion, pp. 57f.
30. PAP X 2 A 396 n.d., 1850.
31. For references to these passages, see Green, Kierkegaard and Kant, ch. 1.
33. Ibid., p. 65.
35. Trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Prince ton University
Press, 1980), pp. 113-14.
36. Philosophical Fragments, ch. 1.
37. Critique ufPure Reasun, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: St. Martin's
Press, 1929), pp. 239-44 [A218-26 = B266-74J.
38. Philosophical Fragments, pp. 39-42.
39. Conflict, p. 83.
40. Ch. 4. See also Training in Christianity.

41. Critique of Practical Reason, pp. 151-3.
42. Allen W. Wood, 'Kant's Deism', in Rossi and Wreen, eds., Kant's Philosophy
of Religion Reconsidered, pp. 17-18.
43. Conflict, p. 75.
44. Religion, p. 95i Conflict, p. 77.
45. Religion, p. 46i Conflict, pp. 75-7.
47. For example, ibid., pp. 15,68 n, 131 n.
8
The Ethical and the Religious
as Law and Gospel
Jack Verheyden
Writing in his journal in 1843, S0ren Kierkegaard cites a passage from

Johann Georg Hamann: 'Write' - 'For whom?' - 'Write for the dead, for
those in the past whom you love.' - 'Will they read me?' - 'Yes, for they
come back as posterity.' Kierkegaard alters this old saying: 'Write' - 'For
whom?' - 'Write for the dead, for those in the past whom you love.' -
'Will they read me?' - 'No!'l
Ronald Green's stimulating dialogue between two snowbound travel-
lers at the Denver Airport indicates that the view expressed by this text,
which Kierkegaard found attractive, has been overcome. Kant, a figure of
the past whom Green says Kierkegaard loves, has been reading him and
so the two thinkers are able to converse about each other's work. How-
ever, there is a major false note that pervades Green's entire dialogue.
That is the Tuborg beer! Kant did not drink beer. In fact, his antipathy
to beer was so pronounced that he commonly was known to say, when
someone died young, that: 'He was probably a beer drinker!'2 And Kier-
kegaard, who could write, 'In Vino Veritas', would not be likely to enter
such a weighty discussion without the help of wine. They would choose
another beverage than beer. I think it is evident to the eavesdropper
that this is a very genial intellectual interchange between Kant and Kier-
kegaard. Kant seems rather easily persuaded by Kierkegaard's revisions
and emendations to his position; a position that Green thinks provides
the foundation for much of Kierkegaard's own thinking. In his preamble
Green cites literature that he claims illustrates this fact, including his
own comprehensive comparison Kierkegaard and Kant: the Hidden Debt.
I am in agreement with many of the main points that Green arrives
at in the course of his dialogical encounter of Kant and Kierkegaard. My
concern, however, is whether Green's discussion on his way to these
points, together with his view that Kierkegaard operates out of a Kantian
153
foundation, succeeds in bringing out the divergence on the ethical and

the religious that exists between these two figures. Green 'over-Kantianizes'
Kierkegaard's thought extensively.
Biographical considerations
I want to begin with a general look at the biographies of the two men
with respect to religious matters. In Kierkegaard's case we have an
unusually massive amount of material, because of his journal comprising
many volumes, and because, in the fashion of romanticism, in which
he was deeply steeped, there is biographical continuity between much
of his writing and his life. With regard to Kant we have neither of these.
We know of his mother's pietistic religious orientation, and of Kant's
being sent to a school with religious practices that he considered
useless, damaging and without rational basis. His life is famous for its
disciplined regularity in fulfilling the academic round, and for his lun-
cheons of three hours or so with civic and academic guests. The paucity
of reference to religious matters in his life itself tells us something. One
story is related of his fellow 'Konigsberger' Hamann, when Kant was 35.
Hamann was employed by a wealthy family in its business. The son,
Christolph Behrens, had been a friend of Hamann's at the city's univer-
sity and both were adherents of the new Enlightenment orientation in
philosophy and in economics. While on a business trip to London,
Hamann underwent a religious experience that converted him to the
Christian faith. After returning home, Hamann became engaged to
Behrens' sister, something that Christolph had supported previously.
But now that Hamann has been infected by traditional Christianity, he
was no longer acceptable as a family member. Behrens tried to combat
the situation by bringing Hamann back to the Enlightenment views he
had once espoused. To aid him in this effort Behrens called on the
young philosopher at the university, Kant, who was known for his
Enlightenment commitments. Behrens and Kant met Hamann in a
tavern and Kant recommended that Hamann should undertake study
of translations of the French Encyclopaedists to help cure him of his
superstitious emotionalism. Apparently, the scathing attacks on Christi-
anity by mostly deistic and some atheistic writers found there was Kant's
prescription for Hamann's falling into Christian faith. 3
Thirty years later, in 1789, a travelling Russian poet and writer,
Nikolai Karamzin, called upon Kant. His account of his evening with
Kant, written when Karamzin had returned to the inn where he was
staying, is as follows:
The Ethical and the Religious as Law and Gospel 1 SS
We are meant to act. Man can never be satisfied with what he has
achieved and always strives for something else. Death stops us on the
way to the fulfillment of our desires. Give man everything he wants
and in the very same moment he will decide that this everything is
not quite everything. Since we cannot see the aim and the end of our
striving in the present, we assume a future in which these difficulties
will be resolved; and this thought is all the more attractive the less
there is a relationship between joy and pain, between satisfaction
and suffering. I take solace in the fact that I am over sixty years old
and that the end of my life cannot be far off; I hope to leave it for a
better one. When I contemplate the joys I have experienced in my
life I find little pleasure; but, when I contemplate the instances in
which I acted in accordance with the moral law engraved in my
heart, I feel the purest joy. I speak of the moral law; others call it con-
science, the feeling of right and wrong. You may call it what you
like, but it exists. I have lied; no man knows it, yet I feel shame. It is
true that the probability of a future life is by no means a guarantee of
it, but when all is said and done, reason commands us to believe in
it. And what would become of us if we could see it with our own
eyes? Could not its charms prevent us from the proper use of it? But
if we talk about destiny, about a future life, we are thereby presup-
posing the existence of an eternal and creative understanding, which
created everything for some purpose - for some good. What? How? -
Here, the wise man must be the first to admit that he has no wisdom.
Here the light of reason goes out, and we are left in darkness. Only
imagination can go astray in the darkness and create phantoms. 4
This discourse is certainly consistent with Kant's Critique of Practical

Reason (which Karamzin had not yet read), but the fervour with which
Kant communicated these ideas produced a deeply moved Karamzin
which is worth noting.
Kant had ceased attending church long before this encounter, but
there was more to this than not showing up at the worship services.
One story about Kant brings this out emphatically. On days of formal
academic celebration, the University of Ktinigsberg faculty would pro-
cess in file from one campus building to another. As a prominent mem-
ber Kant would be near the head of the column. When the itinerary
called for entering the campus church, Kant would step out of the file,
make his way around the church, and go home. s
As for Kierkegaard, he was raised by an intensely religious father. The
family practice while he was growing up, and apparently his until he
entered the university, was to attend the Danish state Lutheran church
on Sunday mornings and the meetings of the pietistic Moravian Breth-
ren in the evening, by whom his father had been powerfully influ-
enced. I do not know of any evidence that Kierkegaard continued the
latter as an adult, but constant attendance at public worship was a part
of almost all of his life, not just on Sunday, but also at morning prayers
on weekdays. Kierkegaard regularly prayed twice a day, once in the
morning and once in the evening. The latter time would also be accom-
panied by reading in edifying spiritual material. Kierkegaard himself
was an extensive producer of edifying literature. It is often noted, but
then usually ignored, that when publishing his pseudonymous aesthetic
books he would, under his own name, publish edifying discourses. Reidar
Thomte, a half-century ago, included a chapter on the religiosity of the
edifying discourses in his account of Kierkegaard's philosophy of reli-
gion. How seldom has that been done since in books on the subject!6
But such material as that is larger and continues much longer than, say,
publications under the name of Johannes Climacus. The importance
here is that such edifying material was clearly identified in his time as
'religious'. Kant did not produce such writing in his day. Beginning at
about 21 years of age, Kierkegaard kept a journal, which served a
number of purposes. It was primarily intellectual, dealing with thoughts
and explorations of ideas as his life and study progressed. But it also had
religious uses, recording religious experiences and engagements of life
in the light of God. Such journal keeping, from the late seventeenth
century until the middle of the nineteenth century, was a common reli-
gious activity. We do not know of any such thing with respect to Kant.
After completing his degree in theology in 1841, Kierkegaard entered
the Pastoral Seminary, which was the next step for a theological graduate
who was preparing for ordination in the Lutheran Church. He received
a certificate a year later after completing the initial stage. Part of the
requirements was to deliver public sermons in churches of Copen-
hagen. Kierkegaard presented his first sermon in 1841 and his last one
for the Seminary early in 1844. Kierkegaard preached other sermons
subsequently, the last one in May 1851. In the Seminary he also had to
deal with religious education and catechesis. Kierkegaard's contempor-
aries would have regarded all this participation in the activities of the
Pastoral Seminary as religious. There is nothing in Kanfs life compar-
able to this that would have brought him a similar identification.
Would one expect two men with such sharply differing lives to
agree on the nature and importance of the religious and the manner in
which it is related to the ethical? I think that the answer clearly is that
The Ethical and the Religious as Law and Gospel 157
one would not expect much agreement. Biographical considerations

such as the above do not, of course, decide issues, but they can be
important in providing orientation for the interpreter in examining the
writings of these figures and, especially so, with respect to the meaning
given to the word 'religious' and its associates.
The 'over-Kantianizing' of Kierkegaard's sources of influence
Ronald Green's dialogue presupposes the results of his book mentioned

above. This means that I need to discuss several of his arguments in the
book which provide the basis for the paper. I do not doubt that Kierke-
gaard is significantly indebted to Kant. One item that I did not learn
from, but much appreciated in Green's book, was his emphasizing in
Philosophical Fragments the paradox of thought in its wanting to dis-
cover what thought itself cannot think. When I first read that passage,
in the autumn of 1959, I was confident that Kierkegaard was reflecting
there the opening sentence of the Preface to the Critique of Pure Reason.
In the decades since then, I have rarely found that noted, and Green does
this very well. Without dwelling on matters such as these, I will move
directly to the differences that I have with Green in his relentless attempt
to see Kierkegaard in terms of his philosophical antecedence in Kant.
At the onset of Green's dialogue, Kierkegaard says to Kant, after stat-
ing that he mentioned Kant briefly in his writings: 'I admit I never cred-
ited you properly' (p. 132). This lack of recognition of Kierkegaard's
reliance on Kant is a major theme of Green's The Hidden Debt. There are
a number of things that could be said on this matter. First, some of his
alleged dependence is not on Kant, at least, not in the manner Green
represents it. Second, if Kierkegaard is going to offer apologies for not
crediting his sources of influence, Kant should be welcomed to a very
large club! Apparently, Kierkegaard could not care less about such attri-
bution because he almost never does it. I think that his use of pseud-
onyms for a large section of his writing is partially relevant here. If
Judge William, in Either/Or, is writing a letter to someone on the erotic
and how it should be ordered and experienced in life, mention of the
Judge's sources are inappropriate. Footnotes to the explorations of
Johannes Climacus would appear not to be burdened with such a poetic
genre, but I believe that Kierkegaard's concern for indirect communica-
tion turned him away from procedures such as scholarly attribution.
Third, Kierkegaard seems especially comfortable when he is on the attack.
This is well indicated by Paul Maller's words in 1836 according to Kier-
kegaard's journal. Johannes Hohlenberg reconstructs the incident: after
an evening in which Kierkegaard had turned his gift of sarcasm on some-

one, Moller said, 'You are so polemic through and through that it is quite
dreadful.'? This is how Hohlenberg interprets: 'You adopt an exclusively
negative attitude to your surroundings. Your life consists in negation,
the nature of which is determined by what you are fighting with.
Where would you be, if you had nothing to contradict, to fight with,
and if possible destroy?' Outside of his family, Regina Olson, and Emil
Boeson, Paul Moller probably knew Kierkegaard as well as anyone. If the
pseudonyms offered a natural venue for lack of scholarly attributions,
then Moller's words would indicate that Kierkegaard would be ready to
avail himself of it.
Green, however, pushes this issue beyond considerations such as the
above. He thinks there is a deliberate attempt by Kierkegaard to hide his
extensive drawings on Kant's thought, either because he wanted to
appear exceptionally original, or because the attitude of his day was
adverse to Kant. Indeed, Green even goes so far as to suggest that before
his death Kierkegaard culled his library so that Kant would not be so
prominent in the collection, and to throw later 'assistant professors' off
the track of his indebtedness to him!s I can only say that I find this
latter hypothesis far-fetched. Taking my cue from Moller's words and
my general view of Kierkegaard's rather 'attacking' style, I find it diffi-
cult to believe that his alleged low opinion of Kant would have deterred
Kierkegaard in the least. It would only have spurred him to have
emphasized Kant all the more! More importantly, perhaps, I think that
Kant's thought was not so lowly evaluated around 1840 as Green
thinks. It might have been true of some, but I am sceptical that it was
predominant or widespread. Still, the level of my Danish does not allow
me to judge the culture's general perspective. A little to the south, how-
ever, in German-speaking lands, Kant retained a prominence that was
more than respectable, and in most intellectual matters I have found
considerable continuity in northern central Europe. For instance, writers
on the life and teachings of Jesus during this time often presented a
figure who taught an ethics that was very Kantian. 9
Ronald Green possesses an impressive command of Kant's corpus.
The method that he follows in the book is always directly to confront
Kierkegaard's writings with material from Kant. This produces a kind
of closed circle between the two figures. This leads to Green's 'over-
Kantianizing' of the subject matter because it shuts off others who were
sources of influence on Kierkegaard. I want to draw attention to some
of these. There is roughly half a century between Kant's critical philo-
sophy and Kierkegaard's authorship.
Under the heading 'The Concept of God' Green takes up Kierke-

gaard's view of the subject. Overarching Kierkegaard's thinking is his
view of God as 'infinite subjectivity'. Green says this is somewhat
cryptic, and launches into the meanings he thinks are involved, all of
which show a debt to Kant. These involve the inappropriateness of
objective knowledge; the impossibility of proofs for God, since God is
not an object of experience; God's attributes not being within the time-
space continuum, etc. Kierkegaard follows such an understanding with
his contention (via]. Climacus) in the Fragments that the god cannot be
known directly. That is an application of Kanfs view.
As an alternative explanation of 'infinite subjectivity', let us inspect
some lines published a handful of years before Kierkegaard wrote the
phrase:
This pure subjectivity has been freed from the natural, and conse-
quently from what is sensuous, whether this is found in the external
world of sense or is a sensuous idea. It is the spiritual subjective
unity, and it is this which first rightly gets from us the name
God ... It does not manifest itself in any natural material, but in
Thought ...
The Absolute, God, is defined as the one subjectivity, and, as a
consequence, as subjectivity which is universal in itself ...
God is here without form ... There is no image of Him ... He
exists only for thought. The infinite subjectivity is the subjectivity
which thinks .... 10
These passages come from Hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion

in the section dealing with Judaism. It is only with Judaism that the
ultimate breaks through into absolute, universal power that is pure sub-
jectivity beyond all sensuousness. It is self-related but does not generate
itself into the world, so that it has not become concrete Spirit, as Hegel
saw occurring in New Testament Christianity. Kierkegaard did not fol-
low Hegel on concrete Spirit, but infinite subjectivity gives expression
to the personhood of God in a manner that is consonant, apparently,
with majesty.
Another type of discussion is offered by Green in relation to the issues
concerning the ethics of Judge William in Either/Or. Often the Judge has
been referred to by his interpreters as rather Kantian in his ethics. Green
recognizes that the views of Judge William are close to Kierkegaard's
own; something that has often been dismissed by those interested
in moving on to the religious sphere. Here I agree with Green. Green
emphasizes the Judge's themes that relate to choosing oneself and indi-
viduation. He says that this seems different from Kant, but Green refuses
to rest there and suggests that attention to the Foundations of the Meta-
physics of Morals and the Metaphysics of Morals offers possibilities of bor-
rowing by Kierkegaard on such themes. Green says that he does not
insist on the pOint but that it is a reasonable connection. Early in the
book he had noted that we have no evidence that Kierkegaard had read
The Metaphysics of Morals.
I think there is another source which possesses many more direct
possibilities of derivation for the Judge's views, and that is]. G. Fichte's
The Vocation of Man, a book Kierkegaard read in the summer of 1835, a
time during which he was somewhat at sea spiritually. He was affected
significantly by the book and much of the atmosphere of that volume is
applied in the Judge's letters to the supposedly despairing aesthete. The
theme of Fichte's book deals with the conflict between determinism,
called dogmatism by Fichte, on the one hand, and the freedom of ideal-
ism, on the other. If one will choose, then the freedom becomes real. It
is a determination of the will in which the moral difference between
right and wrong becomes viable, something that it is not in determin-
istic dogmatism. When Judge William says that 'My either/or does not
in the first instance denote the choice between good and evil; it denotes
the choice whereby one chooses good and evil/or excludes them', he
could hardly be more Fichtean. l l In the defining determination of the
will to affirm itself, it is choosing the world of freedom as opposed to
deterministic dogmatism. This places one in the realm of conscience
and the ethical life of striving to follow the good. Note the following
passages on choosing oneself:
The struggle of contending powers is irresolution; the victory of one

is the determination of the will ... The system of freedom satisfies
my heart; the opposite system destroys and annihilates it ... There is
within me an impulse to absolute, independent self-activity. Noth-
ing is more insupportable to me than to exist merely by another, and
through another; I must be something for myself and by myself
alone ... the innermost spirit of my spirit - is no longer a foreign
power; it is, in the strictest possible sense, my own reasonable act.
I am wholly my own creation ... I resolve to be a work not of nature
but of myself .... 12
Fichte underwent something like a religious conversion when he read

Kant's Critique of Practical Reason in 1790, and saw himself as developing
Kanfs philosophy in its inner unity. Kant, however, did not think that
Fichte's philosophy was congruent with his own. The point is that
certainly there is a Kantian aura about Judge William's ethics, but it is
often not directly derived from Kant. Green's procedure appears to
assume that Kierkegaard had a command of Kant as precise and thor-
ough as his own, so that if there is a text somewhere that could imply
the distinctive ideas of the Judge, then it seems reasonable to assume a
debt to Kant. Such a procedure shuts out the influence of people who
have read and been influenced themselves by Kant, even though they
may depart from him and place what they have learned there in a dif-
ferent framework. They in turn could have subsequently an independ-
ent impact upon Kierkegaard. So with Fichte, even though he was
trying to stay within Kant's philosophy.
This principle of interpretation is relevant to a more prominent
emphasis in Green's book, that of the relation of Kierkegaard's The
Concept of Anxiety to the initial chapter of Kant's Religion which deals
with 'Radical Evil'. This is certainly a significant work in the history
of Western thought concerning the sinfulness of humanity, especially
with regard to original sin. At the beginning of the eighteenth century,
and continuing throughout its course, the theological situation was
one of stark opposition between the orthodox position, which saw the
account of Adam and Eve as something that took place at the beginning
of the creation of humanity, perhaps even at a datable number of years
in the past, and which changed the nature of humanity for all their
posterity, and the rather typical Enlightenment view which rejected
that as a laughing stock. The moral claim of virtue and the destructive-
ness of vice was the essential matter; more than that is priestly balder-
dash.
Kant's chapter in the Religion broke through this impasse. Whether he
was absolutely the first to do so is not the point. He was the first to give
recognition to a new way of approaching the issue, since he was iden-
tified as an avant-garde leader of the Enlightenment. Then he starts
writing about the radical evil in man. Green sees Kierkegaard as directly
keying his discussion in The Concept of Anxiety to this initial chapter
even while going beyond it. Again, however, he does so by ignoring
other sources that have come into play between Kant and Kierkegaard.
The Concept of Anxiety, although included in Kierkegaard's pseudonym-
ous literature, because Virgilius Haufniensis is on the title page, is not
truly of that genre. He only inserted the pseudonym at the last moment
after he had completed the work. There is not a sentence of indirect
communication in the body of the book. The dedication to his beloved
mentor and friend, Paul Maller, is as direct and sincere as anything he

wrote in any form.
In the 'Introduction', in writing of hereditary sin and dogmatics,
Kierkegaard says that dogmatics should be aware that it is dealing with
something that no science can grasp and that this will be realized 'if
again time is taken to understand Schleiermacher's immortal service
to this science. He was left behind long ago when men chose Hegel. Yet
Schleiermacher was a thinker in the beautiful Greek sense, a thinker
who spoke only of what he knew. Hegel on the contrary ... must
explain all things.,13 This could alert Kierkegaard's audience that
Schleiermacher is important for what follows; however, despite the fact
that Kierkegaard makes references to objections to Hegel, Baader, Schel-
ling, etc., Schleiermacher is not mentioned in the discussion. But he
could well have been, because Kierkegaard draws directly on Schleier-
macher's discussion of original sin in The Christian Faith, including
aspects that Green refers to as indicating a relation to Kant's Religion.
Kierkegaard first read Schleiermacher's book under the direction of
H. L. Martensen in 1834, but the importance it has for his argument
indicates a later attention to it in the decade up to the publication
of The Concept of Anxiety in 1844.
Schleiermacher's statement of original sin, as the rest of his theology,
is based on the Christian religious consciousness. He wants to deflect
the discussion of Adam and Eve because our consciousness of sin and its
consequences remain the same whatever may have been the circum-
stances with the first pair, whenever it was in the course of time that
they appeared. 14 We cannot explain the universal sinfulness as due to a
change in human nature brought about by Adam and Eve. 1S Here
Schleiermacher says we have to depart from the Protestant Confessions.
We cannot separate the first pair from the rest of the human race. The
Christian cannot be asked to believe that a single individual (or two)
can change the nature of the species. 16 Kierkegaard changes Schleierma-
cher's language somewhat, but his protest that Adam cannot be placed
outside of the human race is of a piece with this. 1 ?
Schleiermacher says that original sin represents the human race. 'The
individual is representative of the whole race in this regard, for the
sinfulness of each points to the sinfulness of all alike in space and time,
and also goes to condition that totality both around him and after
him.ds The individual is internally related to the race with which s/he
is interdependent. Kierkegaard expresses this by his often reiterated
statement that the individual is both himself and the race. 19 Note the
similarity of these two passages. First, Schleiermacher: 'it (sinfulness) is
in either case common to all; not something that pertains severally to

each individual and exists in relation to him by himself, but in each the
work of all, and in all the work of each'.2o Then Kierkegaard: 'And no
explanation that explains Adam but not hereditary sin, or explains
hereditary sin but not Adam is of any help. The most profound reason
for this is what is essential to human existence: that man is individium
and as such simultaneously himself and the whole race, and in such a
way that the whole race participates in the individual and the individual
in the whole race.'21 I think the direct dependence on Schleiermacher
here is quite evident.
It is because of this shared position that they hold sinfulness possesses
continuity from generation to generation. The actual sin of an earlier
generation is what Schleiermacher calls the originating original sin for
the later generation. The actual sin of the later generation is originated
original sin.22 Again, Kierkegaard varies his language. He speaks of sub-
jective anxiety which is the situation which each individual faces in his
or her freedom. Against this backdrop sin always comes from freedom
and is always qualitatively the same in all, while objective anxiety is the
anxiety that comes about as the consequence of sin; that is, as a result
of the generation of sin in the world. This means sin has a history, for
the human race does not begin anew in every individual. 23 Schleierma-
ch er says sin is not something that pertains severally to each individual,
and Kierkegaard says those after Adam are not only an empty repetition
of Adam. If such were the case, the race would not acquire a history.
Quantitatively, there is an incremental accumulation of sin, but Kierke-
gaard does not think this removes the qualitative situation for the indi-
vidual, even though there is a kind of increase of anxiety as the race
progresses, so that there is a history of sin.
These are not easy ideas, especially in this concentrated form, but the
position of Kant in the Religion is one where sin does not have a history
in Kierkegaard's terms. Green says (p. 135) for Kant, that Adam is each
one of us. That is a strictly 'vertical' fall in the realm of freedom. Kant
makes no attempt to internally relate the individual to others, and so
his position represents one that Kierkegaard is opposing: 'Every particular
Adam would have become a statue by himself.'24 Whether Kierkegaard
had Kant in mind I do not know, but his objection fits Kant's view. And
if Kierkegaard paid even a quarter of the attention to the Religion that
Green insists he did, then I think there is little doubt that Kierkegaard is
criticizing Kant here in The Concept of Anxiety.
Another facet of Kant's discussions in the Religion that Green refers to
as possibly a major source of influence is the idea of anxiety in relation
to freedom. Mark C. Taylor, in 1975, cited a text in the Religion in which

the human discovers the power of choosing a way of life, unlike the
animals. This choice sets off anxiety and alarm because the human
knows itself at the brink of an abyss. Taylor says that this anticipates
Kierkegaard's view of dread. Green says he agrees and that this perhaps
identifies a major source of influence. I do not agree with Taylor. In his
journal in 1842 Kierkegaard discusses original sin and anxiety. In an
additional note he makes the following entry:
In Vol VI, p. 104 of his works, Hamann makes an observation which

I can use, although he neither understood it as I wish to understand
it nor thought further about it: 'However, this Angst in the world is
the only proof of our heterogeneity. If we lacked nothing, we should
do no better than the pagans and the transcendental philosophers,
who know nothing of God and like fools fall in love with lovely
nature, and no homesickness would come over us. This impertinent
disquiet, this holy hypochondria .... '2S
The difference between the human and the rest of creation is indicated
by the anxiety that precipitates the possibility of sin. This reference
comes from a letter of Hamann to Herder in 1781.
Kierkegaard's Lutheran doctrinal background
The most important 'over-Kantianizing' in Green's approach to Kierke-

gaard, for my own argument, has to do with Green's attributing to Kant
ideas that would have been very familiar to Kierkegaard due to his Luth-
eran setting and heritage. I approach Kierkegaard as a thinker from his
background in the history of Christian theology and hold that the
foundation of his thinking resides there rather than in the philosophy
of Kant and Hegel and others.
Let me begin with Green's contention that Kierkegaard depends on
Kant's rejection of the proofs for the existence of God, but does not let
his reader know of his dependence. Kant has dismantled traditional
theology and this 'gave Kierkegaard the chance he needed', since Kier-
kegaard thought the proofs were spiritually pointless anyway. Why did
he think them pointless? I say he thought that because such arguments
played little or no role in his theological background. Kant's dismant-
ling has quite a lot to do with modern philosophical discussions of
God and, perhaps, also some Enlightenment theology, but not much at
all with traditional Lutheran doctrine as found in Luther and the
doctrinal Confessions of the sixteenth century. It is material such as

this that tends to guide Kierkegaard's thought. Biographies of Kier-
kegaard sometimes note that when he encountered the theological
faculty at Copenhagen as he began study for his degree in theology, he
found them afflicted with rationalistic tendencies. 26 The influence of
the Enlightenment and German idealism would be the leading candi-
dates for this rationalism. But what is it with which Kierkegaard is
contrasting these tendencies? I think it is the basic doctrinal standards
of his church as found in the Augsburg Confession and the subsequent
confessional documents which every Lutheran minister in his era and
before knew.
In the Lutheran Confessions there is no natural theology in the manner
criticized by Kant. Instead, there is a decided emphasis on the hidden-
ness of God, and this is a great hindrance to natural theology. God is
hidden, not because of the tools of reason in the Kantian fashion, but
because of the sinfulness of humanity. 'Thus when the ancient defini-
tion says that sin is lack of righteousness, it not only denies the obedi-
ence of man's lower powers, but also denies that he has knowledge of
God, trust in God, fear and love of God, or surely the power to produce
these things. m Kierkegaard had his chance to avoid natural theology
from the bases of his Lutheran background.
Kierkegaard clearly drew on Kanfs critical rejection of the ontological
argument, but it was not because he needed a clearing away of tradi-
tional theology, but, in all likelihood, because of the prominence which
this argument had for German idealism. Idealistic thought often found
this argument particularly congenial. The 1840 edition of Hegel's
Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion included a shorter lecture series on
'The Proofs for the Existence of God' which was built around the affirm-
ative treatment of this argument. 28 Hegel thought Kant was operating
with a one-sidedly transcendent idea of God. A proper view of God's
immanence reset the issues.
The rejection of natural theology in the Confessions does not mean
that the human being is without any awareness of God at all. Sparks
flash that there is a God, but these indicate all too little what God is like
or who God is. The content of the Ten Commandments are inscribed in
the human soul, but the devastation of sin means that the true fear and
love of God required by the first commandment in particular, and the
first table of the Decalogue in general, are lost. The first three com-
mandments are usually called 'the First Table', the latter seven, 'the
Second Table'. What remains is 'the Second Table' of the Ten Com-
mandments, those specifically moral in content as they stand under the
Thou Shalt. This Law of God is held to be universal, promotes justice,

and has the power to accuse of sinfulness.
This summary is terribly brief, but necessary, with the constraints of
space here, to indicate that there is a long tradition of over two and a
half centuries prior to Kant that emphasizes that God is encountered
inwardly in moral experience. When Johannes Climacus insists on the
importance of ethics for religion in the Postscript, or in myriad instances
when Kierkegaard's words affirm the practical ethical setting of his
thought, it does not mean that his position is derived from Kant! Green
in his book argues often that it does indicate that, and here his thor-
oughness only illustrates a much wider number of interpreters. I hold
that Kierkegaard's view here is rooted in the Lutheran doctrine of the
Law of God. He uses Kant - and anyone else who can help him - to
express in philosophical language this basic Lutheran teaching.
The Law of God in this understanding is not only universal, but calls
for a perfection that directs the human in a Godward direction. Green
highlights well Kierkegaard's emphasis that the ethical requirement is
infinite and demands purity, and that this is something that is presented
as an obligation generally, not only for Christians. Green then asks why
Kierkegaard thinks this to be so, and where he would get such an idea of
the ideality of ethics? The answer is that Kierkegaard is deeply indebted
to Kant here, for we find all these features in Kant's ethics, especially in
Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone. 29 Here Kant speaks of the
'full rigour of the moral demand'. Again, however, the answer is really
quite different as to why and where this is based. Kierkegaard's language
of the ideality of ethics is quite different from standing under the 'Thou
Shalt' of the Law of God. The limitless perfection of this obligation of
purity Coram Deo rings in the Lutheran Confessions again and again.
Often it is found in sentences which move on to faith because 'the law
is never satisfied'. Luther's writings continually emphasize this and a text
from his Large Catechism in the Confessions is representative. After more
than forty pages of discussion of the Ten Commandments, one by one,
taking a lead from Jesus, and radically internalizing the obligations
enjoined, Luther summarizes in the following manner:
All this I say and repeat in order that men may get rid of the perni-
cious abuse which has become so deeply rooted and still clings to
every man, and that all classes of men on earth may accustom them-
selves to look only to these precepts and heed them. It will be a long
time before men produce a doctrine or social order equal to that of
the Ten Commandments, for they are beyond human power to fuUill.
Anyone who does fulfill them is a heavenly, angelic man, far above
all holiness on earth. Just concentrate upon them and test yourself
thoroughly, do your very best, and you will surely find so much to
do that you will neither seek nor pay attention to any other works or
other kind of holiness. 3o
The perfection required by the Law of God abounds in the Reformation

tradition. Indeed, it is utterly common. Not only Lutherans, but
Reformed or Calvinists also, and in eighteenth-century England, the
writings ofJohn Wesley, all contain this emphasisY
When the doctrine of justification by faith becomes central, then the
inability of the human to fulfil the perfection of God's Law becomes
thematized, including how even the smallest violation is enough to
frustrate Pelagian attempts to establish one's position before God by
fulfilling the Law. The distinctive orientation of the Lutheran version
emphasizes the definite priority of the Law in perfection and other
respects before the presence of the Gospel. This is reflected in the Large
Catechism by Luther's placing the discussion of the Ten Command-
ments before the Creed. The Lutheran way is always to move through
the Law to the Gospel, directing the human being towards the mani-
festation of grace when slhe realizes his or her idolatry, opposition to
God, guilt, incompleteness, and insufficiency. When the Postscript is
discussing the spheres of existence and says: 'As for the religious, it is an
essential requirement that it should have passed through the ethical', it
is beneficial to remember the Lutheran way. 32
The writings of Paul are relied upon most by the Lutheran Confes-
sions in properly understanding the place of the Law. And, like Paul,
the Confessions see the Law between the Gospel (usually called by Paul
the grace of God in Jesus Christ) on one side, and the 'natural man' on
the other. In Romans, Paul refers to the Law and the Gentiles in a rather
dialectical manner where some have and accomplish the Law and oth-
ers do not. 33 Sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin was
not counted where there is no law. 34 Sin is there before the law, but it
lies dead. The giving of the law 'awakens' sin and 'increases the trespass'
in such fashion that it allows sin to be known. 35 In I Corinthians Paul
refers to the person prior to the law as 'natural man'.36 The Augsburg
Confession (of which Kierkegaard owned three different publications)
cites this text that says 'Natural man does not receive the gifts of the
Spirit of God. 1l7 Such gifts include the Ten Commandments.
When Kierkegaard constructs his philosophical anthropology, he has
an eye, not only for the Law of God, but also both for what comes prior
to this law and for what comes after it. This produces the famous three
spheres of existence, the aesthetic, the ethical and the religious.
Kierkegaard's wide reading in the literature of romanticism supplied
him with considerable inspiration for this aesthetic sphere, which refers
to the root meaning of the word in Greek, aisthesis, and not necessarily
to the artistic. The aesthetic sphere includes difference phases of the
immediate. Kierkegaard gave great attention to the parabolic mythical
figures of Don Juan, Faust and Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew. Notice in
the following passage how Kierkegaard's doctrinal foundations are evid-
ent in 1836.
Representing life in its three tendencies, as it were, outside of reli-

gion, there are three great ideas (Don Juan, Faust, and the Wander-
ing Jew), and not until these ideas are mediated and embraced in life
by the single individual, not until then do the moral and the reli-
gious appear. In relation to my position in dogmatics, this is the way
I view these three ideas. 38
Kierkegaard's journal connects immediacy with paganism, and the Post-

script, two years later, confirms this with its statement that 'The exist-
ence-sphere in paganism is essentially an aesthetic one.'39 But this point
is peripheral to Kierkegaard's real interest in the aesthetic sphere,
despite its root in Paul. The Augsburg Confession speaks of the natural
man within a Christian arena of influence and discussion. 40 Kierkegaard
makes contact with the Confession here, though in a different way,
because his concern with Don Juan, Faust and Ahasuerus lies in their
manifesting aspects of the human in repelling the Christian ethos. They
all lack a self-understanding qualified by the eternal. They are without
the Law. Their fulfilment of selfhood comes from a dialectic with that
which is outside of the self, contingent and fortuitous.
Judge William, Kierkegaard's chief figure to express the ethical sphere
of existence, is certainly one who is qualified by a relationship to the
eternal. He epitomizes a very responsible way of living. The life of duty
in society, the importance of commitment to the abiding and universal
goal, and a dialectic of selfhood in which the realization of fulfilment
has been internalized, mark this figure. The Judge really cannot be
reduced to some mere outward self of bourgeois conventions, as some
interpreters through the years have represented him. The Judge articu-
lates with great power, even though rather garrulously, that the human
self comes to be what it is through its own choosing. While the Judge
embodies the ethical stage he is one who recognizes God and other
aspects that in our language today would be looked upon as 'religious'.

In traditional Lutheran teaching the moral Law of God expresses the
'Thou Shalt'. It must be understood in light of God.
Judge William makes much of repentance in his dedicated striving to
be ethical. But there is an ideality about this portrait of the ethical
sphere of existence. Everything about the marriage and the Judge's life
seems rather faultless in any deeper sense. The Judge may not finally
fulfil the Law, but he seems well on the way. The 'Ultimatum' that
comes as a brief ending after the Judge's long letters presents another
perspective on the matter. The sermon of the Jutland pastor, 'The Edi-
fication Implied in the Thought that as against God We are Always in
the Wrong', points beyond Judge William's rather ideal standpoint to
the fallenness of the human situation. Green says that indicates that
Kierkegaard is paying attention to Kant's view of radical evil in the Reli-
gionY I say that there is no need for Kierkegaard to have to do that, the
view is screamed aloud in the Lutheran Confessions. No human being
can stand before the rigour of the Law of God. 42 When the Jutland
pastor at the close of his sermon asks his reader:
Did you wish, could you wish that the case might be different?
Could you wish that you might be in the right? Could you wish that
that beautiful law which for thousands of years has supported the
race and every generation in the race, that beautiful law, more glori-
ous than the law which supports the stars in their courses upon the
vault of heaven, could you wish that this law might burst, with more
dreadful effect than if that law of nature were to lose its force and
everything were to be resolved into appalling chaos? Could you wish
that?43
the sermon is not speaking here of Kant's formulation of the moral law.
Also, the sermon does not speak of redemption and forgiveness at all. It
moves entirely within the framework of the priority of God's Law and
human beings' relation to it. As it is said in The Concept ofAnxiety, ethics,
like the law, is a severe task master. 44
In the Lutheran Confessions, the Gospel is a very different matter.
Indeed, it is said there that 'there is a vast difference between the know-
ledge of God which comes from the Gospel and that which is taught
and learned from the law .... ,45 They both are necessary and must work
together, but they are not to be confused. The Gospel requires faith
whereas the law requires righteousness, it teaches us what is right. 46
Faith is something else, it is 'that worship which receives God's offered
blessings; the righteousness of the law is that worship which offers God
our own merits'Y The offered blessings referred to are God's promise of
grace and forgiveness.
For the Lutheran Confessions to speak of the Gospel is to speak of
Jesus Christ, for its content comes from who he is and what he does.
The promise of grace and mercy that frees the believer from condemna-
tion and punishment is recognized in Christ, 'who is a mirror of the
Father's heart'.48 Luther's striking phrase here from the Large Catechism
focuses the substance of the Gospel that is deployed through the divine
Son of God assuming human flesh through the Virgin Mary to the
Resurrection and Ascension, expiating the sins of humanity and over-
coming the punishment of death.
The 'mirror of the Father's heart' can only be recognized by faith. But
this faith is not mere historical knowledge. 49 The heart of God is not
discernible in that manner. The historical events must be realized as
they 'give confidence in God and the fulfillment of his promises'. 50 The
limitations of historical knowledge are connected with the contention
of the Confessions that ' ... the divine majesty was concealed and
restrained' during the period of humiliation. The personal union and
communion of the divine and human natures in Christ take the form of
a servant in historical time, but in exaltation the latter is left aside while
the humanity continues in eternity.51
It is a continuing theme of the Lutheran Confessions that these
matters of the Word of God 'are contrary to proud reason and philo-
sophy'.52 Despite the spark of the knowledge that there is a God, human
reason is so perverse that even the most educated cannot by their own
powers comprehend 'the Gospel of the Son of God and the province of
eternal salvation'.53 Over and over the note sounds that blind reason
cannot comprehend Christ's redemption. 54
The relation of the religious to the ethical
If the Gospel and the Law are vastly different, Kierkegaard's Fear and
Trembling similarly is concerned to show that the religious sphere is quite
other than the realm of the ethical. Judge William's ethical life includes
a relation to God in various ways, but Abraham's relation to God is
by no means the same as his. The 'Ultimatum' of always being in the
wrong before God returns here as infinite reSignation. Infinite reSigna-
tion both is and is not the 'religious sphere'. On the one hand, in Fear
and Trembling, the author's concern is to articulate the situation of faith
by exploring Abraham's story in respect to Isaac. Abraham believes in
God's promise even though he has been asked to sacrifice Isaac. The
religious sphere is an exploration of what is involved for Abraham in
going further and reaching faith. ss But he goes further than the first
movement, which is infinite resignation. Without the demands of duty
or the Law there would not be the collision of fear and trembling that
Abraham has to endure. Without the infinite resignation of being ready
to sacrifice oneself, the finite one would not reach the validity of the
human in relation to the Eternal; 'only he who draws the knife gets
Isaac'.56 The last movement prior to faith becomes in the Postscript Reli-
giousness A.
Abraham, as the knight of faith, goes further by means of his faith
that by the power of the absurd he will get Isaac back again, that God
will maintain His promise. The word 'absurd' becomes the technical
term for that to which faith is related in Fear and Trembling. Human
reckoning ceases to function for Abraham, 'because faith begins precisely
there where thinking leaves off'.57 Thought can provide that which is
universal, and it sees the individual in its role as part of the universal,
but if Abraham has any validity, then there must be a relation possible
for the individual to the absolute outside and beyond the universal. The
Gospel goes beyond the Law and cannot be subsumed under it. The
Gospel as noted above is 'contrary to reason'. Abraham's faith certainly
fits that.
Green, in The Hidden Debt, argues that Kierkegaard's utilization of
Abraham is connected both with his preoccupation with the sins of
Kierkegaard's father, and the tense familial relationship, on the one
hand, and Kant's denunciation of Abraham's behaviour with Isaac, on
the other. I think the former is tenuous in comparison with the firm
parallel situation with Regina. As for the latter, Green says such criti-
cisms of Abraham 'are not found in the writings of any other previous
philosopher, and they must have caught Kierkegaard's eye,.s8 The
assumption appears to be that philosophers are the ones to consult
regarding Abraham. I think that is strange. Why look to philosophers?
Theology would offer a more promising arena for a discussion of a scrip-
tural text, especially for one whose formal education is theological.
Why assume that the concern with Abraham that could have influ-
enced Kierkegaard would take the form of criticisms of Abraham?
I hold that Christian theology is a more promising source, and, as
usual, will look to the Lutheran Confessions concerning direction on
Abraham. In 1577, the final document of the Confessions was pro-
duced, The Formula of Concord, written by a number of theologians led
by Jacob Andreae and Martin Chemnitz. The occasion was to fine tune
the confessional discussion to resolve imprecision and unclarities in the

earlier standards. Kierkegaard, in his journal, says that the 1530 Augs-
burg Confession is the hour hand for which the Formula of Concord is
the minute hand. 59 Certainly, one of the most difficult doctrines to
state at the time was the nature of Christ's presence in the bread and
wine of the Eucharist. Christ's words of institution were one major
issue. Rejecting the Roman Catholic view of transubstantiation, the
Lutherans still insisted that Christ's words, 'this is my body, this is my
blood', were not just figurative or metaphorical. At this pOint the dis-
cussion proceeds as follows:
Nor dare we permit any objection or human contradiction, spun out

of human reason, to turn us away from these words, no matter how
appealing our reason may find it. Abraham certainly had sufficient
ground for a disputation when he heard God's words about offering
up his son, because these words were patently contrary not only to
reason and to divine and natural law but also the eminent article of
faith concerning the promised seed, Christ, who was to be born of
Isaac. He could have asked if this command was to be understood lit-
erally or if it was to receive a tolerable and loose interpretation. But
as on the previous occasion when Abraham received the promise of
the blessed seed of Isaac, although this seemed impossible to his
reason, he gave God the honor of truthfulness and concluded and
believed most certainly in his heart that what God promised he was
also able to do. So Abraham understood and believed the words and
command of God plainly and simply, as the words read, and com-
mitted the entire matter to God's omnipotence and wisdom, know-
ing that God had many more ways and means of fulfilling the
promises concerning the seed of Isaac than he could comprehend
with his blind reason. In the same way we are to believe in all humil-
ity and obedience the explicit, certain, clear, and earnest words and
commands of our Creator and Redeemer, without any doubts or
arguments as to how it is to be reconciled with our reason or how it
is possible. 6o
I hold that S0ren Kierkegaard read this passage too, and that the indica-
tions are quite strong that he had received guidance from it in his treat-
ment of Abraham in Fear and Trembling. The overall thrust of these
words is consistent with the perspective of the Confessions that the
Word of God is contrary to reason in its fallenness, but this tenet is spe-
cifically elaborated through the Abraham/Isaac story that is the central
theme of Fear and Trembling. Abraham's faith by virtue of the absurd

gives expression to the Formula of Concord's statement that natural,
blind reason cannot comprehend the Word of God.
Latent in the approach of the Confessions is the distinction that the
content of the Word of God cannot be comprehended, on the one
hand, because it is above or beyond human reason, since the latter is
created and finite, and, on the other hand, because human reason as
fallen becomes contrary to it. I doubt that Johannes de Silentio is con-
cerned with such a distinction in Fear and Trembling; rather, it is just
said of Abraham 'that the only thing that can save him is the absurd,
and this he grasps by faith'.61
Hamann has provided Kierkegaard more support and stimulus in
drawing out the implications of traditional Lutheranism for the reli-
gious sphere than any other modern author. Hamann was deeply
concerned with what he thought was the incommensurability between
Christianity and the dominant intellectual currents of the developing
modern world in the Enlightenment. Hamann is probably cited posit-
ively in Kierkegaard's publications more times than any other modern
writer. But as stingy as we have seen Kierkegaard to be concerning
references of indebtedness, there are several Hamannian themes which
are not noted by Kierkegaard in his books. Hamann's rather aphoristic
style of presentation did not work topics through fully enough for
Kierkegaard.
There are a number of important entries in Kierkegaard's journal
which pertain to how he sees the religious sphere in relation to the eth-
ical one, including the issue of rational comprehension. So he writes:
Hamann rightly declares: Just as 'law' abrogates 'grace', so 'to

comprehend' abrogates 'to have faith'. It is, in fact, my thesis. But in
Hamann it is merely an aphorism; whereas I have fought it through
or have fought it out of a whole given philosophy and culture and
into the thesis: to comprehend that faith cannot be comprehended
or (the more ethical and God-fearing side) to comprehend that faith
must not be comprehended. 62
For Kierkegaard, the absurd is the negative criterion for that which is
higher than human understanding and knowledge. 63 For that reason
the power of the absurd cannot become part of a system of thought.
One should not think that one can fit the manifestation of the heart of
God into the framework of human reason. Like Luther's phrase, the
mirror of God the Father's heart, Kierkegaard's 'the absurd' stretches
across the spectrm of redemption. In the Fragments and the Postscript

Johannes Climacus/Kierkegaard treats the absurd in terms of the paradox
that the Eternal has a beginning in time, or the Eternal becoming his-
torical, or a human being as God. The same paradox, beyond the scope
of reason, comes to the fore in the journal in respect to the doctrine of
the Atonement. Objective and speculative thought outside faith cannot
understand the satisfaction of the Cross. One must have an anguished
conscience and, as Luther says, be taught by revelation. 64 The real para-
dox, or the absurd, is that Christ came into the world in order to
suffer. 65 And further, beyond Christological language to the effect that
has the result, 'To believe the forgiveness of sins is a paradox, the absurd,
etc.,66 The full range of the Gospel comprises Kierkegaard's 'the absurd'.
It is beyond the scope of the purely human. God is present in the purely
human as Law as Judge William testifies. But God's relation in the Gos-
pel is very differenti the human is called upon to receive rather than to
accomplish. For one under the Law this is a paradox since the Law can-
not embrace it. Abraham in Fear and Trembling is the human paradigm
of the relation to this reason transcending reality. Therefore, Kierke-
gaard says that it is a misunderstanding to say that there is a conflict
between the absurd in Fear and Trembling, on the one hand, and
the absurd in the Fragments and the Postscript, on the other. Just as the
Lutheran Confessions appealed to Paul's treatment of Abraham as the
exemplar of faith in many places, so Kierkegaard says that: 'In the same
way according to the New Testament Abraham is called the father of
faith, and yet it is indeed clear that the content of his faith cannot be
Christian - that Jesus Christ has been in existence. But Abraham's faith
is the formal definition of faith. So it is also with the absurd.'67
Kierkegaard relates reason and the absurd in a manner that transposes
the situation of Law and Gospel into the framework of the former.
Again, he is stimulated here by Hamann: 'Hamann draws a most inter-
esting parallel between the law (Mosaic Law) and reason.'68 Therefore,
even though the Law (and reason) cannot embrace the Gospel (and the
absurd), the Law does prepare one for the Gospel. The absurd has its
setting in the context opened up by the anguish, the guilt, the despair
of the ethical sphere of existence, when the person in the latter reaches his
or her limits. The absurd is not just any piece of nonsense, but that
which is beyond and against reason that addresses the existential ques-
tions and realities of the ethical person. So Kierkegaard says, 'The absurd
is not the absurd or absurdities without any distinction. The absurd is a
category, and the most developed thought is required to define the
Christian absurd accurately and with conceptual correctness.,69
Kierkegaard speaks here of the 'Christian absurd', to refer to the

Gospel, but the journal makes the point on a number of occasions that,
for the believer, the Gospel is not absurd. 70 It is for the standpoint prior
to and outside of faith, for universal and immanent reasoning, that God
manifest in Jesus Christ, the work of atonement, and the forgiveness of
sin, is absurd. It is Johannes de Silentio and Johannes Climacus who
speak of the absurd and faith, and they both state that faith is not a
movement they themselves make. It is precisely the importance of the
journal that there one can find Kierkegaard reflecting directly on such a
matter. So he says: 'The absurd is the negative sign. When I believe,
then assuredly neither faith nor the content of faith is absurd. 0, no, no
- but I understand very well that for the person who does not believe
faith and the content of faith are absurd (and in doubt they begin to
become absurd for me).171
In this entire discussion of the Gospel and Kierkegaard's absurd, one
is moving in the religious sphere (or Religiousness B) in a way that is
sharply antithetical to Kanfs philosophy of religion. Kant's orientation
to the practical, ethical locus of religion can only carry him to the limits
of the ethical sphere. He sees our ethical duties as divine commands
consistent with the Law of God. He can speak of providence and the
rationality of an immortal destiny. God is affirmed as the ground of the
ethical who gives the possibility of hope. But Kant does not reach Kier-
kegaard's religious sphere of existence, the Gospel of the heart of God
in Christ which, for the consciousness prior to faith, is absurd. Kant
differentiates theoretical reason from practical reason, but practical
reason itself does not need any transformation. The transformation
must come in the Incarnation, atonement, and forgiveness of sin, in
such a manner that these become immanent dimensions of the moral
law. The Gospel as a very different reality does not sound forth. And as
a philosopher Kant does not think that it should. His is a philosophy of
religion as Law. But Kierkegaard thinks differently. The religious is a
new departure. He is a dialectical poet of the Gospel and the Law
together, although distinct.
Notes
1. S0ren Kierkegaard's Journal and Papers, ed. H. & E. Hong (Bloomington, Indi-
ana, 1967), #1550. Henceforth J&P.
2. Kant-Anekdoten, ed. Kurt Grau (Berlin, 1924), p. 40.
3. lames O'Flaherty, Johann Georg Hamann (Boston, 1979), p. 44.
4. Arsenij Gulyga, Immanuel Kant: His Life and Thought (Boston, 1987), p. 1
5. Karl Barth, Protestant Theology in the 19th Century (Valley Forge, PA, 19
p.267.
6. Kierkegaard's Philosophy of Religion (Princeton, 1949), pp. 121-45.
7. J&P, #6888; S('Iren Kierkegaard (New York, 1963), p. 72.
8. The Hidden Debt (Albany, NY, 1992), p. 31. Henceforth HD.
9. H. E. G. Paulus, Das Leben Jesu (Heidelberg, 1828); C. F. Ammon, Die Gesch
des Leben Jesu (1842).
10. G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, trans. E. Speirs and
Sanderson (New York, 1962), Vol. II, pp. 171-2. It is important to refE
this 1895 translation of the Mahrheinecke 1840 edition as that editio
the one Kierkegaard used. Henceforth LPR.
11. Either/Or, trans. W. Lowrie (Princeton, 1971), Vol. II, p. 173. Henceforth 1
12. The Vocation of Man, trans. W. Smith and R. Chisholm (New York, 19
pp. 23, 31, 84, 91.
13. The Concept of Anxiety (Princeton, 1980), p. 20. Henceforth, CA.
14. The Christian Faith (Philadelphia, 1976), p. 292. Henceforth, CF.
15. Ibid., p. 291.
16. Ibid.
17. CA, p. 25.
18. CF, p. 288.
19. CA, p. 80.
20. CF, p. 288.
21. CA, p. 28.
22. CF, p. 304.
23. CA, p. 33.
24. Ibid., p. 34.
25. J&P, #96.
26. Peter Rohde, S('Iren Kierkegaard (New York, 1963), p. 32.
27. The Book of Concord, ed. T. Tappert (Philadelphia, 1959), 'The Apology
Philip Melancthon, p. 103.
28. LPR, Vol. Ill, pp. 155-367.
29. HD, p. 152.
30. The Book of Concord, p. 408.317.
31. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. ]. T. McNeill (PI
delphia, 1960), Bk. II, ch. 7, ch. 8, #1-6; John Wesley's Fifty-Three Serm
ed. E. Sugden (Nashville, 1983), 'The Righteousness of Faith'.
32. Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. D. Swenson and W. Lowrie (Prt
ton, 1941), p. 347. Henceforth CUP.
33. Romans 2: 12f.
34. Romans 5: 13.
35. Romans 5: 20; 7: 7.
36. I Corinthians 2:14.
37. The Book of Concord, p. 29.
38. J&P, #795.
39. J&P, #48; CUP, p. 387.
40. The Book of Concord, p. 29.
41. HD, p. 221.
43. E/O, Vo!. II, p. 356.

44. CA, p. 16.
46. Ibid., p. 478.2.
47. Ibid., p. 114.49.
48. Ibid., p. 419.65.
49. Ibid., p. 114.48.
50. Ibid., p. 45.25; Cf. p. 159.337 and p. 473.6.
51. Ibid., pp. 595-6.
52. Ibid., p. 521.8.
53. Ibid., pp. 521-2.
54. Ibid., p. 492.4.
55. Fear and Trembling, trans. W. Lowrie (Princeton, 1968), p. 48.
56. Ibid., p. 38.
57. Ibid., p. 64.
58. HD, p. 203.
59. J&P, #259.
60. The Book of Concord, pp. 577-8.
61. Fear and Trembling, p. 57.
62. J&P, #1559.
63. J&P, #11.
64. J&P, #2461.
65. J&P, #3070.
66. J&P, #1215.
67. J&P, #12.
68. J&P, #1540.
69. J&P, #10.
70. J&P, #8.
71. J&P, #6598; the same pOint is found in #18.
s: I wrote as I did because I wanted to explore how a Christian thinker

would respond to Kant. Nothing I have said depends on an actual influ-
ence of Kant on Kierkegaard. But, having said that, I do think there is
a deep influence, bordering on unethical borrowing. Kierkegaard knew
Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone intimately, and refers to it
frequently. Even more important is The Conflict of the Faculties, Kant's
most mature statement. Kierkegaard copied it out. It stresses the follow-
ing in an ascending order of importance: sinfulness and ethics, human
redemption and grace, the meaning and point of a historically mediated
salvation. The symbol of a historically mediated faith is Abraham. It is
not introduced in a divine command theory. Kant rejects it in Religion
and The Conflict of the Faculties because it is historically based. Contrast
this with Kierkegaard's defence of Abraham. Kierkegaard wants to defend
a historically mediated faith.
In my dialogue there is a lopsidedness, since I make Kant more prom-
inent, with Kierkegaard waiting passively, ready to spring.
Kierkegaard accepts Kant's view of radical evil. He was amazed, aston-
ished, that his contemporaries didn't see what is being said in the claim
that human beings are radically corrupt. Kant's argument is brilliant in
this respect, and Kierkegaard is impressed.
The question is: What do you do about infinite guilt? This is the term
Kant uses, and he turns to the notion of divine grace. What is needed is
a renewed moral willing in spite of radical evil through divine grace. He
gives us the same thing in the second Critique. There, he gives up the
notion of eternal life as duration. He reasserts the importance of instant-
aneous moral striving. We have to re-think the second Critique and how
Kant matures on this point.
Moral re dedi cation is a sign of grace. Kant makes clear and Kierke-
gaard appreciates the fusion of the moral with a transcendent moral
ethic. The noumenal influences the phenomenal. The noumenal is seen
as infused in the rededicationi nature is complemented by grace. Moral
renewal is a sign of grace.
Kant rejects the language connected with a historical saviour. Christ
is demythologized. Christ becomes the exemplar of moral rededication.
Kant is concerned about two aspects of the notion of Christ as Redeemer.
First, he is concerned about its corrupting effects on morality. A God-man
178
is immune to our temptations and problems. His moral perfection

would be an acquitting excuse. Second, Kant is against easy grace.
Kierkegaard, in my dialogue, jumps on this weak argument. Christ's
triumph is what is morally salutary. So our failures are not given easy
grace. Christ both convicts and provides grace.
Kant holds that we don't need Christ's redemption because we have
everything we need in renewed moral resolution. But, as I pointed out,
Kierkegaard turns Kant's argument against itself: we can only speak of a
provision of divine grace in moral renewal if we accept that we have
received a revelation of the availability of such grace. But, then, he
brings out how they may apparently share certain things. Kierkegaard
had stressed that faith is objectively uncertain, and it seems that Kant,
too, removes faith from the realm of knowledge. For Kant, this forces us
back on the resources of faith. But then I have Kierkegaard reply that
uncertainty is not what is needed at the point where the individual
becomes convinced of his own depravity. The details of Christ's life are
what is needed as the starting-point of moral renewal. This is consistent
with Kant's insistence on a practical faith. I have Kant admitting that
these arguments are compelling, and that his fear of fanaticism may
have prevented him from giving them the attention they deserve. The
dialogue is really over at that point.
By turning Kant's points against himself, I try to bring out how Kant's
work can set the scene for a Christian argument like Kierkegaard's.
M: 5 says that his argument does not depend on there being any
actual influence of Kant on Kierkegaard. But in his preamble he lists
the influences, and it was this that led me to write my reply in the
way 1 did.
I agree with many points 5 makes in his dialogue, but I do not see
Kierkegaard as borrowing from Kant, and not at all as someone who
borders on borrowing unethically. This is not to deny that Kierkegaard
is influenced by Kant, but he is influenced by many others, too. Some-
times, where 5 sees the influence of Kant, I see the influence of Hegel,
Schleiermacher and Hamann, but I do not want to repeat these points
here. Rather, I want to make some general remarks about the dialogue
5 has written.
1 think Kierkegaard's polemical nature makes me doubt whether he
would be as ready to come as close to Kant as 5 suggests. Neither do
I think Kant would be as eager to accept S's modifications of his views
as 5 thinks.
In our intellectual climate it may be easy to think that as long as we have
a reference to God in some practical sense, that is religion. Kierkegaard
did not see it that way. Why not? Because the background to his thought
is Lutheran piety in which the law is extremely important. Judge William
is important because, despite being associated with the law, he does not
shy away from the importance of God. So when we make our twentieth-
century transitions, we ought to appreciate the tradition which Kierke-
gaard reflects.
So the movement from law to Gospel (see the title of my paper) is a
transition known in the orthodox tradition of Lutheran piety as the
Book of Concord. Kierkegaard's own education was of one going into
the Lutheran ministry. He completed the requirements of the seminary
after graduating from Copenhagen. In his Journals things come out of
the Lutheran Confession again and again. The religious notions of in-
carnation, atonement and forgiveness are taken, in his discussions, out
of the Lutheran Confession.
Yesterday's discussions turned to Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac. I am
indebted to 5 for emphasizing the importance of Kant's comments on
this in The Conflict of the Faculties. He thinks, however, that Kierkegaard
is responding to Kant in his discussion, whereas I think it has another
source.
When the Lutherans want to deny transubstantiation, they do not
think that the alternative is to talk of symbols and metaphors. They
think that is inadequate. As I show (on p. 172) it is at this point that
Kierkegaard invokes Abraham as an example of one who did not allow
reason to prevent him from believing God's promises. So the Luther-
ans do not turn away from saying 'This is my body' and 'This is my
blood'.
So Kierkegaard is deeply influenced by Lutheran orthodoxy, as that
passage about Abraham indicates. Most Enlightenment thinkers would
not be too keen on Abraham! So I have argued that Kierkegaard is insist-
ing on the importance of the relation of law to the Gospel in under-
standing these spheres of existence, rather than taking off from where
Kant left matters. Again and again the work of God is contrary to
reason, and in his Journals Kierkegaard says that it is unthinkable that
the Fall should not have affected man's cognitive as well as his moral
reason.
I have not emphasized my points of agreement with 5, and they are
many. Instead, I have concentrated on his emphasis on Judge William,
the Fragments, the first Critiqlle, and the point that reason raises ques-
tions which reason itself cannot answer. On the other hand, as I have
said, I found 5's discussion of The Conflict of the Faculties insightful.
But as to 5's main theme, I have suggested that the differences between
Kant and Kierkegaard are greater than he suggests, and that is due to the
Lutheran sources from which Kierkegaard drew his inspiration.
W: I appreciate the discussion, but how do you think its theological
categories could be adapted to the religious pluralism so evident to us in
California? Forgive me for taking matters off on a different track.
S: Of course, I did not address that issue at all. On the other hand,
I hoped to use Kant's Religion, not as a Christian apologetic, but as a
framework within which religion can be discussed. In other religions,
the same issues will arise, although they will be mediated differently.
I wanted to get outside narrow dogmatic limits and take seriously the
challenge from another camp, as it were.
P: I think that the notion of grace is central in the discussion. Why is it
absent in the second Critique, but found in Religion?
S: I think that Kant on grace is very much work in progress. There is no
hint of grace in the Critique. That it should come in Religion to a man of
over 80 is remarkable. Some have said that here we see Kant in his sen-
ility. Elsewhere, in the second Critique, Kant is convinced that we can
attain virtue by our own strivings. But at the beginning of Religion comes
an idea which he develops - that a single imperfection destroys our
moral worth. We are incapable of redeeming ourselves. Religion answers
our practical problems.
But at this point things get messy. We are offered no more than piece-
meal notions that are not worked out. At one pOint the divine comes in
the form of an intuition. God can put aside our single act with a time-
less insight of its significance which is beyond our means. There is no
good answer given to these questions. The task of philosophy and theo-
logy is to seek to understand these aspects of the problem.
M: Kant actually wrote the Religion when he was 69. One way Kant puts
his arguments is to say that if we do what we can, God will complete it.
That is a common view.
For Kierkegaard, on the other hand, grace has a different economy of
redemption. It is a different way of God's dealing with the world - a
contrast. We can't get that out of Kant.
L: I'm not sure that it is the task of theology to try to figure out the
operations of grace as Kant tries to do in Religion. Grace is just as much
of a mystery as evil. Is our need one for better arguments?
S: I disagree. We have to distinguish between the how of grace and free-
dom and the logic thereof. We can understand the logic of human evil;
we can understand how people can possess knowledge and yet feel the
pull of evil, putting their needs first. But how one or the other prevails is
impenetrable. Similarly, I can spell out the logic of divine sovereignty
in terms of the moral creator of the universe, but the how can't be
developed.
L: You say there's a logic to the Fall by saying that we have a deep pre-
disposition towards evil. But this reference to inclination does not
explain anything.
S: Experience leads to the postulation of what is necessary. But where
grace is concerned we simply do not have that. The logic of the situation
comes up against mystery.
N: I think S's answer to P's question would make no sense if Kant had
been brought up an atheist. But he, too, had a religious background.
Further, he was a private tutor in his twenties in the house of a local
pastor, and preached sermons in his twenties.
M: I appreciate that reference.
N: I do not think he changed his religious commitment. What changed
was his understanding of it. I do not think the radical nature of evil
dawned late on him. Rather, he had an architectonic conception of his
work - he moved from problem to problem. In the second Critique he
is not doing philosophy of religion. He is doing moral philosophy. He
is trying to reach a definition of morality, and to reach an answer to
the question, Why be moral?, if morality is what I've just experienced.
The few comments on religion are secondary to morality. It is because
of morality that we need religion.
0: I find what Kant says about grace to be coherent. S suggests that his
remarks are piecemeal. But isn't his maxim already present in the Stoic
maxim - we have to make ourselves what we are? That is in Kant's Reli-
gion as well. It is fully intelligible.
S: No, I disagree. 'The moral' is present in our normal experience. In the
'right' I find the reality of the 'can', and the completion of the 'can' is
grace. But every man must show himself worthy of grace by virtue of
his general moral disposition. It is at this point that Kierkegaard jumps
on the argument and attacks the duality of faith and morality.
0: We could make the whole thing consistent if we take the Stoic
maxim to refer to the law as it appears to us, rather than the law as it is.
I'm not suggesting that is how Kant put it.
S: But isn't moral renewal the answer?
E: Why is this whole discussion making me extremely uncomfortable?
It bases moral experience on legal concepts. As an Anabaptist I believe
that God created us as a parent, not as a judge. What God would con-
demn us for one misdemeanour?
G: In the second Critique the appeal to immortality is inconsistent with
the notion of self-sufficiency. The point is not that we need time to
improve. The real problem is that you find that the maxim on which
you have acted is corrupt. This is not a matter of one slip. It is about this
that one feels an infinite guilt. Why it happens and what to do in face
of it is a mystery.
5: One sin is a sin. It is childish people who say we need more.
E: I simply do not understand it. Why should one misdemeanour make
all the difference?
A: Well, it would for Kant and Kierkegaard. They differ in their responses
concerning the self. For Kant, the self is involved in a timeless Fall. For
Kierkegaard, the self is historical and relational. So for Kierkegaard a his-
torical religion is the means by which I become myself. Kant could not
respond to that without giving up his conception of the self.
S: That is a hard question to answer. I did not attempt to address his
whole philosophy, but only what might be called the anthropocentric
aspects of the problem. In the Religion evil is caused by my attitude to
others. It is only in connection with the ethical commonwealth that
any notion of a church enters his thought.
M: Strangely enough, however, Kant makes more of moral community
in the Religion than he does elsewhere. The burden of the book is on
man in history. By contrast, the one topic in the Lutheran Confession
that Kierkegaard keeps away from is that of the Church. So it could be
said that, in this respect, Kant makes the better attempt.
V: Kierkegaard goes back, not to the Church, but to primordial religious
experience. Kant, on the other hand, is continuing a rational tradition.
C: It is as though Kierkegaard were saying, 'Think like this about your
sins'. Why that way of thinking is available is, for the believer, a mys-
tery - a grace. Now this notion of mystery is not a second-best to know-
ledge. It is not like saying, 'How he lifted that infinite guilt off my
shoulders is a mystery to me, but he must have done it somehow.' That
makes it look as though we ought to be able to work it out, but cannot
because of our finitude. But that is simply a contingent mystery; some-
thing we happen not to know. But the mystery of grace is the mystery
of an undeserved gift - that I can be seen in that way. This is crucial to
the kind of gratitude grace inspires. It is not the gratitude of finding
someone who knows how something works when I do not.
M: Some say that Kierkegaard went in the direction he did because he
turned from the tradition he inherited from Kant. No, there is no natural
theology in the Lutheran tradition.
S: I cannot accept that Kierkegaard wanted to return to a primordial
religious experience. He is a sophisticated thinker and does not take the
side of primitive faith against philosophy.
It is also a mistake to class Kant with his predecessors. He is continu-

ally reviewing philosophy in relation to Biblical faith, although Kierke-
gaard does more in this respect.
What I want to emphasize is that we see here two thinkers who reach
the heights. They gave rise to thinkers of lesser stature who take us in
different directions. We need to return to Kant and Kierkegaard.
Part V
Eternal Life
9
Eternal Life
John H. Whittaker
The subject that I want to consider here is not simply eternal life in
Kant or Kierkegaard, but eternal life as it is properly understood in
Christianity. I am not proposing a new view of this subject but recalling
a concept that is often buried beneath commonplace religion and much
of traditional philosophy. Thus, I am not arguing that the view that
I want to uphold is the most popular, only that it is the one towards
which believers gravitate as their understanding deepens.
In spite of the fact that many Christians believe that eternal life
requires the immortality of the soul (as it is usually understood), I want
to suggest that it does not. Believers do, of course, speak of sharing in
the eternal life of God; so I am not questioning that. But the permanent
survival of a metaphysical soul-substance is not a necessary condition
for eternal life.
The difference between the temporal survival of a soul-substance and
a timeless conception of eternity can be illuminated by contrasting the
views of Immanuel Kant, who thought that a post-mortem extension of
life is required by morality, and S0ren Kierkegaard, who understood the
eternal in a perspective that is crucially linked to the concept of grace.
Grace, because it is promised in answer to the central difficulty of life -
the subjective task of finding, affirming or simply being oneself - repres-
ents an absolute solution to this essential problem of life because it
refers this difficulty to God, for whom all things are possible. Christianity
speaks of the peace that comes from living in the promise of such grace,
therefore, as something unconditional. Because it does not depend on
us (it cannot be earned), it is independent of time. And because it is
independent of time, it is eternal. Kant does not resort to the concept of
grace in such an unqualified way, and it is this fact, I want to argue,
that leads him to endorse a much different concept of the eternal.
187
Kant shared Kierkegaard's sense that the primary task of life was being
a self; yet for him self-affirmation depended on self-worth, and that was
something to be won by moral effort. Moreover, since self-worth can-
not be fully established in this life, then it must, he reasoned, be attain-
able in some sort of future life. That is the crucial point. We have every
reason to believe in such a life because we know that we cannot be obli-
gated to do something that we cannot possibly accomplish; and since
the moral ideals of practical reasoning require perfect compliance,l it
follows that the moral effort needed to attain this perfection must
somehow continue beyond the conditions of this life. Practical reason,
therefore, has no alternative: there must be some sort of life beyond the
grave, since the necessity of this on-going life is simply the con-
sequence of insisting that moral perfection must be attainable.
Kierkegaard also starts from this same uncompromising insistence on
proving one's moral worth, which is a moral condition for an indi-
vidual's self-affirmation. But he takes our failures here more seriously
than Kant, despairing of our capacity to reach the goal of moral perfec-
tion. For such worthiness is not self-generated. Believers speak of this
worth as something that enables them to stand before God because
they have a moral acceptability that does not belong to them by right.
So instead of understanding eternal life as an endless extension of
temporal existence - that is, as a set of new circumstances in which we
might have the chance to fulfil the demands of the moral law - Kierke-
gaard understands moral worthiness as something that only becomes
clear when one accepts oneself in the light of a gratuitous permission.
This means that eternal life for Kierkegaard is intelligible only through
a metabasis in all geno,Z a fundamental change in the way that we think
of ourselves. To accept the promise of grace is to cease thinking that
people have to secure their moral worth by their own efforts. Rather
than being a reward attained as a result of moral achievement, grace is a
satisfaction acquired in the midst of striving. It is in fact an eternal gift
that brings with it an absolute victory over time.
Kierkegaard's teaching is nothing new, being little more than a
restatement of Christianity's teachings about eternal life. But there is still
value in being clear, and the contrast with Kant might help to illuminate
Kierkegaard's clarification of this central religious concept.
The central point of Kant's moral philosophy is well known. If anyone

is to qualify as morally good, he or she must be motivated only by the
Kant and Kierkegaard on Eternal Life 189
concern for the moral law as such. Thus, a person who is morally virtu-
ous must not afford any natural or selfish motivations a role in deter-
mining either the content of his duty or the motivation to comply with
it. That, in fact, is what the moral goodness of one's will is: acting solely
for the sake of moral ends, where the goodness of one's will is deter-
mined by respect for the moral law itself. This does not mean that
moral living reqUires the extinction of a person's natural motivations.
These natural incentives remain as subordinate motives, and their satis-
faction is ultimately as important to our happiness as the fulfilment of
our moral obligations. The ultimate end of life, therefore, is not merely
the attainment of a clear conscience (moral contentment), but the
achievement of a higher good that includes both moral self-satisfaction
and fulfilment of natural desire. For Kant this was axiomatic: reason
demands that the most complete conception of the good (the summum
bonum) be approached through virtue and then rounded out with the
satisfaction of one's wishes. 3
The exact relationship between reason, the hope of happiness, and
the moral determination of the will is difficult to state. One could say
that specifically moral reasoning finds its end in duty alone, whereas
reasoning in general allows natural incentives their due in the reward
that must crown virtue. Or one might say that the happiness that
comes from the satisfaction of natural desires only comes into focus
when one ceases to think about duty as an individual agent and
reflects on the highest end of all agents. In any case, the determination
of one's behaviour must pass through the purifying screen of morality
before happiness can be acknowledged as a motive for practical reason.
For we are obligated to pursue our duties without the idea of an ulter-
ior reward serving as a higher incentive, and only when moral ends
receive priority does it make any sense to speak of reconciling moral
incentives with happiness. Once that point has been made, however,
happiness is to be included in the sum of all goods, the summum
bonum. 4
If the reward of natural happiness is ever to be squared with the
attainment of moral worth, however, there must be a power capable of
remaking the natural conditions of life (the world) so that virtuous
behaviour leads to non-moral rewards. This presumes, again, that the
attainment of moral virtue is pOSSible, since we would not hold ourselves
responsible for achieving such a moral end if this were not possible. Yet
under the conditions of this life, happiness is not apportioned to virtue,
and the perfecting of our moral will seems to be an utterly unrealistic
hope. Only if the conditions of this life are extended, therefore - and
only if these worldly conditions are transformed - can happiness be

properly apportioned to virtue.
One might say that the ideal of jointly satisfying all obligations is
needlessly severe, perhaps even unintelligible. Yet for Kant, the ideal of
perfecting oneself morally by perfecting one's will (devoting it entirely
to duty) was an a priori necessity of practical reasoning. Turning aside
from the obligation, Biblically expressed in Christ's command, 'be ye
perfect', could only mean blunting one's conscience. True, we cannot
be sure that the long-term consequences of our actions will always be
morally desirable, but we are nevertheless bound to be perfect in our
intentions. Kant saw no other alternative: we are obliged to be perfect in
the disposition of our will, and the achievement of this end must lie
within our powers.
Kant therefore felt constrained to admit two famous postulates: (1)
that there must be a power (God) capable of transforming the natural
conditions of worldly existence, so that happy circumstances in this
transformed world are the natural consequences of exercising a good
will, and (2) that we must be able to realize this end, even though this
reqUires us to live beyond the grave. It is the second of these two postu-
lates that interests us here, since it is this conception of immortality
that governs much of Kant's thinking about eternal life.
The idea of such immortality, once again, is captured in the hope of
making 'endless progress [toward] complete fitness'.s This hope neces-
sarily includes the survival of an enduring personality, so that the
person who continues in this infinite progression toward perfect virtue
is the same person who wills the good under the finite conditions of
this life. 6 Not only does this on-going survival of the essential personality
(the seat of the will) make the attainment of moral worth possible,
it also defines the conditions under which one might be entitled to a
suitable reward. Indeed, that is largely what worthiness is for Kant, the
entitlement to a reward. 7
One might wonder, of course, whether moral agents really need
rewards. Isn't the self-satisfaction implicit in doing the right thing suffi-
cient in itself? Kant seems never to have taken this thought very seriously.
He acknowledges a pleasantness in being morally content with doing
what is right, but he does so only to warn against taking the desire for
such contentment as a governing motive in the deliberation of moral
issues. s His point is that moral contentment cannot provide the reward
that reason expects to come as a consequence of virtue. Happiness,
then, must consist of more than a clear conscience, which means that it
must be tied to external satisfactions. Such happiness, in fact, is simply
... the condition of a rational being in the world, in whose whole

existence everything goes according to wish and will. It thus rests on
the harmony of nature with his entire end and with the essential
determining ground of his will. 9
To have this kind of happiness is to enjoy the satisfaction of one's

natural incentives - the very ones that must be subordinated to
the moral motivation of doing one's duty for its own sake. These desires
- at least those that are morally permissible - must eventually be satis-
fied. For again, that is what happiness is: the satisfaction of those
natural desires that have been screened by morality. The latter condition
prevents selfish desires from being heedlessly pursued. Yet those per-
missible desires that have been subordinated only out of respect for
the moral law return as demands that must be satisfied in the summum
bonum.
The only restriction, again, is that one's inclinations or desires must
be prioritized in accordance with the moral law. Nevertheless, the ideal
of complete happiness demands that these lesser desires be remembered
and satisfied, if not under the conditions of this life, then under the
divinely ordered conditions of life in a world to come. IO In this way, the
possibility that one might become deserving of a reward is correlated
with the hope of happiness. A divine power is postulated in order to
ensure this linkage between virtue and happiness, and immortality is
the delay needed to allow those who are morally earnest in this life to
make themselves, as it were, perfectly pleasing to God. Apart from the
hope that we might eventually become perfect in this way, there is no
hope that we might ever attain that highest good in which virtue and
happiness coincide.
Only one qualification remains to be made. To this point I have writ-
ten as if Kant's conception of eternal life were the same as his con-
ception of immortalitYi that is, as if eternal life were the same as the
on-going temporal survival of the personality after death. Yet there is
good reason to believe that this conception of temporal immortality is
to be taken with a grain of salt. Not only is the temporal continuation
of the soul after death inconceivable for pure (as opposed to practical)
reason; but in one of his later essays, Kant speaks of eternity as a state of
timelessness in which change is unthinkable. l l These two conceptions
of the afterlife (as continuation and change, versus timelessness and the
absence of change) are difficult to reconcile. On the one hand, the
requirement that we become morally perfect, since it is not accomp-
lished in this life, requires some kind of supplementary conditions in
which the eventual realization of this goal is made possible. So Kant

suggests that after death people of good will might continue to improve
in a noumenal realm, which somehow permits change and develop-
ment to occur in the absence of worldly time. But on the other hand,
this development must come to an end when moral perfection is
attained, so that 'time' ceases and absolute stability - stasis - sets in.
That, rather than mere survival, represents the final end of life. For time
must somehow culminate in eternity. 12
Kant was aware of these difficulties. The changelessness or timeless-
ness envisioned as the culmination of moral progress sounds to most
people like annihilation. Yet it must be willed and so it is represented as
an eternal reward or as eternal life. He offers no explanation of what it
might be like to pass from the world of time, or from the noumenal
afterworld in which moral progress is to be imagined, to the world of
the eternal. Yet these theoretically imponderable ideas must be affirmed,
otherwise the obligation to pursue perfect duty would not be fully intel-
ligible to moral reason.
In the end, Kant can only trust that the good intentions formed in
this life will carry through to the next, where success in the pursuit of
virtue will somehow be added to success until perfect virtue is
achieved, whereupon an unimaginable form of infinite and perfectly
complete well-being will be attained. Meanwhile, one might be reason-
ably sure in counting oneself victorious in the present, as if the good-
ness of one's will counted for the ideal perfection that can only be
hoped for. 13 As long as one can assume some degree of steadiness in
one's will - and this assumption is a big 'if' - one can claim a future
share in God's kingdom even though one is unworthy of such a bless-
ing in the present. 14
Nay more: if after this life another life awaits him, he may hope to
continue to follow this course still- though to all appearances under
other conditions - in accordance with the very same principle, and
to approach even nearer to, though he can never reach, the goal of
perfection. All this may he reasonably hope because, on the strength
of what he has observed in himself up to the present, he can look
upon his disposition as radically improved ... [In this] experience we
have a glimpse of an immeasurable future, yet one which is happy
and to be desired. IS
No one can understand exactly what the 'immeasurable future' that

awaits the virtuous is, but that is to be expected. For Kant, the functional
equivalent of this immeasurable future (eternity) ultimately refers to the

supersensible or noumenal world where it lies beyond telling. Mean-
while, we must live, and from the standpoint of conscience and the
moral management of our lives, we must assume that the yet-unrealized
goal of moral striving will somehow find its realization, first in the hope
of continuing moral improvement, and then eventually in a perfection
of an absolute and unimaginable finality.
II
Much of Kierkegaard's writing revolves around the same themes that

absorbed Kant's interest - moral achievement as a condition of self-
worth. Yet Kierkegaard found a resolution for the difficulties of this in a
form of thinking that Kant seemed unable to understand or to accept.16
To understand Kierkegaard - which, as he would say, is simply to under-
stand Christianity - one has to change the perspective in which one
contemplates this struggle for moral self-affirmation. That change
comes about because of the way that the concept of grace alters this
struggle, obviating the necessity of construing happiness as a result of
moral conditions. Grace, in short, cancels the need to establish one's
virtue as a condition of one's worth, and cancels, with this, the need for
temporal immortality.
Thus, for Kierkegaard, eternity is no longer imagined as endless dura-
tion. It is 'an idle, indolent, and effeminate thought', he writes, 'to wish
for a life after death in the sense of a long life'Y That hope is the hope
of an aesthete, and the transformation that one undergoes in becoming
a Christian deprioritizes such hopes along with every other worldly
ambition. Aesthetic desires can also be described as temporal desires
because they depend on the possibility of change and the entry into
new circumstances. The satisfaction of these desires, moreover, is con-
tingent, since we are not entirely responsible for the circumstances that
spell out this kind of satisfaction. Fate, accident or mere chance have at
least as much to do with the pleasant or unpleasant situations in which
we find ourselves. Spiritual happiness, on the other hand, does not
exhibit this kind of dependence. Rather than being subject to the mercies
of fate, this kind of happiness is an inner possession that enables people
to adjust even to the worst of circumstances. Thus, eternal life does not
consist of unending temporal endurance, as if those who participated in
eternal life were never to lack a future and never to miss new joys
brought to them in time. No, eternal life as a form of happiness is more
secure than that.
As Kierkegaard puts it,
eternity is not like a new world, so that one who had lived in time
according to the ways of the time world and of the press of busyness,
if he were to make a happy landing in eternity itself, could now try
his luck in adopting the customs and practices of eternity. 18
In eternity, there are no 'customs' and there is no 'busyness'. There are

no means at all by which one's wishes are brought to fulfilment, since
eternity is removed from all striving and gaining and succeeding. Yet
Christianity still promises eternal life and still speaks of this life as joy.
Once again, though, the happiness of possessing eternal life is not
dependent on external circumstances, as if it were a matter of being in a
heavenly place that makes one happy. Instead, it depends on an inward
satisfaction that has gained a victory over such concerns.
There is no way to understand this concept of eternal happiness except
by altering the way we think about ourselves, our worth, and our moral
endeavours. Whereas Kant imagined there being a coincidence of moral
effort and natural satisfaction under the new conditions of an afterlife,
Kierkegaard despaired of such confidence. Instead of representing per-
fect happiness as an external reward that comes with circumstances
established by God, he saw it as an inward form of self-satisfaction that
can only be received as if it were a gift. Because this conception of happi-
ness comes as an aspect of grace, it transforms the conception of the
moral struggle that leads up to it. In effect, it makes eternal life into a kind
of absolute satisfaction that is no longer dependent on the hope of tem-
poral immortality. Grace, that is, gives people a kind of happiness that
they cannot hope for as a consequence of proving their worth but one
which is accepted in satisfaction of this inner need for self-worth. And
grace satisfies this inner need for self-worth absolutely, because it is not an
achievement that depends on us but is a gift from an all-sufficient power.
All this, of course, is what we need to understand. We get some idea
. of what the eternal might mean as an absolute notion because we all
know that a time is coming when we will have no more time, when the
opportunity for change, improvement, growth, etc. will have passed.
When that moment comes, our earthly lives will be over and we will
changelessly (i.e. eternally) be what we have been, since the whole span
of our lives will then be caught in the irrevocableness of the past.
Thinking about ourselves from this paint of view, we want to know
what our lives will have amounted to when they are completed wholes.
What will we have been when the time to change has passed? There is
something of the eternal in such reflections because the judgements

that we pass on ourselves from this perspective loom with the absolute-
ness of unchangeable verdicts. 19
That is why Kierkegaard follows Christian practice in speaking of the
eternal as a judge who comes to separate the just from the unjust. 20 It is
not so much that there is a being who will judge us, or that there is a
particular day of judgement that will come; it is only that the spectre of
an unwelcome finality looms over our own self-assessment. One does
not have to believe in Christianity to know what this means. Those
who are struggling to find themselves acceptable before the judgement
bar of their own conscience know that, as long as the struggle for self-
worth is going on, the verdict is not in. Change is possible. Perhaps one
will be a better person, worthy in one's own eyes, tomorrow. Yet it is
always the eleventh hour for us. The gavel will soon fall, sealing our
unhappy relation to ourselves with an absolute closure. 21
Given such a threat, how does the eternal comfort anyone? The
answer is that it does not, not as the thought of an irrevocable finality.
Before the eternal can be seen as eternal lire, it must be transformed into
something that conveys the thought of absolute well-being rather than
the threat of final judgement. Here, though, there are two possibilities.
Either eternal, timeless, satisfaction depends on conditions that must
first be fulfilled, in which case it becomes an end to be reached by diligent
effort (Le. by moral earnestness). Or, it must be imagined as something
that arises in the absence of this kind of means-end thinking. Kant's
moral reasoning moved almost entirely within the first of these altern-
atives. Kierkegaard's, I am suggesting, presumed the latter conception.
For Kierkegaard, in other words, the attainment of the eternal life
bypasses the means-end thinking in which we resolve to achieve our well-
being by establishing our worth. The kind of satisfaction that is eternal,
in fact, resembles the sense that comes with the fulfilment of an absolute
task. But since this fulfilment does not come from the effort to bring it
about (Le. by pursuing means to that end), it does not depend on achieve-
ment for its actualization. The eternal comes to us from without, as it
were, and waits only to be actualized by faith - which is to say, by a rad-
ical change in the way that one understands and affirms oneself. This,
of course, is exactly what happens in Christianity, where well-being is
given by grace and represents the absolute peace that ends all despairing
efforts to make ourselves morally worthy of a reward. Kant, though,
thought that this peace depended on struggle, requiring us ultimately to
prove our moral worth so that we might thereby attain the position of
people who deserve their own affirmation and God's rewards as well.
Kierkegaard was not so optimistic. He thought one must relinquish the

project of moral self-justification and accept oneself as if one's worth
were graciously guaranteed by another power. All sorts of corollaries
must be added to this basic idea to protect it from misunderstanding.
But for now the point to be emphasized is the fact that this represents
a fundamental departure from the strict confines of moral reasoning.
To think that self-affirmation is made possible for us, apart from the
effort to become worthy of it, divorces happiness from moral achieve-
ment, which for Kant was unthinkable. 22 Only grace - something
that lies outside of moral reasoning - assures the acceptability of the
unworthy in that way.
To understand Kierkegaard's conception of eternal life as an aspect of
grace, therefore, one must realize that it represents the adoption of what
one might call a transmoral perspective. Too many readers think that
Kierkegaard advocated the misleading idea that faith in divine grace
requires a leap into absurdity. In fact, however, he spoke of the adop-
tion of religious ideas as a metabasis in all gena; Le. as a transition into
another framework of judgement. We find such leaps throughout our
thinking. Children, for example, commonly make 'leaps' of this sort as
they learn to apply moral considerations to the run of their desires.
Prior to the acquisition of moral concepts, the subordination of the
child's natural desires to moral considerations makes no sense. What
does make sense is the question, 'what's in it for me?' Since this ques-
tion does not anticipate anything more than a self-serving or strictly
prudential answer, though, the one who insists on justifying behavi-
oural policies from this point of view has yet to enter into the sphere of
distinctively moral judgement.
The necessity of making just this kind of transition is a theme in Kier-
kegaard's Either/Or, in which an aesthete is indirectly challenged to
'choose himself'. To choose oneself means to demote one's aesthetic
desires in the interest of winning selfhood, and thus to 'leap' out of
aesthetic (prudential) reasoning and to place oneself under moral norms
. that make a new sense of self-worth possible. In Kantian terms, the
young man of Either/Or was invited to surrender his unqualified desir-
ing and enter into practical reasoning about the demands of duty. For
until making this fundamental transition, he could not appreciate the
axiomatic status that the categorical imperative has as a principle of
moral reasoning. All this is to say that there is little to justify such a fun-
damental moral principle from a non-moral or solely prudential point
of view. One needs to have made a moral transition already; only then
do basic moral principles stand fast as reasonable commitments. Yet in
spite of the fact that this sort of transition is presumed (not justified) by
reasoning, most of us still think that the acceptance of basic moral prin-
ciples is eminently sensible. They are anything but leaps into an absurd
domain of thought. 23
The difference here between Kant and Kierkegaard does not concern
the rationality of 'choosing the ethical', then. While this particular
transition from one type of reasoning to another (a metabasis in all gena)
is not forced by argument and thus remains a choice, neither is it irra-
tional in the sense of being inappropriate. The question is, are there any
further changes that define the framework in which judgement is cast
that are as appropriate as this one? Kant thought that no further leaps
were needed, since religious ideas are but extensions of ideas already
implicit in practical (moral) reasoning. For Kierkegaard, though, another
metabasis in all gena must be negotiated before a person can rest from
the labours of becoming a self. This second metabasis (which remains a
choice, not only because it cannot be said to follow from objective con-
siderations, but also because it requires a transformation in one's person)
is the entry into the world of faith, premised on the morally unaccount-
able notion of grace.
Earlier I said that bringing the whole of one's life under the concept
of grace stands outside of the means-end thinking that dominates
Kant's morality. Remember that Kant thought that we had to accept
some form of on-gOing (though noumenal) life beyond the grave
simply because the ultimate end of life, not only perfect virtue but the
good that attends it, must be achievable. Yet those who believe in grace
cease thinking of their ultimate worth and well-being as an end to be
attained as a result of what they do. That is what the belief in grace is all
about: one's worth is underwritten from without, the task of becoming
oneself does not have to be achieved as a project but accepted as a gift,
and the hope for final peace therefore does not rest with oneself. Under-
lying this change in the way one thinks about moral projects is the
subjective quest to be made whole, to become oneself. This quest
might not sound like much, since most of us are not sufficiently earnest
about such things. We avoid strenuous or conscientious reflection about
ourselves and our duties, managing to forget past failures and to get
on with our lives, as if our wholeness as persons were hardly affected.
The more earnestly that we 'choose ourselves', however, the more honest
we become about our failures to live up to the ideal that we would have
ourselves to be; and the inevitable result is inner division within our-
selves. Then we can no longer excuse ourselves by forgetfulness; we have
'chosen ourselves' - chosen, that is, to live up to moral ideals - and the
only thing that we have to blame for our failures is ourselves. Conse-
quently, if we are honest with ourselves, we cannot escape the respons-
ibility for our acts or the guilt that goes with them. Here it is our own
will that is at fault. Yet how can this will be repaired so that our inner
dissatisfaction with ourselves can be overcome? Can this be accomp-
lished by renewed effort, or is there another way?
This question arises in a particularly sharp way for Kant because of
the unpredictable and inscrutable nature of the will. The will, as he put
it, is radically evil, not in the sense that every act of will is morally
blemished, but in the sense that the good orientation of the will remains
unaccountably subject to the diversion of other motivations. The possib-
ility of wrongdoing therefore cannot be ruled out even for the most
ardent moralist. And yet this possibility must be eliminated if one is to
attain the purely good will that both Kant and Kierkegaard require. 24
Again, therefore, we have to ask ourselves how our worth might be
re-established once we have fallen short of what our duty requires.
What is to prevent us from falling short in the future?
Here is where the difference that separates Kant's understanding of
Christianity from Kierkegaard's stands out. Kant thought that amend-
ments in one's will could always be made simply by repentance. To repent
for him was to acknowledge responsibility for one's wrongdoing and to
reaffirm one's efforts to escape from the ego-centred habit of enshrining
prudential motives above those of duty. This sort of repentance suppos-
edly makes amends for past wrongdoings because it involves the suffer-
ing humiliation of the ego. 25 But for Kant - and this is the important
point - repentance makes these amends without the need for forgive-
ness. For on his view a repentant will is able to accomplish its own
cleansing despite the inscrutable ground of its own repeated failures. 26
It is helpful to think of Kierkegaard as starting from this same diffi-
CUlty. Can it make any sense to absolve oneself of past misdeeds simply
by repenting? Similarly, can one know that one's morally renewed
intentions will lead to perfect virtue, if only one is given an endless
opportunity to prove one's worth? Kierkegaard disagreed with Kant
about this. Mere repentance (without forgiveness) does not atone for
anything, since that kind of repentance simply focuses one's awareness
on the weight of one's sins. Such repentance might indeed restore the
goodness of one's intentions, but it takes more than this to heal the
painful disrelationship within the self that is caused by guilty conscience.
ror that, gUilt must be removed. Sins must be remembered in order to
be repented, but then they must be washed away. Any attempt to under-
stand Christianity apart from the morally offensive possibility of sheer
forgiveness, therefore, is a desperate attempt to cover over the depth of

the problem created by the corruptible nature of the will. This is the
deep problem that the effort to prove oneself worthy founders on. One
either tries to forget one's moral failures and thus relaxes the rigorous
demands of duty, and hence never inwardly attains the perfect selfhood
envisioned in virtue; or one intensifies the effort to become truly virtu-
ous, only to realize that success requires impossible guarantees about
the future of a radically evil will. 27
The cure that Christianity proposes requires believers to die to the
world and to find in God a new way of affirming themselves. Dying to
the world means not only giving up the hope of earthly, temporal, pleas-
ures (what Kierkegaard called aesthetic satisfactions); it also means
dying to the hope of ever establishing one's moral worth in the first
place. As one dies to this hope of moral self-justification, one gives up
the means-end thinking that portrays happiness as something to be
achieved, if not in this world then in some kind of noumenal world to
come. Ultimate happiness (eternal happiness) is not something to be
achieved in this way. It is not a product of effort. We have to die to the
thought that ultimate happiness is there for our taking. Dying to the
notion that there are means to this end - means within our power - is
the further metabasis in all gena that opens the door to Christian con-
ceptions of our well-being. The peace that restores well-being within
the self is to be received rather than earned, so that, again, one becomes
restored to selfhood by virtue of a morally gratuitous permission. 28
By contrast, grace for Kant was nothing more than the extension of
credit whereby unworthy sinners hope to count themselves worthy
even though the bill of righteousness is yet to be paid. 29 It is true that
he speaks of grace sometimes as something which is supplied from
above (i.e. from God); but then, lest anyone relax the effort to improve
morally, he goes on to say that this way of speaking cannot be allowed
to have any practical effect. 30 Accordingly, the belief in grace dissolves
into the hopefulness that might be discovered in a reformed and per-
sistent will. Indeed, Kant thought that to give up this way of reducing
grace to renewed moral striving would open the way towards immoral-
ity and selfishness. 31
Thus, Kant asks himself whether we should start 'with a faith in what
God has done on our behalf, or with what we are to do to become
worthy of God's aSSistance', and he answers unequivocally in favour of
the ~econd alternative. The fir~t, he says, cannot even be made compre-
hensible from a moral point of view. 32 It only undermines the purity of
the will. This answer, though, is tantamount to admitting that grace
brings with it no fundamental transformation in one's moral disposi-

tion. Grace renews this disposition, yes; but it does not change it.
Kierkegaard, however, thought of grace as something whose accept-
ance entails a wholesale change in the way that morality is understood.
To explain this, one needs to reject the dilemma that troubled Kant.
Kant thought that one must denature the concept of grace, as it were, so
that its only real implications concern the necessity for moral striving.
Either that or one must accept the morally disastrous effects of full-
blown grace. But this, as Kierkegaard makes clear, is a false dilemma.
The acceptance of grace has nothing whatever to do with the relaxation
of moral effort. Grace functions only to break the connection between
moral achievement and self-affirmation, which means that the strenu-
ousness of the moral life remains a 'subordinate determinant' of faith. 33
It remains a subordinate determinant because this effort is necessary to
appreciate the promise of grace, so that the possibility of grace arises
only in the context of such strenuousness. Hence, one must as 'strenu-
ously as possible give expression to works' in one's life - 'and then one
thing more is required: that one humble oneself and admit, "But none-
theless I am saved by grace.",34 Grace, then, does not put an end to
moral effort. It is added to that effort as something that transmutes the
pressure that is placed on the prospect of success, and yet it does this
without altering the underlying moral direction of the will. Grace
restores morally earnest people to themselves, not through the moral
renewal that comes with repentance (as Kant would have it), but
through the acceptance of a gratuitous permission to be themselves as
they strive to live moral lives. Believers consider themselves to be accepted
by grace, in other words, as people trying to lead moral lives. That does
not change the moral direction of the will; it only frees them from the
desperate inner struggle for selfhood that hangs over their lives.
III
We still need to explain, however, how such different views of grace

and its relation to moral effort affect the notion of eternal life. Kierke-
gaard disagrees with a Kantian view of these matters in at least three
crucial respects. (1) For him, true happiness does not consist of the satis-
faction of natural desires (which are to be sacrificed in dying to the
world) but of another kind of joy altogether. This joy - or perhaps it
would be better to say peace - consists of being absolutely acceptable in
being who one is. (2) Even though moral strenuousness is required
to appreciate the promise of such peace, it does not depend solely on
ourselves, our powers, or our struggles with the world. It comes to us

from without, that is, from God. But this means that (3) no extension of
time beyond the grave is needed to bring people to eternal life, since
eternal life is but an aspect of an unaccountable and unconditional
acceptance that can neither be secured nor lost by temporal change.
Thus, the whole conception of one's ultimate well-being undergoes a
change in Kierkegaard's eyes. A moral person struggles to subordinate
worldly aims to moral considerations, yet this effort also reflects an
inward desire for self-affirmation. Kant called this inward aim the goal
of establishing one's worth, whereas Kierkegaard described it as a matter
of being able to reside transparently within oneself. 35 But these are
essentially different formulations for the same problem, which was that
moral seriousness required people to live up to moral ideals under the
sanction of self-acceptance. Yet it is this underlying effort to affirm
oneself that Kierkegaard (as one more in a long line of Christian teach-
ers) thought could not be satisfied by being self-secured. One does not,
in other words, establish one's right to self-affirmation (one's moral
worth): that is not the manner in which this essential task of life is to be
realized. The inner conflicts of this struggle for selfhood are satisfied
only by grace, and the faithful must therefore turn over themselves to
something that escapes their calculation of merit. That is what it means
to live in the promise of unconditional acceptance. One lives 'in grace',
or 'in God', not by abandoning moral ideals themselves, but by aban-
doning them as measures for one's own self-acceptance.
One must believe, of course. Otherwise one will not inhabit
the promise of Christianity. But the necessity of actualizing this prom-
ise through faith is not the stipulation of yet another norm for self-
judgement. Rather than representing another hurdle that one must leap
on the way towards establishing one's right to a reward, faith is the
means of trusting in one's acceptability even though one does not
measure up according to any standards. This setting aside of moral rules
as standards of self-worth shows not only what a metabasis in all gena
comes to here. It also explains why there is something eternal about the
life that depends on the promise of grace. Because eternal life does not
depend on any kind of normative judgement about what one deserves,
it is not dependent on prior moral conditions. Such conditions are
required only if one is to measure one's progress towards the moral ideal.
But no conditions are relevant if the goal of absolute self-affirmation is
unconditionally available. Yet again, that is what grace is, the gift of
unconditional acceptance, which restores one completely to oneself.
This restoration to selfhood is eternal because it is absolute, and it is
absolute because it is both the highest end of human life and is satisfied
without being made dependent on the condition of human moral
strength. Eternal life, so to speak, is boundless - free of all temporal con-
ditions - because it comes from God, according to his mercy.
In the life of Socrates, we see a similar example of what it means to
abide in unconditional confidence; and it is illuminating to compare
Socrates' thoughts about the eternal with those of Kierkegaard. As Soc-
rates was on the verge of being condemned to death, he told his jurors
that he could not be harmed. He was not making an empirical boast;
he was saying that no matter what they did to him (and he knew that
they could kill him) his suffering would not amount to harm in compar-
ison to a peace that was already his. He had this peace because he had
shifted his sense of what mattered from worldly advantages to the
inward integrity of living wholeheartedly for what is good and true.
By so doing, he had placed himself beyond the reach of ordinary mis-
fortune. No events in his life, including his death, could disturb this
kind of inward self-satisfaction.
According to D. Z. Phillips, such transparent self-acceptance comes
from seeing oneself from a timeless or eternal point of view. Socrates,
Phillips says, did not assess himself from 'in the midst of life', where
concerns over the past and anxiety of the future might worry him.
Instead, he saw himself sub specie aeternitatis, as if his life were a com-
pleted whole. The judgements that he made about himself from that
point of view had the air of finality. Yet this finality was not fearful for
Socrates because he had devoted himself entirely to the good, and as
long as he remained fixed on that, he was sure that he was living as
worthily as he possibly could. That made his relationship to himself
secure from the disasters that time might bring, and in that sense,
eternally secure. 36
It might be argued that Socrates still expected a life spent in the pur-
suit of the good to continue beyond the grave, since he did, after all,
argue for the immortality of the soul. But I think that his arguments,
like the colourful visions that accompanied his last teachings, were
figurative expressions of his absolute security. In other words, they do
not have to be read as the supporting arguments for his confidence, as if
he first assured himself of the soul's immortality before deciding to pur-
sue the good. The confidence that he came to in devoting himself to
virtue was prior to such speculative ideas. When he described his beliefs
as myths, he was not counting on the literal truth of what he was trying
to communicate. 3 ? Instead, he presented his confidence in imaginary
pictures because he was sure only of one thing - that the integrity of
his life could not be undone as long as he devoted himself honestly,

humbly and persistently to his vision of the good.
Unlike Socrates, both Kant and Kierkegaard knew that being devoted
to the good is not the same as having proved one's worth, and this does
not change when one considers oneself from an eternal point of view. It
is not the concern for the good that matters, therefore, but the concern
for oneself that is bound up with this. That is why failures to do the
good are of such crucial importance for Kant as well as Kierkegaard. We
are all appointed to become selves, Kierkegaard said, and the effort to
overcome the moral blemishes that prevent solidarity with ourselves is
the principal difficulty of life. 38 So if we cannot live in harmony with
ourselves - and we cannot once sin has interrupted the moral effort to
prove oneself worthy - then we cannot achieve the inner peace that is
the higher end of our struggles.
For Kierkegaard the only hope is that the sanctions attached to living in
perfect conformity to moral ideals be lifted, and that morally troubled
individuals be allowed to reside in themselves by virtue of a completely
gratuitous permission. From a strictly moral point of view, this permis-
sion makes no sense, since it makes no connection between one's
moral acceptability and one's moral worth. But that is precisely why
it involves a metabasis in all gena. It belongs to a different grammat-
ical order than the practical reasoning of Kant. And the fact that it
belongs to a new order of judgement can be seen in the appearance of a
new moral motive - the gratitude that believers feel. This gratitude is
not added on to the belief in grace, as if it were an inessential addition
to belief. Rather, it is inseparable from believing in grace, so much so
that it is the very sign of faith itself.39
Kierkegaard might have expressed this new conception of life and
grace best when he said, quite simply, that to know God is eternallife. 4o
Naturally, one does not know God as one knows other things - i.e.
because there are good speculative grounds for religious opinions
or because these opinions can be objectively confirmed. One knows
God by re conforming one's very life in trust to the promises ingredient in
religious concepts. One knows God, then, by abiding in belief. Yet once
transformed in this way, the life of the believer becomes like the life of
Socrates: it is made independent of time and in that timelessly secure.
That is why it is life eternal. It is a life that is forever safe from harm
because it does not depend on our virtue but on grace, that inexplicable
permission by which one dares, eternally, absolutely, to be oneself.
That is why paradise was immediately available to the thief on the
crosS. 41 We are to imagine the thief as if he had made a metabasis in
all geno, surrendering whatever attempts he had made to prove his worth
and trusting in the gratuitous promise that he received from Jesus. Yet
what applies to the thief here, Kierkegaard says, applies to everyone.
'Even now today art thou in Paradise', and thus the transition from
time to eternity (the greatest possible transition) is so swift ... For if
thou dost remain in God, then whether one live or die, and whether
it goes well with thee or ill whilst thou livest, whether thou diest
today or only after seventy years, or whether thou findest thy death
at the bottom of the sea where it is the deepest, or whether thou art
scattered in the air - thou remainest, and so thou remainest present
to thyself in God, and art therefore at the day of thy death even now
in Paradise. 42
Eternal paradise is this unconditional promise of selfhood. That was

what Kant's search for moral worth was all about, and it was at the
heart of Kierkegaard's thinking as well. Only Kierkegaard did not think
that the prize came at the end of time as a reward for virtue. According
to Christianity, it comes graciously and eternally, in the present, as an
attribute of faith.
I think that Kierkegaard was right about that; he had a better gram-
matical understanding of Christian concepts than Kant did. But being
clear about these conceptions, as he himself noted, is qUite a different
thing than faith itself.
Notes
1. Kant repeatedly makes this point about duty; e.g. in Religion Within the Limits
of Reason Alone, trans. Theodore Greene and Hoyt Hudson (New York: Harper
Torchbooks, 1960), pp. 43 and 55. As for the requirement that we become
perfect, he takes this as a divine command. See Religion, pp. 54 and 59.
2. This term is borrowed, by both Kant and Kierkegaard, from Aristotle. It refers
to a qualitative change in judgement or a transition between two species of
reflection.
3. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason (New York: Liberal Arts Press,
1956), p. 114.
4. Ibid., pp. 114-15, 128-9.
5. Ibid., pp. 126-7.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid., pp. 134-5.
8. Ibid., pp. 122-4.
9. Ibid., p. 129.
10. See Victoria Wike, Kant on Happiness in Ethics (Albany: State University of
New York Press, 1994), ch. 1 and ch. 6. See also Ronald M. Green, Kierke-
gaard and Kant: the Hidden Debt (Albany: State University Press of New York,
1992), pp. 52-4. Green's book is particularly relevant here, since it is his
thesis that Kierkegaard's discussion of faith presumes the foil of a Kantian
background.
11. Immanuel Kant, 'The End of All Things', in Perpetual Peace and Other Essays,
trans. Ted Humphrey (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1983), pp. 93-105.
12. Ibid., pp. 97-101.
13. Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, pp. SS, 59-60.
14. Ibid., pp. 60-1.
15. Ibid., p. 62.
16. See Green, Kant and Kierkegaard. Green stresses the similarity of moral interests
between Kant and Kierkegaard, but he also notes their differences when it
comes to the possibility of a historically mediated grace.
17. S0ren Kierkegaard, Christian Discourses, trans. WaIter Lowrie (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1971), p. 215.
18. Kierkegaard, Purity of Heart, trans. Douglas V. Steere (New York: Harper and
Row, 1956), pp. 106-7.
19. Christian Discourses, pp. 212-13.
20. Ibid.
21. Purity of Heart, pp. 40-1, 44-6.
22. Again, Kant mistakenly believed that a strong emphasis on divine grace
entailed a weakening of one's moral resolve. 'If my happiness is provided
for me, why should I bother with what I do?' However, if the concept of
grace takes shape only for those whose moral seriousness has left them
unable to affirm themselves, then it does not undercut moral effort but
simply steers this effort clear of the threat of inward self-alienation (des-
pair). See below.
23. See Green, Kant and Kierkegaard, for a discussion of the necessity for such
'leaps'; pp. 139-46.
24. Greene, Kant and Kierkegaard, pp. 156-67. Here Green's attempt to show
that Kierkegaard relied heavily on a Kantian understanding of sin is particu-
larly persuasive.
25. Religion, pp. 67-71, 77. See also Green, who argues that Kant preserves
a place for grace in his theory, but grace in Kant's sense, as I want to
show, remains fundamentally different from Kierkegaard's understanding;
pp. 169-75.
26. Green, pp. 66-7.
27. Strictly speaking, one could not even be sure that one's intentions in the
present are pure. The will is radically evil, and therefore no such conclusion
about its ultimate purity can ever be drawn with certainty.
28. Purity of Heart, pp. 99-103.
29. Religion, pp. 60-1.
30. Ibid., p. 47.
31. JiJid., pp. 98-100,162-3, 18lff.
32. Ibid., pp. 108-9.
33. Kierkegaard, For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourselves, trans. Waiter
Lowrie (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1941), pp. 95 and 206-7.
34. Ibid., p. 42.

35. The Sickness Unto Death, published together with Fear and Trembling, trans.
Waiter Lowrie (Garden City: Doubleday Anchor, 1954), p. 147.
36. Most of these points come from Phillips', 'From World to God? - Searching
for Mediation', in Recovering Religious Concepts (Macmillan 1999). This ref-
erence is to p. 56.
37. Phaedo, lOS-IS.
3S. The Sickness Unto Death, p. 166.
39. Gratitude, in fact, is what enables the pursuit of moral virtue to continue in
a new spirit for all those who believe in grace. Because they feel grateful for
being accepted in spite of their moral failures, they respond to moral obliga-
tions as opportunities to express their thanksgiving rather than as demands
that bear down on them as conditions for their own acceptability.
40. Kierkegaard, Training in Christianity, trans. Waiter Lowrie (Princeton: Prince-
ton University Press, 1967), p. 202.
41. Luke 23: 42-3.
42. Christian Discourses, p. 355.
10
Eternal Life - a Reply
Maria van der Ruhr
Prelude
Because I could not stop for Death -

He kindly stopped for me -
The Carriage held but just Ourselves -
And Immortality.l
Emily Dickinson
With Immortality for a companion, who would have reason to enter

Death's carriage with fear and trepidation? As Professor Whittaker's
paper shows, the question is far too abstract to allow for a ready answer,
and will appear straightforward only to those who are already approach-
ing Dickinson's simile from a spiritual perspective in which the concep-
tual connections between life, death and immortality have been laid
out. But even then, the resulting picture may appear either crude or
deep, depending on the construal of its key components. It is, for
example, likely to make a difference to one's understanding of death
whether immortality is conceived temporally, as endless duration, or
whether it is construed atemporally, as a mystery to which the language
of time is necessarily inapplicable. Those who take the former view may
think that only continued existence in a world of change would fulfil
the promise of 'eternal life'. To their critics, this attitude cheapens the
significance of death and amounts to little more than 'a transcendental-
ized version of "See you later''', 2 lacking the depth of a genuine farewell
to life, which would not seek an extension of it. But disagreements do not
stop there. While advocates of the former position frequently see immor-
tality as a post-mortem reward for moral achievement, their opponents
find the idea crude because it ignores the limitations of moral endeavour
207
and the role of grace in religious life. On the latter account, talk of
immortality is not so much predictive as evaluative. It does not signify a
post-mortem extension of life, but rather a mode of judging this life sub
specie aeternitatis 3 which can also nourish the hope of unconditional
self-acceptance through grace. Whittaker's view is that, while many
Christians believe that eternal life requires the immortality of the soul,4
construed as the permanent survival of a metaphysical soul-substance,
it is, in fact, the alternative construal of immortality towards which
Christianity gravitates as it deepens. What this means is, of course, that
(a) many Christians may currently be subscribing to a picture of immor-
tality that is not (yet) deep - an embarrassing conclusion, which is not
likely to go unchallenged. Equally provocative is Whittaker's suggestion
that, at the philosophical level, (b) Kant is subject to such embarrass-
ment, too, since the idea of immortality as endless, temporal duration
on the one hand, and that of moral accomplishment as a necessary con-
dition of self-worth, on the other, occupy such a prominent place in his
discussion of the issue. s In the terms of Dickinson's simile: aboard
Kant's philosophical carriage, Immortality does not cut a particularly
edifying figure because she is merely a theoretical prerequisite for an
endless post-mortem journey to moral perfection, rather than, as Kier-
kegaard would see it, a pre-mortem recognition of timeless self-worth,
effected as an act of grace. Kant's conception of immortality lacks
depth, in other words, because it turns self-worth into a transcendental
goal, while simultaneously overestimating the role that moral accom-
plishment can play in its attainment. On Whittaker's account, by
contrast, eternal life means 'an inward form of self-satisfaction',6 and is
already available 'in the midst of striving''? in this life, even though it
'can only be received as if it were a gift'.8 This gift of self-acceptance is
life in so far as it conveys a sense of 'absolute well-being'/ and it is
eternal because it is 'timelessly secure'.1O
Now, it seems to me, firstly, that the depth of this construal very
much depends on what it is intended to show. For it is one thing to
argue that the proposed conception of eternal life captures a dimension
of belief in immortality, and quite another to postulate an equivalence
relation, such that to make peace with oneself is to attain eternal life,
and the hope for immortality just is the hope that divine grace may
grant one such unconditional self-acceptance. The weaker claim seems
to me to be both true and important, whereas the stronger can only be
maintained in forgetfulness of the conceptual links between immortal-
ity and what is clearly an integral part of it, viz. bodily resurrection.
One point I want to argue, therefore, is that Whittaker has at best drawn
Kant and Kierkegaard on Eternal Life - a Reply 209
attention to one feature of belief in immortality as Christians under-

stand it. My second point, closely connected with this, concerns the
disjunctive form in which the problem is posed at the outset: either
immortality is construed as x, or as y. This suggests, quite falsely, that
further critical reflection on immortality should unfold within the
framework of the above contrast, and culminate in a verdict on which
of the two contrasting conceptions of immortality is the deeper. Admit-
tedly, if the alternative is a naive and muddled belief in endless, temporal
duration after death, Whittaker's construal emerges as the deeper one,
but why should one accept the dichotomy to begin with? Thirdly, as far
as the contrast between Kant and Kierkegaard is concerned, I shall pro-
pose an alternative interpretation of Kant's position which not only
entails a clear rejection of the said dichotomy, but makes Kant consider-
ably less vulnerable to the critical charges levelled against him. For this
reason, too, the proposed contrast between Kierkegaard and Kant may
well have to be re-examined. My discussion will fall into two parts. In
part I, I raise a general difficulty about belief-aSCription in a religious
context (a), and briefly consider why belief in the sempiternity of a soul-
substance is thought to be spiritually impoverished. In part Il, I turn to
(b), Kant and his remarks on immortality, eternal life and grace.
The picture of immortality as the endless, temporal duration

of a soul-substance
A general difficulty about philosophical elaborations on what the reli-
gious believe, which Fr Gareth Moore has rightly emphasized,11 is the
underlying presumption that it is at least roughly clear what these
beliefs amount to. In the Credo, Christians profess to believe in 'the life
everlasting' (the Apostle's Creed), or 'the life of the world to come'
(Nice ne Creed), and they also speak of the immortality of the soul in
this connection. But thus far, there is nothing to suggest that (a) 'I
believe in the life eternal/the immortality of the soul' is elliptical for (a')
'I believe in the temporal immortality of the soul', let alone for (a"): 'I
believe in the endless duration of a soul-substance'. There is a world of
(grammatical) difference between these expressions, but what, exactly,
are the criteria by which it is established that (a"), say, is what 'many
Christians' believe when they profess (a)? Whittaker takes this to be a
'fact',12 but might - so I can hear some Christians object - the proposed
analysis not equally well manifest the philosophical paranoia of those
who see the spectre of Cartesian dualism in every occurrence of the
word 'soul'? Wittgenstein alludes to the possibility in his Lectures on

Religious Belief:
If you ask me whether or not I believe in a Judgment Day, in the

sense in which religious people have belief in it, I wouldn't say: 'No.
I don't believe there will be such a thing.' It would seem to me utterly
crazy to say this. And then I give an explanation: 'I don't believe
in ... ', but then the religious person never believes what I describeY
Criticisms of religious belief are often inspired by a certain assump-

tion about the relation between a religious picture and its representa-
tional content, viz. that the picture's religious nature is grounded in its
pictorial relationship to some event or other. 14 On this account, the
picture of a Last Judgement, say, not only represents divine justice and
a way of looking at human action, but a concrete event, to be conceived
along the lines of a courtroom trial conducted out in the open, with
God as the judge and no possibility of appeal. The problem with this
construal is its crude, doubly misleading, simpliCity. It falsely suggests
that the primary representational function of religious pictures is pictor-
ial, in the sense of depicting particular states of affairs or events, and
that unbelief is essentially a matter of finding the proposed representa-
tion radically unintelligible. Wittgenstein's remark shows that the matter
is far more complex, and that one should guard oneself against ascrib-
ing to believers beliefs they do not hold. Christians may associate all
sorts of images, symbols, words, even the sound of trumpets, with the
belief in a Last Judgement, but it seems rather quick to say that many of
them regard this as a pictorial representation of a historical event, sim-
ilar to the way in which a painting of Paradise might be taken to depict
a landscape that either has been, or could be, encountered by the painter
and his (potential) audience. Nor would, as Peter Winch has rightly
observed, much be accomplished by the suggestion that religious pic-
tures relate, not to events, but to supernatural events, for
if it is said that it is a relationship to a supernatural event, that of

course makes a difference: but the chances are that in this context
the speaker will be conceiving the 'supernatural' event as a weird sort
of natural event. So it is better to leave aside talk about 'a relationship
to an event' altogether. 15
The pOint of this remark is not to deny that the believer thinks
he will be judged 'at the end of time', but rather to caution us in the
elaborations we give of the picture of the Last Judgement. To ask now:

but what form will the Last Judgement take, and what exactly is going
to happen on Judgement Day?, would be like asking Socrates - in the
Phaedo - to provide further details of Tartarus, or the 'beautiful dwelling
places' where 'those who have purified themselves sufficiently by philo-
sophy' will be dispatched after their deaths.16 Indeed, it is not acci-
dental that, at this stage in the dialogue, Socrates diplomatically puts a
full stop to further questions in this direction by noting that the life to
come 'is hard to describe clearly, nor do we now have the time to do
so,y The difficulty does not lie in asking Socrates something on which
only the dead could speak with any authority, but in supposing that
the mythological narrative in which he seeks to capture his deepest con-
victions about the meaning of his life is open to the sorts of question
typically raised by geographers, geologists or botanists. In order to throw
the difficulty into relief, as well as to forestall possible misinterpreta-
tions, Socrates himself goes on to acknowledge that
no sensible man would insist that these things are as I have described
them, but I think it is fitting for a man to risk the belief - for the risk
is a noble one - that this, or something like this, is true about our
souls and their dwelling places, since the soul is evidently immortal,
and a man should repeat this to himself as if it were an incantation,
which is why I have been prolonging my tale. IS
The remark that 'no sensible man would insist that these things are as
I have described them' nicely echoes Wittgenstein's point that 'the reli-
gious person never believes what I describe',I9 if what I describe is a
mysterious gathering of particles, corpses rising from their graves, and
an event that would, at least in principle, be describable within the
parameters of scientific inquiry. However, the point of this divertimento
is not to accuse Whittaker of ascribing to Christians beliefs they do not
hold; on the contrary, he may well be right. My query rather concerns
the justification for claiming that such-and-such is what is believed,
and here it seems to me that verbal testimony alone may be insuffi-
Ciently conclusive to move from something like (a) to (a") above. It
seems to me that religious belief, including belief in immortality, is far
too ragged to warrant the charge that the believer must, as it were, be
mistaking the picture for the representation and hold that life eternal is
simply life, infinitely extended. But let us grant, for the sake of argu-
ment, that many Christians do construe immortality, not only as endless
duration, but as endless duration of a soul-substance. Why should the
belief be problematic and betray a kind of superficiality? Whittaker does

not spell this out, but I suppose he would take the answer to include
something like the following:
Ci) The idea of a soul-substance is a metaphysical postulate, and thus
open to the same sort of objections as are commonly levelled against
Cartesian dualism, hence philosophically dubious. Cii) It dislocates soul-
talk from the practices in which it is embedded, and distorts the point of
such talk by imputing to it a sense it does not have. 20 An example of this
can be found in]. A. Hardon's Catholic Catechism, first published in 1974.
In the context of an argument against the permissibility of abortion,
Hardon finds that the notion of the soul is of paramount importance:
A moment's reflection will tell us that what really determines the

uniqueness of each human person is the origin of the soul, which
animates his body. Bodies are too obviously generated by our parents
to raise any question of faith. But where do our souls come from?21
There is, of course, nothing wrong with speaking of the uniqueness

and irreplaceability of human beings in terms of a soul, and even the
question 'Where do our souls come from?' need not arouse suspicions
of latent metaphysics. Such suspicions do arise, however, when Hardon
proceeds to talk about the origin of the soul in quasi-causal terms:
While never formally defined, the fact of a direct creation of each indi-
vidual soul belongs to the deposit of the Christian faith. Implicitly
taught by the Fifth Lateran Council ... it is part of the vast treasury
of revealed truths which are jealously safeguarded by the Church.
( ... ) The Church has never defined the exact moment when the
soul is created and infused into the body to form this unique
human person. But the Church's mind on the matter can be deduced
from its age-long attitude towards abortion. 22
From the Church's contention that abortion is impermissible at any

stage of pregnancy, Hardon readily infers that 'creation of the soul and
its infusion take place at the moment of conception', and the argument
is brought to a close. As a way of talking about the sanctity of the unborn,
the picture of the soul's 'infusion' into the body strikes me as qUite
a misleading image, in the service of an equally misguided attempt at
justifying the Church's attitude towards abortion. Unless I am guilty of
a tu quoque, and seeing dualist shadows where none exist, Hardon's
account strongly suggests that abortion is impermissible because of an
obscure, supernatural process 'at the moment of conception', when a

mysterious, identity-conferring entity is somehow 'infused' into the
body by God. Rather than resting content with the reminder that belief
in God also implies belief in the sanctity of human life, and that, guided
by the Scriptures - e.g. the Fifth Commandment and Jeremiah 1:5 23 -
the Catholic faith simply does extend this sanctity to the unborn as
well, Hardon seems to think that he has to bolster the believer's attitude
against abortion, and challenge his opponents'Z4 arguments for its
permissibility, by resorting to the pseudo-explanation of supernatural
infusions of souls into human bodies, at what seems like an uncertain
point in time. Hardon's unhappy rejection of abortion also exemplifies
a temptation that religious believers in general find hard to resist: faced
with criticism or sceptical attack, they are inclined to couch their beliefs
in terms that emulate the language of justification, proof or evidence,
without realizing that this departure from the distinctive grammar of
religious belief constitutes a reductio of its content, as well as unconvin-
Cing argumentative support for deeply cherished convictions. If soul-
language is typically used to capture the distinctive significance of
something or someone - the soul of a language, the living, the dead,
the unborn, etc. - and if it is important that those who are still blind to
that significance be brought to see it as well, then its metaphysical
reification seems to be exactly the wrong approach. (iii) Talk of a soul-
substance seems to imply an existential fragmentation of the person that
runs counter, both to our unreflected understanding of what human
beings are, and to the spirit of the Christian Credo, which explicitly
links belief in eternal life with belief in the resurrection of the body,25
thereby acknowledging, at the religious level, that our corporeality is an
integral, and not merely a contingent, dimenSion of a human biography.
It would be cynical to claim that Christians find this aspect of the Credo
particularly appealing because it panders to their desire to survive their
bodily deaths. Its appeal may simply spring from the view that an
eschatology in which our corporeality appears transfigured is deeper
than one in which it does not appear at all. As I hope to show later on,
this feature of the Christian creed also has far-reaching consequences
for the evaluation of Kant's discussion of the issue, since it already hints
at a reason for including the ultimate fulfilment of the needs of the
body, broadly construed, in his conception of the summum bonum as
well. (iv) The problems generated by the idea of a soul-substance are
exacerbated by combining it with the notion of endless temporal duration,
since the latter is just as unintelligible as the former. Often, the diffi-
culty is not immediately apparent, because a false analogy prevents one
from seeing it. Wittgenstein offers us an illustration of this in Philosoph-

ical Remarks, recalling an exchange with Frank Ramsey:
I once said there was no extensional infinity. Ramsey replied: 'Can't

we imagine a man living for ever, that is, simply never dying,
and isn't that extensional infinity?' I can surely imagine a wheel
spinning and never coming to rest. What a peculiar argument: 'I can
imagine ... !' Let's consider what experience we would regard as a
confirmation or proof of the fact that the wheel will never stop spin-
ning. And compare this experience with that which would tell us
that the wheel spins for a day, for a year, for ten years, and we shall
find it easy to see the difference in the grammar of the assertions
, ... never comes to rest' and' ... comes to rest in 100 years,.26
The mistake has already been made when one claims, as Ramsey does,
that one can imagine a familiar object in motion, such as a wheel, never
coming to rest. For the wheel imagined to be in perpetual motion is, of
course, nothing like the wheel initially recalled from experience. The
latter does not exist in vacuo but is usually part of a mechanism whose
components generate friction, require energy to stay operational, must
be serviced as time goes by, eventually wear out, etc. Thus, both the
wheel and its motion are subject to a whole host of contingencies, with-
out which talk of setting wheels in motion, ensuring their continued
motion, bringing that motion to an end, etc. would have no sense,
either. Ramsey's perpetual wheel, on the other hand, is conceived in
complete abstraction from such considerations. It is an idealized object,
made of no material in particular, and not subject to any contingencies
whatsoever. It is, in short, a wheel that must spin, in much the same
way that a given mathematical equation must yield such-and-such a
result. But if the necessities in question are conceptual, then one might
well wonder what an emphatic 'for ever' is supposed to add here. On
the contrary, as Roy Holland rightly notes about the mathematical case:
'If they [2+2] must be four, they must be four, and nothing but mud is
contributed by the "for ever'''P Similarly with Ramsey's perpetual
wheel, which has about as much in common with actual wheels as
Escher's drawing of a never-ending staircase does with actual staircases. 28
It can spin 'for ever', because it is a fictitious mobile with perpetuity as
its essence. But if it must spin of necessity, then the addendum 'for ever'
is not only vacuous but seriously misleading, as it suggests that terms
like 'for ever' and its correlate 'never' can be placed in the category of
temporal adverbs like 'for one year', 'for ten years', etc., and form a
contrast with such terms. That this is not so becomes clear when one
realizes that, while requests for grounds and evidence may be in order
with predictive assertions involving temporal adverbs, the matter is
different with Ramsey's statement:
We must ask: can there be grounds for this belief? What are they?
What are the grounds for assuming that it will go on for 1,000 more
years; what for assuming it will go on for 10,000 more years; - and,
now, what are the grounds for the infinite assumption?29
In the sort of case Ramsey is envisaging, 'for ever' and 'never' cannot
be predictive terms designating a time-interval, since the language of jus-
tification and evidence, for one, does not apply to them.30 It might be
objected that Wittgenstein's argument really amounts to an arbitrary,
a priori stipulation concerning the durability of physical objects like
wheels, for even though there may be no evidence for the endless dura-
tion of such an object, there is no evidence against it, either. This would
be to miss the point of Wittgenstein's remark, however, which is not so
much to reject Ramsey's claim as false, but to question its intelligibility
along with its denial. When Wittgenstein redirects our attention from
idealized objects to everyday experience of things in motion, he is ipso
facto reminding us that an intelligible description of such things,
including the existence of human beings, is one in which the idea of
endless duration does not figure. Consequently, when Ramsey imagines
that a man might live 'for ever', he is neither imagining a man, nor a
life, but advancing an intellectual construct. In this connection, Witt-
genstein's remarks on the grammar of temporal adverbs are plain exer-
cises in conceptual recollection and, as such, rather similar to Kant's
parallel discussion, in the Transcendental Aesthetic, of the necessary con-
ditions of all possible experience. The conclusion to be drawn from all
this has been succinctly put by Roy Holland:
If anyone were to take the 'for ever' here or elsewhere to be a locu-

tion signifying the perpetual duration of something ... he would be
either confused or adumbrating something that he could not specu-
latively comprehend. 31
It is clear that Holland's verdict would require no revision, even if

Ramsey replaced his perpetual wheel with God. For in that case, the
second half of Holland's disjunction would simply combine with the
earlier point about sempiternity's collapse into necessity, and resurrect
Wittgenstein's initial query about what was being imagined. Cv) To con-
strue immortality as endless duration, as a mere extension of this life, is
to diminish the significance of death. For what gives death its sting is
hardly the thought that it is a gateway to carrying on in pretty much
the same way as before, but rather the radical and final break it marks
with life's concerns, while simultaneously fixing its meaning in saecula
saeculorum. This thought may disconcert and disturb, but it also confers
meaning: precisely because death is viewed as an irrevocable caesura,
and immortality as a timeless enunciation of the self who has to face it,
can human activities acquire the deep significance - one that carries
non-trivial resonances of uniqueness and unrepeatability, for instance -
we want to ascribe to them. 32
As Kierkegaard rightly noted, these grammatical differences between
life and death on the one hand, and mortality and immortality on the
other, are greater than certain Christians would like to think:
Men live out their lives in the foolish opinion that the lives we live
here on earth will automatically continue in all eternity, that we will
take the city we live in, everything, everything, straight into eternity.
This is why men who would shudder at the strangeness and the
isolation of emigrating to another continent nevertheless think they
are going to live for eternity. 33
Far from being attained 'automatically', eternity must be striven

towards,34 and requires a serious effort at detachment from worldly con-
cerns, a kind of renunciation. 3s Moreover, in marking the end of time,
and irrevocably fixing life's successes and failures, eternity may serve to
inspire awe and to admonish: at the practical level, the temporal is put
in its proper perspective, and the agent's interests redirected to what
really matters. As Kierkegaard has it:
There is a most remarkable saying, I know not where, but one which
bears the inward stamp of being the kind of utterance which, so to
speak, is spoken with the mouth of a whole people. A desperate
sinner wakes up in hell and cries out, 'What time is it?' The devil
answers, 'Eternity'.36
The sinner emerges from this passage as a tragicomic figure who finds
himself in hell because, like Dickinson's traveller, he 'could not stop for
death', i.e. keep the spirit fixed on the eternal and aspire to purity of
heart, when there was still time; now, it is too late for either repentance
or transformation. The two remarks just quoted from Kierkegaard make

it difficult not to think of Hannah Arendt's portrayal of Adolf Eichmann,
whose demeanour in the face of death could serve as a paradigmatic
illustration of what Kierkegaard has in mind. Immediately before his
execution, Eichmann asserted that 'in a short little while, gentlemen,
we shall all meet again, anyway. Such is the fate of all men. I was pious
[gottgliiubig] in my life, and pious I shall die. ( ... ) Long live Germany,
long live Argentina, long live Austria. I shall not forget them.137 Eich-
mann never repented for his actions; in fact, he thought 'repentance is
for little children'.38 And when the Right Revd. Wi11iam Hull offered to
read the Scriptures with him, he declined the invitation on the ground
that he had only two hours to live, and therefore 'no time to waste'.39
In the light of this, his profession of Gottgliiubigkeit under the gallows
can only appear as blasphemy, and his cliche-ridden farewell to his audi-
ence as sad testimony to his estrangement from the meaning of death.40
Apart from conveying the same sense of urgency encountered in Purity
of Heart, the saying recollected by Kierkegaard is also a reminder of the
fact that it is not immortality per se that Christians strive for, but an
immortality that is not, as it were, announced by the devil. In the
Christian tradition, this thought finds expression in the belief that,
while everyone qualifies for the resurrection, only those who have led a
life in imitatio Christi have reason to find the prospect consolingY
The considerations advanced under (i)-(v) clearly support Whittaker's
claim that a deep understanding of immortality is one that eschews the
postulation of a soul-substance, just as much as it does the idea of endless
duration. I also agree with Whittaker that Kierkegaard's thoughts on the
subject stand in striking contrast to the view under attack, as well as
adding a further dimension to the concept of immortality, viz. (vi) that
the striving for immortality may be seen as a desire for a final and
unconditional self-acceptance, whose fulfilment is not dependent upon
moral accomplishment, but attainable only as an act of grace. 42 This leads
me to the question of Kant's views on the subject.
11
Kant on immortality and eternal life

The notion of a soul-substance had already aroused Kant's philosophical
suspicion long before he completed the first draft of the Critique of Pure
Reason, according to which such a postulate lies well outside the para-
meters of intelligible thought and discourse. In Dreams of a Spirit Seer, for
example, which was published in 1766, Kant observes:
I do not know whether there are spirits; indeed, I do not even know
what the word spirit means. But since, on the other hand, I have often
employed it myself, or heard others use it, something must be under-
stood by it, whether this something be a figment of the imagination
or something real. 43
Kant's pOint is not that the word 'spirit' is utterly obscure, and that
those who employ it in everyday life have no idea of what they mean
by it, but that an exploration of its meaning must involve an examina-
tion of the contexts in which the word is, as a matter of fact, used, lest
one be plunged into the sort of confusion that the philosopher, above
all, should seek to avoid. That it is easy to fall into such confusion,
comes out in Kant's confession that even his own, rather critical
thought gravitates towards ideas that are hard to resist:
I admit that I am very much inclined to affirm the existence of

immaterial beings in the world, and to include my own soul in the
class of these beings. But then: how mysterious becomes the com-
munion between a mind and a body!44
Dissatisfied with the explanatory cul-de-sac into which such intellec-

tual temptations lead one, Kant goes on to argue that the soul should
not be construed along Cartesian lines at all, but rather as a dimension
of the person as a whole, and soul-language understood as a way of talk-
ing about those features of an individual that are not susceptible to
physicalist or reductivist descriptions, viz. thoughts, motives and inten-
tions, attitudes and dispositions, etc. 45 So, if (i)-(vi) above are taken as
reminders of what is involved in talk of eternal life, Kant can clearly not
be charged with forgetfulness of (i)-(iii). Rather more difficult to handle
are (iv) , (v), and (vi), concerning sempiternity, the meaning of death,
and the role of grace, respectively. As Whittaker himself admits, Kanfs
thoughts on the subject are complex,46 and their interpretation further
complicated by the fact that he appears to provide at least two different
elaborations of 'for ever'. In the Critique of Practical Reason, for example,
immortality is said to entail endless duration;47 in The End of All Things,
by contrast, eternal life is thought to exclude all temporal change. 48
What is one to make of this? Whittaker's interpretation of these seem-
ingly cont1icting tendencies in Kant's thought initially looks like a
plausible alternative to the charge of incoherence on the one hand; and
to the view that Kant, well aware of the cont1ict, came to embrace the
later, atemporal conception of immortality as the more adequate
construal, on the other. 49 In providing a temporal, as well as an ate m-

poral elaboration of 'for ever', Kant is merely presenting two sides of an
unavoidable paradox: the former is propounded as a postulate of pure
practical reason, and springs from the teleology of moral endeavour;
whereas the latter is the only construal that, consonant with the central
tenets of the Transcendental Aesthetics, can be endorsed from the stand-
point of theoretical reason. For Kant, the antinomy suggests that an
adequate account of eternal life must somehow accommodate both
ideas - that of an infinite progression towards holiness, as well as that
of death as the end of time - but how? Following this line of thought,
Whittaker proposes a synthesis of the two elaborations of 'for ever',
which he thinks is a fair representation of Kant's final verdict on the
matter:
So Kant suggests that after death people of good will might continue
to improve in a noumenal realm, which somehow permits change
and development to occur in the absence of worldly time. But on the
other hand, this development must come to an end when moral
perfection is attained, so that 'time' ceases and absolute stability -
stasis - sets in. 50
While I agree that Kant's remarks on immortality and eternal life

might be summed up in the idea that somehow genuine faith will lead to
justification before God, as well as to ultimate self-fulfilment, Whittak-
er's synopsis still seems to me an unhappy one. Firstly, it is difficult to
see how, from the standpoint adopted in The End of All Things, talk of
continued moral growth and improvement can even make sense, given
that Kant here characterizes eternity negatively, as a duratio noumenon
that excludes the possibility of change and developmentY To the
extent that Whittaker's reading fails to reflect this point, it simply
amounts to a paraphrase of the picture presented in the Critique ofPrac-
tical Reason, with the unhelpful qualifier 'supernatural' tagged onto it.
Secondly, I am not convinced that Kant does have a concluding verdict
on how immortality and eternal life are to be construed. On the
contrary, his remarks in The End of All Things rather suggest that, even
though belief in eternal life can deeply impregnate an agent's under-
standing of himself, it must nevertheless remain an unfathomable
mystery.52 Thirdly, Whittaker's account creates the false impression
that Kant's discussion culminates in yet another theoretical hypothesis
in support of the (allegedly dubious) summum bonum doctrine developed
in the second Critique, except that it replaces a temporal progreSSion with
some other kind of expansion towards holiness. That this impression is

false, and Kant's philosophical elucidation of eternal life much deeper
than Whittaker's reading suggests, becomes evident when one recalls
what Kant means by a postulate. A postulate, for Kant, is not the postu-
lation of some thing or object, but a kind of imperative for action; not a
proposition that p, but an idea 53 that governs one's conduct:
A postulate is an a priori given, practical imperative, whose possibil-

ity is incapable of explanation (let alone proof). Hence, we are not
postulating things, or the existence of any kind of object, but only a
maxim (rule) of action adopted by a subject. 54
Thus, when Kant says that God and immortality are postulates of
practical reason, he is not advancing theoretical hypotheses about super-
natural beings or states of affairs, but rejecting an account of religious
belief that pays insufficient attention to the application of religious ideas
in practice. Among other things, such attention reveals that religious
beliefs use pictures, 55 in terms of which the believer structures and evalu-
ates his thoughts and actions, and which, in Kant's terminology, consti-
tute a way of making certain non-empirical concepts 'suitable for
employment in experience,.56 The description of religious beliefs as pic-
tures thus brings together two ideas, both intimately connected: on the
one hand, Kant's insistence that concepts without intuitions are empty;
on the other, the idea that religious beliefs express a perspective on human
life which radically alters its character and generically informs all of an
agent's thinking and conduct. Kant does not use the term 'picture', but
his term 'regulative principle' seems to me to capture the same idea:
If we limited our judgment to regulative principles, which content

themselves with their own possible application to the moral life,
instead of aiming at constitutive principles of a knowledge of super-
sensible objects, insight into which, after all, is forever impossible to
us, human wisdom would be better off in a great many ways, and
there would be no breeding of a presumptive knowledge of that
about which, in the last analysis, we know nothing at all. 57
In anticipation of Wittgenstein's dictum that 'whereof one cannot

speak, thereof one must be silent',58 Kant is saying that what we can
speak about are the ways in which ideas associated with God, divine
judgement, omniscience, immortality, etc. can inform life here and
now, and thus about the practical use to which these ideas can be put in
the context of everyday existence. Religious beliefs are, therefore, much

more akin to exhortations and admonitions than they are to proposi-
tions in the positivist's sense. To quote Wittgenstein again:
Here believing obviously plays much more this role: suppose we said
a certain picture might play the role of constantly admonishing me,
or I always think of it. Here, an enormous difference would be
between those people for whom the picture is constantly in the fore-
ground, and the others who just didn't use it at all. 59
As Wittgenstein's remarks on belief in a Last Judgement have already

shown, forgetfulness of the relation between a picture and its representa-
tion inevitably generates a superficial account of religious belief, in
which the latter is readily identified with the former. Rather than signi-
fying tumultuous gOings-on in the world's graveyards, with particularly
heavy congestion at Pere Lachaise, the picture of the Last Judgement
represents the conviction that one is answerable to God, the belief that
it is futile to pretend otherwise, that sins bear the stamp of eternity, etc.
Given that religion is primarily concerned with living, rather than with
speculative thinking, this focus on the ethical dimension of religious
belief is just what one would expect, and this is also where Kant plaus-
ibly locates their substance. This is not to say that religion is reducible
to moral exhortation, but that the latter is the primary path to its mean-
ing. I suggest that Kant's conceptions of immortality and eternal life be
understood as pictures in the sense described, and that our interpretive
task now consists in exposing the application(s) of these pictures in the
actuality of Christian thought and action.
Immortality as endless progression towards the summum bonum

Like a poetic metaphor, the picture of an endless progression towards
the summum bonum embodies a plurality of representations, and may
enter into religious thoughts and practices in a variety of ways. One of
these, thought by Kant to be 'of the greatest benefit' to the serious
believer, is that it throws into relief the meaning of holiness, while at
the same time encouraging him to persevere in 'the strict and consistent
execution' of his moral task and religious mission. 6o On the one hand,
the image of an endless progression represents the distance between
God and man, the seemingly unbridgeable gap between impurity and
saintliness, which the believer is required to overcome. At the practical
level, this idea results, not only in awe and respect for the divine, but in
humility. Simone Weil expresses the thought thus:
It is our belief that God, if He wants to reach us, must make the longest
journey. When He has taken possession of our hearts and conquered
and transformed them, it will be up to us to make the longest journey
if we, in turn, want to get to Him. Love is proportional to distance. 61
The spatial metaphors of proximity and distance, just as those of

depth and shallowness, are a natural part of the critical vocabulary
employed in moral and spiritual self-assessment, and here combine
with the idea of 'the longest journey' to hint at the effort required of
those who are seriously searching for God. For Kant, this effort must
not be 'a mere wish', but should involve 'the summoning of all the
means in our power',62 and is itself motivated by the proper recognition
of holiness as an absolute and supreme value. Those who think that
immortality comes gratis, by contrast, fail to understand something
about the ideal of holiness with which it is connected, as well as lacking
in the kind of humility that goes with a sober self-assessment with
regard to the ground of one's will. Indeed, when one recalls that Kant
explicitly identifies the relentless pursuit of self-knowledge as the first
duty of a moral agent towards himself,63 the suggestion that the image
of an endless progression towards holiness contains a representation of
that duty, too, hardly comes as a surprise. The Welsh poet R. S. Thomas
expresses the thought as follows:
There are no journeys,

I tell them. Love turns
on its own axis, as do beauty and truth,
and the wise are they
who in every generation
remain still to assess their nearness
to it by the magnitude of their shadow.64
But the picture in question does not merely allude to the need for critical
self-scrutiny, to what is involved in a deep understanding of the divine, and
to the sense of humility this engenders. It also expresses the idea that
it would be blasphemy to suppose that any divine being would have

made a creature like man ... and have consigned him to the same
kind of end as is awarded to cahhages,6S
and the hope that life will not culminate in complete annihilation, but
attain to the summum bonum, even though sober reflection on the
human condition makes it difficult to see how it could. It is precisely at

this pOint, however, that the notion of grace enters into Kant's discus-
sion as a conceptual bridge between human frailty and holy perfection.
'Reason', he notes, 'does not leave us wholly without consolation with
respect to our lack of righteousness valid before God',66 but admonishes
us to hope for grace - 'without defining our hope more closely'Y As a
mode of humility, the hope for final justification is an appropriate
manifestation of the recognition that holiness and happiness are
beyond our reachi it is not, however, a matter for further theoretical
speculation:
We cannot know - neither do we need to know - in what manner

and by what aids God will make good our shortcomings, but we can
hope that He will do SO.68
Once again, Kant is employing a picture to recall that, for the

religious, the requirement to strive for holiness and the hope for grace
go hand in hand, and that neither could be understood independently
of the other. As a characterization of what is involved in the Christian
conception of immortality, this is both fair and important. Indeed, the
proximity between Kant and the official expositors of Christian doc-
trine could hardly be more pronounced here. As John Paul 11 says:
God does not command the impossible, but in commanding he

admonishes you to do what you can and to pray for what you cannot,
and he gives his aid to enable yoU. 69
It is not easy to see what Whittaker's criticism of Kant amounts to at

this point. On the one hand, he acknowledges that there is some con-
nection between justification in the eyes of God and the effort to live a
moral life, 70 and hence that moral endeavour is involved in the striving
for immortality.71 On the other hand, he accuses Kant of blindness to
the role of grace in the attainment of immortality. But given that Kant
explicitly recognizes the role of grace in the quest for justification, isn't
Whittaker's accusation qUite unwarranted? What is creating a muddle
here is that, at this stage, Kant and Whittaker are no longer talking
about the same issue. While Kant's remarks on grace concern one
feature of belief in immortality, viz. the hope for steady improvement
of the will and final justification before God 'at the end of time', Whit-
taker's interest is in another dimension of immortality, viz. the belief
that one has already been accepted by God, in the midst of life. 72 In this
connection, Whittaker argues that the possibility that this self-affirmation

might be secured by grace goes with 'a form of thinking that Kant
seemed unable to understand or to accept'.73 I do not think this inter-
pretation is right, partly because it misconstrues the postulate of the
summum bonum, and partly because it underestimates the subtlety of
Kant's discussion of the relation between morality and religion. Whit-
taker takes the postulate of the summum bonum to imply that the attain-
ment of holiness is a necessary condition of self-worth, and from this it
does, indeed, follow that self-acceptance in the sense envisaged can
neither be unconditional, nor granted through grace in Whittaker's
sense. But this reading rests on at least two problematic assumptions:
the first, against which I have already argued, is that Kant presents the
postulate of the summum bonum as a metaphysical hypothesis regarding
the attainment of holiness, rather than as regulative principle in the
sense described; the second is that on Kant's account only the holy -
angels and saints? - can believe that they have been accepted by God.
I want to suggest that the second assumption, too, is misguided. From
the fact that Kant makes moral perfection an integral part of the
summum bonum, it by no means follows that the concept of self-worth
is inapplicable to agents who are still lacking in such perfection. On the
contrary, in the Groundwork Kant contends that human agents have
dignity, and thus a certain kind of worth, not only in virtue of their
moral accomplishments, but even 'in so far as [they are] capable of
morality,.74 As ends in themselves, self-legislators, and potential mem-
bers of a kingdom of ends, human beings already have 'a worth that has
no price',7s irrespective of how far they have advanced along the path
of moral purity. Now, this thought, that 'dignity lies in humanity
itself',76 also paves the way for the sort of self-acceptance Whittaker is
interested in, for to understand that one has dignity is to value oneself
unconditionally, in the sense of being owed a kind of respect that
cannot be forfeited, no matter what one has done. 77 Further, as with
anything of absolute value, the recognition of this kind of preciousness
in oneself and others can be expected to occasion a sense of gratitude.
What I want to argue now is that the unconditional self-affirmation
Whittaker identifies as an aspect of belief in immortality is, in effect, a
certain kind of gratitude for life, which the Kantian construal can accom-
modate in the transition from morality to religion. To those who come
to see the world from a religiolls pOint of view, human dignity, the capa-
city for moral action, indeed life itself - these must all appear under the
description 'gifts from God', and the rejection of these gifts as a form of
ingratitude. Naturally, this also applies to the attitude one takes towards
oneself: as part of God's creation, one cannot but feel gratitude for one's
life, even though the character of that gratitude could not be specified
independently of one's necessary imperfection in relation to the holy
ideal. 7S It is in the form of a certain gratitude for life, therefore, that
unconditional self-affirmation can already be available 'in the midst of
striving', and Kant allows for this possibility just as much as Kierkegaard
does. Whittaker might object that the crucial issue still has not been
touched upon, viz. the question of what is involved in embracing the
religious perspective in general, and the belief in immortality, in par-
ticular. While Kant seems to think that the latter is merely an extension
of a moral idea/ 9 Kierkegaard wants to insist that it requires no less
radical a metabasis in allo geno than that which informs the transition
from moral blindness to moral understanding. Now, I agree that the
change of perspectives - from the secular to the religious - involves a
leap that practical reason cannot make, but I don't think that Kant is so
naive as to think that it can. As I understand them, his remarks on the
summum bonum are no more intended to provide a reason for embra-
cing religion, than the Groundwork offers a reason for being moral. The
point of the former is to show how religion can, both theoretically and
practically, remedy the teleological incompleteness of morality, not to
deliver an account of the genesis of religious belief. For that, one needs
to turn to Kant's lectures on education,SO whose final sections deal with
the matter of religious upbringing and afford some pertinent advice
on how to approach it. Here, Kant insists, for example, that religious
ideas should 'take root in the imagination of children' at an early
stage;81 that one should speak to them of God as a father who looks
after us, so that they come to regard all human beings as belonging to
one family; that children must be taught to think of their conscience as
God's vOice;82 that God's name should not be used in vain, but with
awe and reverence, etc. 83 Even though the focus of Kant's pedagogical
lectures is on various aspects of physical, intellectual and moral educa-
tion, they also demonstrate an astute awareness of how believers are
typically initiated into religious language and belief, viz. by being
taught religious pictures in their early childhood, rather than through
exposure to philosophical or theological argument. Believers would, of
course, regard their coming to see the world from a religious point of
view, including the sense of self-affirmation this engenders, as an act
of grace, and respond to it with gratitude. But I do not see why Kant
should have to disagree with this. Grace may enter life in various ways,
and the fact that Kant is primarily concerned with the role of grace in
the pursuit of the good does not show that he wouldn't recognize its
application in other ways, too. Thus far, then, Kant's construals of

immortality and grace seem not only compatible with, but helpfully
elucidatory of, its Christian manifestations. For this reason, (vi) does
not pose a problem for Kant. Before I can turn to (v) - the suspicion that
Kant's account of immortality may cheapen the meaning of death -
Whittaker's second major objection to that account must be addressed.
It concerns Kant's inclusion of happiness in the idea of the summum
bonum, and culminates in the charge that the only sense to be found in
that idea is that of a delayed gratification of desire,84 which is at the
same time a reward for moral endeavour. Whittaker sees in this an
unspiritual concession to the human ego's need to get its way, which
starkly contrasts with the attitude of humble renunciation, not only of
worldly goods, but of compensatory happiness post-mortem. The
matter is, of course, far more complicated, and Kant's view a great deal
subtler, than that. Since an adequate treatment of the issue would
require a separate paper, I can only offer some general observations
about the conceptual connections between Kant's postulate of the sum-
mum bonum and his moral philosophy. As Kant rightly sees, there are at
least three good reasons for making happiness an integral part of belief
in immortality, viz. the recognition of moral duties as divine com-
mands; the idea of life as a gift from God; and the demands of divine
justice and benevolence. Firstly, it is important to recall that, for Kant,
the promotion of happiness, one's own as well as that of others, is a
positive moral duty85 whose acknowledgement comes with the recogni-
tion that human beings have dignity. To see a human life, including
one's own, as precious, is to attach a certain significance to its non-
moral concerns as well, which also shows that a proper love of one's
neighbour must go well beyond the observation of so-called 'negative
duties', and manifest itself in positive acts of benevolence. Now, from
Kant's dictum that 'religion is (subjectively regarded) the recognition of
all duties as divine commands',86 it follows that, to the religious, the
promotion of happiness in oneself and others must appear as a divine
command as well, as an integral part of what is meant by 'Love thy
neighbour as thyself'. In making the promotion of happiness an 'imper-
fect duty',87 Kant is not only rejecting a narrow conception of self-love,
but a belief in immortality that betrays forgetfulness of the fact that the
promotion of happiness is a divine injunction, with eschatological impli-
cations. That happiness should play such a crucial role in Kant's idea of
the summum bonum is, therefore, not only to be expected but, as a
philosophical articulation of standard Christian doctrine, quite unob-
jectionable. For according to the latter,
the New Testament ... repeatedly affirms that each will be rewarded
immediately after death in accordance with his works and faith,88
and
heaven is the ultimate end and fulfilment of the deepest human

longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness. 89
Whittaker may object that religious faith is at its deepest when it

renounces such rewards, both 'in the midst of striving', and in the here-
after. It is certainly true that, from the first-person perspective, such
renunciation would be regarded as an appropriate manifestation of
humility, at least in so far as it did not involve the vilification of our
corporeality, and thus a kind of ingratitude. On the other hand, there
are plenty of occasions where even the humblest of believers would
have to say in relation to other agents that
... a rational and impartial spectator can never feel approval in

contemplating the uninterrupted prosperity of a being graced by no
touch of a pure and good wil1. 90
Any onlooker, including those who are indifferent to external goods,

will be prompted to adopt a perspective from which the suffering of the
virtuous and the prosperity of the wicked appear unjust, and stand in
need of rectification. Indeed, failure to adopt this perspective would
betray blindness, not only to an important feature of the grammar of
justice, but to certain kinds of despair. Since God, as a personification of
justice, benevolence and omnipotence, is both the embodiment and,
ultimately, the ground of this evaluative standpoint,91 there is also a
reason to hope that He will redress that injustice. Moreover, the gram-
mar of 'eternal life' undoubtedly affects the character of the happiness
in question. The latter should not be thought of as compensation or
deferred gratification in the familiar senses, any more than the rewards
of heaven promised in the Catholic Catechism should be thought to
include a new car, free videos or good cigars.
Eternal life as the end of all things

It seems to me that the picture of eternity presented in The End of All
Things has a twofold purpose. On the one hand, it stands as a helpful
corrective to a naive construal of immortality as endless duration in
time, and thus also to a simplistic interpretation of the conception
Kant develops in the Critique of Practical Reason. On the other hand, it

supplements the admonitory dimensions of the earlier picture with
certain analogues in the language of apocalypse. The starting-point for
Kant's reflections is the idea of 'The Last Day' [Der Jiingste Tag], and
the terror it inspires in those who have understood that it represents
'the end of all things as temporal beings and as objects of possible experi-
ence,.92 Indeed, the thought of a sudden and irrevocable cessation of-
external and internal - motion and change seems to be a reductio of the
very hope for eternal life, 93 since it effectively annihilates the experien-
cing subject along with all objects of possible experience - which is
precisely how we speak of the dead. But this is the paradox, or rather
the mystery, surrounding the belief in eternal life, viz. that the only
plausible alternative to sempiternal existence seems to have a lot more
in common with death than it does with life. On the other hand, do
Christians not also believe that God is the Creator of life, even though
He, too, is neither a temporal being nor an object of possible experi-
ence in the sense described? Kant does not pursue the matter further,
though it is clear that, on his account, both beliefs stand or fall
together - if God is life, then 'the world to come' must bear the mark of
life as well. Instead, he focuses his attention on how this picture of
eternity may inform religious thought and practice, namely, as a 'regu-
lative principle' or exhortation, rather than as hypothetical specula-
tion about the phenomenology of the afterlife. More concretely - and
here Kant is simply anticipating Wittgenstein's remarks on the subject
- it expresses the requirement that one should always act as if the max-
ims constitutive of one's moral disposition were 'not subject to tem-
poral change',94 but timelessly fixed by death. Good and evil now
appear sub specie aetemitatis, and thus also under the sorts of descrip-
tions Whittaker has in mind when he speaks of the eternal as the
absolute. 95
In this connection, Kant finds the imagery associated with the Apoca-
lypse to be particularly valuable, as it conveys something about the
importance of the task at hand:
The appearance of the Antichrist, the millennium, and the news of

the proximity of the end of the world - all these can take on, before
reason, their right symbolic meaning; and to represent the last of
these as an event not to be seen in advance (like the end of life, be it
far or near) admirably expresses the necessity of standing ready at all
times for the end and indeed ... really to consider ourselves always as
chosen citizens of a divine (ethical) state. 96
Kant's emphasis on 'the necessity of standing ready at all times' con-

veys the same sense of urgency that has been epitomized in Kierke-
gaard's well-known remark that 'the call to find the way again by
seeking God in the confession of sin is always at the eleventh hour'.97
But this is not the only parallel between Kant and Kierkegaard on this
issue. In so far as Kant acknowledges that an adequate account of
immortality cannot dispense with the notion of grace, he also endorses
Kierkegaard's observation that
the person who really grasps his immortality or that an eternal life
awaits him will learn quickly enough to flee to grace. 98
Both thinkers are concerned with the rift between the demands of
absolute value on the one hand, and finitude and imperfection, on the
other; or, to put it even more simply, with the question of what is
involved in becoming acceptable to God, no less than to oneself. The
answer, as Kant and Kierkegaard are also agreed, can only be love and
grace. Like love, grace appears in a variety of modes - e.g. as entry into
the world of faith; answer to petitionary prayer; perseverance in the
pursuit of the good; or self-affirmation in Whittaker's sense. It is true
that Kant has more to say about the third than he does about the
others, but this does not mean that he is blind to their significance in
religious life. On the contrary, his point is rather that this significance
could not be grasped independently of a certain conception of the
good, including the struggle for moral betterment. As the head of the
Catholic Church put it:
Jesus tells the young man: 'If you wish to enter into life, keep the
commandments' (Mt 19:17). In this way, a close connection is made
between etemallife and obedience to God's commandments: God's com-
mandments show man the path of life and they lead to it. ( ... ) The
commandments are linked to a promise. ( ... ) This same reality of the
Kingdom is referred to in the expression 'eternal life', which is a par-
tiCipation in the very life of God. It is attained in its perfection only
after death, but in faith it is even now a light of truth, a source of
meaning for life, an inchoate share in the full following of Christ. 99
Along with the earlier quotations from contemporary Catholic doc-

trine', the above remark suggests a proximity between Kant and Catholi-
cism that many will find bizarre. The analogy should not be pushed too
far, of course,lOO but it is not far-fetched, either. Even in his own time,
a considerable number of Catholic academics and clergy greeted Kant's

discussion of religion with applause and disseminated it with great
enthusiasm among the wider public: for example Matern Reuss,lol who
was one of the first Roman Catholic lecturers in Germany to present
Kant's philosophy to a student audience; ]oseph Weber, a Roman Cath-
olic Professor of Philosophy at Dillingen;102 and Placid Muth, a Bene-
dictine monk and Professor of Theology at Erfurt. 103 Of these, Matern
Reuss is particularly worth mentioning. Several years after publication
of his Soli man aut katholischen Universitaten Kant's Philosophie erkliiren?
[Should Kant's Philosophy be Taught at Catholic Universities?], 104 he
felt the need to reassure Kant that the latter's works on religion had by
no means fallen on deaf ears. In a letter dated 21 April 1797, he wrote:
Most Admirable Herr Professor,

You will be interested to know that your philosophy is increasingly
taking root in Catholic Germany. It is only in the Austrian states that
it hasn't qUite received its proper public attention, though even here
it has plenty of secret advocates. ( ... ) Given the trust invested in me
by the Catholic state and its educators, I considered it my duty to
present a summary of your views in a textbook format, and in a way
that I am confident will prove useful. los
We have no record of Kant's response to Reuss, but a conversation he

had with Abegg in 1798 suggests that he was rather pleased to see that
his philosophy was being so well-received among Catholics. 106
Notes
1. Emily Dickinson, 'I Could Not Stop for Death', in Oxford Concise Dictionary of
Quotations (Oxford: OUP, 1996), 3rd ed., p. 120.
2. D. Z. Phillips, 'Dislocating the Soul', in Can Religion Be Explained Away?,
ed. D. Z. Phillips (London: Macmillan, 1996), p. 247.
3. As Phillips puts it: 'Eternity is not an extension of this present life, but a
mode of judging it. Eternity is not more life, but this life seen under certain
moral and religious modes of thought. This is precisely what seeing this life
sub specie aeternitatis would amount to', in D. Z. Phillips, Death and Immor-
tality (London: Macmillan, 1970), p. 49.
4. John H. Whittaker, 'Kant and Kierkegaard on Eternal Life', p. 187.
5. J/Jid., p. I RR.
6. ibid., p. 194.
7. Ibid., p. 188.
8. Ibid., p. 194.
9. Ibid., p. 195.
10. Ibid., p. 203.
11. Gareth Moore, O. P., 'Death, Value, and Transcendence', in Religion Without
Transcendence?, ed. D. Z. Phillips and Timothy Tessin (London: Macmillan,
1997), p. 150.
12. Whittaker, 'Kant and Kierkegaard', p. 187.
13. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology,
& Religious Belief, ed. Cyri! Barrett (Oxford: Blackwell, 1970), p. SS.
14. For an excellent discussion of this, see Peter Winch's 'Wittgenstein: Picture
and Representation', in Tijdschrift voor Filosofie, 49 (1987), pp. 3-20.
15. Ibid., p. 19
16. Plato, Phaedo, trans. G. M. A. Grube (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1977), 113d'-
114e.
17. Ibid., 114c
18. Ibid., 114d
19. Wittgenstein, Lectures and Conversations, p. SS.
20. Phillips, 'Dislocating the Soul', p. 236.
21. John A. Hardon, The Catholic Catechism (New York: Doubleday, 1974),
p.104.
22. Ibid., dto. for the following quotes.
23. 'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born
I consecrated you.'
24. I am not suggesting here that Hardon's opponents are all non-Catholics,
but rather that even those Catholics who agree with Hardon about the
moral impermissibility of abortion may find his imagery misleading.
25. 'Belief in the resurrection of the dead has been an essential element of the
Christian faith from its beginnings', so Catholics are assured in the Catechism
of the Catholic Church (London: Chapman, 1994), p. 226, not least because
of I Cor 15: 12-14.
26. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Remarks (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990),
pp. 304-5.
27. Cf. Roy Holland's 'For Ever', in Against Empiricism (Totowa, New Jersey:
Barnes & Noble, 1980), p. 191, to whose splendid discussion I am greatly
indebted here.
28. The analogy is Roy Holland's. See 'For Ever', p. 196.
29. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Remarks, p. 310.
30. I am, of course, not denying that there are contexts in which 'for ever' and
'never' are used predictively. On the contrary, there are plenty of examples,
ranging from 'If you buy this top-of-the-line suit, it will last you forever', to
'It never rains in California'. The point is rather that what makes 'for ever'
and 'never' predictive in these cases is that they could be replaced, without
loss of meaning, by 'for a long time' and 'hardly ever', respectively; and that
the latter could be supported by evidence - the superior quality of the
fabric, meteorological considerations, etc. That the proposed substitution
would be less attractive to the addressee has to do with fact that 'for ever'
and 'never' evoke connotJtions of absoluteness, inevitability, solidity, reli-
ability, etc., to which he, as a lover of good suits and sunshine, attaches
great importance.
31. Holland, 'For Ever', p. 189.
32. By contrast with the Hindu-Buddhist tradition, which involves the idea of
man's progressive purification over the course of several lives, the Jewish-
Christian-Islamic tradition strongly emphasizes the uniqueness of man's life.
This is also why, in the Catholic Church, the Church Fathers and Councils
have been rejecting the doctrine of reincarnation since the second century.
Cf. Hans Kiing, Eternal Life? (London: Collins, 1984), pp. 77, 86.
Whether that doctrine yields an understanding of life and death that is
less deep than a Christian construal, however, is by no means a foregone
conclusion. One would have to take a closer look at the use to which the
doctrine of reincarnation is put in Hindu-Buddhist scripture and practice,
for example, or in the Pythagorean and Platonic traditions.
33. Soren Kierkegaard's Journals and Papers, Vol. 2, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong
and Edna H. Hong (Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press,
1970), Note 1955, p. 382.
34. 'It is all this milksop chatter, so hearty and animated, regular preacher non-
sense, which always excels, heartily, in watering down all concepts so that
they end up as nothing, yea, almost nauseating! Immortality - this was
once the high goal to which the heroes of the race looked forward, humbly
acknowledging that this reward was so high that it had no relationship to
their most strenuous striving - and now every louse is immortal!', in Kier-
kegaard, Journals, Vol. 2, Note 1953, p. 381.
35. 'The collision is obvious when regarded like this: if a man's life is intended
for the eternal, this tremendous goal, how alienated he must become from
that which binds him in the relationships of finitude', in Kierkegaard, Jour-
nals, Vol. 2, Note 1955, p. 382.
36. Kierkegaard, Journals and Papers, Vol. 1, Note 831, p. 382.
37. Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: a Report on the Banality of Evil
(New York: Viking Press, 1964), p. 252.
38. Ibid., p. 24.
39. Ibid., p. 252.
40. Cf. Raimond Gaita, Good and Evil (London: Macmillan, 1991), pp. 304-10.
41. 'Who will rise? All the dead will rise, "those who have done good, to the resur-
rection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judge-
ment".' Catechism of the Catholic Church (227-8), by reference to In 5: 29.
42. Whittaker, 'Kant and Kierkegaard', pp. 200-4.
43. Immanuel Kant, 'Traume eines Geistersehers', in Kant's Werke, Akademie
Textausgabe, 9 vols. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1968),2: 320.
44. Ibid., 327.
45. In Contest of the Faculties, written more than thirty years after Dreams of a
Spirit Seer, Kant seems to be a trifle less dogmatic on the question of soul-
substances. But even here he is adamant that, from a practical point of
view, the question whether the continued existence of a soul-substance is
required for the preservation of identity in the afterlife is a pseudo-question
that does not lead anywhere. Cf. Immanuel Kant, Der Streit der Fakultiiten, in
Kant's Werke, Vol. 7 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1968), pp. 1-116; esp. p. 40.
'+6. \,Vhittaher, 'Kant and Kicrhcgaard', pp. 19.+ f.
47. The primary textual reference here is to Kant's discussion of the summum
bonum in Kritik der praktischen Vernun{t, in Kant's Werke, 5: 220, 242 f.
48. Immanuel Kant, Das Ende alIer Dinge, in Kant's Werke, 8: 325-40.
49. Cf. Anthony N. Perovich, Jr., "'For Reason ... also has its mysteries": Immor-
tality, Religion, and "The End of All Things''', in P. J. Rossi & M. Wreen
(eds.), Kant's Philosophy of Religion Reconsidered (Bloomington: Indiana Uni-
versity Press, 1991), p. 173.
SO. Whittaker, 'Kant and Kierkegaard', p. 192.
SI. Kant, Ende, 327.
52. Perovich, 'Immortality, Religion', p. 171.
53. Cf. Kant, Kritik der praktischen Vemun{t, p. 243, where he speaks of postu-
lates as '(transcendent) thoughts' [Gedanken].
54. Immanuel Kant, 'Verkundigung des nahen Abschlusses eines Tractats zum
ewigen Frieden in der Philosophie', in Kant's Werke, 8: 418n.
SS. Wittgenstein, Lectures and Conversations, p. 71.
56. Immanuel Kant, 'Was heil1t, sich im Denken orientieren?', in Kant's Werke,
8: 133.
57. Immanuel Kant, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans. Theodore
M. Greene and Hoyt H. Hudson (New York: Harper, 1960), p. 65n.
58. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. D. F. Pears and
B. F. McGuinness (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963), p. 7.
59. Wittgenstein, Lectures and Conversations, p. 56.
60. Kant, Kritik der praktischen Vemun{t, pp. 221-2.
61. Simone Weil, Pensees Sans Ordre Concernant L'Amour de Dieu (Paris: Gallimard,
1962), p. 39.
62. Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. James W.
Ellington (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993), p. 395.
63. Cf. Immanuel Kant, Metaphysik der Sitten, in Kant's Werke, 6: 441. Whittaker
rightly ascribes to Kant the view that 'no one can know the inscrutable
ground of the will', and indeed that, 'strictly speaking, one could not even
be sure that one's intentions in the present are pure' (fn. 26). cf. also
Groundwork, pp. 419, 451. But this touches only a part of Kant's concern
with the relation between intention and action, and needs to be reconciled
with his elevation of self-knowledge to 'the first moral duty towards
oneself', on the one hand, and with his qualifying remarks in Religion, on
the other. For in the latter work, Kant equally rejects the idea that an agent
might lack all confidence in his moral disposition; indeed, 'he can gain
such confidence' by, for example, 'comparing the course of his life hitherto
with the resolution which he has adopted', and so obtain 'reasonable
grounds for hope' that his inner disposition has improved. (Cf. Religion,
p. 62.) This suggests that there is a sense, at least, in which self-knowledge is
possible.
64. From R. S. Thomas, 'Apostrophe', in Collected Poems 1945-1990 (London:
Phoenix, 1993), p. 482.
65. Rush Rhees, On Religion and Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1997), p. 267.
66. Kant, Religion, p. 159.
67. Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Ethics, trans. Louis Infield (London: Methuen
&: Co., 1979), p. 96.
68. Ibid., p. 108.
69. Pope John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor (Vatican City: Liberia Editrice Vaticana,
1993), p. 123. It might be said that this is only to be expected, since John
Paul Il's thinking on moral matters is known to have been influenced by

Kant. It would be interesting to explore this issue further, not least because
of Kant's bold claim that 'reason can be found to be not only compatible
with Scripture but also at one with it' (Religion, p. 11). However, some of the
criticisms that Kant's Religion attracted from certain quarters of religious
orthodoxy, especially in the 1790s, already suggest that the Kantian res on-
ances in the writings of the Pontifex Maximus should be read with great
caution.
70. Whittaker, 'Kant and Kierkegaard', pp. 200 f.
71. 'Grace, then, does not put an end to moral effort', p. 200.
n. Ibid., p. 20l.
73. Ibid., p. 193.
74. Kant, Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, p. 435. See also Groundwork, p. 428
(my italics).
75. Kant, Metaphysik der Sitten, p. 462; The Metaphysics of Morals, trans. M. Gregor
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 254.
76. Ibid. Kant's phrase 'Die Menschheit selbst ist eine Wiirde' cannot be trans-
lated literally without sounding awkward, but the original German makes it
clear that Kant ascribes dignity to human beings as ends in themselves here,
independently of the character of these ends.
77. Cf. Raimond Gaita, Good and Evil, pp. 1-2.
78. Whittaker, 'Kant and Kierkegaard', p. 20l.
79. For a more detailed discussion of the latter, see my 'Kant and the Language of
Reason', in Lilli Alanen, Sara Heinamaa and Thomas Wallgren (eds.), Com-
monality and Particularity in Ethics (London: Macmillan, 1997), pp. 386-400.
80. Immanuel Kant, On Education, ed. Theodor Rink, in Kant's Werke, 9: 437-99,
esp. 493-6.
81. Ibid., 493
82. Ibid., 494
83. Ibid., 495. Kant's favourite example here is Newton, who had apparently
made it his habit to pause for a short moment every time he uttered the
Lord's name.
84. Whittaker, 'Kant and Kierkegard', p. 19l.
85. Ct. Kant, Metaphysik der Sitten, p. 450; Metaphysics of Virtue, p. 244.
87. Kant mentions the 'customary division into duties towards self and duties
towards others and into perfect and imperfect duties' in Groundwork, p. 422;
and develops it in greater detail in Metaphysik der Sitten, pp. 444 ff., espe-
cially in 448-62. cf. Metaphysics Of Virtue, pp. 239 ff., and 243-54.
88. Catholic Catechism, p. 233.
89. Ibid., p. 234.
90. Kant, Groundwork, p. 394.
91. Ibid.
92. Kant, Ende, 327.
93. Ibid., 334.
9-+. [hid.
95. Whittaker, 'Kant and Kierkegaard', p. 20l.
97. Kierkegaard, Purity, p. 36.
98. Kierkegaard, Journals, Vo!. 2, Note 1951, p. 380.

99. John Paul II, Veritatis, p. 17.
100. I have argued elsewhere that Kant's position is hard to reconcile with the
Catholic teaching on such matters as the divinity of Jesus and the need for
prayer. Cf. 'On Understanding Ritual and Religion: Responses to Positiv-
ism', (unpublished) doctoral dissertation submitted to the University of
Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, 1996, pp. 219-49.
101. Matern Reuss, Aesthetica Transcendentalis Kantiana una cum thesibus ex histo-
riae Philosophiae et Matthesi publicae disquisitioni exposita (Wurzburg: Rienner,
1788).
102. Joseph Weber, Metaphysica, in usum eorum, qui eidem student, edita (Lands-
hut, 1795).
103. Placid Muth, Ueber die wechselseitigen Verhiiltnisse der Philosophie und Theol-
ogie nach Kantische Grundsiitzen (Erfurt: Gorling, 1791).
104. Matern Reuss, SolI man aUf katholischen Universitiiten Kant's Philosophie erk-
liiren? (Wurzburg: Reinner, 1788).
105. In Immanuel Kant. Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Preussische Akademie der
Wissenschaften (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1902), 22 vols., 12: 158.
106. Abegg, in a letter dated 13. 6. 1798, reprinted in Immanuel Kant in Rede und
Gespriich, ed. Rudolf Malter (Hamburg: Meiner, 1990), p. 517.
F: In my remarks I wanted to emphasize that 'eternal life' is a deeper

notion than that of 'endless duration'. What do we mean by saying that
eternal life is timeless? I suggested that we mean that it is a life that is
untouched, not rendered pointless, by the ravages of human existence.
If you think of eternal life as endless duration, you are likely to search
for a soul-substance that endures. In his reply, I has good criticisms of
that notion. But that is not the issue I want to pursue.
Rather, I want to explore the connection between 'becoming a self'
and eternal life. I wants to say that the self is a particular, but that, after
death, it enters the noumenal realm. This creates a puzzle for us. How
can 'eternal life' be a particular task and yet be something absolute? Is
the individual on the road to becoming a self? Is 'eternal life' simply a
normative ideal, something I never become? This has all the marks of a
'something I know not what'.
I, like myself, does not see eternal life as endless duration, but he does
want to find place for it, in Kant's thought, as a regulative idea. I think
that depends on staying with Kant as a metaphysician. Kant's idea has
to do with the need for endless improvements, as seen in his essay The
End ot All Things.
I says that Kant sees grace as the path which leads to the summum
bonum. There seems to be a desperation involved: I am credited with
something, a state attained, as though it were actual. That is what grace
means in a practical sense. I says that Kant emphasizes 'the end of time',
but it is still an emphasis on progress.
I want to argue that in Christianity we have a far more radical notion
of grace, one that does not depend on progress. In Religion Kant says
that we do not start with what God has done, but with what we do. He
does not accept grace as a prior condition of endeavour.
Kant sees faith as connected with ecclesiastical institutions. Their
importance is determined by whether or not they are conducive to moral
effort. In Kierkegaard we are relieved of that burden. You are given
grace and with it a new spirit - that of gratitude. But grace precedes the
notion of perfect virtue.
Another way of bringing out the difference is to ask whether people
contain within them the conditions for salvation. Kant answers 'Yes',
236
but Kierkegaard answers, 'No'. Again this is involved in the distinction

between following Socrates and following Christ in the Fragments. The
new teaching comes as a gratuitous gift. Jesus is the embodiment of
grace. This is not open to external verification; it simply is. Whereas, for
Kant, Jesus is the exemplar of humanity.
What has all this to do with immortality? For Kant, one must have an
extension of this life in order to prove oneself. One has not done
enough to deserve grace. It requires perpetual striving. Whereas, for
Kierkegaard, grace is a gift from on high. We can exist affirmatively in
grace before God. This is because it does not depend on us, but on God;
and hence overcomes death. Kierkegaard said that to know God and to
believe in his grace is eternal life.
J: In the first half of my paper I pursued the question of whether it
makes sense to speak of a soul-substance, and to ascribe a timeless exist-
ence to it.
In the second half of my paper I asked what Kant believed with
respect to these matters. Kant rejects the notion of a temporal eternity
in the Critique of Pure Reason, but seems to accept the notion in the Cri-
tique of Practical Reason. On one reading it seems that temporal eternity
arises from moral requirements which require endless duration.
But I go on to ask what Kant is doing with this postulate. Is he sug-
gesting that I believe in immortality if I accept it? It is important not to
equate the postulate with a proposition concerning a state of affairs.
God is not an object. God is outside space and time and all causal cat-
egories. So if immortality does not postulate a state of affairs, what is it?
Here, Kant's notion of a maxim or of a regulative idea is more helpful.
So the point of the notion of endless progression is practical. It is an
idea which arises from the quest in moral life. It is a useful idea because
it reveals where we stand in the moral task, and the result is a humble
view. So the postulate is a regulative idea or a picture in terms of which
to live out your life.
But this is only one strand in Kant. I am suggesting that more can be
found in the essay The End of All Things. It provides a corrective to the
reading of the second Critique. Instead of emphasizing that it takes a
long time to enter eternity, it emphasizes death as the end of the sub-
ject. Kant makes death more important as that which fixes your char-
acter for all time.
What room does this leave for grace? S is right, Kant does not discuss
grace in the second Critiljue. In Religion he emphasizes that if you see
the distance between yourself and the ideal, this gives rise to the need
for grace.
I think grace enters life in different ways. There is the recognition of

oneself as a creature. Here, one's very existence is an act of grace. This is
a religious view and that is what F is interested in. But Kant discusses
the conditions of this grace. Even in the Groundwork dignity is not
equated with moral accomplishment, but with the unconditional
worth of human beings. So no matter what he has done, a human being
has dignity as a person. Raimond Gaita emphasizes this in his Good and
Evil. This dignity is seen as an act of grace. Gratitude for existence will
show itself in practical action.
But there is another aspect of grace - enabling grace. This is the hope
that one will be able to act in this way at all. Every act would be seen as
an act of grace. This is consistent with what F wants to say. So I do not
think it can be said that Kant leaves no room for grace.
F: Whatever we see in Kant as assisting or enabling grace, its purpose is
to improve one's worth and one's right to a reward. So assisting grace
helps the effort, but does not change the nature of the effort. It involves
no essential transformation. Whereas in Kierkegaard we have some-
thing more, a self-renunciation of everything to which we cling. Moral
endeavour itself is then seen from a different perspective. But assisting
grace does not bring about that change. It is not that full-blooded.
J: What is this transition?
F: It is one which does not make my striving a condition of acceptance.
For Kierkegaard, God accepted me while I was a sinner. I don't have to
prove my worth. Before, I struggled under a burden. Now I am free of
that burden. So the condition of acceptance is not attempting to fulfil
the law in a certain spirit. That would be to hide from the immense gift
of grace from on high.
N: I do not see Kant in Religion as arguing that we have a right to a
reward. He is seeing how far we can go within reason alone. Given that
religion has a rational core, and something that goes beyond it, he is
asking how much we can establish within that core. So he is not saying
that we must prove our worthiness to God. But the question of the
whole book is how we can be pleasing to God. What may we hope for?
We can only have hope if we have had a rebirth, a revolution in our
dispositions. How do we convince ourselves that our dispositions have
changed? The only way is if I can demonstrate to myself that my
actions are good.
I can hope for heaven if I can look back on a life of steady moral pro-
gress. That is our reason for hope.
F: But Kant says that our motives are mixed for the most part, and it's
hard to have knowledge of them.
N: I grant that these matters are such that we can't be certain. That is
why Kant calls it a hope.
F: But this does not capture Kierkegaard's notion of faith. For him,
the believer abides in hope. It is not a second-best. He abides in God's
promises.
N: But the promise is outside the bounds of what can be known. It is the
hope that enables you to continue.
G: Kant could never assent to action done for the sake of reward, or to
action as any kind of manipulation of grace. But there may be doubt
about the reception of grace. Why should a believer want to be free of
that?
F: But that doubt is not the kind that can be answered in any objective
sense. Religious belief, for Kierkegaard, has to do with subjectivity. You
abide in this truth, so old questions and old answers are left behind. To
abide is to come into his courts with thanksgiving.
A: At this point I want to raise an issue on which F and J do not dis-
agree, namely, the incoherence of the notion of endless duration. I agree
with J that no one would insist on what this involves in detail, because
it is beyond anything I can imagine right now. By the way, the notion
of a soul-substance is a red herring in this connection. You do not need
to entertain such a notion to believe in endless duration after death.
As far as I can see, two reasons are advanced against believing that
eternal life entails belief in endless duration after death. First, it is said
that to believe this is religiously inadequate and superficial. In that case,
I plead guilty to superficiality. Second, we are told that we can't con-
ceive of endless duration. Since I can conceive of it perfectly well I obvi-
ously have difficulty in figuring out what this argument comes to.
J: I did not say that no one believes in endless duration, but it is hard to
see what you can do with the notion if you think of it as referring to a
state of affairs. I was suggesting that in Kant it is more useful to see this
talk as referring to a regulative idea or a compelling picture to live by.
A: But one will only think one has to go in that direction if one is in the
grip of verificationism. Then I am only allowed to conceive of that
which I can verify.
C: No, it is not a question of verficationism, but of wanting to retain the
logic of a notion in the absence of the surroundings which give it sense.
With matters of duration it makes sense to raise questions about com-
ing to be and passing away, about the length or time of that which has
duration, and so on. But if you describe duration as 'endless' you have
robbed yourself of the conceptual surroundings in which talk of dura-
tion has its sense in the first place. This is not verficationism. On the
contrary, we can only know what it means to verify or not to verify

something when these checks themselves operate within a particular
context. I think the logical objections to the notion of endless duration
have been well brought out by R. F. Holland in his paper 'For Ever?' in
his collection Against Empiricism.
D: But why do we speak as though we do not have contexts in which
we talk of infinity? We have one in mathematics, for example.
C: But that is a bad example. We get into trouble if we think of infinity
in a mathematical sense as relating to the length of the series. '2, 4, 6, 8'
is a finite series, and '2, 4, 6, 8 ... ' is an infinite series. The 'infinity'
refers to the mathematical rule that it always makes sense to continue
the series, and that it does not make sense to speak of the last number
in it. But it was by exposing the confusion of mathematical divisibility
with physical divisibility that Zeno was able to show, in his paradoxes,
that a line of finite length seems to have an infinite number of parts.
But the fact that the line can be subjected to infinite mathematical divi-
sion does not lead to the conclusion that it has an infinite number of
parts. The physical line does not admit of infinite physical divisibility.
G: I do not see why, if one can always add a bottle to a line of bottles, the
line cannot be infinite. If we can do it for an hour, why not for a bottle?
C: Because that is the same confusion of mathematical infinity, or the
infinity of the measurement, with a physical line or number of physical
objects.
May I turn the discussion back to the notion of grace. In general I agree
with F in what he says about grace, but I did not see why he need say
that we could not be in doubt as to whether we abide in grace or not.
F: My answer is that I was talking about something you abide in.
C: Do you admit the possibility of a fall from grace?
F: Yes, but you do not doubt it while you abide in it.
e: That's a tautology.
L: I wonder whether this distinction would help in the disagreement
between F and J. One view of grace would be that I can earn grace by
becoming worthy of it. But what about the possibility of becoming
worthy to receive that which I do not deserve? Here, 'worthiness' is not
equated with 'earning'. I can be worthy to receive what I do not deserve.
F: That is a useful distinction, but do we find it in Kant? We don't like
the idea of acceptance of us by God in an unpurged state. That is why,
I suspect, J wants to link worthiness to some kind of hope concerning
our future endeavours.
L: I also have a question for J. Do you think that human dignity for
Kant is equated with rational capacities?
J: No, I don't agree with that. It treats reason in a means-ends relation,

as though reason were the means by which dignity is attained. Whereas,
for Kant, 'reason' is a much wider concept. It refers to a person's whole
reflective capacity and cannot be understood as one special quality
among others. The dignity of others refers to how they should be treated.
Reason is taken for granted in the sense that questions about moral
improvement cannot even be raised unless you are already taking a
person's reflective capacities for granted.
When Kant says that others should be treated as ends, never merely
as means, many commentators see dignity as the means by which this
is done. But this is not a negative duty, but a positive one. This is shown
in the Metaphysics of Morals. I see the dignity of the other person. I have
to promote his non-moral ends as much as his moral ends. So one's
obligations increase and one's understanding deepens.
This is linked to the notion of eternal life as deferred life. We must
keep in mind all the time that the moral commands are conceived of as
divine commands in an eschatological tradition. But the reward need
not be seen as a deferred grant, but as a continuing hope. We are back
to Plato saying of eternal life that although it would be foolish to insist
on its details, something like it must be true.
V: What does F mean by saying that Kierkegaard's insights are more
grammatical than Kant's?
F: I meant that when Kierkegaard speaks of the new freedom to be found
in grace, that involves, philosophically speaking, a grammatical shift
from the way of thinking which emphasizes rewards and punishments
for my endeavours. I no longer see myself as engaged in a moral battle
I have to win. What I call grammatical differences, therefore, are indic-
ative of deep differences of perspective.
Part VI
Philosophy of Religion after
Kant and Kierkegaard
11
Philosophy of Religion after
Kant and Kierkegaard
Stephen Palmquist
1. What does it mean to be after Kant and Kierkegaard?
At first sight the scope of this conference's sixth and final topic seems
clear enough: it calls for an examination of major developments in the
philosophy of religion during the 1S0-200 years since Kant and Kier-
kegaard. Two ambiguities, however, must be clarified before the topic's
scope can be properly determined. The first ambiguity concerns the role
of the word 'after' in the title. For this little word conveys an interesting
dual meaning: 'after' can mean either 'along the lines of' (as in 'Kant
takes after his mother') or 'subsequent to' (as in 'Kierkegaard was born
after Kant died'). For reasons that will become apparent as we proceed,
I shall take the word to have both meanings, dealing specifically with
the implications of the former in section 2 and with those of the latter
in section 3.
The title's second ambiguity concerns the meaning of the still smaller
word 'and'. In order to determine how best to interpret this word, let us
distinguish between four logically possible combinations of influence,
where the first 'K' refers to Kantian ideas and the second 'K' to Kierke-
gaardian ideas, while a '0' in place of either 'K' refers to ideas that are
not found in the writings of that philosopher:
KK = Kantian ideas supported/developed by Kierkegaard.

KO = Kantian ideas that Kierkegaard did not support/develop.
OK = Ideas developed by Kierkegaard that were not Kantian in origin.
00 = Ideas supported/developed by neither Kant nor Kierkegaard.
The 'and' in the title of this essay could be taken to include any or all of
these categories, depending on how 'after' is interpreted. In order to
245
limit its scope, I shall therefore interpret' and' more strictly, as referring
only to the 'KK' category. In other words, this essay will focus on identi-
fying some common ground in the philosophies of religion developed by
Kant and Kierkegaard (though without ignoring their differences). We
shall then sample the ideas of two philosophers who, while living during
the 140 years after KK (Le. subsequent to 1855),1 have developed that
common ground after (Le. along the lines of) KK.
Before attempting to identify the 'common ground' shared by Kant
and Kierkegaard, let us take a step back and contrast them with another
important pair of philosophers who in some respects parallel the rela-
tionship between Kant and Kierkegaard. One of the chief alternatives to
our topic as a way of surveying the early roots of contemporary philo-
sophy of religion would be to sketch a 'Philosophy of Religion after
Hume and Hegel'. Just as Kant developed certain key aspects of his
philosophy in response to Hume's overly sceptical empiricism, Kier-
kegaard developed certain key aspects of his philosophy in response to
Hegel's overly logical historicism. Indeed, these four thinkers - Hume
and Kant, Hegel and Kierkegaard - form a neat quaternity of basic per-
spectives that can serve as a useful starting-point for sketching sub-
sequent trends. In terms of Kant's well-known analytic-synthetic and
a priori-a posteriori distinctions, we can suggest the following (admittedly
over-simplified) set of correlations: Hume focused his attention on the
synthetic a posteriori perspective, with a secondary emphasis on the ana-
lytic a priori;2 Hegel, by contrast, focused on the latter (logical) perspect-
ive, with a secondary emphasis on the former (empirical/historical)
perspective; Kant focused his attention on the synthetic a priori perspect-
ive, with a secondary emphasis on what (as we shall see) can be called
the analytic a posteriori; Kierkegaard, by contrast, focused his attention on
the latter (hypothetical/faith) perspective, with a secondary emphasis
on the former (transcendental) perspective. 3
These tendencies can be pictured graphically (with each arrow point-
ing from a philosopher's primary focus to his secondary focus) as
shown below (see p. 247).
Whereas Hume and Hegel represent two very different types of empirical-
logical thinking, Kant and Kierkegaard, writing largely in response to these
two, represent two very different types of transcendental-hypothetical
thinking. Transcendental-hypothetical thinking in general is, as we
shall SCE', the prime characteristic of the 'KK' interpretation of 'and'. In
the following section, we shall therefore examine in detail how the (in
many ways opposite) philosophical methods adopted by Kant and Kier-
kegaard actually complement each other to produce a single tradition in
Philosophy of Religion after Kant and Kierkegaard 247
hypothetical/faith
(analytic a posteriori)
empirical transcendental
(synthetic a posteriori) (synthetic a priori)
logical
(analytic a priori)
the philosophy of religion - a tradition whose influence can be traced

(see sections 3-4) down to the present day and beyond.
2. Philosophy of religion along the lines ofKant and

Kierkegaard
The claim that Kanfs Critical philosophy is rooted in a concern for estab-
lishing various types of synthetic a priori conditions is not open to serious
doubt. For the 'transcendental reflection' that is the hallmark of Critical
philosophy is designed to establish a type of knowledge that is synthetic
(Le. factual, informative, appealing to intuition) even though it is estab-
lished entirely a priori (Le. without requiring reference to any particular
experiences). The primary goal of Kant's three Critiques is to determine
the transcendental conditions for the possibility of empirical knowledge,
moral action and 'contemplative' (aesthetic/teleological) judgement,4
respectively. Space, time and the categories are to the first Critique what
freedom and the moral law are to the second: the necessary and universal
boundaries within which all meaningful epistemological/moral discourse
must fall. In the third Critique purposiveness plays a similar boundary-
setting role in relation to our experiences of beauty and natural organisms.
Kant's approach to religion has often been set apart from the tran-
scel1ckntal rnaimtredl1l of his Critical system and interpreted as a mere
'appendix to Ethics'.s In opposition to this trend, some recent scholars
portray Kant's Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason6 as an extension
of the third Critique, sharing both its Critical aim and its judicial!
contemplative standpoint. 7 The first three 'Books' of RBBR, for example,

can be viewed as establishing radical evil, practical faith and a historical
'church', respectively, as the necessary and universal conditions of all
true religion. These conditions are transcendental in the sense that they
are both synthetic (providing information about what must be factually
true if religion is to be genuine) and yet a priori (determined without
being based on any particular religious sentiments or traditions).
What is not so commonly recognized is that, in addition to Kanfs
primary emphasis on establishing transcendental boundaries, a very
significant secondary emphasis comes into play towards the end of each
Critique, where Kant examines the purpose or goal of whatever lies within
each boundary. This secondary emphasis always manifests itself in a
similar way, though Kant calls it by a number of different names. In the
first Critique, for example, after establishing the basic elements of empir-
ical knowledge, Kant launches into a lengthy attack on traditional
metaphysics. His purpose in doing so is not to destroy metaphysics but
to pave the way for a new way of reflecting upon the theological ideas of
God, freedom and immortality: they are to be treated as regulating rather
than constituting our empirical knowledge. In a much neglected section
of the Doctrine of Method, Kant further defines this new approach in
terms of the proper role of hypotheses in philosophical thinking. s
Without delving here into the details of Kant's arguments, we can
note that Kant himself fails to assign any special epistemological status
to his new (regulative/hypothetical) form of metaphysical reflection.
Instead, he nonchalantly identifies it with the synthetiC a priori status
assigned to the propositions of traditional speculative metaphysics, in
spite of having devoted the bulk of the Dialectic to the task of proving
these to be based on illusory reasoning. A better option, as I have argued
elsewhere,9 would have been for him to recognize that classifying the
propositions of regulative/hypothetical (or 'as if) thinking reqUires us
to introduce a quite distinct epistemological status: in thinking hypo-
thetically (e.g. by letting the idea of God regulate our attempts to unify
empirical knowledge), our focus is by definition entirely conceptual (i.e.
analytic);lO yet we are seeking to impose a concept directly onto our par-
ticular experiences (Le. a posteriori). Instead of seriously conSidering such a
possibility, Kant normally assumes all analytic knowledge must be logical
(and hence a priori).ll But this assumption is no different, in principle,
from that of the pre-Kantian philosophers who assumed all synthetic
knowledge must be a posteriori. Extending Kant's own epistemological
classifications to include the analytic a posteriori enables us to shed new
light on some of his more obscure (yet important) theories.
That this (dimly recognized) analytic a posteriori mode of reflection is

more than just an appendix to Kanfs 'official' epistemological methods,
but constitutes a genuine (though secondary) emphasis that is essential
to the nature and function of Critical philosophy, is evidenced by the
fact that the second and third Critiques also include key arguments that
can be reinterpreted (and better understood) in terms of this analytic
a posteriori status. The whole theory of the postulates of practical reason
in the Dialectic of the second Critique is easy to misconstrue if inter-
preted as concepts that play a determinative role, rather than as a set of
ideas that encompass our moral reasoning analytically, regulatively guid-
ing us to explain the purpose of morality; yet the postulates of God and
immortality are also intended to be imposed upon the realities of our
moral life (a posteriori), just as if they were theoretically verifiable. Like-
wise, the third Critique's concluding appeal to mankind as the only
organism with the ability (in virtue of our moral nature) to provide a
concrete link between nature and freedom must also have an analytic
a posteriori status, if it is to carry the weight of conviction that Kant him-
self clearly believed it had.
An even more important point for our purposes is that RBBR also
lends itself at certain key points to an interpretation in analytic
a posteriori terms. One of the most obvious instances of this comes at the
beginning of the first part of Book Four, where Kant finally gives his
definition of religion as 'the recognition of all duties as divine
commands' (RBBR, p. 142). If taken as a synthetic a priori proposition
marking out the transcendental boundary lines of religion, this claim
would indeed support a reductionistic interpretation of Kanfs philo-
sophy of religion. But this cannot be Kant's intention, if for no other
reason than because he always establishes such boundary lines in the first
half of his Critical inquiries, leaving regulative/hypothetical ('as if')
issues for the closing sections. Since Kanfs definition comes in the final
book of RBBR, we should expect it to provide us with an analytic
a posteriori means of uniting what has gone before into one regulative
whole. Properly interpreted, his definition can be seen to do just that:
the idea of 'divine commands' (an analytic, non-intuited concept
[see note 9]) is to be imposed hypothetically upon the material given
(a posteriori) by our day-to-day 'duties', not in such a way as to imply
that the two can be scientifically proven to coincide, but rather in
a tentative and ever-evolving ('as if') way that befits the mystery of
religion.
Had Kant been more explicit in identifying the analytic a posteriori
status of any objects viewed from this regulative/hypothetical perspective,
the close affinity between Kant's and Kierkegaard's philosophies of reli-

gion would have been far more evident from the beginning. Turning
now to Kierkegaard's writings with this more precise understanding of
Kant's approach in mind, we can easily recognize numerous themes that
turn out to be an elaboration and extension of the Critical (regulative/
hypothetical) approach to metaphysics. Whereas Kant found it neces-
sary to put his primary emphasis on the task of 'deny[ing] knowledge'
(through synthetic a priori Critique) and was able to develop only a
partial explanation of how this denial 'makers] room for faith' [Bxxx]
(through various forms of analytic a posteriori reflection), Kierkegaard
felt constrained to emphasize and elaborate on the latter, while uphold-
ing the former as but a secondary emphasis. Kierkegaard's thought
ranges over such a wide variety of subjects that we can do no more here
than merely sketch a few examples of how his philosophy stands in this
complementary relationship with Kant's.
When Kierkegaard boldly proclaims in Concluding Unscientific Post-
script (hereafter CUP) that 'truth is subjectivity',Iz some readers might
assume he is waging war against the Kantian view of scientific know-
ledge as being objectively valid due to the necessity and universality of
the categories. But this apparent conflict would be real only if Kierke-
gaard were adopting the theoretical (epistemological/scientific) stand-
point Kant assumed in the first Critique. The very title of CUP, however,
belies Kierkegaard's fundamentally different standpoint. Interpreted as
the explanation and defence of what a specifically religious standpoint
entails, this and other equally peculiar claims can be rendered fully
compatible with the first Critique's theoretical standpoint.
One of the ways Kierkegaard protects himself against an overly-relativist
interpretation, whereby all kinds of truth are based on nothing but one's
own subjective beliefs, is by contrasting religiOUS (subjective) truth with
'world-historical' (objective) truth. Phillips points out the importance of
recognizing both standpoints as aspects of Kierkegaard's broader view of
truth. 13 In contrasting the attitudes these standpoints encourage towards
the empirical exigencies of daily life, Phillips points out (FPE, p. 208) that,
for a person adopting the 'truth is subjectivity' standpOint, 'what they are
to become is not determined by the prospects which come their way,
but rather the prospects that come their way are judged by what they
have vowed to be'. The former attitude towards 'prospects', belonging to
the 'world-historical' standpOint, is properly based on synthetic a priori
propositions, just as Kant argued.l~ The latter, by contrast, can be classi-
fied in terms of an analytic a posteriori approach: it is analytic in as much
as religious people's 'vows' are predetermined conceptual structures; it
Philosophy of Religion after Kant and Kierkegaard 2S 1
is a posteriori in as much as such vows are imposed upon particular experi-

ences in order to shape their 'prospects'.
Recognizing Kierkegaard's acceptance of objectivity, as a lower but legit-
imate standpoint for discovering truth,15 enables us better to appreciate
his complementary relationship with Kant in forming the KK tradition.
For both thinkers there is a different, though equally intriguing, inter-
play between objective and subjective functions. Kant demonstrates that
the objectivity of scientific (and all world-historical) truth begins in a
subjective imposition of synthetic a priori (factual, but pre-experiential)
judgement-forms on to the material given to us in experience. Kierke-
gaard accepts this basic insight, but goes on to demonstrate that the
subjectivity of religious truth begins, paradoxically, in history, through
an objective imposition of analytic a posteriori (conceptual, but experi-
ence-bound) judgement-contents on to the very form of our thinking.
Whereas Kant's method of proof is logical and transcendental, Kierke-
gaard's is psychological and existential. The two are not incompatible,
but depend on each other for a complete picture of the human situation.
That Kierkegaard's philosophy of religion depends in many respects
on a largely implicit acceptance of Kant's philosophy has been argued
recently by a number of interpreters. 16 But this dependence is not
entirely hidden; rather, it is secondalY, much like Kant's emphasis on
hypothetical reflection as the proper theoretical response to the prob-
lems caused by our discovery of transcendental limitations. Thus, for
instance, Kierkegaard's subtle distinction between God's 'existence' and
that of ordinary individuals 17 assumes Kant's categorial scheme as an
epistemological framework. His point is not to deny the existence of
God, but to shock us into realizing that an experience of God is possible
only when we step outside the exclusively objective standpoint defined
by the existence or non-existence of things and enter instead into the
subjective realm of 'inwardness', where the distinction between exist-
ence and non-existence becomes irrelevant. In so doing, we enter the
paradoxical realm of analytic a posteriori faith.
A similarly impliCit Kantianism in the moral and aesthetic realms can
be seen in Kierkegaard's theory of the three 'stages of life', where the
chief difference once again is one of emphasis. Whereas Kant is norm-
ally taken as being most at home with the moral standpoint (or stage),
Kierkegaard insists that a pursuit of subjectivity will draw us further,
into a more authentic religious stage. Actually, a judiciOUS interpretation
of Kant reveals that he too regards the religious standpoint as ultimately
superior to the moral and aesthetic - RBBR, after all, was written after,
and perhaps in some respects as an improvement on, the second and
third Critiques. Only in RBBR (and to some extent in the third Critique),
therefore, should we expect to find testimonies of the analytic a posteri-
ori that come close to matching the power and depth of Kierkegaard's
expositions of the religious stage of life.
Limitations of space preclude us from dwelling on such examples, but
it is worth noting that Kierkegaard's writings are packed with interpre-
tations of religious concepts and actions that can best be classified in
analytic a posteriori terms. From his early philosophical analyses of sin,
angst, and the 'leap of faith', where a psychological approach overshad-
ows its transcendental ground, to his later writings on more explicitly
Christian themes, Kierkegaard always tends to focus on those aspects of
human life wherein we allow our idea(s) of the infinite to shape our his-
torically bound experiences of the finite. My argument has been that all
such aspects can best be classified in terms of the paradoxical epistemo-
logical category of the analytic a posteriori. One final example should
help to clarify this claim.
That Kierkegaard's book on love contains the word 'Works' in its title is
no accident. A 'work' of love, in this context, is more than just some
external activity we perform; it is a very special, internal kind of 'doing'
that molds and predetermines our external behaviour. Ordinary types of
love manifest themselves as mere responses to external stimuli; but a
work of love (as the Christian notion of agape always implies) must be
proactive. In order for (true Christian) love to be love, we must purpose-
fully impose it on to our experiences as an inward principle of interpreta-
tion. This is why giving love cannot be contingent on the lover's
response: as Phillips puts it, 'to abide in love is love's own reward'. IS Such
a deliberate, unconditional choice is not epistemologically equivalent to
judging (synthetic a posteriori) that 'this paper is white' or (analytic a priori)
that 'white is a colour', nor can it even be identified with (synthetic a pri-
ori) judgements such as 'every event has a cause'. Love, with all its para-
doxes, deserves its own special status. What could be more appropriate
than the equally enigmatic status of the analytic a posteriori? Had Kierke-
gaard himself seen fit to introduce such a classification at this (and many
other) point(s) in his writings, I believe the nature of his contribution to
the philosophy of religion would have been significantly clarified.
3. Philosophy of religion subsequent to Kant

and Kierkegaard
In the 140-plus years since Kierkegaard's death, numerous schools

of philosophy have developed their own unique approaches to the
philosophy of religion. Of these, perhaps the most influential have been

phenomenology (including certain trends in the psychology of religion),
existentialism (particularly among Christian theologians), analytic
philosophy (with in sights drawn especially from Wittgenstein), and the
whole domain commonly referred to as 'postmodern' philosophy (includ-
ing hermeneutic and deconstructionist wings). There is no space here to
trace the influence of Kant and Kierkegaard through all these trends.
Instead, I shall take one example from each of the first two traditions -
these exhibiting, in my opinion, more obvious KK influences than the
latter two - in order to examine the connections in a bit more detail.
Two influential scholars, who were born in the half-century after Kier-
kegaard's death and did most of their writing during the first half of this
century, can serve as typical representatives of the phenomenological
and existentialist ways of developing the KK tradition: Rudolf Otto
(1869-1937) and Paul Tillich (1886-1965).19
Rudolf Otto develops a philosophy of religion on explicitly Kantian
grounds, but seeks to extend its religious application through a method
of psychological introspection that is in some respects reminiscent of
Kierkegaard. Otto's phenomenological insights into the basic ingredi-
ents of a religious experience, as expounded in The Idea of the Holy,20 are
sufficiently well known as not to require a detailed account here. In
short, he describes religious experience in terms of a 'creature-feeling' (a
'mysterium tremendum') consisting of five basic 'elements': awe, majesty,
urgency, mystery and fascination. Such experiences, he argues, must be
regarded as responses to a reality that is essentially holy and unknown
(the 'numen'); as such they are fundamentally non-rational and non-
moral and so cannot be expected to conform to the theoretical and
moral boundaries established by Kanfs Critiques.
Otto presents his theories as resting on a Kantian foundation, not
only in IH, but even more explicitly in his earlier, less-known book, The
Philosophy of Religion based on Kant and Fries. 21 Seeking to offset what he
perceives as Kant's failure to account for the depth of meaning in a
genuine religious experience, Otto (like Kierkegaard) accepts the basic
transcendental boundaries established in the three Critiques, but tries to
construct a distinct new religious standpoint that can show how the
profoundest of human experiences take us beyond a strictly Kantian
worldview (see e.g. IH, pp. 113-14). Replacing Kant's transcendental
deduction with a method of psychologicaJ introspection derived from
Fries and Nelson (see RPM, pp. 181, 203), OUo regards 'the holy' as a
numinous 'category' constituting the essential ingredient of the 'reli-
gious a priori'. 22
Without delving into the intricacies of Otto's theories, we can pause

here to question, in light of our analysis of the KK tradition in section 2,
any such attempt to classify religious experience in synthetic a priori
terms. For if this 'creature-feeling' were transcendental in the way Otto
requires, then it would obtain a form of necessity that simply does not
fit the facts. Is the experience of God's presence in the Eucharist, for
instance, really epistemologically equivalent to the experience of any
(or every) event having a cause, or of any (or every) moral action being
free? The principles grounding knowledge and morality are 'synthetic'
because they relate to factual/intuitive content, and' a priori' because we
impose them on all our experience before any particular events/actions
take place. Yet the numinous experiences Otto describes so forcefully
do not fit either of these requirements. Rather, they are experiences
wherein a predetermined concept of something that cannot be intuited
(e.g. 'the holy') is analytically imposed upon particular experienced
objects, a posteriori.
Rather than invalidating Otto's theory, revising it along these lines
highlights its ability to complement Kant's transcendental boundaries,
yet without transgressing any of them. For religious judgements can
then be seen to have their own unique epistemological status, and to
participate in the autonomous systems of natural, moral, and aesthetic/
teleological science. As we have seen, Kant himself hinted at this parti-
cipation of the religious in all realms of human thought by concluding
each of his Critical systems with a discussion of their (analytic a posteri-
ori) purpose in terms of regulative ideas, practical postulates, and con-
templative judgements, respectively - with each pointing us beyond
knowledge, morality and purposiveness to their underlying religious
foundationY This subtle but significant revision of Otto's theory also
highlights its affinity with Kierkegaard's psychological extension of
Kant's transcendental Critique, thus confirming Otto's place in the KK
tradition.
That Otto's phenomenology of religion has a quasi-existential aim is
evident not only from its psychological methodology, but also from his
efforts to show how the numinous feeling paradoxically 'provides a
genuine cognition of the ultimate meaning and purpose of the world'
even though it does so without yielding any direct theoretical know-
ledge. 24 Because the numen is always experienced as 'a mysterious X',
its 'positive content', as Dilvidoyich explilins, 'ciln only he expressed
symbolically' (RPM, pp. 213,195; see also p. 188). Otto develops a com-
plex theory of religious symbolism and its 'schematization' of the
numinous (IH, pp. 45-9; see also RPM, p. 220), whereby the numinous
feeling enables us to 'become aware of the manifestation of the infinite

in the [finite] object of religious experience' (p. 157; see also p. 186).
Such views reveal a definite (though only implicit) Kierkegaardian slant
to Otto's position; but their thoroughly Kantian roots must not be
neglected. For Kant himself not only sketched a theory of symbolism in
the third Critique, but applied it explicitly to religious issues on several
occasions in RBBR.2S This confirms the suggestion that Otto epitomizes
a classic response to the KK tradition: one that moves from explicit Kant-
ian (transcendental) grounds to a (mainly implicit) Kierkegaardian
conclusion.
In contrast to Otto, Tillich bases his philosophy of religion on expli-
citly Kierkegaardian grounds, but moves his existentialism in the direc-
tion of a more philosophically sophisticated, quasi-transcendental
approach reminiscent of Kant. Tillich covers a vast array of topics in his
many writings. Of these, we shall limit our attention to only two.
Rather than choosing areas of obviously Kierkegaardian influence, such
as his views on anxiety, courage and faith,26 let us look briefly at Tillich's
theories of 'theonomy' and the nature of religious symbolism.
Tillich uses the term 'theonomy' to describe the essential character-
istic of all religiosity, as 'the directedness of the spirit towards the mean-
ing of its construct'Y The theologian's task, according to Tillich, is
primarily one of laying bare the systematic relation between the sciences
and this natural theonomous impulse of the human spirit (RPM, pp. 238,
242, 249n, 280) - a task consistent with Kant's conviction that the
architectonic unity of each Critical system demands a concluding hypo-
thetical reflection on the system's own purpose. Whereas Kant's theor-
etical, practical and judicial standpoints each direct our attention
ultimately beyond themselves to a religious end, Tillich begins (like
Kierkegaard) with religion as 'the dimension of depth' that directs our
attention outwards, to 'all functions of man's spirituallife'.28
That 'theonomy' is Tillich's term for the disclosure of the analytic
a posteriori in the otherwise ordinary realms of human life (Le. science,
morality, aesthetics) is evident not only in his descriptions of the reli-
gious awareness it produces,29 but also in his sophisticated theory of
religious symbolism. In Dynamics of Faith, Tillich provides a detailed
account of the crucial role symbols play in all genuine religious experi-
ence: as 'the language of faith', symbols paradoxically communicate the
ultimate to us in a form wc can experience,oo Svmbols are othen\'ise
ordinary, intuitable objects that we spontaneously invest with meaning,
enabling them to 'point beyond themselves' to new 'levels of reality';
yet a symbol 'participates in that to which it points' (DF, pp. 41-54).
Understanding how this 'language' operates clearly requires that sym-

bolism be given its own distinct epistemological status (cf. TP, pp. 170-2).
Without delving into the details of Tillich's theory and its relation to
religious faith, it is enough merely to acknowledge its roots in the KK
tradition (see note 25). A thoroughgoing study of the theories
of symbolism proposed by Kant, Kierkegaard, Otto and Tillich would,
I believe, overwhelmingly confirm that the epistemological status of
symbols, as well as of faith itself, is best described in terms of the ana-
lytic a posteriori.
4. The power of belief: reflections on the road ahead

The foregoing discussion of the views of Otto and Tillich barely scratches
the surface of the many developments in the philosophy of religion
that have taken place subsequent to Kant and Kierkegaard. A more
exhaustive study would include numerous other scholars who fall into
the schools represented by Otto and Tillich: phenomenology (e.g.
lames,3! Husserl, Merleau-Ponty) and existentialism (e.g. Nietzsche, Hei-
degger, Sartre), respectively. Moreover, we would need to consider the
relationship between these schools and other, quite different schools,
such as analytic philosophy (e.g. Wittgenstein and his many followers)
and postmodernism (e.g. Gadamer, Habermas, Foucault, Derrida). We
have virtually ignored the latter schools not because they lack signific-
ance, but because their proponents tend to have a closer relationship to
the HH tradition mentioned in section 1 than to the KK tradition. Where
the influence of Kant or Kierkegaard on philosophers in such schools
becomes evident, it often has more of an 'either/or' than a 'both/and'
character. 32
Having offered a suggestion as to how best to characterize the philo-
sophy of religion that operates along the lines of both Kant and Kierke-
gaard, and having looked briefly at two examples of twentieth-century
scholars whose theories exhibit a clear KK influence, let us close by
considering our topic in terms of a third sense of 'after'. In addition to
'along the lines of' and 'subsequent to', this little word can mean '[aris-
ing] out of' or 'as a new creation due to the influence of', as in 'popcorn
pops after sufficient heat is applied for several minutes'. This suggests
questions such as: Where do we go from here? What lies ahead for the
philosophy of religion as we approach the twenty-first century? Will
the philosophies of Kant and Kierkegaard exercise as much influence
after the dawn of a new millennium as they have in these final years of
the old? Without presuming to be prophetic, let us reflect briefly on
what we can expect to 'arise out of' KK, now that the 'heat' of history
has been applied for over 140 years.
Philosophy of religion in the twentieth century has been character-
ized, perhaps more than anything else, by a deep concern for under-
standing the belief-structures of religious people. The renewed interest
we have seen in discussing theoretical proofs for the existence of God,
after a century when Kant's criticisms of these proofs were widely regarded
as having laid them to rest once and for all, is but one manifestation of
this trend. A new scholasticism has developed in many circles, whereby
religion and religious issues are discussed at a level of such abstraction
from real religious beliefs as to render them virtually meaningless to the
average layperson. Ironically, the very thing that endows religion with its
great power in human life - namely, the beliefs it engenders - is often ren-
dered impotent by well-meaning philosophers trying to understand it
through logical analysis of its constituent parts. The danger here is that,
by failing to reflect the potentially immense power of the philosophy of
religion - a power that can still be felt by readers of many religious writ-
ings in the KK tradition - contemporary philosophy could end up doing
more harm than good to the religious spirit of humanity.
Recognizing that the power of religious belief is an expression of its
fundamentally analytic a posteriori status can put us well on the way
towards solving this problem. Just as this classification has enabled us
more fully to appreciate the legacy passed on to us by Kant and Kierke-
gaard, so also can it elucidate and empower numerous other topics of
interest to philosophers of religion. 33 The emphasis philosophers have
placed in this century on aspects of religion ranging from the anthropo-
logical (e.g. myth as a form of thinking that is inevitably present in all
human cultures) to the epistemological (e.g. 'justified true belief' as a
purported definition of the nature of knowledge) can all benefit from a
careful reinterpretation in analytic a posteriori terms. One result of such
an intentional application of the KK understanding of religious belief
will be the raising of 'contemplative' issues to a level of import that sur-
passes that of both theoretical and practical issues. This is because from
the theoretical standpoint the analytic a posteriori can give us nothing
but dry hypotheses that we can at best treat 'as if' they are true, while
the practical standpoint can do no more than prompt us to regard our
hypotheses as having a moral reality; only by contemplating our reli-
gious and quasi-religious experiences does the intuitive power of belief
come fully into view. 3-1
An advantage of this approach to future philosophy of religion is that
it will enable us to account for the power religion exercises in human
life. To attempt an explanation of religion on any other epistemological

terms is to risk giving an explanation that is a mere shadow of the real-
ity we are investigating. The synthetic a posteriori and analytic a priori
are virtually powerless, for they convey to us only the drab 'facts' of
empirical science on the one hand and the uninformative banalities of
formal logic on the other. This is not to say that these perspectives have
no role to play in the philosophy of religion; my point is simply that the
science of religion and the logic of religion on their own cannot tap
into the source of the power of religion that makes it such a faSCinating
object of study, nor can they explain the powerful impact those philo-
sophers who fall into the KK tradition continue to have on their readers.
The synthetic a priori offers us something akin to this power: by show-
ing us the boundary between power and the powerless, it sets the stage
for an investigation that can penetrate into the heart of religion. In that
heart, as classified in the paradoxical terms of the analytic a posteriori,
lies the power and the future of the philosophy of religion as we
approach the twenty-first century.
Notes
1. The decision to limit the scope of this discussion to KK enables us to begin
with Kierkegaard's death in 1855, thus avoiding numerous difficult issues
relating to the development of philosophy of religion between Kant and Kier-
kegaard. For instance, the question of whether Hegel or Schopenhauer repres-
ents a more authentically Kantian tradition can be sidestepped, along with
issues relating to Kant's influence on philosophers and theologians in the
Romantic tradition, such as Schleiermacher.
2. These are the two criteria of knowledge commonly referred to as 'Hume's
Fork': matters of fact are synthetic a posteriori, while matters of reason are ana-
lytic a priori. See, for example, An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding,
ed. C. W. Hendel (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1955), p. 173.
3. I have explained the relationship between these four epistemological classifi-
cations and the 'perspectives' they define in 'Knowledge and Experience - An
Examination of the Four Reflective "Perspectives" in Kant's Critical Philo-
sophy', Kant-Studien, 78: 2 (1987), pp. 170-200 - hereafter KE - and in
'A Priori Knowledge in Perspective: (I1) Naming, Necessity and the Analytic
a Posteriori', The Review of Metaphysics, 41: 2 (December 1987), pp. 255-82-
hereafter NNAAP. (A revised version of the former essay was subsequently
included as Chapter IV in Kant's System of Perspectives [Lanham: University Press
of America, 19931 - hereafter KSP.) Kant himself almost entirely ignores the
'analytic cl pmtcriori' as a meaningful epistemological classification (but see
note 11, below); in these essays, however, I have argued that this expression is
nevertheless a highly appropriate way of representing Kant's hypothetical per-
spective, as well as various other (usually paradoxical) types of philosophical
reasoning. As we shal! see in section 2, many of Kierkegaard's key concepts

also fit well into this classification.
4. The word 'contemplative' as a description of the reflective judgement
expounded in the third Critique is suggested by Adina Davidovich, in her
book, Religion as a Province of Meaning: the Kantian Foundations of Modern
Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), Chapter IV and passim - here-
after RPM. Her use of this term in interpreting the third Critique enables her
to argue persuasively for the religious significance of the forms of judgement
analysed therein. While admitting that Kant's awareness of this contem-
plative standpoint is 'embryonic' (p. 231), she claims (p. 307) it enables us
to interpret his 'philosophy of religion ... so that religious experience is
essentially the highest possible insight of reason'.
5. C. e. J. Webb, Kant's Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1926),
p. 62. See also Rem B. Edwards, Reason and Religion (Washington D.e.: Uni-
versity Press of America, 1979), p. 46, and John Hick, Faith and Knowledge
(Ithaca: Comel! University Press, 2nd edn, 1966 [1957]). Hick typifies the
tendency to equate Kant's 'philosophy of religion' with the doctrine of God
propounded in the first two Critiques; ignoring RBBR altogether, he thus
concludes (not surprisingly) that Kant 'leaves no room for any acquaint-
ance with or experience of the divine, such as religious persons claim'
(p. 62). I have argued against such reductionist interpretations in 'Does
Kant Reduce Religion to Morality?', Kant-Studien, 83: 2 (1992), pp. 129-48-
hereafter DKRRM. A revised version of this article is included as Chapter VI
in my book, Kant's Critical Religion (Aldershot: Ashgate (2000)) hereafter
KCR - where I argue at length that, far from excluding the possibility of
genuine religious experience, Kant's whole system can be regarded as a
philosophical foundation for a refined 'Critical mysticism'.
6. Trans. T. M. Greene and H. H. Hudson as Religion Within the Limits of Reason
Alone (New York: Harper & Row, 1960) - hereafter RBBR. For an explanation
of why the standard translation of this book's title ought to be replaced by
the one given in the main text, see DKRRM, pp. 131-5 and KCR, VI. 2.
7. Davidovich keeps a foot in both camps by distinguishing between Kant's
'official' interpretation of religion (see e.g. RPM, pp. 44-9) and the new (and
more profound) contemplative view introduced in the third Critique. In
KCR I argue that the latter (which I call the 'judicial' standpoint) is not
incompatible with the former: the two are different standpoints for inter-
preting one and the same reality (i.e. our idea of God and its implications).
8. A769/B797-A782/B810. References to Kant's first Critique will cite the A and/or
B pagination in the traditional way, without any other abbreviation, as here.
9. See KE, pp. 190-6, NNAAP, pp. 255-82, and KSP, pp. 129-37, 237-9, 251-3,
pp. 367-8.
10. I say 'by definition' because Kant defines an idea as a concept that can have
no intuitive content, since it 'transcend[s] the possibility of experience' (e.g.
A31O/B367-A311/B368, A320/B377). That the intuitive-conceptual distinc-
tion corresponds closely to the synthetic-analytic distinction is argued per-
suasively by Henry Allison in Tile Kmzt-Ebcrllilrd CUlltrol'Cl".l r' (London: Johm
Hopkins University Press, 1973). The analytic status of hypothetical reflec-
tion is further suggested by the fact that the use of hypotheses in science is
often referred to (e.g. by Karl Popper) as the 'hypothetico-deductive method'.
11. Numerous of Kant's statements imply such a view. One of the most decisive
comes in B11, where he states (trans. Kemp Smith, Immanuel Kant's Critique
of Pure Reason [London: Macmillan, 1929]): 'Judgments of experience, as
such, are one and all synthetic. For it would be absurd to found an analytic
judgment on experience.' In one tantalizing passage, however, Kant does
utilize the epistemological classification in question. In the course of
explaining the three factors that determine the value of (rather significantly)
a hypothesis (BllS), he says: 'the criterion of an hypothesis consists ...
[thirdly,] in the completeness of the ground of explanation of these con-
sequences, which carry us back to ... the hypothesis, and so in an a posteriori
analytic manner give us back and accord with what has previously been
thought in a synthetic a priori manner.' Unfortunately, this sentence comes
just before the end of a chapter, and the reader is left wondering what (if
any) role the analytic a posteriori can play in Kant's epistemology.
12. See Book Two, Part Two, Chapter II of CUP, and passim.
13. See Faith and Philosophical Enquiry (New York: Schocken Books, 1970),
pp. 204-21- hereafter FPE. PhilIips pOints out in FPE, p. 211 that for Kierke-
gaard 'subjectivity' does not mean 'there are no criteria of truth and falsity'.
14. Phillips explains in FPE, p. 213 that 'Kierkegaard is well aware that the
world-historical perspective keeps breaking in on the subjective which the
Christian struggles to attain.' Later (p. 214), he again emphasizes their
perspectival relationship: 'all the barriers belong to the sphere of the world-
historical, while worship belongs to the sphere of subjectivity'; the differ-
ence 'is not a matter of degree, but of kind'.
15. As Kierkegaard puts it in CUP, p. 146: 'The task of becoming subjective ...
may be presumed to be the highest task, and one that is proposed to every
human being' (David F. Swenson and WaIter Lowrie translation [Princeton:
Prince ton University Press, 1941]).
16. See, for example, Ronald M. Green, 'The Leap of Faith: Kierkegaard's Debt
to Kant', Philosophy & Theology, 3: 4 (1989), pp. 385-411. Green argues persua-
sively that, despite common assumptions to the contrary, 'Kierkegaard ...
was actually steeped in Kantian philosophy' (pp. 385-6), and 'was perhaps
Kant's best nineteenth-century reader and the genuine heir to Kant's mature
thinking about ethics and religion'.
17. See, for example, CUP, pp. 178-80, 187-8. In discussing this issue (see for
example, Systematic Theology, Vo!. 1 [Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
19Sn pp. 204-8), TilIich goes so far as to say: 'God does not exist.' But he
immediately clarifies (p. 205) that by this he means: 'He is being-itself
beyond essence and existence.'
18. FPE, p. 216. PhilIips expresses a similar point in his discussion of the reli-
gious maxim that we should give thanks for all things: we do not thank
God as a response to things going well; we are to thank God no matter what
(p. 219). Phillips explains that 'the ability to thank God, to love Him, is
only given when man has died to the objective world-historical view of
things'. True thankfulness, like love, requires us to adopt the subjective
(analytic a po_'tcriori) standpoint of inwardness.
19. For further discussion of the insights of Otto and Tillich (alongside those of
Kant and Kierkegaard), see Part Four of my book, The Tree of Philosophy
(Hong Kong: Philopsychy Press, 3rd edn, 1995) - hereafter TP. Davidovich
selects these same two scholars to exhibit Kant's influence on modern theo-
logy and philosophy of religion (see RPM, pp. 149-303). For this reason I shall
make significant use of her often helpful interpretations in this section.
However, I am treating these scholars as exemplifying two different respon-
ses to the KK tradition, whereas she focuses on their common extension of
the 'contemplative' view of religion suggested in Kant's third Critique.
20. Trans. John W. Harvey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1950) - hereafter 1H.
21. Trans. E. B. Dicker (London: Williams & Norgate Ltd, 1931) - hereafter
PRKF. Otto particularly emphasizes the importance of the third Critique (see
pp. 17-24) and of Fries' qualified dependence on Kant (pp. 105-6).
22. See IH, pp. 50-9, 112-16, 136-42; cf. PRKF, pp. 91-102 and RPM, pp. 152-3.
As Davidovich points out (RPM, p. 154; see also p. 160), Otto was careful 'to
stress that ... numinous consciousness remains strictly within the limits of
a critical philosophy'.
23. Similarly, Davidovich repeatedly stresses Tillich's efforts to depict religiosity
as permeating all the sdences (e.g., natural, moral, aesthetic); unfortunately,
she never clearly acknowledges Kant's own profound recognition of the
same point (see e.g., RPM, p. 230). In KCR I have argued that RBBR can be
interpreted as establishing a synthetic a priori boundary defining the neces-
sary conditions for religion. But this boundary does not set up a distinct
'religious a priori' that transcends the limits of the three Critiques, as Otto's
seems at certain points to do. Rather, religious concepts manifestthemselves
within each autonomous realm (Le. within what I call [in KSP] the 'fourth
stage' of the argument in each Critique) as ideas, postulates and contemplat-
ive judgements.
24. RPM, p. 187. Otto expresses such sentiments throughout IH; but see espe-
dally pp. 50-9.
25. That Kant regards beauty as symbolizing the morally good in the third Crit-
ique is well known - though not often appreciated. However, his awareness
of the nature and function of religious symbolism is rarely acknowledged.
The word 'symbol' and its derivatives occur 14 times in RBBR, and numer-
ous times in the third Critique. In these passages he speaks of symbols as
conveying the true 'intellectual [Le., moral/practical] meaning' of a belief,
ritual, or object; they make the unknowable 'comprehensible' to us (p. 159)
and thereby give expression 'to the whole of pure moral religion' (pp. 132-3).
26. See, for example, Tillich's book, The Courage to Be. Interestingly, Davidovich
entirely ignores these obviously Kierkegaardian aspects of TilIich's philo-
sophy in her (only partially successful) attempt in RPM to portray Tillich as
thoroughly Kantian.
27. RPM, p. 232. Davidovich focuses mainly on TiIlich's book, The System of
the Sciences, in seeking to portray his 'theory of religion as a theonomous
consdousness [wherein] we can find an extension of Kant's contemplative
conception of religion' (RPM, p. 228).
28. Paul Tillich, Theology of Culture, ed. Robert Kimball (New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1964), p. 7. See also RPM, pp. 225, 282. For a discussion of
TilJich's application of the concept of theonomy to political theology, see
my book, Biblical Theocracy (Hong Kong: Philopsychy Press, 1993), pp. 59-65.
29. Davidovich describes this as 'an awareness of the unconditioned [hence, non-
intUitive, analytic] ground of our cultural [hence a posteriori] constructions'
(RPM, p. 278). She further hints at the analytic a posteriori status of religious
(theonomous) experience when she points out (p. 234) that for Tillich (as
for Kant!) a need of reason 'is satisfied ... in a reflective evaluation of the
relation between the [analytic] constructs of thought and our [a posterior~
intuitive experience'.
30. Dynamics of Faith (New York: Harper & Row, 1957), p. 45 - hereafter DF.
31. Though not usually regarded as a phenomenologist, William James is included
here because of his numerous philosophical insights into the psychology of
religion (especially in his Varieties of Religious Experience).
32. For instance, the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus adopts an approach that has
close affinities with certain aspects of both Hume and Kant, but hardly a
trace of influence from Hegel or Kierkegaard; the Wittgenstein of Investiga-
tions, by contrast, seems to filter Hume more through a Kierkegaardian way
of thinking than through Kant. In neither case is a clear 'Kant and Kierke-
gaard' influence evident. In her own prognosis for the future of philosophy
of religion, Davidovich also contrasts the 'contemporary Wittgensteinian
and empiricist accounts of religion' with those of more Kantian philoso-
phers (RPM, p. 308), viewing the tendency of the 'Kantian school' to identify
'religious consciousness with a reflective awareness' that 'reunit[es] cogni-
tion and affectivity' (p. 306) as more promising than the tendency of the
former school to focus 'exclusively on either religious affectivity or religious
knowledge'.
33. In so doing the old divisions between analytic and existential schools of
philosophy will fall away once and for all. Indeed, philosophers with an
awareness of analytic a posteriori issues (by whatever name they may be
called) tend to view such old divisions as complementary opposites that are
already in the process of merging.
34. RPM, p. 283 mentions the superiority of contemplation over any merely 'as
if' approach to issues in the philosophy of religion. Recognizing the role of
the analytiC a posteriori in both these approaches (the theoretical and the
contemplative) confirms Davidovich's point while saving the role of theor-
etical hypotheses from being merely superfluous non-essentials.
12
Kant's Divine Command Theory
and its Reception within Analytic
Philosophy
John E. Hare
The purpose of this paper is to look at how Kant's views about the auto-
nomy of the moral life fit with his less well-known claim that we should
see our duties as God's commands, and to examine how this complex of
views has been received in the analytic tradition of moral philosophy in
this century.l My claim will be that Kant has usually been interpreted in
this tradition as showing in the Groundwork that a divine command the-
ory of ethics is heteronomous. Here, to give just one prominent example,
is R. M. Hare's verdict: 'Ever since Kant,' (and it is the Groundwork he is
thinking of) 'it has been possible for people to insist on the autonomy of
morals - its independence of human or divine authority. Indeed, it has
been necessary, if they were to think morally, in the sense in which that
word is now generally understood.'z I want to dispute this interpreta-
tion of Kant's argument and to attribute to him an alternative which
I think is largely defensible. This will take most of the paper. But I also
want to advance some speculations briefly at the end about why Kant
has been misunderstood on this matter by philosophers in the analytiC
tradition, and then to mention a sustained minority opinion within
this tradition.
First, a historical claim. Kant needs to be understood (and has not
usually been understood) against the background of the discussion of
divine command theory in the Pietist circles he was familiar with. I think
the views of Christian August Crusius are especially important here, as
Paton already remarked. 3 Crusius was highly influential in Konigsberg
at the time Kant was writing the Groulldwork. He proposed that wc should
collect our duties under this rule, 'Do what is in accordance with the
perfection of God and your relations to him and further what accords
263
with the essential perfection of human nature, and omit the opposite'
(GRL, 137). He held that moral goodness consists in the conformity or
coincidence of the human will with God's will or divine law. On this,
I shall urge, Kant was not in disagreement. But Crusius also held that
divine law is known through conscience, which is an immediate power
of moral judgement founded on a sort of common sense called 'moral
taste'. This is a basic human drive, 'to recognize a divine moral law, that
is, to believe a rule for human action in which it is determined what
God wants done or not done out of obedience because of our depend-
ence and otherwise will punish us' (GRL, 132). Moreover, Crusius took
the extreme position on the authority of Scripture that no rational criti-
cism of the Bible was permitted, and that its meaning could be penet-
rated only by a kind of empathy or inner light.
Since Kant's argument in the Groundwork is brief, I will quote it in
full. He first distinguishes the empirical and rational principles of het-
eronomy, and then within the latter class distinguishes the ontological
and the theological concepts of perfection. He rejects both but prefers
the former: 'This concept (the ontological concept of perfection) none
the less is better than the theological concept which derives morality
from a divine and supremely perfect will; not merely because we cannot
intuit God's perfection and can only derive it from our own concepts,
among which that of morality is the most eminent; but because, if we
do not do this (and to do so would be to give a crudely circular explana-
tion), the concept of God's will still remaining to us - one drawn from
such characteristics as lust for glory and domination and bound up
with frightful ideas of power and vengefulness - would inevitably form
the basis for a moral system which would be in direct opposition to
morality.,4
There is a reading of this argument in twentieth-century analytic
philosophy which takes it as a refutation of the divine command theory
of ethical obligation. I will not try here to say what I mean by 'a divine
command theory of ethical obligation' other than to say that this kind
of theory holds that our ethical obligations arise out of divine com-
mands. 5 There are many forms of the theory, depending on what 'arise
out of' is taken to mean, and it is a different project to distinguish
between these. I have already quoted R. M. Hare. He takes the theory
Kant is rejecting to be the theory that morals are dependent on divine
authority.6 Similarly, Lewis White Beck takes Kant to be arguing against
the view that duties owe their authority to being divine commands.
After conceding that Kant talks as ifhe were a divine command theorist,
Beck says on Kant's behalf, 'It is not that (duties) are divine commands,
Kant's Divine Command Theory and Analytic Philosophy 265
or that they owe their authority over us to their being decrees of a divine
lawgiver who also created us; for in that event, we should have to know
about God before we could know what our duty is, and we do not know
God, while even the most unphilosophical person knows his duty. More-
over, such a theory would be incompatible with moral self-government,
or autonomy. Religion is not the basis for morality, but rather the con-
trary; religion is a rational attitude based upon morality.,7 I will return
to this reading of Beck's at the end of this paper.
If one reads Kant's argument as an attack on divine command theory,
it will naturally be construed as presenting the following dilemma. We
have two choices on the divine command theory: either we derive the
notion of God's perfection from our moral concepts or we do not. If we
do (the first horn), then the derivation which the divine command the-
ory proposes is crudely circular (and therefore to be dismissed). If we do
not (the second horn), given the notion of God's will remaining to us,
the derivation which divine command theory proposes makes morality
self-contradictory (and therefore the derivation has to be dismissed). So
neither choice is available to us, and so the divine command theory
should be rejected. The reasoning on the second horn goes something
like this. Morality, on Kant's account, is based on reason alone, not self-
interest. But if we say that we have a moral obligation to do something
because it is God's will that we do it, and we separate our notion of
God's will from the moral concepts, then the explanation of our obliga-
tion will depend merely on our ability to please him and his ability (if
we do not) to hurt us. The relationship between us, when stripped of
right, will reduce to one of power. But then morality will be based on
self-interest, and will not be what (on Kant's view) morality in fact is.
There are problems in working out this reasoning on the second
horn, and Kant's argument needs attention here even on the interpreta-
tion of it I shall offer shortly.8 But I am concerned with the more basic
pOint that Kant cannot, if he is consistent, argue against the divine
command theory in general because he accepts a form of the theory. He
accepts the view throughout his life that we should think of our obliga-
tions as God's commands. For example, he says in Lectures on Ethics,
'Our bearing towards God must be characterized by reverence, love and
fear - reverence for Him as a holy lawgiver, love for His beneficent rule,
and fear of Him as a just judge' (which is different, Kant says, from
merely being afraid of God when we have transgressed). 'We show our
reverence by regarding His law as holy and righteous, by due respect for
it, and by seeking to fulfil it in our disposition.'9 There is a divine com-
mand theory in the Groundwork impliCit in the notion of God as the
head of the kingdom of ends. Kant says, 'A rational being belongs to the
kingdom of ends as a member, when, although he makes its universal
laws, he is also himself subject to these laws. He belongs to it as its head,
when as the maker of laws he is himself subject to the will of no other.'
Kant goes on to say that a rational being can maintain the position of
head of the kingdom, 'not in virtue of the maxim of his will alone, but
only if he is a completely independent being, without needs and with
an unlimited power adequate to his will'. There is no doubt that Kant is
talking here about God, and I will present later an account of why the
function of a king of the kingdom of ends is important to Kant's theory.
In the second Critique he says (about the kind of religion he endorses),
'Religion is the recognition of all duties as divine commands. dO He
repeats this view with greater elaboration at the opening of Book 4, Part
1 of Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone. ll Because this is a sustained
theme in Kant, we are better off regarding his attack in the Groundwork
as directed not at the divine command theory in general, but at some
specific form of it. The form Crusius gives us is an excellent candidate.
Kant is objecting to the view that duties are derived from divine com-
mand in the sense that divine command has to give them their content.
He is not objecting to the claim that we should see our duties as depend-
ing on their being divine commands for their authority.
Kant objects to Crusius' form of the theory on three grounds. He
starts the argument by saying that we cannot intuit God's perfection.
This starting point makes sense if it is Crusius he has in mind. Crusius
had proposed that we collect our duties under the rule to do what is in
accordance with God's perfection (and human perfection), and had
then proposed that we have access to divine perfection through 'the
drive of conscience' (GRL, 132). Kant's position is, rather, that we cannot
intuit God's perfection, because of the limits of human (non-intellectual)
intuition. This is his first objection. Our access is, therefore, through
concepts. Either these will be the moral concepts, or some other.
Suppose we take the first option, and reply that we can know what
God wills, since he wills what the moral law prescribes. Here is the
second objection. This would be, Kant says, crudely circular. He may be
objecting to just such a crude circle in Crusius in the passage I quoted. 12
Crusius adds in the word 'moral' at a key point in his argument without
justification: 'Finally, the third of the basic human drives is the natural
drive to recognize a divine mnrallaw' (GRL, 132, emphasis added).
An instructive comparison is his fear in the third section of Ground-
work that he may have argued in a circle about morality and freedom.
(GI, 450) What is instructive about this for present purposes is that Kant
thinks he has extricated himself from the viciousness of this circle

when he later points out that 'when we think of ourselves as free, we
transfer ourselves into the intelligible world as members' (Gl, 453). He
gives us here a third term which mediates between morality and free-
dom, namely, our membership in the intelligible world. I will try to show
that the mediating role in the argument about God's commands is pro-
vided by our membership with God in the kingdom of ends. If this is
right, it is not divine command theory as such that Kant is objecting to,
but one form of it (namely, that provided by Crusius), which does not
give us such a third term.
Finally, there is a third point Kant makes against Crusius. If we think
we can understand what God is telling us to do without using the moral
concepts, we will be left without morality at all. Kant must have in
mind as his target a form of the divine command theory which forbids
us to say, 'we should obey God because he is a righteous God and has
the well-being of all his creatures in his care'. In other words, we are
forbidden by this form of the theory to appeal to what Kant calls God's
practical love. A Crusius-type divine command theory insists that we
should obey God's will just because it is his will, whatever our direct intu-
ition tells us that will is.13 This makes a nonsense of morality. The point
can be made in terms of the matter of morality, rather than from its
form (which is more usual in the Groundwork). The matter of morality,
Kant says in the Metaphysics of Morals (MM, 398), is one's own perfec-
tion and the happiness of others. The kingdom of ends is the place
where these two goals coincide. A morality which ignored one's own
perfection and the happiness of others would be unintelligible. But this
is just the kind of morality Crusius seems to be asking us to adopt as our
own, when he bases it on 'the inclination, when our acts are not in
accordance with the law, to fear God's wrath and punishment on that
account' (GRL, 132). This would be a morality based merely on conform-
ing to what we perceive as power; and this is not morality at all.
The three objections Kant is making to Crus ius will be clearer if we
compare them to what Kant says about the possibility of autonomous
submission to political authority. Kant believes that autonomy is not
only consistent with submission to political authority, but requires this
submission. His argument is that coercion by the state is necessary in
order to prevent coercion by individuals, which would be an obstacle to
the external exercise of autonomy. External compulsion by the state is
thus la hindering of the hindrances to freedom' (MM, 396). Since what-
ever 'counteracts the hindrance of an effect promotes that effect and is
consistent with it' (MM, 231), we can see that coercion by the state is
consistent with autonomy. It is necessary for the external exercise of

autonomy, 'because it is only within a civil condition, where there is a
legislator to enact laws, an executive to enforce them, and a judiciary to
settle disputes about rights by reference to such public laws, that human
beings can do what it can be known a priori they must be able to do in
accordance with moral principles' .14 The justification of the state then
rests for Kant on moral grounds, on the freedom of each individual
person and our obligation to respect this in each other. A citizen can
thus be morally justified in adopting into her own will the will of her
ruler (say, Frederick). But we can see that there are three different kinds
of mistake she might be making in claiming justification, and hence
there are three conditions on her justification (namely, the avoidance
of these three mistakes).
First, she might suppose, contrary to fact, that she has some kind of
direct access to the will of Frederick. Actually she will not, because our
wills (even our own wills) are behind the veil of ignorance. It might
seem easy for Frederick to overcome this obstacle by telling her his will.
But there are weighty reasons, both metaphysical and political, why it is
not easy. The metaphysical reasons arise from the separation of the
noumenal and phenomenal worlds, and I will not try to elaborate on
just what Kant means by this distinction. My focus is on the political
reasons. It is only Frederick's will as her legitimate ruler that binds her,
according to Kant. She is not obligated to make a prescription of his her
own just because it is his will. There is a difficulty here in understand-
ing Kant, for he is an absolutist about the obligation of obedience.
There is for him a categorical imperative, 'Obey the authority who has
power over you' (MM, 371). But there are two ways in which Kant limits
this authority. As Hans Reiss puts it, 'We submit only to coercion which
is legally exercised, on the basis of public law given by the sovereign
authority.!lS Even if an agent knows that Frederick wants, let us say, that
she get him a cup of coffee, this does not yet bind her will. His binding
will is expressed through the legislative process, and this process must
conform to certain political constraints if she is to be bound by its out-
come. The second limit is that Kant follows his categorical political
imperative, quoted above, with the parenthetical phrase '(in whatever
does not conflict with inner morality)'. We may not obey civil laws that
command what the moral law forbids. 16 Kant is not easy to make sense of
here (and may in fact contradict himself). At least in Religion, he argues
that the verse 'we ought to obey God rather than men' (Acts 5:29)
means that when men command what is evil in itself, i.e. what runs
directly counter to the moral law, we ought not to obey (Religion, p. 99).
There is a condition on autonomous submission, therefore, that the

maxim which is willed has to be in accordance with the laws of right
and of virtue.
In the case of God's will for us, Kant is not objecting to the claim that
we should obey God, but to certain mistakes that a believer might make
in justifying this claim. First, there is the same kind of difficulty about
access to the noumenal as with Frederick. But there is also, in Kant's
view, a screening process required before we should interpret some
maxim as God's command to us. I need to check whether this is the
kind of command that the king of the kingdom of ends would give me.
(Kierkegaard is, I believe, responding with his reflections about the tele-
ological suspension of the ethical to Kant's thoughts about Abraham in
this context.)
Second, there is a crude kind of circularity which might be appealed
to by someone defending Frederick's entitlement to the citizen's obedi-
ence. Suppose she says that she has an obligation to obey him, and if
asked why, says solely that he is the kind of person who commands the
right thing for her to do. She will have left out the context which makes
sense of her obligation, which is the context of the human condition
and the limitations this imposes on the capacities of individual agents.
We need, on Kant's argument, something that takes us beyond those
limitations and makes something new possible, the life of the polis. The
ruler makes this possible because he is not subject to the will of any other
member, and he can therefore punish infractions and reward compli-
ance. His will can, on this condition, be an expression of the common
will that binds everyone equally, and that alone can give security to
each and all. It is this component of the ruler's role that gives his com-
mands authority, and hence gives us obligation.
Christine Korsgaard has an excellent discussion of obligation and
authority in The Sources ofNormativityY She says, talking of Hobbes and
Pufendorf, 'Why then are sanctions needed? The answer is that they are
necessary to establish the authority of the legislator ... The legislator is
necessary to make obligation possible, that is, to make morality normat-
ive.' She gives the example of a student who takes a course because it is
required by his department. It might seem that he acts more autono-
mously if he takes it because he independently sees its merit. But he acts
autonomously out of his practical identity as a student only if he places
the right to make and enforce some of the decisions about what he will
study in the hands of his teachers. Similarly, 'A good citizen cannot pay
her taxes because she thinks the government needs the money. She can
vote for taxes for that reason. But once the vote is over, she must pay her
taxes because it is the law ... In so far as you are a citizen, you do act
autonomously in obeying the law. And for exactly that reason, in so far
as you are a citizen, you aren't free to act on your own private reasons
any more.' To extend this analysis to the context of divine command
theory, we could say that an agent acts autonomously out of her prac-
tical identity as a religious person only if she acts out of obedience to
God. In none of these three cases (the student, the citizen and the reli-
gious person) is there any inconsistency with the agent sharing the
ends of the person or persons with authority. Indeed in all three cases,
this is the best situation. Moreover, sometimes the agent can and should
initiate the content of a maxim in accordance with her end. But her
having the end herself is not the whole story about the source of the
normativity of the maxim.
I think this is the context Kant has in mind in referring in the Ground-
work to the head of the kingdom of ends, who is not subject to the will
of any other member; this head of the kingdom makes possible the real-
ization of the kingdom of ends, for example by rewarding virtue and
punishing vice, and this gives authority to our obligation to obey him.
As Kant says, 'the author of the obligation in accordance with the law
(is) not always the author of the law' (MM, 227). An ordinary member
of the kingdom of ends may initiate the proposal of a maxim for action,
but for it to have authority over her it has to be seen as the command
of the king of this kingdom. In the case of Frederick, the third term
which makes sense of our obligation to obedience is our joint but non-
symmetrical membership in a political entity which requires for its
operation both his legitimate prescriptions and the citizen's obligated res-
ponse. In the case of God, the third term is our jOint but non-symmetrical
membership in a moral community, the kingdom of ends.
It is worth spelling out why the kingdom of ends has to be a king-
dom and not, for example, a democracy.18 In the political realm, the
sovereignty properly belongs with the people, Kant believes, but this
does not obviate the need for a political ruler to administer the state
which makes the external exercise of freedom possible. 'Ought' implies
'can'. We ought to behave in a way that outwardly respects each other's
freedom. But we can only do this if a system is in place in which we can
expect that our own freedom will be respected symmetrically. In the
moral realm there is the same kind of difficulty about 'ought' and 'can',
but it takes us inside the will. We ought to share each other's ends as far
as the moral law allows. This is the content Kant gives to 'treating
humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another,
always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means' (GI, 429).
But we can only do this if there is a system in place in which making

others' ends our own ends in this way is consistent with our happiness.
This is because 'to be happy is necessarily the desire of every rational
but finite being, and thus it is an unavoidable determinant of its faculty
of desire'Y Kant concludes that the practice of morality requires what
he calls 'moral faith'. And believing that such a system is in place requires
us to believe, he thinks, that it is operated by a person who sees what it
is that we will (as mere humans cannot), and can then reward our virtue
(if we are willing as we should) with happiness. Because we are auto-
nomous agents, we will or make the law. But, Kant says in Religion, we
must believe that our duties are 'at the same time (the highest lawgiver's)
commands; he must therefore also be "one who knows the heart", in
order to see into the innermost parts of the disposition of each indi-
vidual and, as is necessary in every commonwealth, to bring it about
that each receives whatever his actions are worth. But this is the con-
cept of God as moral ruler of the world' (Religion, p. 99). It is God who is
king of the kingdom of ends. 'Religion', Kant says in the second Crit-
ique, 'is the recognition of all duties as divine commands, not as sanc-
tions, Le. arbitrary and contingent ordinances of a foreign will, but as
essential laws of any free will as such. Even as such, they must be
regarded as commands of the Supreme Being, because we can hope for
the highest good (to strive for which is our duty under moral law) only
from a morally perfect (holy and beneficent) and omnipotent will; and,
therefore, we can hope to attain it only through harmony with this
will' (KpV, 130).
This quotation takes us to the third kind of mistake the citizen might
be making in justifying her submission. She should not be motivated
solely by the fear of punishment or the hope of reward. This would in
fact be in very opposition to morality. Kant is not saying here that the
agent has to be indifferent to the rewards and punishments, but that
she has to be able to bring the maxim of her obedience under the moral
law. (Kant is often misunderstood here. He does not think that humans
are morally required to be indifferent to their happiness; in fact, he
thinks we are incapable of such indifference. But we are morally required
to order our incentives under the 'good maxim' which places duty
above the inclinations.) The third condition on autonomous submis-
sion is that it is not grounded on inclinations or self-interest alone. In
the case of our submission to God's commands, the same applies. This
is how Kant distinguishes a proper fear of God from merely 'being
afraid' of God when one has transgressed. In the moral agent the desire
for happiness has to be subordinated to respect for the moral law. To
fail in this is heteronomy; submission to God by itself is not. We show

our reverence towards God 'by regarding His law as holy and righteous,
by due respect for it, and by seeking to fulfil it in our disposition'.
I conclude, then, that Kant's idea of autonomy is consistent with an
agent's belief that she should obey the commands of God. Indeed, for
Kant autonomy is not merely consistent with such a belief but requires
it. I have modelled my argument for this conclusion on a reading of
Kant's views about the political realm, where autonomy is not merely
consistent with believing in submission to political authority but requires
this belief.
I have spent most of the paper on an exegesis of what I think are
Kant's views on the relation of autonomy to God's commands. I want
to return now to the question of why the analytic tradition of philosophy
in this century has read Kant differently, adopting a mistaken reading
of the Groundwork passage. I pass over the response within the analytic
tradition to Kierkegaard's reading of Kant, because on the whole the
analytic tradition has not taken this reading seriously.20 One reason for
the failure within analytic philosophy to read Kant properly is that the
moral philosophers in this tradition have read almost exclusively the
Groundwork, and perhaps the second Critique. They have not read Kant's
later work, in which his discussion of religion is more prominent.
Another reason is that Kant has not usually been read against the back-
ground of contemporary Lutheran Pietism. These explanations do not
work, however, for someone like Beck, whose knowledge of Kant's texts
and their contemporary context is encyclopaedic. I think it has to be
conceded that there is a kind of failure here which is part of a larger
pattern. There is a larger pattern in the interpretation of Kant's work in
general, not merely his moral theory; and there is an even larger pattern
in the interpretation of the great classics of modern philosophy as a
whole. This is the tendency to see modern philosophy as teleological,
headed towards the death of God and the death of metaphysics heralded
by Nietzsche at the end of the nineteenth century. There has been a
shift in this pattern over the last ten years or SO.21 But if you read most
of the secondary literature of this century on Leibniz, or Descartes, or
Hobbes, you will find a recurrent secularization which does violence to
the intentions of the original authors. Thus, to take one notorious case,
Bertrand Russell lays out the system of Leibniz without mentioning
God in anyone of the five original axioms. Why is this? It is because he
admires Leibniz, and wants to do him a favour. All the Christian theo-
logy, which is everywhere apparent in Leibniz himself, is seen by Rus-
sell as an embarrassment, and is accordingly excluded.
If pressed, the philosophers of this century who secularize their sub-

jects in this way appeal to what I call 'cushion hermeneutics'. They sup-
pose that their subjects were constrained by the exigencies of their
circumstances, and 'cushioned' their true views by means of a respect-
able rhetoric of piety. Cushion hermeneutics happened early in the case
of Kant. Heinrich Heine explained Kanfs appeal to Christianity as a
concession to his faithful old manservant, 'and Old Lampe stood there,
a mournful spectator, his umbrella under his arm, cold sweat and tears
pouring from his face. Then Immanuel Kant relented and said, half
good-naturedly and half ironically, "Old Lampe must have a God, other-
wise the poor fellow can't be happy.lII22 More recently we have been
told that 'Kant's statement of his argument seems encumbered with a
certain tact, or even fear, which makes him reluctant to express with
perfect candor what he really thinks.'23 This kind of interpretation
should be adopted only as a last resort, if there is no straightforward
interpretation which fits the text. Especially, this is true of Kant, who
placed such a high value on sincerity.24
A last technique of the secularizing interpreters is to take Kant and
the other modern masters as speaking 'as if' the religious doctrines they
use were true, without themselves endorSing these doctrines. Thus Beck
says, in Six Secular Philosophers, that Kant regards moral law as ifit were
a divine command, and the ethical commonwealth under this law as if
it were 'a people united by common allegiance to a supposed author of
these commands, namely God'.2s But faith in God is not, for Kant, 'as
if'. He is not an agnostic, except in his own very restricted sense of 'not
knowing', according to which we can only know what we could pos-
sible experience with the senses. We could not experience God this
way, and so we do not in this sense know that God exists. But Kant
holds that we are required to believe that he exists. In just the same
sense, he holds that we are required to believe that God is (with us) the
author of moral law, and (unlike us) the rewarder and punisher of our
lives in relation to this law.
I have given the impression that analytic philosophy is hostile to
divine command theory. But I want to end with an exception to this
generalization. There has been a minority opinion within this tradition,
which has proposed versions of divine command theory which (while
they differ from each other in various ways) strike me as close to the
version I have attributed to Kant. I am thinking especially of Robert M.
Adams, Baruch i\.. Brody and Philip L. QuinnY' I do not have space here
to describe the differences between these authors. But I want to claim
that they all have one key similarity, and that this is also a similarity to
274 Kantand Kierkegaard on Religion
the view I have attributed to Kant. All three contemporary authors

endorse a divine command theory which is consistent with what Adams
calls 'theonomy', appropriating the term from Tillich. Adams says, 'Let
us say that a person is theonomous to the extent that the following is
true of him: He regards his moral principles as given him by God, and
adheres to them partly out of love or loyalty to God, but he also prizes
them for their own sakes, so that they are the principles he would give
himself if he were giving himself a moral law. The theonomous agent,
in so far as he is right, acts morally because he loves God, but also
because he loves what God loves. He has the motivational goods both
of obedience and of autonomy. m Theonomy is also central to Kant's
view, as I have presented it. The point is that a moral agent can, as part
of her meta-ethical theory, believe that her duties arise out of divine
commands, without being committed to making this the whole of her
meta-ethical theory. She may, for example, be committed for its own
sake to citizenship in the kingdom of ends which she believes God
makes possible. She may believe certain things about God (for example
that he is kind to his creatures), which may not themselves arise simply
from her beliefs about God's commands. She will accordingly believe
that she shares some of God's ends. This does not prevent her meta-
ethics from being a form of divine command theory. But it belongs to a
different paper to justify this claim, and defend a version of divine com-
mand theory myself.
Notes
1. I want to thank my colleagues at Calvin College for a discussion of an earlier
draft which greatly improved the final version of this paper.
2. R. M. Hare in 'The Simple Believer', reprinted in Essays on Religion and Educa-
tion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), p. 30. See also Sorting Out Ethics (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1997), p. 27. This argument in the Groundwork has had the
same kind of status in ethics as the treatment of the ontological argument in
the first Critique has had in metaphysics.
3. Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, trans. and analysed
by H.J. Paton (New York: Harper, 1964), p. 141. For Crusius' views, see the selec-
tion from 'Guide to Rational Living', in Moral Philosophy from Montaigne to
Kant, Vo!. Il, ed. ]. B. Schneewind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1990), pp. 568-85 (henceforth GRL). See also Giorgio Tonelli, 'La question
des bornes de l'entendement humain au XVIIle siecle', Revue de metaphysique
et de morale (1959), pp. 396-427. In the second Critique (KpV, 40), Kant men-
tions Crusius as the source of the view which locates the practical material
determining ground of morality extemally in the will of God.
4. Gl, 443. The references in this paper are all to the Berlin Academy edition,
except for those to the first Critique and to the Lectures on Ethics.
5. One statement of necessary conditions for a divine command theory is
given by Philip Quinn, in Divine Commands and Moral Requirements (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1978), p. 27.
6. Other examples of the kind of interpretation I am objecting to are A. C. Ewing,
Value and Reality (London: Alien and Unwin, 1973), pp. 183-7, and James
Rachels, 'God and Human Attitudes', reprinted in Divine Commands and
Morality, ed. Paul Helm (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), pp. 34-48,
especially pp. 44f. One vivid example is Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good
(New York: Schocken Books, 1971), p. 80: 'Kant's man had already nearly a
century earlier received a glorious incarnation in the work of Milton: his
proper name is Lucifer.' The argument itself, without explicit attachment to
Kant, is pervasive. One nice statement of it is in P. H. Nowell-Smith's Ethics
(Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1954), pp. 192-3.
7. Lewis White Beck, Six Secular Philosophers (New York: Harper, 1960), p. 72.
But it is not in general true for Kant that a prescription has authority only if
we know about its source. As I shall argue, Kant thinks that the prescrip-
tions of a legitimate political ruler have authority and have their source in
his will; but we do not have knowledge about this will.
8. What needs to be attended to is the different ways in which we can separate
God's will from the moral concepts. On God's side we can distinguish the
claim that his will is inconsistent with what is morally right from the claim
that his willing, though conSistent, does not entertain the moral concepts.
On our side we can distinguish the claim that we have to obey even if his
will is inconsistent with what is morally right from the claim that we must
obey even in cases where we cannot determine whether his will is consist-
ent with what is morally right.
9. Kant, Lectures on Ethics, trans. Louis Infield (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1963),
p.97.
10. KpV, 130. I will return later to this quotation in its context.
11. I have given a detailed account of this passage in The Moral Gap (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1996), pp. 41-5.
12. See Lewis White Beck, A Commentary on Kant's Critique of Practical Reason
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), p. 107, 'Either Crusius surrepti-
tiously introduces ethical predicates into the concept of divine perfection'
(and Beck refers to this passage of Crusius), 'with the result that theological
perfection no longer grounds the moral principle but presupposes it; or a
hedonistic motivation is postulated as the ground of obedience to God'.
13. See Robert M. Adams, 'Autonomy and Theological Ethics', in The Virtue of
Faith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 123-7. Adams approves
of Tillich's notion of theonomous ethics: 'The theonomous agent acts mor-
ally because he loves God, but also because he loves what God loves.' Kant
on my reading, but not Crusius, has a theonomous ethics. I will return to
Adams at the end of this paper. Crusius himself would not be worried by
this objection. See Tonelli, op. cit., p. 410 (my translation): 'Crusius under-
lines the importance of mysteries of reason, mainly theological doctrines
which have to be admitted, even though we do not understand how certain
things can be joined together or separated in such a way.'
14. Mary Gregor, translator's introduction to The Metaphysics of Morals (Cam-

bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 10.
15. Kant, Political Writings, ed. Hans Reiss (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1970), p. 26.
16. See Roger]. Sullivan, Immanuel Kant's Moral Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1989), p. 244.
17. Christine Korsgaard, The Sources ofNormativity (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1996), pp. 25f. and 105-7. She goes on to argue against
Hobbes and Pufendorf that our moral obligations have authority because of
the internal sanction of a painful conscience. But Kant, I am arguing, pre-
serves the need for an external imposition of sanctions, though they are not
arbitrary sanctions (KpV, 130). The fact that we feel badly if we break the
law is not, for him, enough. The presence of these sanctions does not by
itself lead to heteronomy, unless the ground for obedience is the fear of hell
or hope of heaven.
18. For Kant's republican sympathies, see MM, 40-2. Note R. M. Hare, Sorting
Out Ethics, p. 26, 'The Kingdom of Ends is not really a kingdom, but a demo-
cracy with equality before the law.' See also Korsgaard, op. cit., p. 127, 'A per-
sonal relationship is a Kingdom of Two - two who are committed to being
in a special degree ends for one another.' But this is not a kingdom at all.
19. KpV, 25. There is an apparent difficulty here about whether Kanfs argu-
ment is consistent. I have tried to layout the argument in The Moral Gap,
pp. 69-96. Kant wants to say both that we inevitably desire our own happi-
ness and that this desire should be subordinated to duty.
20. One recent exception is Anthony Rudd, Kierkegaard and the Limits of the Eth-
ical (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), who says in his preface, 'One aim of
this book is to show analytical philosophers that Kierkegaard is relevant to
their concerns.' See also my review, in Studies in Christian Ethics, vol. 8, no.
1, 1995, pp. 138-43. For my own response to Kierkegaard's reading of Kant,
see 'The Unhappiest One and the Structure of Kierkegaard's Either/Or', in
International Kierkegaard Commentary, Either/Or, 1, ed. Robert L. Perkins
(Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1995), pp. 91-108, and The Moral
Gap, pp. 191-221.
21. Within Kant scholarship, this shift is signalled by the volume I have already
referred to, Kant's Philosophy of Religion Reconsidered. Its editors start by ques-
tioning the commonly held views which 'have generally held that this peri-
pheral status (of Kant's treatment of religion) and lack of originality issued
from the relentlessly reductionistic character of Kant's account, which
sought to make religion - or at least those elements of religion which can be
critically justified - wholly identical with or reducible to morality.' Other
sources are Donald Rutherford, Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), and James E. Force and Richard H.
Popkin, eds., The Books of Nature and Scripture: Recent Essays on Natural Philo-
sophy, Theology and Biblical Criticism in the Netherlands ofSpinoza's Time and
the British Isles of Newton's Time (Boston: Kluwer Academic, 1994).
22. Heinrich Heine, History of Philosophy and Religion in Germany, trans. John
Snodgrass (Boston: Beacon Press, 1959), p. 119.
23. Allen Wood, 'Kant's Deism', in Kant's Philosophy of Religion Reconsidered, ed.
Philip]. Rossi and Michael Wreen (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1991), pp. 1-21, especially p. 14. See also the phrase in E. Troeltsch, 'utter-
ances of prudence', quoted in Michel Despland, Kant on History and Religion
(Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1973), p. 105, and the phrase
'cover' techniques in Yirmiahu Yovel, Kant and the Philosophy of History
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), pp. 114 and 215.
24. For example, Conflict of the Faculties, p. 10, and KrV, A748-50 = B776-8.
25. Beck, op. cit., p. 74 (emphasis added). See also R. M. Hare, Sorting Out Ethics,
p. 27, 'God, whom Kant would have liked to believe in'.
26. In addition to the article by Adams already referred to, there are two papers,
'A Modified Divine Command Theory of Ethical Wrongness' and 'Divine
Command Metaethics Modified Again', both of which are reprinted (the
second only in part) in Helm, op. cit. Baruch A. Brody's views can be found
in 'Morality and Religion Reconsidered', Readings in the Philosophy of Reli-
gion, ed. Baruch A. Brody (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1974), pp. 592-
603. Philip L. Quinn's views can be found in Divine Commands and Moral
Requirements (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978). I am not claiming that any of
these authors agree with me in my attribution of a particular kind of divine
command theory to Kant.
27. Adams, op. cit. Autonomous submission to political authority ('fredo-
nomy'?) has the same structure.
13
Dialectic of Salvation in Solidarity
Anselm Kyongsuk Min
After Kant's critique of historical, revealed religion in the name of

rational morality, and after Kierkegaard's dialectical interpretation of
Christian existence in its radical breach with immanence, it is difficult
to imagine two thinkers more unlike and more antithetical. The idea of
God, forbidden any transcendent and constitutive use in the deter-
mination of the content of religion and allowed only an eschatological
function as a postulate of morality in Kant, is given a fully transcendent
and constitutive application in the determination of Christian exist-
ence in Kierkegaard. Through the traditional doctrines of creation and
redemption, incarnation and revelation, sin and grace, God provides
not only an eschatological hope but also concrete guidelines in history.
The ethical life, autonomous in Kant, is fully subsumed into Christian
existence in Kierkegaard, receiving not only the content but also the
incentive from Christian religiosity. Categorical, unconditional respect
is due to God, not finite human beings. One must maintain an absolute
relation only with the absolute end and only a relative relation with rel-
ative ends. Human autonomy is both content and form, agency and
norm of Kantian religion, the radically Other remains the ultimate dia-
lectical determinant of Kierkegaardian existence in its totality.
Kant and Kierkegaard are alike in their stress on respect and love for
human beings in their universal, equal humanity, but this is also where
the Similarity ends. They differ with regard to what constitutes the
humanum of humanity and what grounds the dignity and equality of
human beings. For Kant, the humanity of human beings consists in
their rationality as persons. For Kierkegaard, it consists in existence as a
dialectical, historical, teleological synthesis of the eternal and the tem-
poral, the infinite and the finite. For Kant, human dignity is derived
from the fact that human beings transcend the world of sense and
278
Dialectic of Salvation in Solidarity 279
belong to the intelligible world by virtue of their reason. Kant asks, with-
out answering, why this should be the objective source of the categorical
imperative with its ascription of absolute worth to human beings. 1 Human
beings are equal because they are rational. For Kierkegaard, human dig-
nity and equality are grounded on their equal teleological relationship
with the only absolute being there is, the eternal God in Christ. For
Kierkegaard, we are unconditionally equal and cannot be reduced to rel-
ative ends, not because we embody unconditional value in ourselves as
rational beings, as in Kant, but because we are equally called to the
absolute end, God, who alone is unconditionally valuable. Again, the
chasm between the two cannot be greater.
Kant wanted to save human beings from Christianity as a revealed,
historical religion by forbidding all transcendent use of the idea of God
and the supernatural in the name of the limits of human reason and by
reducing religion to morality in the name of human autonomy. Kierke-
gaard wanted to save Christianity from purely rational human existence
with which Christendom was so eager to equate Christianity by reject-
ing the competence of theoretical reason as in Kant, but not, as in Kant,
in order to reduce religion to rational morality, but in order to defend
Christian faith precisely in its 'infinite' difference from reason. By shift-
ing the issue from the level of reason to that of existence, Kierkegaard
guards Christianity against the pitfalls of the objective theoretical
approach, while at the same time defending Christianity as the culmina-
tion of existence, not dismissing it as the culmination of irrationality, as
did Kant. For Kierkegaard, reason was dangerous to religion, not because
it claimed to know too much, as Kant believed, but because its approach
denatured religion into something it was not, i.e. mere doctrine. Kier-
kegaard, too, had to 'deny knowledge in order to make room for faith',
and the faith he made room for was Christian faith in all its difference
from Kanfs purely moral faith.
Contradictions of a globalizing world

What are the specific challenges and possibilities of a philosophy of reli-
gion today that are in a significant way rooted in the trajectory of the
concerns, possibilities and hopes defined by Kant and Kierkegaard? In
order to answer this question, I would like to begin with a brief descrip-
tion of the contemporary world which is the Sitz-im-Leben, the historical
context, for a contemporary philosophy of religion. This context may
have rendered simply irrelevant some of the claims of the two thinkers
while also heightening the urgency of others.
We live in a world made increasingly interdependent by the expan-

sion of trade and communication spurred on by ever new technologies.
National barriers are collapsing by the day, national sovereignty is fast
becoming a myth. The multinational corporations, the International
Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization are increasingly
determining the conditions of life for all. As regions and countries are
brought closer together, a twofold dialectic comes into operation. On
the one hand, as diverse groups occupy common social space, the com-
petitive struggle for domination intensifies, heightening the sense of
difference and discrimination. Thus, we have seen increasing tensions
and conflicts among different groups, as we have also become more
sensitive to the presence of the other, the other in class, race, gender,
culture, religion, ideology and form of life. This is the pluralistic dialec-
tic of particularization. On the other hand, globalization also forces
diverse groups to find tolerable ways of living together with others by
creating common conditions of social existence acceptable to all, a
totality or system of laws and policies that would guarantee basic
human rights and minimum well being for all members. No group can
be an island unto itself. Each group must also transcend itself in order
to arrive at a reasonable mode of getting along with others in common
economic, political and cultural space. This is the unifying dialectic of
universalization. The two dialectics are not only not exclusive of each
other; they presuppose and need each other; they are merely the two
sides of the same dialectic of globalization. It is in the midst of this two-
fold dialectic on a global scale that contemporary humanity also search
or fail to search for the religious meaning of their lives, that every reli-
gion is being challenged to prove its existential credibility and relev-
ance, and that the philosopher of religion too is called upon to reflect
on the meaning and possibilities of religious existence. 2
This contemporary dialectic renders certain aspects of Kant and Kier-
kegaard simply irrelevant and obsolete. We no longer live in a Eurocen-
tric world in which Enlightenment rationalism and Christian faith were
two contending ideals. We can no longer share Kant's univocal conception
of reason or his Enlightenment confidence in the possibilities of human
rationality. Reason comes in many different forms. Different groups,
cultures, religions and ideologies have different, alternative forms of
rationality with their different paradigms, horizons and language games.
Human reason liberated from positive religions is no more benign than
positive religions are only evil. Anti-religious reason can be just as ideo-
logical, diSCriminating, oppressive and alienating as positive religions
have been accused of being. We also discover that rejection of positive
religion is a phenomenon limited to a tiny minority of Western intel-

lectuals and those educated by them.
Nor can we share Kierkegaard's dominant concern to 'again introduce
Christianity in to Christendom', 3 not because Christendom needs no
prophetic critique, but because we are no longer living in a Christendom
where the central issue is to awaken complacent Christians from their
'monstrous illusion'. Even such deluded Christians are increasingly a
minority among minorities today, surrounded by a plurality of different
religions, ideologies and cultures. Even awakening deluded Christians,
which does remain a perennial task for the churches, must take place in
the context of religious and social pluralism. 'Training in Christianity'
today will require sensitivity to the other and the willingness to engage
in the politics of universalization. Accentuating the 'absolute' difference
between Christianity and 'pagan' religions will not be an appropriate
approach to take in a pluralistic world; without denying its difference
from other religions, Christianity will have to be more dialogical, point-
ing to similarities and convergences with others on the one hand and
on the other hand arguing for its own plausibility in terms intelligible
to others. The challenge is not to condemn non-Christians for not
being Christians; it is to make a Christian contribution to the task of
living together with others with respect, co-operation, and some sense
of human solidarity. Nor can we maintain Kierkegaard's sharp opposi-
tion between reason and faith in light of recent historical scholarship,
which has been showing that the Bible and traditional Christian doc-
trines have been culturally shaped, that there has never been 'pure' faith
any more than there has ever been 'pure' reason. Furthermore, instead
of just condemning reason for what it cannot do, we need to mobilize
all the positive resources of reason for the task of social co-operation.
The same global dialectic that renders certain ideas of Kant and Kier-
kegaard irrelevant also heightens the urgency of others. What might
still be living and even compelling in their thought? I think Kant's cent-
ral intuition into the moral autonomy of human beings is even more
compelling today than in his own time. There is a certain objective, uni-
versal and equal dignity in human beings that should not be oppressed
or manipulated by arbitrary desires and irrational forces and that
should, therefore, be liberated from oppressive and alienating forces,
the forces of heteronomy. In a world where human dignity is increas-
ingly trampled upon, Kant's concern for a 'realm of ends', 'a whole of
all ends in systematic connection',4 a harmonious totality in which
human beings in their dignity and freedom can coexist with one another
under common laws, has remained and still remains most urgent.
Today, economic deprivation, political oppression, cultural alienation

and ecological disaster remain the lot of so many in all parts of the
world, which renders quite critical Kant's concern for justice in the
sense of 'the aggregate of those conditions under which the will of one
person can be conjoined with the will of another in accordance with a
universal law of freedom'. 5 Kant's vision of a society that does justice to
human dignity in its freedom, equality and interdependence has been
the driving moral force of all reform and liberation movements in the
modern world and continues to be such today.
There are also several motifs and concerns in Kierkegaard that I think
remain even more compelling today, at least from the Christian per-
spective. The Kierkegaardian dialectic of the absolute and the relative
should be a timely reminder of the transcendent significance of human
existence which we today are in special danger of forgetting: we need
the perspective of the absolute end to relativize and put in perspective
all our preoccupations with finite ends. In a society where capitalism
has been reducing the totality of existence to the aesthetic, to the
impersonal and the interesting, to a degree Kierkegaard could not have
dreamed of, the dialectic of the absolute should be an indispensable
source for nurture of inwardness, responsibility and inner freedom. At
the same time, the perspective of the absolute in time should help pre-
vent us from the ever present temptation to escape into the eternal as
well as protect us from the 'religious illusion' (Kant) by motivating and
empowering us to engage in the love of neighbour as a universally
human category. The divine command of love is especially critical
today when the 'neighbour' includes all who are other in class, race,
gender, culture, religion and form of life, often suffering the conse-
quences of the oppressive dialectic of invidious otherness, and poses an
extraordinary challenge to self-love, requiring, therefore, an extraordin-
ary counter-dynamic to be overcome.
From the individual will to political praxis
However, both the Kantian values of human dignity and autonomy and
the Kierkegaardian values of existence and love of neighbour today
demand realization under vastly different circumstances, which also
requires, I suggest, a fundamental broadening of perspective to include
not only the individual and the ideal but also the social and the mater-
ial, in three senses.
(1) The basic perspective of both Kant and Kierkegaard is that of the
morality of the individual will. For all the differences between the two
thinkers, there is also a notable similarity in that both are essentially mor-
alists of the individual will. There is a common shift from the theoretical
to the practical - practical reason in Kant and ethical existence in Kier-
kegaard - and both look at morality primarily from the standpoint of
the purity of the individual will or intention. For Kant, only the good
will is good without qualification, and most of his discussions of moral-
ity have to do with the purity of respect for the categorical imperative.
How can I overcome self-love and act out of the pure motive of respect
for duty as such? For Kierkegaard, the standpoint of the individual is
even more explicit. The question of existence is always a question of my
existence, how I can transform my existence. Even in the case of my
love of neighbour, the overriding question is how I should overcome
my self-love so that I can truly love my neighbour. In both instances
there is a preoccupation with the purity of one's own intention. The
question is rarely raised of how the neighbour as such may be effectively
loved. Or, rather, the question of the effective promotion of the well-
being of neighbour is reduced to the question of the purity of one's own
intention. If my own intention is pure, my neighbour is also effectively
loved, as though the purity of one's own intention is both the necessary
and sufficient condition of the effective love of neighbour.
This moralism of the 'pure heart' tends to ignore objective conse-
quences and external conditions of one's action, either because those
consequences are not always within one's subjective power to control
or because those conditions are 'merely' external and have no intrinsic
impact on the inwardness of subjectivity which alone counts.
Although Kant did take external conditions seriously enough to talk
about justice as an aggregate of such conditions that would protect
both freedom and universality, Kierkegaard positively dismissed as in
fact immoral all political attempts to reform the oppressive conditions
that discriminate on the basis of birth, position, circumstances and
education. 6 Presumably, human suffering caused by such structural
injustice has to wait for amelioration until all individuals have had a
change of heart, i.e. until the end of time. Such a moralism is not
aware, or simply ignores, because of a certain historical fatalism, that
the conditions that cause suffering to our neighbours and generate the
need for our love of neighbours in the modern world have increasingly
been structural rather than individual, artificial rather than natural.
There are indeed, and will continue to be, victims of natural disasters
such as drought, floods, earthquakes, typhoons and so on, but it is also
true that most human suffering today is something inflicted by human
beings upon other human beings, most often by means of manipulation
of the structures that produce and distribute power. Moralism of the

pure heart also ignores the fact that change of structures is also an
essential condition for an enduring change of our consciousness itself.
A morality that takes love of neighbour seriously will be concerned,
therefore, not only with the purity of intention, which is also import-
ant, but also with the consequences of our actions on the well being of
our neighbours. A morality which is so preoccupied with the purity of
one's own intention as to be indifferent to the objective consequences
of one's own action on our neighbours will be simply self-love in dis-
guise. A serious intention to love our neighbour should become con-
crete by means of effective actions that will actually help them and be
concerned with the objective social conditions of such effective action.
It will recognize that a pure intention is not a guarantee of effective
love, that there are such things as unintended consequences, especially
of the uncoordinated actions of individuals in society, however well-
intentioned they may be as individuals, and that effective love of victims
of structural injustice requires coordination of actions and conse-
quences so as to produce more humane social structures. It will not, like
Kierkegaard, reduce morality to psychology and condemn the rich and
the poor equally, the struggle of the rich for domination and that of the
poor for liberation, and treat victims and victimizers alike by ignoring
the moral significance of the structures of power. Nor will it dismiss the
question of structural injustice, the greatest cause of human suffering
today, on the ground that I as an individual cannot do anything about
it; what I as an individual cannot do, perhaps we can do together, just as
whatever structural justice I enjoy is not the result of my own individual
action but that of the collective action in which I also participate.
Effective love of neighbour today is possible only as a transcendence of
the moralist perspective limited to the purity of inner intention and the
agency of the lone individual. It must explicitly adopt the standpoint of
the social in both consequence and agency.
The pOint is not that either Kant or Kierkegaard is in any way an
atomistic indiVidualist, nor that neither cares about the social dimen-
sion of human existence. Both are quite aware of the social intercon-
nectedness of human existence, and both do care about SOCiety. Both
are deeply concerned about the corrosive influence of sOciety upon
individuals, and both are anxious about the reform of society. Kant
speaks of the lofty goal of 'a universal republic based on laws of Virtue', 7
and Kierkegaard expresses the hope that individuals, saved from the
anonymity of the crowd through ethics and religion, will be ready for
genuine community.8 Neither, however, has the sense of the impact of
social structures themselves, especially the economic and political, or

structural causality, upon individual existence. Nor do they have a clear
sense of a collective responsibility for removing structural evil or the
confidence in the possibility of doing so through communal effort. For
Kierkegaard in particular, the only solution to social problems lies in
the individual effort to transform one's own existence, not in the col-
lective agency of a community as such. The 'principle of association' is
.'an escape, a distraction and an illusion'. 'By strengthening the indi-
vidual' it 'enervates him; it strengthens numerically, but ethically that
is a weakening,.9 Kierkegaard is more interested in pointing out what a
society should not be and what individuals should do to escape from its
moral impact than in indicating and encouraging what we can do to
make society what it should be through our collective responsibility
and agency. By condemning the principle of association as such, Kierke-
gaard rejects the very idea of politics. 10
(2) A morality serious about effective love of neighbour today must be
concerned not only with the ideal but also with the material conditions
of neighbourly love. In asking about the conditions of the possibility of
the categorical imperative, of unconditional respect for human dignity,
Kant shuns all experience because experience can only generate hypo-
thetical, not categorical, imperatives and because any appeal to experi-
ence is a sure way of turning autonomy into heteronomy. Autonomous
morality consists in the pure respect for the categorical imperative,
which in turn must be rooted in the unconditional dignity of human
persons as ends in themselves. The moral experience in both its form
and content, however, postulates the noumenal reality of freedom,
immortality and God. In addition to these noumenal, ideal conditions
of moral experience, Kant also seeks the legal conditions for the realiza-
tion of human dignity in terms of justice. Kierkegaard seeks only the
moral and theological conditions for the possibility of love of neigh-
bour, i.e. self-renunciation, God's creative and redemptive love, accept-
ance of God as the third party in human love.
What neither Kant nor Kierkegaard addresses is the material condition
for the possibility of human dignity in its universality and equality.
Human dignity demands not only the ideal conditions of its possibility
but also the material conditions of its actualization. To treat a human
being as an end in itself means not only not subjecting that dignity to
one's own subjective ends and thus honouring it as the 'supreme limiting
condition,ll for one's own desires and needs, which can be done simply
by leaving a person alone, but also caring for the material conditions
for actually living in a way worthy of that dignity and thus actualizing
that dignity in its specifically human content. In this sense, Kant does
speak of the 'universal duty' to help one another in need. The way he
grounds this duty, however, requires attention. 'Everyone who finds
himself in need wishes to be helped by others. But if he lets his maxim
of not willing to help others in turn when they are in need become pub-
lic, Le., makes this a universal permissive law, then everyone would
likewise deny him assistance when he needs it, or at least would be enti-
tled to. Hence the maxim of self-interest contradicts itself when it is
made universal law.!l2 There are two things worth noting here. One is
that the duty is based on enlightened self-interest: by agreeing to it and
by being willing to help others in their need, I want to make sure that I
am going to be helped by others in my need. The other is that this need
for help is regarded as something contingent: I may sometimes need
help from others, but then I may be able to get by without it.
What is missing in both Kant and Kierkegaard is a constitutive sense
of the essentiality and sociality of material conditions of life. Material
conditions are essential to human existence, not only in the sense that
we die without them, but also in the sense that we depend on them for
our political integrity and cultural achievements as well. They are also
products of social labour in which we are essentially interdependent.
We can never produce, consume, own, or earn a thing by our own iso-
lated, unaided effort but only within a network of interdependences
within the economic sphere as well as among the spheres of economics,
politics and culture. Prior to the distinction between luck and lack of
luck, altruism and self-interest, we are mutually dependent. This mutual
dependence or solidarity is not a contingent or accidental but a con-
stitutive dimension of human reality. Precisely because we depend on
one another for the very necessities so essential to our dignity, the pos-
sibility of oppression and exploitation is also inherent in the process,
with an ever-present collective need to liberate and humanize the pro-
cess in the interest of solidarity in dignity. A morality serious about
human dignity must concern itself with effective social action for the
creation of the appropriate material conditions of dignity for all. 13 What
we need is not only a 'metaphysics of morals' in search of the ideal con-
ditions of pure practical reason but also a 'critique of political economy'
interested in the material conditions of effective practical reason.
(3) These reflections should show that a serious and effective concern
for human dignity and love of neighbour today must go beyond the
morality of the pure heart and individual action and embrace political
praxis as an intrinsic dimension of morality. It begins with the recogni-
tion that we are mutually dependent for all the essential conditions of
our dignity, seeks to awaken us to our collective responsibility for the

creation of a social structure that will produce our material needs, pro-
tect our political rights, and provide opportunities for cultural develop-
ment in a way that is fair to all, and encourages in us a sense of
common destiny and common historical hope that it is possible for us
together to create common conditions of life that will promote solidarity
in dignity. It is imperative to overcome Kierkegaardian historical des-
pair and political cynicism. What is at stake is the transformation not
only of our individual but also of our social existence, and this not only
through individual but also through social, i.e. political, effort.
What we need today is reason that is practical, as in Kant, committed,
as in Kierkegaard, dedicated to the pursuit of human dignity in every
human being as a neighbour, as in both, but also social in its horizon
and concern, political in its sense of collective responsibility for the
common good, and historical in its sensitivity to the shifting dialectic
of history in which political praxis must take place. The twofold dialec-
tic of a globalizing world mentioned earlier infinitely complicates the
task of political reason today. The possibilities of alienation, hostility
and oppression among different groups seem to increase as diverse
groups in their very otherness are brought together in the global market
economy. To exactly the same extent that this dialectic of particulariza-
tion takes place, political reason will also have to discern signs of the
dialectic of universalization and find concrete ways of promoting a
solidarity of others. We can neither remain simply different nor become
simply the same at the expense of all our differences. Our only alternat-
ive is to realize a solidarity of others. 14
Contemporary tasks of philosophy of religion
What, then, are the especially compelling tasks for a philosophy of reli-
gion rooted in the trajectory of Kant and Kierkegaard and sensitive to
the demands of the kairos? Here I would like to single out three areas of
special importance, one in relation to a more adequate, more compre-
hensive anthropology of human existence, the other in relation to the
situation of religious pluralism, and the third in relation to Christianity.
(1) The broadening shift from the standpoint of the individual will to
that of political praxis also necessitates a shift in basic anthropology
from the Kantian soul/body and the Kierkegaardian individual as body/
psyche/spirit to a dialectic of concrete totality. Human beings are not
first of all isolated entities, be they bodies, souls or individuals, who
then subsequently enter into relations with others; they are first and
last relational beings. They are part of the cosmos and intrinsically sub-
ject to its power, threat, promise and mystery. Within this basic natural
relation they are also part of society and conditioned by its cultural
horizons, economic resources, political opportunities and social con-
tradictions. Within the limits of these natural and social relations
they also enter into interpersonal relations. It is in and through these
natural, social and interpersonal relations that human beings also acquire
self-consciousness and develop as individuals. Human beings are con-
crete totalities of these many relations in that such relations enter into a
mutual dialectic and assume a particular shape in accordance with the
particularity of the personal context.
It is precisely as a concrete totality of these constitutive relations,
natural, social and interpersonal, that I also 'think', 'will' and 'feel'. I do
none of these things as an isolated monad. I do them as a concrete
totality and therefore subject to all the tensions and contradictions
inherent in that totality. Within this totality the sensible and the intel-
ligible, which Kant wishes to keep separate as phenomena and nou-
mena, constantly mediate and interact with each other. Within this
totality the individual and the social, from whose structural dimensions
Kierkegaard consistently abstracts, mediate and condition each other.
A human being is not only a synthesis of the eternal and the temporal
but also that of the individual and the social, and it is within the con-
crete totality of these essential relations that even the synthesis of the
eternal and the temporal takes place and therefore also subject to all the
ambiguities and tensions of that totality. It is precisely as this concrete
totality that I 'exist' and seek to attain eternal happiness, just as it is as
a seeker of this transcendent happiness that I also live this concrete
totality and thus also subject to the dialectic of transcendence and
immanence.
The point of this anthropology of concrete totality is to exclude in
principle the possibility of abstracting from the concrete totality that
makes up human existence, concentrating on an isolated dimension -
e.g. reason, existence, will, individuality, etc. - as though it were the
whole of human life, and then usually falling into one kind of dualism
or another. The anthropology of concrete totality especially excludes
idealism that tends to think of human existence only in terms of ideas
and intentions and in the process ends up by reducing it to angelic exist-
ence by systematically abstracting from the social and natural dimensions.
By insisting on the natural or cosmic dimension the concept of con-
crete totality recognizes that humans are essentially part of nature, not
its masters, and rules out anthropocentrism in principle. By insisting on
the social dimension it points to our solidarity in responsibility and des-

tiny, and rules out both apolitical fatalism and individualistic approaches
to politics. By insisting on the dialectic of transcendence and imman-
ence as an essential feature of the concrete totality, it also rules out the
dualism of religion and politics; it seeks instead to relate the two and
discern the religious meaning of politics and the political meaning of
religion. In asking about the conditions of possibility of any human
experience, it will seek not only the individual and ideal but also the
social and material conditions and attend, moreover, to the dialectic
between them. IS
(2) In relation to the challenge of religious pluralism, philosophy of
religion may do two things. One is to investigate the epistemological
implications of religious diversity and the possibility of interreligious
dialogue. This epistemological task has been taken up by a number of
philosophers and theologians such as John Hick, John Cobb, Keith
Ward, D. Z. Phillips, Mark Heim and others. The other task is to inquire
into the religious implications of the political challenge of solidarity of
others in the contemporary world, a task that I believe has been totally
neglected. What is the religious significance of the political praxis of
solidarity in the pluralistic world with all its tensions, divisions and
alienations? How do different religions view the religious significance
of political struggle? Does the struggle for solidarity challenge any of
the traditional beliefs about our temporal life (e.g. as maya, avidya,
etc.)? How do traditional beliefs about the significance of time and
eternity affect political struggles? Are there any common patterns in the
response of different religions to the political challenges of our time?
What is the impact of interreligious political co-operation on the reli-
gious self-understanding of the respective participants? Traditional
philosophy of religion has dealt with all sorts of questions, from the
nature and existence of God to the problem of evil, mysticism, miracles,
and immortality to religious language. Perhaps it is time that philo-
sophy of religion also took up the question of the religious significance
of political praxis both in its own right and as an addition to the discus-
sion of the problem of evil in which the struggle to remove social evil in
the eschatological horizon of hope may add new lights on the problem,
as Jiirgen Moltmann, Gustavo Gutierrez, Johann Baptist Metz and Helmut
Peukert have tried to show.
(3) In relation to Christianity I also envision two tasks which are espe-
cially relevant to the legacy of Kant and Kierkegaard as well as to the
demands of our time. The first task is to heal the schizophrenia of reason
and faith stemming from Kant and Kierkegaard and so deeply embedded
in the mentality of the modern West. Kant sees only antinomies

and dialectical illusions when reason encroaches on the supernatural,
Kierkegaard only an absolute opposition between speculation and
faith, admitting at most a negative function of reason for faith, i.e. deter-
mining what faith is not. Speaking from a horizon fundamentally
Christian yet also sympathetic to the Kantian liberal concern for
human dignity and autonomy, this contradiction between the two
essential components of human existence can only be destructive of
human integrity.
In this regard, Karl Rahner's transcendental approach, I think, is an
important contribution worth developing. One of his lifelong tasks was
precisely to grapple with the dichotomy of reason and faith, looking for
a way that could heal and reconcile the two, which he found in the
transcendental approach, which is itself part of the Kantian legacy. This
approach does not deny the irreducible difference between faith and
reasoni it does not say that faith can be made simply continuous with
reason any more than Kierkegaard would say that reason can abolish
the absolute paradox. What the approach does, once it accepts the tran-
scendent content in faith, is to ask about the human conditions of the
possibility of the content. Even the faithful can believe only as human
beings, in accordance with the structure of their beingi otherwise, faith
would mean destruction of humanity.
What, then, is there about the structure of human existence which
makes the acceptance of the transcendent revealed in history plausible
and fulfilling, 'intrinsic' to human existence so as not to destroy human
integrity but not 'constitutive' of human existence so as to preserve the
gratuity and transcendence of the content? Rahner goes into an elabor-
ate analysis of the structure and dynamics of human existence and tries
to show the possibility of revelation on the basis of the human drive
towards the absolute present in all finite experience as its transcend-
ental horizon, the possibility of free revelation on the basis of the meta-
physical necessity of affirming God as a free person, and the possibility
of historical revelation on the basis of the essential historicity of human
existence that can hear God's word only in history. Given the structure
of human existence, staking one's eternal happiness on faith in a histor-
ical event is not simply a negation of human reason, as Kierkegaard
seems to think. True, revelation is not reducible to reason, but it is not
only a negation of reasoni it is also a transcendent fulfilment of reason,
or, to use Tillich's expression, 'reason in ecstasy'. Nor does revelation des-
troy human autonomy, as Kant seems to claim. It is a transcendent sub-
lation - negating but also fulfilling - of human reason in its constitutive
search for the transcendent, of human reason which can find itself only
in something that infinitely transcends reason. 16
The second task, related to the first, and in a sense the most compel-
ling today, I think, is to heal the dichotomy between morality and reli-
gion, between the Kantian reduction of religion to the praxis of moral
duties to fellow human beings and the Kierkegaardian insistence on
faith in a historical person. It is precisely here that the real issue lies
between Christianity and Western secularism. There is a deep, lingering
suspicion on the part of Western intellectuals that religion, especially
Christianity, is essentially an escape from this-worldly human obliga c
tions and responsibilities. The challenge, therefore, is whether any
mediation is possible between these two antithetical positions. It is, of
course, not a question of finding an approach that would be persuasive
and convincing to both sides - the chasm is too great for any theoret-
ical approach to bridge - but only a question of what can be done, at
least from a Christian perspective that is also deeply concerned for
human well being, in order to heal the essential schizophrenia of the
modern West.
Here, again, I find the basic approach of Karl Rahner and its extension
by liberation theology highly appropriate and suggestive. The possibil-
ity of mediation here lies in the implication of the fact that both Kant
and Kierkegaard recognize love of neighbour as essential to genuine
religion, Kant as the object of the categorical imperative, Kierkegaard as
the fulfilment of the divine law. In Kierkegaard the love of neighbour
still remains extrinsic to love of God, not in the sense that it is separable
from love of God but in the sense that it is something commanded by
God and can be kept authentic only when it accepts God as the ulti-
mate object, norm and goal of its own. It is not of itself, at least implic-
itly, love of God. A true mediation between Kant and Kierkegaard, then,
would lie in showing that love of neighbour is love of God, that there is
an intrinsic unity, although not identity, between the two.
According to Rahner, there is a unity in distinction between our tran-
scendence towards God and our experience of finite beings. Our experi-
ence of finite beings in the world is only possible in the transcendental
horizon of God, and God is never given to us an object among objects
but only as the transcendental horizon of our experience of finite
objects. Whenever there is an unconditional affirmation of a neighbour
expressed in the willingness to sacrifice oneself for him or her, it is
implicitly an affirmation of something unconditional and absolute.
However, the neighbour as a finite being is not himself or herself this
absolute being, nor can the neighbour, therefore, be the ground of such
an absolute affirmation. In so far as this affirmation of an uncondi-

tional value takes place through the love of a finite being, it also con-
tains an implicit affirmation of the unity of the finite human being
being loved and the unconditional or absolute value affirmed in and
through the neighbour. This unity, for Rahner, is what is meant in the
Christian tradition by the 'hypostatic union' between the human and
the divine. The human and the divine are not identical but personally
united in Jesus of Nazareth. Any unconditional affirmation of neigh-
bour is possible only as an affirmation of the unity of the unconditional
absolute and the finite human being and therefore only as an implicit
affirmation of the hypostatic union in Christ. A truly self-sacrificing
love of neighbour is love of Jesus and in Jesus love of God. l ?
Liberation theology follows and extends Rahner's transcendental
approach to the political praxis of liberation. As argued above, love of
neighbour today must become concrete through transformation of
the structural conditions that violate and oppress human dignity, i.e.
through political praxis. In this praxis, however, people become mar-
tyrs. Through martyrdom they testify to an absolute value existing in
human beings but also transcendent of human beings. This is not a
merely speculative affirmation of divine transcendence in the sense of
the intellectual recognition of God's incomprehensibility, nor a merely
existential affirmation of divine transcendence in the Kierkegaardian
sense of the crucifixion of the understanding. It is a praxical affirmation
of divine transcendence in the sense of the willingness to bear witness
to it even to the point of suffering arrest, torture and murder. It is a
political form of faith. IS
Apart from the hermeneutic circle of faith, these approaches - which
also have to be integrated into the context of intellectual pluralism -
will not convince the non-believer, nor are they meant to. What they
do, however, is to issue a theological call to the political praxis of love
of neighbour to the Christians, and to pose the question to the non-
believer: What is the basis of the unconditional value you affirm in the
praxis of the categorical imperative? In a radically sceptical age, perhaps
a Christian philosophy of religion cannot be expected to do more. And
in doing this, it is also being faithful to its Kantian legacy: the way of
practical reason to God as its postulate; as it is to its Kierkegaardian leg-
acy: love of neighbour as fulfilment of the divine law.
There are no two thinkers more unlike and more opposed than Kant
and Kierkegaard. Kant is the epitome of modern rationalism, Kierke-
gaard that of modern fideism. Kant wants 'a religion within the limits
of reason alone', Kierkegaard a faith that entails 'the crucifixion of the
understanding'. Kant reduces religion to the acceptance of moral duties

as divine commands, Kierkegaard 'suspends' the ethical teleologically
for Christian faith. Kant is the philosopher of immanence par excellence,
Kierkegaard a theologian of radical transcendence. Kant stresses the uni-
versality of human reason, Kierkegaard the particularity of the existing
individual. Kant sees only the scandal of fanaticism and superstition in
historical faith, Kierkegaard precisely the salvation of humanity in the
absolute paradox of that faith. Both agree on the intrinsic opposition of
reason and faith, of morality and religion, but they do so uncompro-
misingly, with opposite priorities. Taken together in their contradic-
tion, Kant and Kierkegaard typify the cultural schizophrenia of the
modern West. Such a schizophrenia, so deeply embedded in the West-
ern mind, is no trivial phenomenon; it has been crying out for healing
and reconciliation. It is long overdue that philosophers of religion paid
serious attention.
Notes
1. Immanuel Kant, The Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Lewis
White Beck (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1959), pp. 67-8.
2. A fine recent book describing this dialectic and analysing its implications
for religion and theology is Robert J. Schreiter, The New Catholicity: Theology
between the Global and the Local (New York: Orbis, 1997).
3. Smen Kierkegaard, Training in Christianity, trans. Waiter Lowrie (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1941), p. 39.
4. Kant, Foundations, p. 51.
5. Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysical Elements of Justice, trans. John Ladd (New
York: Macmillan, 1965; Library of Liberal Arts), p. 34.
6. Smen Kierkegaard, Works of Love, trans. Howard and Edna Hong (New York:
Harper & Row, 1962; Harper Torchbooks), pp. 80-2, 93.
7. Immanuel Kant, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans. Theodore
M. Greene and Hoyt H. Hudson (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1960), p. 89.
8. Soren Kierkegaard, The Present Age, trans. Alexander Dru (New York: Harper
Torchbooks, 1962), pp. 79-81.
9. Ibid., p. 79.
10. For a defensive exposition of what I think is Kierkegaard's moralistiC, apolit-
ical politics, see Merold Westphal, Kierkegaard's Critique of Reason and Society
(Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1987), pp. 29-42.
11. Kant, Foundations, p. 49.
12. Immanuel Kant, The Doctrine of Vi/we, trans. Mary J. Gregor (New York:
Harper Torchbooks, 1964), p. 121.
13. See further my Dialectic of Salvation: Issues in Theology of Liberation (Albany:
SUNY Press, 1989), pp. 104-16.
14. On the notion of 'solidarity of others', see further my essays, 'Solidarity

of Others in the Body of Christ', Toronto Journal of Theology 12:2 (1998):
239-54; Towards a Dialectic of Totality and Infinity: Reflections on Emman-
uel Levinas', The Journal of Religion 78:4 (1998): 571-92; 'From Autobio-
graphy to Fellowship of Others: Reflections on Doing Ethnic Theology
Today', in Peter Phan and Jung Young Lee (eds.), Journeys at the Margin (Colle-
geville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999), pp. 135-59.
15. See further my Dialectic of Salvation, pp. 163-9, for the notion of 'concrete
totality'.
16. Karl Rahner, Hearers of the Word, trailS. Michael Richards (New York: Herder
and Herder, 1969).
17. Karl Rahner, The Love of Jesus and the Love of Neighbor, trans. Robert Barr
(New York: Crossroad, 1983), pp. 25-46; Theological Investigations, VI, trans.
Karl-H. and Boniface Kruger (New York: Crossroad, 1969), pp. 231-49
(,Reflections on the Unity of the Love of Neighbor and the Love of God').
18. See my Dialectic of Salvation, pp. 79-116; Jon Sobrino, Jesus in Latin America
(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1987), pp. 19-29. The critical theology of Helmut
Peukert extends the transcendental approach and asks how solidarity with
the victims of the past is possible and argues that such solidarity is possible
only on condition of the possibility of resurrection. See his Science, Action,
and Fundamental Theology: Toward a Theology of Communicative Action, trans.
James Bohman (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1986), pp. 163-245. For correlation
of this approach with Kant's approach to God as a postulate of practical
reason, see Thomas A. McCarthy, 'Philosophical Foundations of Political
Theology: Kant, Peukert, and the Frankfurt School', in Leroy S. Rouner (ed.),
Civil Religion and Political Theology (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1986), pp. 23-40.
N: In some ways I am disappointed to be a member of a panel. I miss

the cut and thrust of discussion. Fortunately, however, the issues I raise
have to do with the concerns of the symposiasts.
I think Kant and Kierkegaard respond to Hume and Hegel in their use
of transcendental terms. I think we can see what Kant meant by faith in
terms of a category I call analytic a posteriori. In the second part of my
paper I try to say something about Kant's Critiques with a view to clari-
fying this notion.
In the first Critique Kant outlines the boundaries of our perception.
These limit the terms of the Critique. In the second Critique these
boundaries are erased teleologically in the practical realm. These mat-
ters have no clear epistemic status, but I am suggesting that they be
called analytic a posteriori. I claim that Kierkegaard does not ignore these
matters, but is supplementing them. I illustrate the importance of the
analytic a posteriori in relation to OHo and Tillich, but it would be more
useful now if I relate it to the concerns of the first papers of our sym-
posia.
A claims that Kant is inconsistent in his use of the term 'metaphysics'.
No doubt he uses it in a variety of ways, but the analytic a posteriori pro-
vides a higher standpoint from which these can be viewed. The uncer-
tainty of faith for Kant is a necessary feature of the analytic a posteriori,
and Kierkegaard develops this.
E hopes for a new synthesis for faith and reason, but he provides us
with no name for it. I am suggesting it can be found in the analytic
a posteriori. In this way we can avoid the either/or between faith and
reason which E, too, wants to avoid.
P saw Kierkegaard's individual as an extension of Kant's psychological
man, caught up in his own decisions. But this could be linked to my
conception. The analytic would be analogous to Kant's 'universal', and
Kierkegaard's individual in all his particularity would be analogous to
the a posteriori.
I think 5's dialogue has one major weakness: it underplays Kierke-
gaard's distinctiveness. The difference between them affects the whole
mood we adopt when doing philosophy. Neither could be accommod-
ated so easily as 5 suggests, but the notion of the analytic a posteriori
emphasizes the different aspects they concentrate on.
295
I agree with F about the precise difference between Kant and Kierke-
gaard. For Kant grace poses the question of whether we possess the con-
ditions for human well being. There, with the relation between the
conditions and the facts, we have the analytic a posteriori. For Kierke-
gaard grace is a paradox in a way analogous to that in which the ana-
lytic a posteriori is a paradox: it is not purely analytic and not purely
empirical. Christ is the given, what is analytic for the Christian, and yet
our relation to him must be mediated in the a posteriori, in the details of
our lives.
0: It is easy to speak about the discussion of Kierkegaard in the
analytic tradition - it hardly exists there. R. M. Hare, having read the
Postscript, said that although he found it interesting, he was not sure
it was philosophy. The influence of Kant, on the other hand, has been
huge, but I shall confine myself to one aspect.
R. M. Hare expressed a common view when he said that ever since
Kant's Groundwork we can speak of the independence of morals, the
independence of the human, from divine authority. That is how we
now understand the matter. This is how he is read in the analytic tradi-
tion. When Iris Murdoch wants to find an example of an autonomous
moral agent she finds it a hundred years earlier in Milton's Lucifer.
Why is the Groundwork read in this way; that autonomy requires no
authority? It is because the Groundwork is read as presenting the dilemma
which has dominated Divine Command Theory. Do we derive moral
concepts from God or not? The arguments presented are either crudely
Circular, or make morality self-contradictory. So people reject Divine
Command Theory.
But this cannot be what Kant meant. Throughout his work duties are
seen as divine commands. This is so even in the Groundwork. He also
says that we are members of a kingdom of ends. The kingdom must
have a head, namely, God, although Kant does not say so. The difference
between the head and the subjects is that the head is not answerable to
the subjects. We can make sense of the notion of an autonomous sover-
eign in a political context.
When we discuss Divine Command Theory we forget that Kant is
talking against the background of his Pietistic upbringing. If we forget
this we are likely to make three mistakes: First, we may assume that we
have an intuitive access to God's will. Second, we may be guilty of a
crude circularity. We ought to do God's will because God is defined as
moral. Kant wants to introduce a third element. He wants to show how
we can be both happy and virtuous. But this may lead to a third mis-
take, since to think that duties are based on the hope of reward or the
fear of punishment would be a case of the heteronomy of the will for

Kant. Yet he argues for a submissive autonomy to do one's duty as
God's will.
The reason why this is not appreciated within the analytic tradition is
part of a much wider pattern. He is explained teleologically in a context
where it is generally assumed that God is dead. Russell even omitted
God from Leibniz's axioms in his study of him. So the misreading of
Kant is due to the secularization of our age which we need to correct.
Q: I shan't repeat my summaries of Kant and Kierkegaard. The dignity
of the human being is more important than ever today, given the vari-
ous forms of oppression we witness. To transcend the tensions between
Kant and Kierkegaard we need to preserve three things.
First, we need a shift in emphasis from the individual will to the social
and political will. I'm not accusing Kant and Kierkegaard of being anti-
social in asking, respectively, 'How can I overcome?' and 'How do I
become a self?' No, that is not my point. But we need to be aware of our
interdependence within a totality. In The Present Age Kierkegaard is well
aware of coercive social forces. But the dignity of 'the neighbour' is
rather isolated, due to the absence of certain structural factors. There is
a danger in Kant and Kierkegaard, especially the latter, of political fatal-
ism. Both are concerned with the ideal, but have little to say about the
material forces that erode human dignity. So we need to transform our
political state as well as ourselves. In the context of concrete totality we
need to overcome the duality of intellect and experience to include the
social dimension.
Second, philosophy of religion must become aware of the political
significance of religion and the religious significance of politics. Kant and
Kierkegaard attempted to build some bridges in this still neglected area.
Third, we must transcend the dualism of the secular and the sacred.
There is no theoretical way of doing this. A Christian philosophy of reli-
gion ought to mediate this. Rahner has tried to fuse faith and reason
within the notion of universal hope. So we must have a society which
makes it possible to have such hope.
Kant is reluctant to move towards a historical religion and Kierke-
gaard prefers faith rooted in history to reason. Rahner and like theolo-
gians should act as the bridge between them. The unconditional value
of the individual is seen to depend on a union of the human and the
divine. Critical theory should help in making us realistic about the his-
torical situation in which action is called for.
None of this is going to persuade those who have no faith. My remarks
are addressed to Christians in the modern world. The notion of the love
of the neighbour is likely to be the central concept in any attempt at

bridge-building. I take myself to be faithful to Kant and Kierkegaard in
advocating this.
Before ending I want to ask N some questions about his proposals via
the notion of the analytic a posteriori. First, what is supposed to be the
analytic element in Christianity? Second, do you say that both Kant
and Kierkegaard have the same regulative idea? Third, what about the
context of the idea? How does the purely formal concept guard against
the demonic power of the divine?
N: The synthetic a priori content of faith guards us against the demonic.
This is why Kierkegaard needs Kant's noumenal realm. Without it, there
is no guarantee as to the content of faith. I admit that Kant and Kierke-
gaard have different interpretations. I admit, too, that one cannot show
in the abstract why Christ plays an analytic role in faith. If one presents
someone immersed in moral struggle with this notion, claiming 'Christ
is the one', one is presenting him with an empowering notion. But a
person may not respond in the way one hopes for when one unpacks
the notion.
J: I do not see the necessity for such a technical notion as the analytic a
posteriori. It amounts to seeing things under a religious aspect. The issue
then becomes one of how, if at all, people appropriate this aspect.
R: How are we to understand Kierkegaard in this respect? Is he an ethi-
cist or is he a religious thinker?
G: I think it is deeply misleading to think of him as an ethicist. He is
almost a solipsist in that respect. But this doesn't meant that he isn't a
philosopher. After all, he raises certain philosophical questions. On the
other hand, his main aim was not to advance the philosophical debate,
but to change people's hearts.
P: I think Kierkegaard is both a religious thinker and a philosopher. He
engages in philosophical analysis, so he is a philosopher. But in show-
ing philosophy the limits of its own analysis he is a religious thinker.
A: I'd like to challenge G over the claim that Kierkegaard is a moral
solipsist. What is one to make of Works of Love with its emphasis on
'the neighbour'?
5: I agree, but that does not make him an ethicist.
A: Do you mean he is not Cl casuist?
5: I think it is a great privilege to teach Kierkegaard. If I do it well students
will be transformed, because they are confronted by the question: What
does it mean to choose oneself? There are deeply philosophical questions.
A: What does it mean to be a philosopher? The traditional picture of the
philosopher is of someone who divests himself of everything particular
to oneself. I am thankful that we have gone beyond that. Philosophy

can now be engaged with one's whole being. But philosophy is a cul-
tural construction, so there will be different conceptions of it.
B: I'd like to question what 0 has said about the secularization of philo-
sophy in the European tradition. I do not think that is quite fair to the
post-Nietzschean tradition. After all, it attacks that tradition which
makes religion dependent on metaphysics. Did not Heidegger say that
only a god can save us? He has a conception of a human being as con-
stant 'becoming'. So has Levinas. So a false 'absolute' is rejected.
0: But when Heidegger speaks of Kierkegaard doesn't he see him more
through the eyes of Nietzsche than through the eyes of Luther?
B: But you have to realize that Nietzsche is rejecting a large part of the
project people are talking about. He denied the inclination to happiness
and that we need to fulfil it. He had a contempt for this ambition and
thought it disruptive of one's integrity. So what is the status of these altern-
ative perspectives? Are they to be called instances of self-deception?
0: No doubt Nietzsche does not have happiness, but we could say it is
the happiness he wants.
B: Nietzsche said that only the Englishman seeks happiness.
U: The question to be asked is whether there is enough in common for
a post-Enlightenment conception of a reconstructed reason? When Karl
Barth was asked whether he was the enemy of reason, he replied, 'I use
it'.
N: I want to answer E's comments on Nietzsche. In Ecce Homo, the more
he rails the more he rejects. But doesn't he have to turn to something
positive, a Superman who can pick up the pieces?
But I think there is a potential in Kant to do what U hopes for. In his
three Critiques he has posed the questions: What can I know? What can
I do? What can I hope? But there is fourth question, in his later lectures
on anthropology, which encompasses the other three: What is man?
There is a future here for the future of different perspectives, instead
of the hope for an absolute right answer. In my paper I gave just one
example of how two conflicting philosophies can be made compatible.
Kant attempts to find compatibility in the different answers he reaches
in his Critiques. Kierkegaard attempts to find it in his pseudonymous
works. The inquirer must recognize this.
Q: This is relevant to my reason for saying that reason has a political
status. We must recognize that our reason is not disinterested. On the
contrary, it is affected by ideology, and thus impure.
0: As far as I'm concerned there was a big change in philosophy of reli-
gion in the sixties. The mood became positive and religious faith was
no longer on the defensive. In postmodernism religion is not on the

defensive, but in other ways it is less free, since the overall picture is
under suspicion. But religious people are certainly under no illusion
about the extent of the forces ranged against them.
e: I do not think that the conception of philosophy can be left relative
to different perspectives. I think the resurgence of the philosophy of
religion under the auspices of the Society for Christian Philosophy can
be misleading. Despite the size of its membership, it is important to
realize that, with few exceptions, the wider academy is not being
engaged in a discussion of religion. In that respect, the situation is less
open than the discussion in the fifties and later surrounding religion
and linguistic philosophy together with the different influence of
Wittgenstein and Wittgensteinian writings. Think, for example, of the
influence of Peter Winch's work on discussions in anthropology and
sociology. By contrast, what predominates now is a view that different
philosophical perspectives have their own presuppositions which they
have a perfect right to hold. But this seems to me to be a decline in the
critical character of philosophical discussion.
B: In relation to Kierkegaard, for example, his work must be seen as a
critical attack on a certain conception of philosophy. He attacks a certain
conception of what a philosopher is able to do with respect to religion.
C: The reason why so many Christian philosophers disavow the disin-
terested character of philosophical inquiry is because they think it
involves eVidentialism, the assessment of belief and unbelief by refer-
ence to common criteria of validity. The disinterestedness I am talking
about is born of wonder at the world in all its variety; and fascination
with the varied dialogues we engage in. Philosophy is not the handmaiden
of religious or atheistic interests.
F: But where does the dialogue go?
C: Wonder at the dialogues, and wrestling with the characteristically
philosophical issues they give rise to, is not an interest in the dialogue
going in a specific direction.
F: But surely there comes a time for decisions. You do not simply want
to contemplate the dialogue. You want to come home.
e: Of course, I, too, as a person, occupy a certain position in the city. I
say some things rather than others. But do you think there is a contra-
diction between living in a house and wonder at the city with no main
road?
F: No.
Index
Abraham, xvii, 95, 112, 124-5, 170-3, eternity, 191, 193-5,216,219,

174,178,180 227-8
Adams, Robert M., 273 evidentialism, 19
Agamemnon, 101 evil, 181, 183; radical, xvii, 76-7, 134,
Alston, William, 12, 19 178, 198
Andersen, Hans Christian, 6
Anselm,48 faith, 15, 18,20,27,34,57,58-61,
anti-realism, 11-12, 15-16, 25, 45, 50 63,66, 70, 71-2, 90, 92, 179,
Aristotle, 4, 67 203, 295
Fichte, J. G., 160-1
Barth, Kart, 92 freedom, 134, 138, 139, 141
Beck, Lewis White, 264-5, 272 Fries, J. F., 253
Brody, Baruch, 273
Gaita, Raimond, 238
Cam us, Albert, 104 God, proofs of the existence of, 17,
categorical imperative, 57, 112, 113, 20, 165; reality of, xi, 11, 17-18,
117, 118, 119, 124 30,47,49
Cavell, Stanley, 27ff. Goodman, Nelson, 15,23
character, 108-10, 119 grace, xvii, 126, 137-8, 141, 178,
child sacrifice, xvii, 125 181-3, 187, 193, 194, 196, 197,
Christianity, xvii, xviii, 37, 59, 102, 199-200, 201, 223, 225-6, 236,
148,195,199,208,236,291 237-9, 240
Climacus, Johannes, 23, 32, 33, 65 Green, Ronald, 157-61, 163-4, 171
Cobb, John, 289 Gutierrez, Gustavo, 289
conSCience, 97-9, 100, 101, 102, 104,
110 Hamann,}. G., 154, 164, 173, 174,
Crusius, Christian August, 263-4, 179
266-7 Hardon, J. A., 212-13
Cupitt, Don, 11, 12 Hare, John, 137
Hare, R. M., 263, 264, 296
Davidovich, Adina, 259 Hegel, G. W. F., 4, 6, 9, 58, 96, 98,
Descartes, Rene, 58 104, 159, 162, 165, 179, 246, 295
divine command theory, xix, 178, Hegelianism, 6, 16, 57, 148
263-7, 270, 273-4, 296 Heidegger, Martin, 299
double-mindedness, 117 Heim, Mark, 289
Heine, Heinrich, 273
Eichmann, Adolf, 217 Hick, John, 289
epistemology, xix, 48, 56, 58; highest good, 99-100
foundationalist, 12, 15-16, 19; Hobbes, Thomas, 98
Reformed, 19 Holland, R. F., 214, 215, 240
eternal life, xviii, 187-8, 190-6, hope, xv, xviii, 73-5, 76-82, 89, 90,
201-4, 208, 218-20, 221, 229, 239
236-7, 241 Hume, David, 56, 99, 246, 262, 295
301
302 Index
idealism, 58, 165 Murdoch, Iris, 296

immortality, 182,190, 191,202, Muth, Placid, 230
207-9,211,216-26,237
indirect communication, 38, 41-3, Nelson, Leonard, 253
64,65,83,89, 157 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 104, 272, 299
individuality, 107, 117, 124, 128
infinity, 240 objective uncertainty, xiii, 15, 17-18,
inwardness, 107, 110-11, 116-18, 120, 26,116,147,179
251 ontology, 4
irony, 64 Orwell, George, 108
Otto, Rudolf, 253-5
James, William, 3, 7
Jesus Christ, xvii, 59, 127, 140,237; paganism, 16, 95, 122, 168
as a historical person, 139, 141, 146, pantheism, 6
178-9 Pascal, Blaise, 116
John Paul II, 223, 233-4 passion, 15, 80, 115, 127
Judge William, 159-61, 168-9, 180 Paul,167
justification, 26ff., 38, 133 Peirce, C. S., 13
Peukert, Helmut, 289
Karamzin, Nikolai, 154-5 Phillips, D. Z., 202, 250, 252, 289
kingdom of ends, 97, 267, 270-1 philosophy, xi, xix-xx, 181, 298-9;
knowledge, 16, 58-60, 68-70, 99, Critical, 247-50; of religion, 253,
104, 141; absolute, 5, 7, 16; reli- 257-8,289,297,299-300
gious, 16-17, 20-1 Plantinga, Alvin, 19
Korsgaard, Christine, 269 Plato, 6, 58, 59, 68, 241
Polanyi, Michael, 70
Lessing, G. E., 103, 104 possibility, 73, 75-6,80-2,89,90,
Luther, Martin, 164, 166, 167, 170, 143
174 pseudonymous authorship, 25, 31,
Lutheranism, xvii, 164-70, 17l-4, 38-43,47,63-6,82-6
180, 183 Putnam, Hilary, 12
MacIntyre, Alisdair, 137 Quinn, Philip L., 273

metaphysics, 3-11, 22,25-6, 27-30,
38,45,46,56,61,99,248,295 Rahner, Karl, 290, 291-2, 297
Metz, Johann Baptist, 289 Ramsey, Frank, 214-15
Michalson, Gordon, 137 rationality, xiii, 63, 64, 80
Moltmann, JUrgen, 289 realism, xii, xiii, 12-16, 25, 45-7,
Moore, Gareth, 209 49-50
moral law, xv, 90, 97-8, 102,104,113, reality, 12, 45, 47-8
124, 132-3, 134, 140, 191,271-2, reason, 21, 79-80, 280; bounds
273 of, 61-3, 68, 69; limits of, 8,
moral rededication, xvii, 136, 147, 59-63
178 religion, 95, 103, 181, 221, 248,
morality, xvi, xvii, 57, 95, 96-7, 249
99-103, 123, 132-5, 182, 188-90, religious belief, xii-xiii, xiv, 18,
265, 267; and religion, xvi, 90, 29,64,90,211,220-1,225,
102, 122, 133-4, 140, 182, 224-5, 239; and metaphysics, xi, xx, 3
265, 291 religious education, 225
Index 303
religious language, xiv, 25, 29-30, Taylor, Mark C., 164

49,225 teleological suspension of the ethical,
Reuss, Matern, 230 xvii, 65, 123, 126, 269
risk, 15, 19, 111-13, 116,123 theology, 10, 22, 55, 181; liberation,
Rorty, Richard, 7, 12, 13, 15 291, 292; natural, 61, 69, 165, 183
Russell, Bertrand, 50, 272, 297 theonomy, 274
Thomas, R. S., 125, 222
scepticism, 27-30, 59, 99, 101 Thomte, Reidar, 156
Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 124, 162-3, Tillich, Paul, 255-6, 274
179 truth, 12-15, 28, 32, 36, 65, 103,
Scruton, Roger, 9-10, 22 250-1
self-deception, 25, 31, 35
Silentio, Johannes de, 64, 111 verificationism, 12, 16, 239-40
sin, 134-5, 141, 163; original, 102,
135, 161-3 Ward, Keith, 289
Socrates, xvii, 39, 41-2, 51, 202-3, Weber, Joseph, 230
211 Weil, Simone, 126,221
soul, xviii, 212-13, 217-18 Weston, Michael, 5
Spinoza, Benedict de, 98, 99,100,101, Winch, Peter, 210, 300
102 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, xvi, 25, 29, 51,
Strawson, P. F., 63 210,214-16,220,221,228,
subjectivity, xii, xiii, 14, 17, 19-21, 262, 300
32-6,51,60, 159, 239, 251 Wolterstorff, Nicholas, 19, 137
summum bonum, 189, 191,213,219, worship, 17
221, 224-5, 226
superstition, 10 Zeno,240

(2000) Phillips & Tessin (Ed.) - Kant and Kierkegaard On Religion

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Kant and Kierkegaard on

Claremont Studies in the Philosophy of Religion

First published in the United States of America 2000 by

B2799.R4 K35 2000

Selection and editorial matter D. Z. Phillips and Timothy Tessin 2000

Printed and bound in Great Britain by

Notes on the Contributors viii

Part I Kant, Kierkegaard and Metaphysics 1

2 Kant and Kierkegaard on the Possibility of

Part 11 Leaving Room for Faith S3

Part III The Individual 93

6 'The Individual' in Kant and Kierkegaard - a Reply 107

Voices in Discussion 122

Part IV Religion and Morality 129

Part V Eternal Life 185

Part VI Philosophy of Religion after Kant

The symposia in the present collection were presented at the 1998

Hilary Bok is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Pomona College. She

c. Stephen Evans is Professor of Philosophy and Dean for Research and

M. Jamie Ferreira is a Professor of Philosophy of Religion in the Depart-

R. Z. Friedman is Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of

Jerry H. Gill is semi-retired and is presently Adjunct Professor of Philo-

Ronald M. Green is John Phillips Professor of Religion at Dartmouth

John Hare teaches at Calvin College, Michigan. He is the author of The

Anselm Kyongsuk Min is Professor of Religion at Claremont Graduate

Step hen Palmquist is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion

D. Z. Phillips is Danforth Professor of Philosophy of Religion at Clare-

Mario von der Ruhr is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Wales,

Jack Verheyden is Richard Cain Professor of Theology and Ecclesiology

Michael Weston is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Essex.

John W. Whittaker is a Professor of Philosophy and Director of Reli-

In 1997 the Claremont Conference on Philosophy of Religion was on

The context-free metaphysical concept of 'the real' is abandoned on

similar difficulties which Wittgenstein faced in the Tractatus in his dis-

A very different reaction denies that Kant's notion of the objectively

I have said enough already to indicate the kinds of questions which

that one should divest one's inquiries of any semblance of personal

Although those philosophers termed 'postmodernist' would seem to

1. There is metaphysics and there is metaphysics

Before defending metaphysics, it is first necessary to clarify what I shall

'bookstore' sense, in which metaphysics is associated with magic,

I think it is pretty clear that there is such a thing as thinking about

Plato and Hegel mark the beginning and culmination of a particular

What is it about Plato and Hegel that offends Kierkegaard? Is it that

Mere metaphysics is simply thinking about the nature of things with-

2. Kant's view of metaphysics

Kant bears, 1 think, a large measure of responsibility for the entan-

project. Kanfs philosophy is a curious blend of epistemic humility and

which it itself gives birth we should have no alternative but to reject

If they [metaphysicians] ... desire to carry on their business, not as a

Such a description of course corresponds very closely with Kant's

that rational theology is not just unbelievable, but unthinkable. d8 If the

For if, in some other relation, perhaps on practical grounds, the

It would be a great mistake then to take Kant's 'rational belief' as

3. Kierkegaard and anti-realism

Does Kierkegaard share this attitude of Kant towards metaphysics?

God is not something external, as is a wife, whom I can ask whether

which a person is committed, an ideal that has no ontological status

point of realism is that we have no guarantees. We cannot say with

we certainly can and do judge various things to be comparatively better

4. Kierkegaard on knowing God

I believe that those who tie realism to classical foundationalist epi-

presence cannot be discerned directly through 'objective reflection' or