The Critique of Practical Reason

Synopsis

It's a classic of western philosophy as was just about everything Kant wrote, but that's not my purpose in writing this. I want to refute the silly notion that this is "nothing but Christian apologetics." Merely believing in a higher being does not make one a Christian. Aristotle, Plato, Spinoza, Hegel, and yes Kant all believed in a higher power of some sort (as do Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and many sects of Buddhists) but none of them were Christians. To be a Christian, if the word is to have any meaning at all, requires some beliefs about Jesus, in particular that he was the son of God. Kant discounts every miracle associated with Jesus, and not only that but anyone who knows the first thing about his system as a whole realizes that he would hold that the very idea of God having a human son to be utterly absurd (though Kant left us to draw this conclusion as stating these sorts of things too explicitly in 18th century Prussia was a good way to end up in jail or at least out of work). Given all that, in what sense could Kant possibly be a Christian? Now Kant does believe that Christianity expresses some ethical truths and that Jesus as portrayed in the bible was a good human being, but then again Bertrand Russell says the same things in "Why I'm Not a Christian," which in case anyone was wondering is not usually considered to be a work of Christian apologetics. Kant does claim that morality impels us to have faith that there is a God, but he steadfastly holds that we cannot anthropomorphize this being in any way (i.e. there can be no angry God nor happy God because these are the emotions of beings like us and make no sense when applied to God). This is almost impossible to reconcile with any view that could meaningfully be called Christian. [Amazon]

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