Sárospataki Füzetek 16. (2012)
2012 / 2. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Frank Sawyer: Immanuel Kant and Theology
Frank Sawyer existence which Kant systematically tries to explain as inadequate, are:4 a. The COSMOLOGICAL proof: there must be a first cause which sets everything (the world: cosmos) in motion. Some philosophers maintain that this is the only hopeful argument for a theistic proof. Plato argued that there must be a World Soul, or prime Self-mover who sets things in motion. Kant says, however, that there is a logical contradiction in this matter: it seems logical that there is a first cause. It also seems logical that there can be no first cause (for what is the cause of this ‘first’ cause?) b. The TELEOLOGICAL proof: there is purposefulness, design (telos) and order - and this must come from somewhere, namely from the Designer Creator. For example, it is argued: if you found a watch in a field, you would conclude that it has a designer. The world is even more complex than a watch, so it must have a designer. Or: if a hundred monkeys could type on computer keyboards every day for a year, is there any chance they would (accidentally) type out the first two lines from a Shakespearean sonnet or from Imre Madach’s The Tragedy of Marii Kant did not try to totally discredit the teleological argument, but he said that it was insufficient. For example: if God is the source of design, how do we know that there is not a higher source than God? Kant was impressed by the design he found in nature and the world, but he said that while indicating a designer, the teleological argument does not prove that the designer is God.5 Flume had already tom this argument apart by saying that the designer could be several gods —cooperating, but not very well — look at the pain and death in the world. c. The ONTOLOGICAL proof, which says that God is the most perfect and necessary being (ontos) - the idea of such a being includes its existence, since existence is part of God’s necessity and perfection. Kant objects to the ontological proof because we cannot jump from the sphere of thought to that of real existence (from eidos to ontos). What seems logically necessary (an idea) is not ontically necessary (being). In Kantian terms: we cannot prove noumenal things from phenomenal effects. d. The MORAL proof for God says that God is the source of the highest good: the universal moral law requires a Lawgiver. Though Kant rejects any rational proof for God’s existence, he did argue that God is a necessary moral postulate. In other words: God is not rationally demonstrable, but he is a practical-moral presupposition. For example, Kant thought that since we cannot reach completion of the greatest good in this life, there must be a God and a future life. So this is the postulate he accepts. But there are no real ‘proofs’. Along the way Kant asks four famous questions6: 1) what can I know? (metaphysics); 2) what should I do? (ethics); 3) what may I hope? (religion); 4) what is man? (anthropology). Kant was fascinated by the possibilities of empirical science and reason, but also saw the limits of human knowledge. He noticed that pure reason keeps leaping forward to practical reason; that is, thinking relates to doing and to morality. We have to live in some way, or as Chesterton said: In ethics as in art, one 4 For a short summary, cf.Hans Kung, Does God Exist? (Crossroad, New York, 1978), sec.F.III. 5 cf.Norman Geisler and Winfried Corduan, Philosophy of Religion (Grand Rapids: Baker Bookhouse, 1993), ch.5: ‘The function of theistic proofs’. 6 cf.Colin Brown, Christianity and Western Thought, vol. I (Leicester: Apollos, 1990), p.311. 78 Sárospataki Füzetek2012/2
