Sárospataki Füzetek 16. (2012)

2012 / 2. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Frank Sawyer: Immanuel Kant and Theology

IMMANUEL KANT AND THEOLOGY

on to accept the need for ‘practical reason’ which posits more than we can prove.

This points to Kant’s dualistic problem as well as his rich understanding of the great questions of philosophy.

For Kant, the finite mind is not able to reach the infinite.25 This would later become a theme of existentialism, and for example influence Kierkegaard and Barth. But there is a difference: Kierkegaard finds a paradoxical contact with the infinite. And while Barth agrees with Kant’s critique on ‘natural theology’, he emphasizes God’s revelation, so that the finite mind indeed does not reach the finite, but the infinite reaches the finite mind. Compared to this, Kant leaves us largely boxed in by our finitude. We are isolated from ever knowing the Dinge an sich (thingsin-themself). Since true reality is not really knowable, it is no wonder that Fichte and others following Kant abandoned this idea - with the consequence that they lost the balance which Kant tried to achieve and fell into a one-sided subjectivity.

25 Tillich, op.át.

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