Judaism, Christianity, and the Religion of Pure Reason

This chapter reads Kant’s Religion as a response to Part II of Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem. Mendelssohn had argued that different peoples can have different ways of practicing the common religion of reason, and that the commandments of Judaism are intended only as occasions for reflection, valid for Jews, on these truths, while other religions can get at them in different ways. In the first two parts of his Religion, Kant argued that the central ideas of Christianity are uniquely well-suited as symbols of the religion of reason, and he further argued in Part III of the book that morality requires a single church of practitioners. However, he then argued that this church must be “invisible” and ultimately transcend all scriptural religion. Mendelssohn’s insistence on the acceptance of religious diversity seems more plausible than Kant’s confidence in the ultimate transcendence of all visible churches.