Correcting the Caricature: God and Kant

This paper will offer a simple propaedeutic to several salient aspects of Kantian ethics and rational theology in order to demonstrate the necessity of God in Kantian ethics. It will be argued that the loss of God fatally compromises Kantian morality. In pursuit of this end, clarification will be offered for some commonly misunderstood or neglected elements of Kantian ethics which are essential to a holistic view of Kantian morality and essential to the integration of Kantian ethics into a coherent worldview which incorporates his rational theology. The argument advanced in this paper seeks to demonstrate that theism and reason are not at cross purposes, and that a rationalistic system of ethics may in fact include God in a prominent and deeply meaningful way. Kant conceives of a position commonly known as the “argument from morality” which acknowledges that the divine being is in fact closed off to our limited knowledge through speculative reason, but whose existence can be postulated as a necessity of practical reason and our relation to the moral law. While this is not so much a proof as a justification, it is nevertheless found rationally as a postulate of practical reason, a necessary condition of, and for, morality. This is achieved through the ultimate possibility of the summum bonum, something which does not seem possible, yet is necessary for our dedication to the moral law. 1