Immanuel Kant’s Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone synopsis
- How the free will, even though radically evil, can regenerate itself
- How Christianity as rationally interpreted exemplifies this process of moral regeneration
- As such, two views about humanity are rejected by Kant
- Rejects the view of the enlightenment (Aufklarung) that humans are basically good
- Rejects the view of human depravity
- How can the evil disposition be converted to a good one? How is it that oughtness is a can?
- There must be a revolution of habits, which Kant understands to be the new birth (Jn. 3)
- How, if we are corrupt, can we cause ourselves to be born again?
There is divine cooperation (grace) but only if we make ourselves worthy (found in Critique of Practical Reason)
- The individual is autonomous (nothing can alter the will except the will itself).
- Religion is experience–an internal self-change.
- Salvation is an internal self-change.
- The Bible is an autobiography of religious experience.
- Jesus is the ultimate example of salvation.