Posted: Jul 03, 2010 5:53 am
Belief in belief. This interests me. I do like Will’s example of the plank across the abyss and how persuading someone to believe that the abyss is not really deep or dangerous could actually assist that person in safely crossing the plank. I think this is an excellent metaphor which illustrates very nicely the power of belief, the power of perspective. I do, at times, see some value, perhaps even a lot of value, in religious belief (depending, of course, on the kind of religious belief.) However, I fear that the trade-off in terms of what religious belief may do to critical thinking skills, which are necessary for sheer survival, is perhaps too high.
I was amused by Will’s story about the man who tells his son that God does not exist but that the claim that God exists is one that is “comforting to the women.” Indeed! I must say, though, that this particular woman would, in fact, “be comforted” by such knowledge, assuming of course that when we are talking about God, we are talking about a being that is loving and kind and good and that exists outside of my own imagination. On the other hand, the implication of this story—that it is “womanly” to believe in God is perhaps not very flattering to men who do not wish to think of themselves as womanly. I realize that Will was not in any way saying that men who believe in God are “womanly,” but I just thought I would make this observation about the story.
Anyway . . . about Kant. Thank you to grahhbud for the clarification, re: transcendental vs. phenomena. However, it has been noted that, AFAICT, grahhbud has yet to provide us with his own definition of the word “God.” This makes communication difficult. Perhaps a definition will still be forthcoming. It might be said, though, that if one has no working definition for the word “God,” it would make sense that one finds the question of, “Do you believe that God actually exists?” to be nonsensical. With this frame of mind, however, one might infer that the person who finds such a question to be nonsensical might also find the question of “Do you believe that you actually exist?” to be equally nonsensical.
I have easy, ongoing access to a university with an impressive collection of theological/philosophical works, and I am currently in possession of a book called Kant and the Problem of God, by Gordon E. Michalson, Jr. In his book, Michalson attempts to show that Kant’s philosophy was actually much more of a precursor to atheism than it was to Protestant theology. There are many interesting and illuminating observations about Kant’s philosophy contained in this book, and I will bring some of those up, perhaps at a later time. For now, though, I would just like to offer up the following excerpt from the book which seems to indicate that Kant did not, at least at the end of his life, believe that God was a being that existed outside of one’s mind. And I would propose that if Kant did not believe that God was a being that existed outside of one’s mind, Kant was, in fact, an atheist. Here’s an excerpt from the book:
The nearly half-century-long trajectory of Kant’s writings about God and theistic proofs finally concludes on a vexing and ambiguous note, for these final comments are in the unpublished form eventually edited and published as the Opus Postumum. In a series of extended notes and outlines involving trains of thought of varying degrees of completeness, the aging Kant is obviously rethinking the interconnections among self, world, and God, often leaving it unclear if he is developing his own position or entertaining views that he will dispute. Whether or not Kant was still in complete control of his faculties as he grappled with these enormously complex issues remains an open and debated question. What we do know is that Kant originally intended this work to be a major culminating statement, dealing primarily with what he characterized as the “transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics,” thus filling a “gap that now stands open” in the critical philosophy. The potential importance of this project for consideration of Kant’s philosophical theology is rather dramatically conveyed by his suggestion at several points in the work that God is not “a being” that exists “outside me,” but is somehow coincident with my own experience of moral obligation. “There is a God in moral-practical reason, that is, in the idea of the relation of man to right and duty,” Kant writes. “But not as a being outside man.”
Anyone who has struggled to grasp Kant’s understanding of the exact relationship between God and the moral law will find such remarks richly suggestive and, no doubt, more than a little frustrating. In his commentary on Kant, Father Copleston has suggested that in the Opus Postumum Kant “appears to be concerned with finding a more immediate transition from consciousness of the moral law to belief in God,” but this may be a polite way of saying that Kant is here blurring the line between the two altogether. Moreoever, the fact that the Opus Postumum Kant “appears to be concerned with finding a more immediate transition from consciousness of the moral law to belief in God,” but this may be a polite way of saying that Kant is here blurring the line between the two altogether. Moreover, the fact that the Opus Postumum includes numerous references to Spinoza, in an era when Spinozism was virtually synonymous with atheism, simply underscores the provocative, if inconclusive, nature of this piece of writing.”
Kant and the Problem of God
by Gordon E. Michalson, Jr.
Chapter Two: Kant’s Moral Argument (pp. 32-33)
Blackwell Publishers, 1999
I also have another book, What’s So Great About Christianity? by Dinesh D’Souza. In Chapter 15 of this book (The World Beyond Our Senses: Kant and the Limits of Reason), the author seems to be claiming that, according to Kant, there are basically two kinds of reality. There is the reality we experience through our senses and then there is the reality that we are unable to experience through our senses.
Here are a few excerpts from this chapter:
The atheist or “bright” approach to reality must be measured against a rival approach. Through the centuries the great religions of the world have held that there are two levels of reality. There is the human perspective on reality, which is the experiential perspective—reality as it is experienced by us. Then there is the transcendent view of reality, what may be called the God’s-eye view of reality, which is reality itself. Being the kind of creatures that humans are, we see thing in a limited and distorted way, “through a glass darkly,” as Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians 13:12. Indeed we can never, as long as we are alive, acquire the God’s eye view and see things as they really are. Rather, we live in a fleeting and superficial world of appearances, where the best we can do is discern how things seem to be. We can, however, hope that there is a life after death in which we will see everything—including God—as it really is.
In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant . . . argued that there is a much greater limit to what human beings can know. In other words, human reason raises questions that—such is the nature of our reason—it is incapable of answering. And it is of the highest importance that we turn reason on itself and discover what those limits are. It is foolishly dogmatic to go around asserting claims based on reason without examining what kinds of claims reason is capable of adjudicating. Reason, in order to be reasonable, must investigate its own parameters.
. . Now Kant asks a startling question: how do you we know that our human perception of reality corresponds to reality itself? Most philosophers before Kant had simpy taken for granted that it does, and this belief persists today. So powerful is this “common sense” that many people become impatient, even indignant, when Kant’s question is put to them. They act as if the question is a kind of skeptical ploy, like asking people to prove that they really exist.
. . . Kant conceded Berkeley’s and Hume’s point that it is simply irrational to presume that our experience of reality corresponds to reality itself. There are things in themselves—what Kant called noumenon—and of them we can know nothing. If you have a dog at home, you know what it is like to see, hear, smell, and pet it. This is your phenomenal experience of the dog. But what is it like to be a dog? We human beings will never know. The dog as a thing in itself is hermetically concealed from us. Thus from Kant we have the astounding realization that human knowledge is limited not merely by how much reality there is out there, but also by the limited sensory apparatus of perception we bring to that reality.
What’s So Great About Christianity?
Dinesh D’Souza
Chapter 15: The World Beyond Our Senses: Kant and the Limits of Reason (pp. 172-174)
Tyndale, 2007
D’Souza writes that “there is one subject on which the atheist requires no evidence: the issue of whether human reason is the best—indeed the only—way to comprehend reality."
Is this true? Do atheists really make this assumption? I don’t think that this atheist makes that assumption. Rather, I would say that human reason is the best method we currently know of to comprehend reality. If there is a different way, a better way, then I would think it would be up to someone like D’Souza or Kant to demonstrate that this is so.
In another part of the chapter, D’Souza/Kant seems to be saying that human beings suffer from a distorted or possibly completely incorrect view of reality. I would tend to agree with D’Souza’s/Kant's view that it is possible that we as, human beings, have a completely distorted and very limited view of reality. However, this is very different than saying that we DO in fact have a distorted or possibly completely incorrect view of reality.
I think it is important to note that D’Souza/Kant seems to be assuming that human beings suffer from a distorted or possibly completely incorrect view of reality and for that reason, human beings should behave as if God exists. To this I would say that, first of all, D’Souza/Kant has not in fact demonstrated that human beings suffer from a distorted or possibly completely incorrect view of reality. Rather, he/they have pointed out that it is possible that we do. Even if we accept that we DO in fact have a distorted or possibly completely incorrect view of reality (and again, I don’t see any reason to accept that this is the case), then I would not see why we would assume or behave as if a being called God exists. If we believed that we, as human beings, suffer from a distorted or possibly a completely incorrect view of reality, there could be all kinds of things we could imagine to be the “real reality.” If we want to imagine such scenarios, certainly we could consider the possibility of God. However, I don’t see why such a consideration would be given any more consideration than any other possible scenario.
I would suggest that while it is possible that, as human beings, we suffer from a distorted or possibly completely incorrect view of reality, we do not know that this is—or even probably is--the case. Therefore, the only sane and reasonable thing for human beings to do (until and if such a time comes that they are presented with additional or new knowledge) is to do exactly the opposite of what D’Souza/Kant recommend, which is to behave as if our senses do in fact provide us with an accurate (though incomplete) view of reality. And if our senses and our reasoning tell us that God does not in fact exist, then I would suggest that we reject the recommendation of Kant (a man who seemed to me to only be playing at being a theist) in favor of the recommendation of C. S. Lewis, a man who had perhaps a great deal more integrity than Kant, a man who (though he was a Christian theist) would advise those of us whose best reasoning brings us to the honest conclusion that God does not exist to not pretend to believe (or to behave) as if he does.
I was amused by Will’s story about the man who tells his son that God does not exist but that the claim that God exists is one that is “comforting to the women.” Indeed! I must say, though, that this particular woman would, in fact, “be comforted” by such knowledge, assuming of course that when we are talking about God, we are talking about a being that is loving and kind and good and that exists outside of my own imagination. On the other hand, the implication of this story—that it is “womanly” to believe in God is perhaps not very flattering to men who do not wish to think of themselves as womanly. I realize that Will was not in any way saying that men who believe in God are “womanly,” but I just thought I would make this observation about the story.
Anyway . . . about Kant. Thank you to grahhbud for the clarification, re: transcendental vs. phenomena. However, it has been noted that, AFAICT, grahhbud has yet to provide us with his own definition of the word “God.” This makes communication difficult. Perhaps a definition will still be forthcoming. It might be said, though, that if one has no working definition for the word “God,” it would make sense that one finds the question of, “Do you believe that God actually exists?” to be nonsensical. With this frame of mind, however, one might infer that the person who finds such a question to be nonsensical might also find the question of “Do you believe that you actually exist?” to be equally nonsensical.
I have easy, ongoing access to a university with an impressive collection of theological/philosophical works, and I am currently in possession of a book called Kant and the Problem of God, by Gordon E. Michalson, Jr. In his book, Michalson attempts to show that Kant’s philosophy was actually much more of a precursor to atheism than it was to Protestant theology. There are many interesting and illuminating observations about Kant’s philosophy contained in this book, and I will bring some of those up, perhaps at a later time. For now, though, I would just like to offer up the following excerpt from the book which seems to indicate that Kant did not, at least at the end of his life, believe that God was a being that existed outside of one’s mind. And I would propose that if Kant did not believe that God was a being that existed outside of one’s mind, Kant was, in fact, an atheist. Here’s an excerpt from the book:
The nearly half-century-long trajectory of Kant’s writings about God and theistic proofs finally concludes on a vexing and ambiguous note, for these final comments are in the unpublished form eventually edited and published as the Opus Postumum. In a series of extended notes and outlines involving trains of thought of varying degrees of completeness, the aging Kant is obviously rethinking the interconnections among self, world, and God, often leaving it unclear if he is developing his own position or entertaining views that he will dispute. Whether or not Kant was still in complete control of his faculties as he grappled with these enormously complex issues remains an open and debated question. What we do know is that Kant originally intended this work to be a major culminating statement, dealing primarily with what he characterized as the “transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics,” thus filling a “gap that now stands open” in the critical philosophy. The potential importance of this project for consideration of Kant’s philosophical theology is rather dramatically conveyed by his suggestion at several points in the work that God is not “a being” that exists “outside me,” but is somehow coincident with my own experience of moral obligation. “There is a God in moral-practical reason, that is, in the idea of the relation of man to right and duty,” Kant writes. “But not as a being outside man.”
Anyone who has struggled to grasp Kant’s understanding of the exact relationship between God and the moral law will find such remarks richly suggestive and, no doubt, more than a little frustrating. In his commentary on Kant, Father Copleston has suggested that in the Opus Postumum Kant “appears to be concerned with finding a more immediate transition from consciousness of the moral law to belief in God,” but this may be a polite way of saying that Kant is here blurring the line between the two altogether. Moreoever, the fact that the Opus Postumum Kant “appears to be concerned with finding a more immediate transition from consciousness of the moral law to belief in God,” but this may be a polite way of saying that Kant is here blurring the line between the two altogether. Moreover, the fact that the Opus Postumum includes numerous references to Spinoza, in an era when Spinozism was virtually synonymous with atheism, simply underscores the provocative, if inconclusive, nature of this piece of writing.”
Kant and the Problem of God
by Gordon E. Michalson, Jr.
Chapter Two: Kant’s Moral Argument (pp. 32-33)
Blackwell Publishers, 1999
I also have another book, What’s So Great About Christianity? by Dinesh D’Souza. In Chapter 15 of this book (The World Beyond Our Senses: Kant and the Limits of Reason), the author seems to be claiming that, according to Kant, there are basically two kinds of reality. There is the reality we experience through our senses and then there is the reality that we are unable to experience through our senses.
Here are a few excerpts from this chapter:
The atheist or “bright” approach to reality must be measured against a rival approach. Through the centuries the great religions of the world have held that there are two levels of reality. There is the human perspective on reality, which is the experiential perspective—reality as it is experienced by us. Then there is the transcendent view of reality, what may be called the God’s-eye view of reality, which is reality itself. Being the kind of creatures that humans are, we see thing in a limited and distorted way, “through a glass darkly,” as Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians 13:12. Indeed we can never, as long as we are alive, acquire the God’s eye view and see things as they really are. Rather, we live in a fleeting and superficial world of appearances, where the best we can do is discern how things seem to be. We can, however, hope that there is a life after death in which we will see everything—including God—as it really is.
In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant . . . argued that there is a much greater limit to what human beings can know. In other words, human reason raises questions that—such is the nature of our reason—it is incapable of answering. And it is of the highest importance that we turn reason on itself and discover what those limits are. It is foolishly dogmatic to go around asserting claims based on reason without examining what kinds of claims reason is capable of adjudicating. Reason, in order to be reasonable, must investigate its own parameters.
. . Now Kant asks a startling question: how do you we know that our human perception of reality corresponds to reality itself? Most philosophers before Kant had simpy taken for granted that it does, and this belief persists today. So powerful is this “common sense” that many people become impatient, even indignant, when Kant’s question is put to them. They act as if the question is a kind of skeptical ploy, like asking people to prove that they really exist.
. . . Kant conceded Berkeley’s and Hume’s point that it is simply irrational to presume that our experience of reality corresponds to reality itself. There are things in themselves—what Kant called noumenon—and of them we can know nothing. If you have a dog at home, you know what it is like to see, hear, smell, and pet it. This is your phenomenal experience of the dog. But what is it like to be a dog? We human beings will never know. The dog as a thing in itself is hermetically concealed from us. Thus from Kant we have the astounding realization that human knowledge is limited not merely by how much reality there is out there, but also by the limited sensory apparatus of perception we bring to that reality.
What’s So Great About Christianity?
Dinesh D’Souza
Chapter 15: The World Beyond Our Senses: Kant and the Limits of Reason (pp. 172-174)
Tyndale, 2007
D’Souza writes that “there is one subject on which the atheist requires no evidence: the issue of whether human reason is the best—indeed the only—way to comprehend reality."
Is this true? Do atheists really make this assumption? I don’t think that this atheist makes that assumption. Rather, I would say that human reason is the best method we currently know of to comprehend reality. If there is a different way, a better way, then I would think it would be up to someone like D’Souza or Kant to demonstrate that this is so.
In another part of the chapter, D’Souza/Kant seems to be saying that human beings suffer from a distorted or possibly completely incorrect view of reality. I would tend to agree with D’Souza’s/Kant's view that it is possible that we as, human beings, have a completely distorted and very limited view of reality. However, this is very different than saying that we DO in fact have a distorted or possibly completely incorrect view of reality.
I think it is important to note that D’Souza/Kant seems to be assuming that human beings suffer from a distorted or possibly completely incorrect view of reality and for that reason, human beings should behave as if God exists. To this I would say that, first of all, D’Souza/Kant has not in fact demonstrated that human beings suffer from a distorted or possibly completely incorrect view of reality. Rather, he/they have pointed out that it is possible that we do. Even if we accept that we DO in fact have a distorted or possibly completely incorrect view of reality (and again, I don’t see any reason to accept that this is the case), then I would not see why we would assume or behave as if a being called God exists. If we believed that we, as human beings, suffer from a distorted or possibly a completely incorrect view of reality, there could be all kinds of things we could imagine to be the “real reality.” If we want to imagine such scenarios, certainly we could consider the possibility of God. However, I don’t see why such a consideration would be given any more consideration than any other possible scenario.
I would suggest that while it is possible that, as human beings, we suffer from a distorted or possibly completely incorrect view of reality, we do not know that this is—or even probably is--the case. Therefore, the only sane and reasonable thing for human beings to do (until and if such a time comes that they are presented with additional or new knowledge) is to do exactly the opposite of what D’Souza/Kant recommend, which is to behave as if our senses do in fact provide us with an accurate (though incomplete) view of reality. And if our senses and our reasoning tell us that God does not in fact exist, then I would suggest that we reject the recommendation of Kant (a man who seemed to me to only be playing at being a theist) in favor of the recommendation of C. S. Lewis, a man who had perhaps a great deal more integrity than Kant, a man who (though he was a Christian theist) would advise those of us whose best reasoning brings us to the honest conclusion that God does not exist to not pretend to believe (or to behave) as if he does.