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Kant and the Divine: From Contemplation to the Moral Law
Kant is not a Christian, because he cannot accept Christianity's traditional claims about the relationship between divine action, grace, human freedom, and happiness. Christian theologians who continue to affirm these traditional claims (and many do), therefore have grounds to be suspicious of Kant as an interpreter of Christian doctrine.
As well as setting out a theological critique of Kant, Insole offers a new defence of the power, beauty, and internal coherence of Kant's non-Christian philosophical religiosity, "within the limits of reason alone", which reason itself has some divine features. This neglected strand of philosophical religiosity deserves to be engaged with by both philosophers, and theologians.
The Kant revealed in this book reminds us of a perennial task of philosophy, going back to Plato, where philosophy is construed as a way of life, oriented towards happiness, achieved through a properly expansive conception of reason and happiness. When we understand this philosophical religiosity, many standard "problems" in the interpretation of Kant can be seen in a new light, and resolved. Kant witnesses to a strand of philosophy that leans into the category of the divine, at the edges of what we can say about reason, freedom, autonomy, and happiness.
As well as setting out a theological critique of Kant, Insole offers a new defence of the power, beauty, and internal coherence of Kant's non-Christian philosophical religiosity, "within the limits of reason alone", which reason itself has some divine features. This neglected strand of philosophical religiosity deserves to be engaged with by both philosophers, and theologians.
The Kant revealed in this book reminds us of a perennial task of philosophy, going back to Plato, where philosophy is construed as a way of life, oriented towards happiness, achieved through a properly expansive conception of reason and happiness. When we understand this philosophical religiosity, many standard "problems" in the interpretation of Kant can be seen in a new light, and resolved. Kant witnesses to a strand of philosophy that leans into the category of the divine, at the edges of what we can say about reason, freedom, autonomy, and happiness.
- GenresPhilosophy
432 pages, Hardcover
Published May 13, 2020
28 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 3, 2023
Insole places a religiosity onto Kant that is not always obvious when one reads Kant. I know for me, when I read Kant cover-to-cover it became obvious that Kant was walking away from the tradition. Kant starts with the mystical as real (see Dreams of a Spirit-Seer) and ends his journey with grasping for a God through morality because of freedom.
Insole in the process writes a compelling and at times a hard to put down book because he forces the reader to understand Kant from a traditional theological perspective (listener in my case, and it bogles my mind that Audible had this book available all for one credit and so expertly narrated, it’s an unbelievably good deal at one credit). Kant looks at the starry sky above, and now it’s time to understand the moral law within us; by the way, there will be a Newton for a blade of grass and his name is Darwin, and the never part is from Kant’s Critique of Judement, the one Kant book that completely confuses me in the beginning until I get to the end.
To read Kant for the first time is to get lost and wander aimlessly, but by the second time through one understands why he rocks the modern world. Kant synthesizes Leibnitz (and the Rev Berkeley) with Hume’s experiential understanding of the world, and for Kant he’ll side with Hume when push comes to shove, and Insole barley mentions Hume while always preferring Leibnitz, and the tradition as epitomized by Thomas Aquanis. A brief aside, and in as much as nobody really is going to read this review but me, I want to mention Schopenhauer does something similar and in both of his volumes on Will and Representation he’ll make sure to say that he is not a Pelagian, and in this book Insole made a funny on how Kant’s brand of religion even ends up being outside of the realm of the Pagan Pelagius, and as for Schopenhauer he only said that explicitly because he ends up writing 1000 or so pages that obviously show that he was a Pelagian and knew it was best to deny it on the last pages of Volume I and II of his book before somebody called him a Pelagian.
It's fun to learn what a philosopher meant when a good explicator like Insole tells you how he sees it. Kant is important because before him Truth was always out there while for Kant Truth is within us and might even be unknowable.
A Christian will often say that they aren’t seeking happiness but they want the contemplation of the Good and the love of God, and that will give them Happiness (Insole states that in various places in this book). It’s not the Happiness that they want, but the Good and love of God. Remember three times in the Bible in each of the synoptic Gospels someone asks Jesus the direct question “Good Teacher, what do we need to do in order to have eternal live”, and Jesus responds “do not call me Good, only your father in heaven is Good’, the ultimate Good is outside of us, and who knows if it will really lead to happiness. Kant will not take a stand, since he only gives a possibility, a perhaps. Insole sees Kant through a Christian Theologian’s eyes when possible.
Kant’s Baumgarten metaphysics realizes that existence is not a predicate, and Kant does what he can in order to preserve Freedom as an absolute since Morality will derive from Freedom and the divine needs a place to reside. Insole will reserve a place to God within Kant and at times sneaks in Grace (God’s unearned favor that we all have), a Grace that Kant will never allow himself to have since his God (the uncreated creator of the Universe) is not necessarily an active God, but Insole always thinks in terms of theological terms, and at times reminded me of another good Theological book I read in the past, Caputo’s The Insistence of God: A Theology of Perhaps, except Insole wants to ignore the ‘Perhaps’ part.
I had forgotten Kant’s feelings on Stoics and Epicureans, and Insole reminded me. The Stoics preferences virtue over desire thus leading to happiness (eudemonia) and the Epicureans preferences the will of the desire over virtue thus leading to virtuous satisfaction. Each start with different premises, but each ending up with a version of eudemonia. Kant wants us to will the will such that we have morality leading to our satisfaction because we each have Freedom. Insole tries to save his version of God and works Kant in to his framework as best as he can. I caution seeing Kant as directly as Insole does at times, since Kant seems to never have us thinking, but always thinking about thinking, or never has us willing, but willing about willing, and purposely seems to step us away from who we are directly. After all, space and time are not real for Kant, but make up our intuition about reality of the one substance that makes up reality. Insole has some marvelous discussions on ‘essence’, ‘substance, ‘accidents’, ‘form’ and ‘matter’, and how Kant thinks about them.
Kant perceives the world as potentially unknowable with his thing-in-itself being shrouded by how things appear, behind that mask could lie the real and there could be Truth (God). Insole dissects all this stuff such that for the listener who has no need for the Absolute the details are just as fun to listen to. It didn’t matter to me that as I read Kant, the divine seems (appears!) as a place-holder in order to get to the value of reason in a universe that doesn’t care.
Insole in the process writes a compelling and at times a hard to put down book because he forces the reader to understand Kant from a traditional theological perspective (listener in my case, and it bogles my mind that Audible had this book available all for one credit and so expertly narrated, it’s an unbelievably good deal at one credit). Kant looks at the starry sky above, and now it’s time to understand the moral law within us; by the way, there will be a Newton for a blade of grass and his name is Darwin, and the never part is from Kant’s Critique of Judement, the one Kant book that completely confuses me in the beginning until I get to the end.
To read Kant for the first time is to get lost and wander aimlessly, but by the second time through one understands why he rocks the modern world. Kant synthesizes Leibnitz (and the Rev Berkeley) with Hume’s experiential understanding of the world, and for Kant he’ll side with Hume when push comes to shove, and Insole barley mentions Hume while always preferring Leibnitz, and the tradition as epitomized by Thomas Aquanis. A brief aside, and in as much as nobody really is going to read this review but me, I want to mention Schopenhauer does something similar and in both of his volumes on Will and Representation he’ll make sure to say that he is not a Pelagian, and in this book Insole made a funny on how Kant’s brand of religion even ends up being outside of the realm of the Pagan Pelagius, and as for Schopenhauer he only said that explicitly because he ends up writing 1000 or so pages that obviously show that he was a Pelagian and knew it was best to deny it on the last pages of Volume I and II of his book before somebody called him a Pelagian.
It's fun to learn what a philosopher meant when a good explicator like Insole tells you how he sees it. Kant is important because before him Truth was always out there while for Kant Truth is within us and might even be unknowable.
A Christian will often say that they aren’t seeking happiness but they want the contemplation of the Good and the love of God, and that will give them Happiness (Insole states that in various places in this book). It’s not the Happiness that they want, but the Good and love of God. Remember three times in the Bible in each of the synoptic Gospels someone asks Jesus the direct question “Good Teacher, what do we need to do in order to have eternal live”, and Jesus responds “do not call me Good, only your father in heaven is Good’, the ultimate Good is outside of us, and who knows if it will really lead to happiness. Kant will not take a stand, since he only gives a possibility, a perhaps. Insole sees Kant through a Christian Theologian’s eyes when possible.
Kant’s Baumgarten metaphysics realizes that existence is not a predicate, and Kant does what he can in order to preserve Freedom as an absolute since Morality will derive from Freedom and the divine needs a place to reside. Insole will reserve a place to God within Kant and at times sneaks in Grace (God’s unearned favor that we all have), a Grace that Kant will never allow himself to have since his God (the uncreated creator of the Universe) is not necessarily an active God, but Insole always thinks in terms of theological terms, and at times reminded me of another good Theological book I read in the past, Caputo’s The Insistence of God: A Theology of Perhaps, except Insole wants to ignore the ‘Perhaps’ part.
I had forgotten Kant’s feelings on Stoics and Epicureans, and Insole reminded me. The Stoics preferences virtue over desire thus leading to happiness (eudemonia) and the Epicureans preferences the will of the desire over virtue thus leading to virtuous satisfaction. Each start with different premises, but each ending up with a version of eudemonia. Kant wants us to will the will such that we have morality leading to our satisfaction because we each have Freedom. Insole tries to save his version of God and works Kant in to his framework as best as he can. I caution seeing Kant as directly as Insole does at times, since Kant seems to never have us thinking, but always thinking about thinking, or never has us willing, but willing about willing, and purposely seems to step us away from who we are directly. After all, space and time are not real for Kant, but make up our intuition about reality of the one substance that makes up reality. Insole has some marvelous discussions on ‘essence’, ‘substance, ‘accidents’, ‘form’ and ‘matter’, and how Kant thinks about them.
Kant perceives the world as potentially unknowable with his thing-in-itself being shrouded by how things appear, behind that mask could lie the real and there could be Truth (God). Insole dissects all this stuff such that for the listener who has no need for the Absolute the details are just as fun to listen to. It didn’t matter to me that as I read Kant, the divine seems (appears!) as a place-holder in order to get to the value of reason in a universe that doesn’t care.
October 27, 2024
With this penetrating exploration of Kant's theology, Insole makes the case that, while early on drawing from the Christian tradition, specifically, the divine ideas tradition, he moves toward a construal of morality and God that moves beyond Christianity while allowing for the necessity of God in order to have the reason that allows us access to true virtue leading to happiness, since a mind is required for reason and God, as the highest mind, secures the human freedom to access practical reason. Insole demonstrates how theological reflection on Kant (and, in turn, philosophical reflection on theology) offers intriguing and fascinating insights. Whatever else one may think of Kant, he was clearly a brilliant thinker and Insole is an able and competent guide through the dense forest of his thought.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews