Abstract
This paper discusses Kant’s assessment of the religious idea of grace in relation to autonomous ethical practice. Following Kant’s own explanation of his methods and goals in interpreting religious ideas, my focus is on the ethical import of inherited religious concepts for human beings, rather than on literal theological dogmas concerning supernatural matters. I focus on how Kant’s inquiry into the ethical significance of the idea of grace is intertwined with another less recognized concept, that of favor (Gunst). The latter concept plays a crucial role in understanding Kant’s analyses, because it establishes a criterion by which to adjudicate historically-formed ideas of grace. Insofar as grace is understood in ways that assimilate it to endeavors to win favor, it works against our capacity to follow the moral law. On the constructive side, insofar as the concept of grace is understood to support ethical practice based on the moral law, it can be a vehicle for what Kant calls rational religion. This two-sided analysis of grace is a key component of the project of the Religion and other related writings, wherein Kant offers both critical and constructive investigations of historically-formed religious ideas found in scripture, ecclesiastical institutions and other sources.
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Notes
Kant ’s (1990) works are cited by volume number and page following the German Academy edition. The pagination corresponding to these editions is given in the margins of the English translations published by Cambridge University Press: Guyer and Wood (1992). The Critique of Pure Reason is cited according to the first edition (A) or second edition (B) pagination.
For example, Kant’s critical stance toward metaphysical and theological claims concerning supersensible knowledge is reiterated and extended in the third Critique (2000) 5:437–442. In the Religion (1998c) Kant’s adherence to the boundaries set by reason concerning knowledge of the supernatural is made clear repeatedly, e.g., at 6:45, 6:52, and 6:53. Another example occurs in the discussion of how recourse to “miracles” cannot be sanctioned at 6:88. In the long footnote to that discussion, Kant concludes by emphasizing the importance of understanding the order of the world as “effects of nature ... For this is what modesty requires of reason’s claims, and to transcend these boundaries is presumptuousness and immodesty ...” (6:89n).
Kant (1998a, e) makes the relation between the concept of God and the moral law even more explicit. After discussing the point that “no being but God is holy” at 28:1075, Kant continues: “For he is the moral law itself, as it were, but thought as personified [als personificiret gedacht]” (28:1076). A few pages later, he reiterates: “God is completely independent of all physical conditions. He is conscious of himself as the source of all blessedness. He is, as it were, the moral law personified; hence he is also the blessed one” (28:1091). The moral law is consistently explicated in terms of its objective and universal validity, and this is why Kant (1996a, b) refers to “the majesty of this holy law [das heilige Gesetz]” (5:77–78). This association is also why Kant repeatedly refers to either the concept (Begriff) or idea (Idee) of God, rather than making direct theological claims; see for example 6:5, 6:6, 6:98ff., 6:104, 6:139, 6:154, 6:154n, 6:157, 6:183, 6:191, 6:195n, 6:198. Compare 28:1003–05, 28:1008, 28:1012, 28:1015, 28:1019, etc.
For this reason, Kant repeatedly critiques traditional notions of theological voluntarism, in which moral principles are based on the “will of God” anthropomorphically construed. His main concern is that arbitrary or non-rational religious and ethical precepts are thereby theologically justified. See Wood (2008, pp. 110–113), who cites Kant (1997b, 27:262, 27:282–3). A few other passages where such heteronomous anthropomorphic concepts of God are critiqued are: Kant (1997a, A818-19/B846-47), (1996c, 4:443); (1996b, 5:41, 5:64, 5:129ff, 5:147–48), and (1998e, 28:1002, 28:1022, 28:1039, 28:1046, 28:1068).
George di Giovanni’s unfortunate translation of Gunstbewerbung as “rogation” obscures the strategic use of the concept of favor in the Religion. A better rendering of the same term as “courting of favor” appears at 6:185n.
See Hume (2007, pp. 120ff.).
There are many other instances in which Kant associates Gunst with arbitrariness and the quirks of fortune. For example, Kant (1996b) argues: “If a human being is virtuous he will certainly not enjoy life unless he is conscious of his uprightness in every action, however fortune may favor him in the physical state of life [so günstig ihm auch das Gluck im physischen Zustande desselben sein mag]” (5:116). More pointedly, in Kant (1996d) we find the following passage which stresses the relation between favor-seeking and self-deception: “Someone tells an inner lie, for example, if he professes belief in a future judge of the world, although he really finds no such belief within himself but persuades himself that it could do no harm and might even be useful to profess in his thoughts to one who scrutinizes hearts a belief in such a judge, in order to win his favor [seine Gunst zu erheucheln] in case he should exist” (6:430). Subsequently, Kant emphasizes: “But belittling one’s own moral worth merely as a means to acquiring the favor of another [als Mittel zu Erwerbung der Gunst eines Anderen], whoever it might be (hypocrisy and flattery [Heuchelei und Schmeichelei]) is false (lying) humility” (6:435–36).
Kant (1999) uses similar expressions in some of his letters. Writing to Johann Casper Lavater on April 28, 1775, he contrasts “moral faith” with “a sort of wooing of favor [von Bewerbung um Gunst] by means of ingratiation and encomium” (10:178). In the same letter, Kant proposes that faith “forbids, too, all wooing of favor [alle Gunstbewerbungen] by the performing of rituals that someone has introduced,” and he refers to this approach as “religious madness” (10:180). In another letter from the time Religion was being written, Kant refers to “so-called religious remedies that are supposed to consist in seeking the favor [die Gunstbewerbung] of higher powers without one’s even having to become a better human being” (Letter to Maria von Herbert of Spring 1792, 11: 334). Likewise, Kant (2007), after discussing “perverted concepts” such as “a fear of God’s power,” insists: “If religion is not combined with morality, then it becomes nothing more than currying favor [so wird Religion blo \(\beta \) zu Gunstbewerbung]” (9:493–94).
As he states: “If a scriptural text contains theoretical teachings which are proclaimed sacred but which transcend all rational concepts (even moral ones), it may [dürfen] be interpreted in the interests of practical reason; but if it contains statements that contradict practical reason, it must [müssen] be interpreted in the interests of practical reason” (7:38); and again, “we must interpret this book in a practical way, according to rational concepts” (7:46) In the same work, Kant also stresses that “the idea of God lies only in reason” (7:58).
In a remarkably similar discussion, Hobbes also associates worship and cultus. He further notes that “cultus signifieth properly, and constantly, the labour which a man bestows on any thing, with a purpose to benefit by it.” Hence, there is a sense of cultus in which “it signifieth as much as courting, that is, a winning of favour by good offices ... and this is properly worship.” Hobbes (1996, chapter 31, par.8, pp. 238–39).
Another key passage on the topic of grace occurs at 6:44. Kant first presents his typical stress on autonomous ethical practice, stating: “the human being must make himself into whatever he is or should become in a moral sense, good or evil.” He then continues: “Supposing [Gesetzt] that some supernatural cooperation is also needed to his becoming good or better, whether this cooperation only consist in the diminution of obstacles or be also a positive assistance, the human being must make himself antecedently worthy of receiving it.” Here, the way in which Kant’s term, Gesetzt, is translated, is of some relevance. I follow Pluhar in translating this more strictly as “supposing” rather than by the possibly misleading “granted” used by di Giovanni (see Kant 2009). Either way, however, Kant is saying that even if we assume a need for divine assistance (and there is no barrier to making such an assumption if we remain within the boundaries of the moral law), our own autonomous efforts remain primary and indispensable. His focus is always on the attitude of the autonomous moral subject; this is why, at the end of the same sentence, Kant stresses that one “must incorporate this positive increase of force into his maxim: in this way alone is it possible that the good be imputed to him, and that he be acknowledged a good human being” (6:44).
Mariña (1997) disregards these critical limits, and argues as if Kant were making overt theological statements about the workings of grace. Discussing Kant’s prioritization of moral endeavor, she states: “At first blush, it seems Kant gives a Pelagian twist to his very definition of grace: a condition attaches to this receptivity, and it concerns something in our power, i.e. whether we choose to be moral or not.” By contrast, she argues that because Kant’s discussions place the operations of grace outside the scope of human knowledge or action, they therefore “preserve a significant sense of the unmerited character of grace.” If this were not the case, she continues, then “God’s will would be purely arbitrary. However, once this is granted God’s grace could no longer be thought of as unmerited, since God’s favour would really rest on some hidden ground, a characteristic in virtue of which some are special and others not. To believe oneself to belong to such a special class would commit one to believing that God’s favour is one’s due, something owed to oneself in virtue of one’s particular characteristics” (p. 384). This apparent space for “unmerited grace” unrelated to our ethical standing allows her to conclude that “Kant’s system does provide us with a convincing account of how a laying hold of God’s unmerited favour is intrinsically tied to one’s attitude toward the moral law...Kant’s account of the predisposition to good and its close ties to grace is not far from that of Augustine” (p. 400). This focus on the predisposition to the good is, as we shall see, very important. Yet, while Mariña’s interpretation is valuable in linking Kant’s inquiry with traditional Christian views, it misrepresents the nature of Kant’s analysis, which concerns the ethical status of religious concepts rather than direct claims about divine activity. In a more recent article, Palmquist (2010, p. 532) praises Mariña’s efforts to defend Kant “against the charges of unorthodoxy and/or incoherence.” However, on the same page, he also recognizes that: “one of Kant’s central aims is to assess and resolve the ethical difficulties that arise for any theology of grace, not to develop his own theoretical account of how grace might occur.”
For example, among the definitions of “grace” given in the OED, we find: “favour, goodwill,” and “favour, favourable or benignant regard or its manifestation (now only on the part of a superior); favour or goodwill, in contradistinction to right or obligation, as the ground of concession. ... Of grace: as a matter of favour and not of right.” Similarly, the OED defines the theological concept of “Charism” as “favour given, gift of grace,” and as “a free gift or favour specially vouchsafed by God; a grace, a talent.”
In this discussion, Kant, in emphasizing that we cannot determine the way or know in what this possible assistance consists, also notes that “God’s way” is revealed to us “in a symbolic representation [in einer symbolischen Vorstellung] in which the practical import alone is comprehensible to us” (6:171). This point is also important, because Kant’s consistent emphasis on a symbolic reading of scripture or other religious texts, guided by rational ethical principles, is a crucial feature differentiating his analysis from heteronomous religious doctrines that prioritize literally-conceived statutory dogmas. An emphasis on symbolic interpretation also occurs at 6:110n, 6:111, 6:134, 6:142, 6:171, and 6:176, and to religious teachings as representations at, for example, 6:41, 6:43 6:59, 6:60, 6:61, 6:65n, 6:74, 6:83,6:99, 6:100, 6:128n, 6:132, 6:135, 6:162, and 6:167.
For further discussion, see DiCenso (2012, pp. 244–46).
In the Cambridge edition Gnadenwirkungen is mistranslated as “effects of faith.”
“Yet the teacher of the Gospel has himself put into our hands these external evidences of external experience as a touchstone by which we can recognize human beings, and each of them can recognize himself, by their fruits” (6:201; and compare 6:160. Kant is, of course, drawing on Matthew 5.16: “Ye shall know them by their fruits”). While Kant is certainly not a consequentialist, he clearly recognizes that our inner ethical dispositions must manifest themselves, albeit imperfectly, through actions in the world. For example, he stresses that “we can draw inferences [schlie \(\beta \) en] regarding the disposition only on the basis of actions [nur aus den Handlungen] (6:70n).
A similar point is made in (1998d) where Kant critiques “the Pietists’ fantastic and—despite all their show of humility—proud claim to be marked out as supernaturally favored children of heaven [als übernatürlich-begünstigte Kinder des Himmels auszuzeichnen]” (7:57n).
Palmquist (2010 p. 553) concludes his article on grace by citing this same passage, noting: “Any doubt that Kant saw himself as defending an ethics of grace should be dispelled when we read his concluding claim to have confirmed the philosophical soundness of Jesus’s central message in the Gospels (6:202), namely, ‘that the right way to advance is not from grace to virtue, but rather from virtue to grace’.” However, while it is true that Kant retains a place for the idea of grace in an ethically supportive role, the main point here is clearly that any ethically valid experience of grace must follow from our autonomous pursuit of virtue, and not the other way around.
As an anonymous reviewer of this article has pointed out, this distinction is paralleled within the Christian theological tradition by Bonhoeffer’s distinction between “cheap grace” and “costly grace.” See Bonhoeffer (1949).
For details on this issue, see DiCenso, (2012, pp. 3–9).
A few pages later, in discussing “means of grace,” Kant reiterates his opposition to the ethical passivity that can be the correlate of a traditional supernatural or literal understanding of grace. He states: “even in the highest flight of a mystically inclined imagination, one cannot exempt man from doing anything himself, without making him a mere machine” (7:56). This resistance to mechanistic treatments of human beings, whether deriving from supernatural or materialist worldviews, is a recurring target of Kant’s criticism throughout his mature writings.
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