Moral Autonomy, Divine Transcendence and Human Destiny: Kant’s Doctrine of Hope as a Philosophical Foundation for Christian Ethics

MORAL AUTONOMY, DIVINE TRANSCENDENCE AND HUMAN DESTINY: KANT'S DOCTRINE OF HOPE AS A PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATION FOR CHRISTIAN ETIDCS WE ARE ALL familiar with a rendition of Kant's moral philosophy in which the features of moral autonomy, and the implications they have for the character of human existence, offer a picture of Kant's philosophical enterprise in which there is little, if any, room for those doctrines of Christian faith which have their basis in a worshipful acknowledgement of a living and transcendent God. In this rendition, Kant is the herald of a turn to a "this-worldly" account of the significance of Christian religious doctrines and moral beliefs: creation, sin, redemption and eternal life have meaning just and only insofar as they can give concrete shape to the present and future in the only world we have-the one which we see, hear, touch, and in which we live the brief, determinate span of our lives. This interpretation of Kant has the ironically comforting advantage of making him one of us; his account of human moral existence has provided a guiding thread by which we can follow and unify the intricate turnings of modern Western history and our contemporary civilization: human destiny under human control; we bear the ultimate responsibility for what we become and for what we make of our world.1 This "Kantian" picture of human autonomy has proved 1 This, of course, is hardly a unanimous judgment of Kant scholarship. One of its most recent espousals can be found in Carl Raschke, Moral Action, God, and History in the Thought of Immanuel Kant, American Academy of Religion and Scholars Press, Dissertation Series 5 (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1975) ., e.g., p. ~~7; "For man, if we stretch the inner logic of Kant's thought to its outer limit, is now bidden to grasp the reins of history, to struggle for his own kingdom with every ounce of commitment. The result is that the erstwhile God of history is now transformed into the developing powers of that pre-eminent historical being-'man ." 441 44~ PHILIP J. ROSSI, S.J. more durable than his critical metaphysics and epistemology; the basic shape it has given to European and American selfunderstanding still apparently survives even in the face of the accumulated stress of this century's major wars, economic cycles, revolutions, ideologies of terrorism and genocide, and the encroachment of manipulative technique into all areas of human life. I have no doubt that the picture of moral autonomy as human control of moral destiny represents a concise and accurate summary of beliefs which have been a deeply embedded part of Western civilization for at least two centuries; yet I have doubts, which this paper will set forth, that this picture provides an accurate portrayal of Kant's philosophical beliefs. Setting forth these doubts will provide an appropriate context for advancing two theses which I think may be of some interest for others who work, as I do, in the territory-some might say "no man's land "-which forms the boundary between philosophy and theology. The first thesis is about Kant's philosophical doctrine: Kant's account of human moral autonomy allows history, community, and a worshipful acknowledgment of a transcendent God to function as features essential for the foundation and significance of moral agency in human life. The second thesis is " methodological " in that it allows us to locate, within Kant's account of human moral autonomy, at least one feature of human moral life which can function as an element For expositions of Kant which sort out some of the ambiguities which lead to this interpretation see, for instance, Frederick Ferre, Basic Modern Phuosophy of Religion, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1967), pp. flfl7-fl30; Richard Kroner, Between Faith and Thought, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966), pp. 76-87; Kant's Weltanschauung, translated by John E. Smith, (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1956), pp. 30-60. For readings of Kant which attempt a sympathetic reconstruction of the place of "moral theism" within Kant's critical project see James Collins, The Emergence of Philosophy of Religion, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1967); Michel...