• ClayG
    11
    It is the case that if Kant’s Prolegomena claims that we cannot know anything of God (or other supernatural things for that matter) through rational thought, then, if it is right we should not be doing any rational theology at all. This is because if we cannot know anything of theology through rational thinking alone then rational theology is not a study worth pursuing since there is nothing that can be known about it or come from it.

    And Kant’s Prolegomena does seem to claim this (that we cannot know anything of God or other supernatural things.) Kant clearly writes “The deistic concept is quite a pure concept of reason, but represents only a thing containing all realities without being able to determine any one of them.” (Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics, Immanuel Kant.) This quote clearly conveys that Kant does not believe and claims that we can only know that God exists, but nothing about God. Later in this same work, he makes similar arguments about knowing anything about the afterlife, the soul, and anything of that matter.

    Therefore, it follows that if Kant is right (in the Prolegomena) about these things, we should not be doing rational theology at all. If we cannot know anything other than the existence of something from rationality, then we should not attempt to understand it through rationality.

    Of course, an objection to this could be that it concludes that we should not be doing theology at all, which is clearly wrong. This is not what I was trying to say, rather I am simply saying that if Kant is right in the Prolegomena (not that he is right) then we should not be partaking in rational theology. That is, claims of a priori knowledge of God and other supernatural things (other than that of just His or their existence) cannot be a thing, according to Kant, because we cannot know anything of Him or other supernatural things. However, this is not to say that we should not be employing experiential a posteriori) knowledge to give us clues to how God or other supernatural things function.
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    12.3k

    I believe this is a basic problem with Kant's metaphysics. We can see this with his phenomena/noumena distinction. It seems that we cannot have any real knowledge of the noumenal world because it appears to us only through the medium of the phenomena.

    Plato on the other hand, allows that the human intellect can have direct knowledge of the independent Forms, as intelligible objects. Which way would be the correct way is a complex issue.

    But while Kant closes that door, he opens another with his notion of pure, a priori intuitions. In this way he allows that we do have some sort of knowledge which is prior to, and therefore independent from, the appearance of phenomena, but the exact nature of these pure intuitions, and where they come from, is difficult to grasp.
  • Mww
    4.5k
    It is the case that if Kant’s Prolegomena claims that we cannot know anything of God (or other supernatural things for that matter) through rational thought, then, if it is right we should not be doing any rational theology at all.ClayG

    It is not the case. Kant does not tell us what we should or should not think, but only gives the conditions under which whatever we do think, is held within its proper limits, and, how to distinguish when it isn’t.

    This is because if we cannot know anything of theology through rational thinking alone then rational theology is not a study worth pursuing since there is nothing that can be known about it or come from it.ClayG

    Self-contradictory, in that how did it come about that we can know nothing of theology through rational thought alone, if not be rational thought alone? Knowledge of theology is one thing; knowledge of the objects that belong to theology, is quite another.

    However, this is not to say that we should not be employing experiential a posteriori) knowledge to give us clues to how God or other supernatural things function.ClayG

    The employment of a posteriori principles only tell us about empirical things, which could only give us clues as to how supernatural things do NOT function. If a posteriori knowledge told us how supernatural things function, they wouldn’t be supernatural.

    For what it’s worth……
  • Arne
    796
    It is the case that if Kant’s Prolegomena claims that we cannot know anything of God (or other supernatural things for that matter) through rational thoughtClayG

    is this any different than saying "those who do rational theology should disagree with Kant's claim that we cannot know anything of God through rational thought"?

    And my guess is that such people would disagree with Kant.
  • Art48
    458
    I believe this is a basic problem with Kant's metaphysics. We can see this with his phenomena/noumena distinction. It seems that we cannot have any real knowledge of the noumenal world because it appears to us only through the medium of the phenomena.Metaphysician Undercover

    In Schopenhauer's view:
    "Schopenhauer . . . believes that the supreme principle of the universe is likewise apprehensible through introspection, and that we can understand the world as various manifestations of this general principle.
    https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schopenhauer/#3

    My own explanation:
    To Alice, Bob in a phenomena, a manifestation of the noumenal. Therefore, it may be possible for Bob to experience the noumenal, which is his fundamental ground, via introspection.
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