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Kant's Moral Proof of the Existence of God

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Peter Byrne
Peter Byrne
Affiliation:
University of London, King's CollegeStrand, London WC2R 2LS
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Extract

During his lifetime Kant offered a number of versions of his moral proof of the existence of God, but the classic statement of his argument is normally taken to be that found in the Dialectic of the Critique of Practical Reason. It is to this argument that the phrase ‘Kant's moral proof’ is normally taken to refer.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , August 1979 , pp. 333 - 343
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1979

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References

page 333 note 1 Critique of Pure Reason, tr. Smith, N. K. (London: Macmillan, 1929), A471 = B499Google Scholar. All subsequent references are to this translation.

page 334 note 1 That this is Kant's meaning is plain from a reading of the section of the Dialectic of the Critique of Pure Reason headed ‘Critique of all Theology based upon Speculative Principles of Reason’.

page 335 note 1 See Critique of Pure Reason A636 = B664, the paragraph beginning: ‘Now I maintain …’.

page 335 note 2 For an account of Kant's ditherings on this subject and evidence for my interpretation see Walsh, W. H., Kant's Criticism of Metaphysics (Edinburgh: the University Press, 1975) pp. 236ff.Google Scholar

page 335 note 3 B XXX.

page 335 note 4 Critique of Practical Reason, tr. Beck, L. W. (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1956), p. 130Google Scholar. All subsequent references are to this translation. ‘Faith’ here and in the previous quotations translates ‘Glaube’ which is frequently used by Kant in other contexts to mean ‘belief’.

page 335 note 5 My account is derived from Roy Edgley's in his Reason in Theory and Practice (London: Hutchinson, 1969), pp. 90ff.Google Scholar

page 337 note 1 See Edgley, op cit., pp. 59–60.

page 338 note 1 Critique of Practical Reason, p. 114.

page 338 note 2 loc. cit.

page 338 note 3 See Critique of Practical Reason, p. 118.

page 338 note 4 See ibid., pp. 114–15.

page 338 note 5 See ibid., p. 113.

page 339 note 1 ibid., p. 129.

page 339 note 2 See ibid., pp. 113, 114, 130, and 148.

page 339 note 3 ibid., p. 118.

page 340 note 1 A812/3 = B840/1. See also Lectures on Ethics, tr. Infield, L. (London: Methuen, 1939), P. 76.Google Scholar

page 340 note 2 A Commentary on Kant's Critique of Practical Reason (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1960), p. 244.Google Scholar

page 340 note 3 See Commentary, p. 245.

page 341 note 1 This also seems to refute Kant's argument for the postulation of God's existence based on scientific progress. See Critique of Pure Reason, ‘Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic’. At A671 = B699 he suggests that this does not support real belief, but his general, programmatic statements offer more.

page 342 note 1 See W. H. Walsh, op. cit., pp. 233–6, for some trenchant criticisms along these lines.