Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T05:31:39.388Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

God’s Awful Majesty Before Our Eyes: Kant’s Moral Justification for Divine Hiddenness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2017

Tyler Paytas
Tyler Paytas*
Affiliation:
Washington University in St. Louis
*
Email: tylerpaytas@outlook.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The problem of ‘divine hiddenness’ arises from the lack of an explanation for why an all-loving God would choose not to make his existence evident. I argue that Kant provides a compelling solution to this problem in an often overlooked passage located near the end of the second Critique. Kant’s suggestion is that God’s revealing himself would preclude the development of virtue because we would lose the experience of conflict between self-interest and the moral law. I provide a reconstruction and defence of Kant’s argument, and I explain why it is consistent with his overall position in the second Critique.

Keywords

Goddivine hiddennessvirtuefreedomgallows
Type
Articles
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , March 2017 , pp. 133 - 157
Copyright
© Kantian Review 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ameriks, Karl (2003) Interpreting Kant’s Critiques. New York: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Baxley, Anne Margaret (2010) Kant’s Theory of Virtue: The Value of Autocracy. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brachtendorf, Johannes (2002) ‘Kants Theodizee-Aufsatz: Die Bedingungen des Gelingens philosophischer Theodizee’. Kant-Studien, 93, 57–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duncan, Samuel (2012) ‘Moral Evil, Freedom and the Goodness of God: Why Kant Abandoned Theodicy’. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 20, 973–991.Google Scholar
Grenberg, Jeanine (2013) Kant’s Defense of Common Moral Experience: A Phenomenological Account. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Guyer, Paul (2007) ‘Naturalistic and Transcendental Moments in Kant’s Moral Philosophy’. Inquiry, 50, 444–464.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howard-Snyder, Daniel, and Paul, Moser (2002) Divine Hiddenness: New Essays. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1978) Lectures on Philosophical Theology. Trans. Allen Wood and Gertrude M. Clark. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1987) Critique of Judgment. Trans. Werner S. Pluhar. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1996a) Practical Philosophy. Trans. and ed. Mary Gregor. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1996b) ‘What Does it Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking?’ Trans. Allen W. Wood in Allen W. Wood and George di Giovanni (eds), Religion and Rational Theology (New York: Cambridge University Press), pp. 1–18.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1996c) ‘On the Miscarriage of All Philosophical Trials in Theodicy’. Trans. George di Giovanni in Allen W. Wood and George di Giovanni (eds), Religion and Rational Theology (New York: Cambridge University Press), pp. 19–38.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (2005) Notes and Fragments. Trans. Curtis Bowman, Paul Guyer, and Frederick Rauscher. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (2009) Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason. Trans. Werner S. Pluhar. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Kleingeld, Pauline (2010) ‘Moral Consciousness and the “Fact of Reason”’. In Andrews Reath and Jens Timmermann (eds), Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason: A Critical Guide (New York: Cambridge University Press), pp. 55–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lovering, Robert P. (2004) ‘Divine Hiddenness and Inculpable Ignorance’. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 56, 89–107.Google Scholar
Lukow, Pawel (1993) ‘The Fact of Reason: Kant’s Passage to Ordinary Moral Knowledge’. Kant-Studien, 84, 203–221.Google Scholar
Schellenberg, J.L. (1993) Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Sussman, David (2008) ‘From Deduction to Deed: Kant’s Grounding of the Moral Law’. Kantian Review, 13, 52–81.Google Scholar
Sussman, David (2010) ‘Something to Love: Kant and the Faith of Reason’. In Benjamin J. Bruxvoort Lipscomb and James Krueger (eds), Kant’s Moral Metaphysics (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter), pp. 133–148.Google Scholar
Van Inwagen, Peter (2002) ‘What is the Problem of the Hiddenness of God?’. In Daniel Howard-Snyder and Paul Moser (eds), Divine Hiddenness: New Essays (New York: Cambridge University Press), pp. 24–32.Google Scholar
Watkins, Eric (2010) ‘Kant on the Hiddenness of God’. In Benjamin J. Bruxvoort Lipscomb and James Krueger (eds), Kant’s Moral Metaphysics (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter), pp. 255–290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Brian (1999) Christianity. Religions of the World. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Wood, Allen W. (2008) Kantian Ethics. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar