Kant and religion: conflict or compromise?

Abstract

The standard reading of Kant presumes that ‘the moral hypothesis’ is a necessary and sufficient condition for understanding his philosophy of religion. This paper opens with the assumption – taken from one of Kant's last works – that philosophy and theology must always remain in conflict. Then, by way of an abductive comparison of the positions of Ronald M. Green and John Hick, I demonstrate that the moral hypothesis leads to religious compromises that contradict this assumption. To conclude, I argue that the motif of transformation is syptomatic of the underlying problem and suggest that it be replaced by the motif of transition.