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MARTIN MOORS
Philosophical Trials in Theodicy (1791) and The End of all Things (1794).
In this last work, Kant states: “Reason also has its mysteries.” This is not an
admission one would have expected from a critical philosopher of the Age of
Enlightenment, who claimed to have cleansed reason from all illusions and
mystical dreams concerning transcendent representations, especially in the
domain of metaphysics and religion. But still, reason also has its mysteries
“because it is not easily satisfied with its immanent, i.e., practical use, but
gladly ventures into the transcendent.”® Ventures of this kind in the religious
domain are critically treated in the four General Remarks at the end of each
Part of which the Religion book is composed. After having elaborated in four
Parts his “philosophical doctrine of religion,” Kant puts the following religious
themes to a critical test: Effects of Grace® (in connection with the issue of
moral conversion), Miracles” (in connection with philosophical Christology),
Mysteries® (in connection with the issue of faith in philosophical ecclesiology),
Means of Grace“ (in connection with acts of cult and liturgy). All four are
called “Parerga to religion within the boundaries of pure reason.”® In relation
to moral religion (“the recognition of all duties as divine commands”),
parerga emerge from “reason, conscious of its impotence to satisfy its moral
needs, [and thus] extends itself to extravagant ideas which might make up
for this lack, though it is not suited to this enlarged domain.” Among the
four parerga, the issue of mysteries [Geheimnisse] arises as connected with
ecclesiastical faith which, under the critical condition of being “within the
boundaries of mere reason,” has to fit with “the pure faith of religion [as]
its supreme interpreter." As it is of a merely subjective nature, the pure
faith of reason clings to the subjective facet of morality, namely the moral
predisposition,” and hence it is not subject to the objective principles of
universal communication. For Kant,
® The End of all Things, in Religion and Rational Theology, The Cambridge Edition of the Works
of Immanuel Kant, translated and edited by Allen W. Wood and George Di Giovanni,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996, Ak 8, 335.
60 Ibid.
6 Religion within the Boundaries of mere Reason, in Religion and Rational Theology,
The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, translated and edited by Allen W.
Wood and George Di Giovanni, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996, henceforth
abbreviated: Religion), Ak 6, 44-52.
62 Religion, Ak 6, 84-89.
6% Religion, Ak 6, 137-147.
61 Religion, Ak 6, 190-202.
6% Id., Ak 6, 52.
6 Critique of Practical Reason, in Practical Philosophy, The Cambridge Edition of the Works
of Immanuel Kant, translated and edited by Mary J. Gregor, General Introduction by Allen
Wood, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996, Ak. 5, 129.
§7 Religion, Ak 6, 52.
68 Religion, Ak 6, 109.
9 See Religion, Ak 6, 138.
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