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MARTIN MOORS
the attribute of justice (God as just judge). For Kant, there is nothing mysterious
regarding the “cognition of the highest good,” nor can it be considered to be
mysterious that God will judge “the fitness of the will for the highest good””
according to principles of justice. Considered in their practical signification,
both these attributes—lawgiver and judge—and their moral qualifications—
holiness and justice—are “perfectly cognized” as they are thoroughly
revealed by objective principles of reason. Kant states: “With respect to
that which is universal human duty to have cognition of (namely anything
moral) there can be no mystery.”* In the religious domain, mysteries can only
reside with respect to what God alone can do: first, in accordance with the
holiness of his moral lawgiving; second, in accordance with the benevolence
of his moral guardianship; third, in accordance with the justice of his moral
judging. Differing from our thorough cognizance with respect to what God
as Legislator and Obligator has commanded us as moral duties, it completely
exceeds our human capacities to know anything about three things: first, how
in his holiness God will cooperate with human moral beings to attain the
final end of moral freedom; second, how in his benevolence God will rule and
love [amor benevolentiae]* the world; third, how in his justice God will judge
the fitness of the disposition for the highest good. In his Religion book, Kant
states: “with respect to that which God alone can do, for which to do anything
ourselves would exceed our capacity and also our duty, there we can have
a genuine, i.e., a holy, mystery of religion (mysterium).”* In order for humans
to attain the final grounds of moral freedom as conditioned by his legislation,
i.e., happiness, under the conditioning rule of justice assessing the human
being worthy to this happiness, “an omnipotent moral being must be assumed
as ruler of the world, under whose care this would come about.” For Kant,
mysteries are thus located in “that which God alone can do”** in his threefold
capacity of legislator, ruler of the world, and judge in order for finite moral
human beings to make attainable what is purposively set out to be realized
as the final moral end. In this respect, Kant states: “Since by himself the
human being cannot realize the idea of the supreme good inseparably bound
up with the pure moral disposition [...], he finds himself driven to believe in
the cooperation /Mitwirkung] or the management /Veranstaltung] of a moral
ruler of the world, through which alone this end is possible. And here opens
79 Ibid.
80 Religion, Ak 6, 138n.
8! For more on this issue of love, see my chapter “Kant on ‘Love God above all, and your
neighbour as yourself," in The Concept of Love in 17th and 18th Century Philosophy, edited
by Gábor Boros, Herman De Dijn, Martin Moors, Leuven, Leuven University Press, and
Budapest, Eötvös Loránd University Press, 2007, 245—269.
# Religion, Ak 6, 139n.
53 Religion, Ak 6, 8n.
# Religion, Ak 6, 139n.
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