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WHICH INITIATION DOES NOT LEAD ÁSTRAY FROM THE IRUE MYSTERIES
up before him the abyss of a mystery regarding what God may do, whether
anything at all is to be attributed to him and what this something might be
in particular." An answer to the question “whether anything at all is to be
attributed to him” “appears to reason dishonest or impudent”% and—even
worse—is of no practical use, either if one tried to figure it out objectively, on
the basis of a representation of “what God is in himself," or as a "profession
of a creed of ecclesiastical faith totally unintelligible to human beings."
Rather, Kant’s answer to the question under investigation is oriented toward
a parergon to Religion within the Boundaries of mere Reason. That anything
at all is to be attributed to the divine benevolent ruler of the world, i.e., that
mysteries do have their legitimate status in relation to*®’ moral religion, can
be accepted by reason in reflective faith which admits that “in the inscrutable
field of the supernatural there is something more than it [reason] can bring
to its understanding.”” The next question points to “what in particular”
the divine Legislator, Ruler of the world, and Judge can do by assisting the
finite human being’s freedom to reach the final moral end." In this regard,
Kant correspondingly enumerates the following three mysteries:
1. The first is the mystery of the call [Berufung]. By divine legislation,
human beings are, according to the laws of freedom, called on to be citizens
of an ethical state. Kant states: “So the call to this end is morally quite clear;
for speculation, however, the possibility of beings who are thus called is
animpenetrable mystery.” In fact, as to its content, this first mystery ofthe call
refers, as a parergon, to Kant’s philosophical ecclesiology: “the founding of
a kingdom of God on earth.”” In this context, Kant puts forward the theme
of the call, as a mystery, on the basis of his argument, according to which
the concept of an ethical community or invisible church, considered as
“a universal union (omnitudo collectiva)”™* of moral human beings, requires
“someone other than the people whom we can declare the public lawgiver of
an ethical community.”” This conclusion entails that the concept of an ethical
85 Religion, Ak 6, 139.
86 Religion, Ak 6, 52.
§7 Religion, Ak 6, 142.
88 Religion, Ak 6, 142.
§9 “In relation to” here concretely means, in the case of the parerga: “bordering on” (Religion,
Ak 6, 52).
°° Ibid.
A We pass over Kant’s intriguing attempt to interpret the three divine attributes as a
designation of divine Trinity and to interpret correspondingly the saying in the Johannine
Gospel: “God is love” (Religion, 6, 141-147).
"72 Religion, Ak 6, 143.
"3 Religion, Part III, Ak 6, 93-137, especially Chapter III: The Concept of an Ethical Community
is the Concept of a People of God under Ethical Laws (Ak 6, 98-100).
94 Religion, Ak 6, 157.
°° Religion, Ak 6, 99.
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