Chris Firestone describes Kant and Theology at the Boundaries of Reason as ‘the attempt of a Christian scholar of Kant to show where theology gains a foothold in Kant's philosophy’ (p. viii). The first chapter outlines four trends in the secondary literature on Kant's philosophy of religion: atheist, agnostic, non-realist, and deist. Firestone then turns to a fifth: a ‘theologically affirmative’ interpretation of Kant. Although such contemporary Christian philosophers as Philip Quinn and Nicholas Wolterstorff regard Kant's philosophy of religion as deeply incompatible with Christianity, Firestone wants to show that it is ‘essentially positive in its posture towards the many claims and concerns of Christian theology’ (p. 10).
In chapter 2, Firestone addresses the question of how, if the subject matter of theology is supersensible, we can even conceptualize it. He aptly frames this question via the Strawsonian principle of significance and begins his response by presenting the outlines of Henry Allison's methodological interpretation. Firestone then moves on to a discussion of Kant's distinction between an idea and an Ideal, but overreaches with this distinction, implying that the latter ‘resides in the boundaries of human reason’ and is an object of ‘transcendental theology’ (p. 31). His point here is not specific to the ens realissimum, but is rather more generically applied to what Kant means by an Ideal. Firestone then suggests that when Kant distinguishes between the idea of humanity and our Ideal of humanity, he is presenting a ‘divine–human synthesis’, that is, Christ (p. 30). But the Critique of Pure Reason does not suggest anything of the sort. First of all, I can just as well illustrate the idea/Ideal distinction by way of my idea of a cat and my Ideal cat, without apotheosizing the latter. Secondly, Kant's explicit example of the Ideal of humanity is not Christ, but the Stoic wise man (A569/B597).
The chapter then turns to a debate that took place in the Scottish Journal of Theology during the 1980s. This debate, Firestone eventually points out, arises from the contributors’ failure to differentiate between Wissen and Erkenntnis. This is, of course, an important distinction, but it seems to me that the reader would have been better served by Firestone if he moved directly to it, rather than via some fairly obscure discussion that fails to employ it. Regrettably, too much of the book follows this pattern of discussing very dated and/or obscure secondary literature at the expense of direct philosophical analysis and discussion of more relevant literature.
This concern applies as well to chapter 3: ‘Faith and Cognition in Kant's Philosophy of Religion’. Firestone spends too much time discussing irrelevant and quite dated secondary literature, much of which is from the early decades of the twentieth century. While he does briefly discuss Leslie Reference StevensonStevenson's ‘Opinion, Belief or Faith, and Knowledge’, he seems otherwise unfamiliar with other current and salient explorations of Kant's propositional attitudes. Firestone also fails to enter into the details of what Kant has to say about faith (Glaube) and so we are left without an account of what Kant means by ‘subjective sufficiency’ (subjectiv zulänglichkeit), ‘conviction’ (Überzeugung), how faith gains its ‘subjective sufficiency’, how it can be differentiated from ‘persuasion’ (Überredung), and the other issues of concern in recent scholarship on the topic.
Chapter 4 turns to the moral arguments undergirding Kant's philosophy of religion. Firestone begins, quite appropriately, with Allen Wood's absurdum practicum argument and its roots in the highest good. Firestone then raises an objection to Wood's account of grace, accusing him of turning God into a ‘judicial fudger’ (p. 65). That is, if Kant's philosophy of religion is based upon the highest good and the highest good requires an ultimate distribution of happiness in accordance with moral worth, then Kant would be contradicting this foundation when he putatively claims that God forgives our failure to achieve moral perfection and offers us a happiness we do not deserve.
Based upon this charge, Firestone concludes that Wood has not provided ‘a coherent account of the philosophical grounds for theology’ (p. 66). Yet Wood is well aware of this tension and addresses it directly. Wood argues that divine justice is compatible with forgiveness because our duty to moral perfection is imperfect and its pursuit rather than its achievement is what the moral law requires (Wood Reference Wood1970: 246). But Firestone does not explore this avenue nor the many others that are available. This chapter also does not fill in the lacunae of the preceding chapters – for instance, how faith's ‘subjective sufficiency’ is related to pure practical reason, or how our ‘determinate’ conception of God depends upon morality (A814–17/B843–5, 5: 444, 20: 303–4).
Chapters 5 and 6 discuss less common interpretations of Kant's philosophy of religion. The first comes from Adina Reference DavidovichDavidovich, the second from Stephen Reference PalmquistPalmquist, Rudolf Reference OttoOtto, and Paul Tillich. Firestone expresses some sympathy here, appreciative of Davidovich's ‘contemplative judgments’, Palmquist's ‘Critical Mysticism’, and Otto's ‘Faculty of Divination’. In order to leave room for a discussion of chapter 7, the denouement of the book, I will bypass further comment on these primarily expository chapters.
In chapter 7, Firestone begins to articulate how he wants to read Religion. He believes that core Christian doctrines can ‘gain a foothold in Kant's philosophy’ and where Kant seems to oppose them, it is only because he did not see a sufficient rationale for their inclusion in pure rational faith. Since Kant cannot directly oppose any theological doctrine on theoretical grounds, he must, according to Firestone, remain open to them and include them if a case can be made for doing so. This is a clever move on Firestone's part and he makes interesting use of it.
Firestone chooses the doctrine of the Trinity as illustration. In The Conflict of the Faculties, Kant states that the ‘doctrine of the Trinity, taken literally, has no practical relevance at all’ (7: 38). Thus it is rejected not for any theoretical reason, but because Kant does not see any practical use for it. Firestone, however, sees how it can be used. He draws an analogy between the relational (three-in-one) character of the Trinity and the unity of wills in the ethical community. He then writes that ‘Kant's call to an ethical community offers no ideal after which to model such communities’ (p. 162). Whereas we have the ‘prototype’ as a model for individuals, we do not have a corollary for the ethical community. He then suggests that we can turn to the relational form of the Trinity and use it as the model for the ethical community. This, it seems, is the ultimate payoff for Kant and Theology at the Boundaries of Reason. Here Firestone illustrates how the theologian can place further Christian doctrines into Kant's pure rational faith.
But I have two objections I would like to raise. The first is specific to the doctrine of the Trinity. In Religion, Kant presents an argument against the practical affirmation of the divinity of Jesus: ‘from a practical point of view any such presupposition is of no benefit to us … On the contrary, the elevation of such a Holy One above every frailty of human nature would rather, from all that we can see, stand in the way of the practical adoption of the idea of such a being for our imitation’ (6: 63–4). Though Kant may here be falling short of the doctrine of hypostatic union, his point is clear. Unless we view the prototype as having a finite, sensibly affected will, its practical relevance is undermined. The same can be said of the Trinity. The union of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit seems far too ethereal to be practically useful for our very messy human struggle towards a community under ‘the laws of virtue’ (6: 94).
My second objection speaks to the overall strategy of the book. In chapter 4, Firestone rejects the standard moral interpretation of Kant's philosophy of religion. But his presentation of how the theologian can link the Trinity to the ethical community seems to slip back into it. The Trinity, by Firestone's account, is a practically useful Ideal. It and other doctrines could have a place insofar as they speak to ‘the natural need of all human beings to demand for even the highest concepts and grounds of reason something that the senses can hold on to’ (6: 109). Though Firestone has a point that Kant cannot claim that these doctrines are nothing more than surrogates for ideas of pure practical reason (that is, Firestone suggests that they might have a supersensible reality), their inclusion still depends upon the needs of pure practical reason.
Despite the objections I have voiced, I found chapter 7 to be far more interesting than the preceding chapters. Firestone may not have built a strong case for including the Trinity, but he does point us in an intriguing direction. Kant maintains that historical faiths serve as vehicles for pure rational faith (6: 106, 115) and Kant illustrates this with just a handful of Christian doctrines. It would be an interesting project to see how much more of Christianity (and/or other religions) could be included.
