To Tell the Truth on Kant and Christianity

Abstract

After reviewing the history of the “affirmative” approach to interpreting Kant’s Religion, I offer four responses to the symposium papers in the pre vious issue of Faith and Philosophy. First, incorrectly identifying Kant’s two “experiments” leads to misunderstandings of his affirmation of Christian ity. Second, Kant’s Critical Religion expounds a thoroughgoing interpretation of these experiments, and was not primarily an attempt to confirm the architectonic introduced in Kant’s System of Perspectives. Third, the surprise positions defended by most symposium contributors render the “affirma tive” label virtually meaningless. Finally, if Kant is read as constructing perspectival philosophy, not theology, the compatibility of his positions with Christianity stands. In the twenty-five years since I initially submitted “Can a Christian Be a Kantian?” 1 to Faith and Philosophy, much water has passed under the proverbial bridge. My plan to demonstrate that Kant’s philosophy attempts to reform rather than destroy Christianity, and my recommendation that Christian philosophers should therefore treat more seriously the possibility of employing Kantian strategies in service to the community of thoughtful Christians, eventually extended well beyond the specific applications sketched in that proto-manifesto; but my implementation of that project is now nearing a point of completion. 2 I therefore thank the editor for offering me, in the wake of the symposium papers published in the previous issue of this journal, 3 this opportunity to take stock of what has transpired over