Immanuel Kant's Contribution to Philosophy and Theology

Immanuel Kant

    

      During the Enlightenment, people studying epistemology took two very different and incompatible approaches: the rationalist viewed that only rational reflection provided valid truth, whereas the empiricist believed experience and the human senses were the only ways to determine truth.  Both of these views held high the view of man's ability to reason and determine truth by his own perfect means.  By looking at these two philosophies of truth, one can see that neither one provides anything applicable to real life by itself.  As a result of this dichotomy, Immanuel Kant took both approaches and brought them together into one. 
     Kant formulated a synthetic a priori view of epistemology.  There is knowledge without relying upon experience to govern truth.  Kant broke knowledge into two categories: physical, and noumenal.  The physical realm of knowledge is experiential and reasonable.  However, the noumenal realm is unknowable.  When one is in the physical realm, reason and experience provide paths to knowledge. 
      Physical knowledge is not absolutely objective under Kant's view truth.  Kant argued that everyone experiences through categories.  Nothing is known in itself; things are only known through categories by which one filters experiences.  By this view of knowledge, knowledge itself of the physical realm is very subjective.  Since things cannot be known in themselves, one can only articulate his or her perception.  Kantian philosophy brought Sociology and philosophy the idea of a "worldview."
      Though Kant believed that noumena is real, he said that noumena is not experienced.  In Kant's philosophy there is a dichotomy between the physical (or phenomenal) and noumenal realm.  For Kant, God is real, but no one can experience him (or her for that matter).  Since no one can experience God, no one can really know God.  However, God is still important. From experience of the phenomenal and reason one can come to some sort of understanding of God.  Kant's view of the noumenal realm led to a moralistic view of religion.  Knowledge derived from the physical realm gives insight into how a proper life, a spiritually moral life, is lived. 
       As a result of Kant's view of noumena, Kant developed a theory of morality called the categorical imperative.  The categorical imperative is a method of determining whether an action is morally permissible.  In this, Kant argued that one should act in a such a way that if their action became a universal law, then it would be constructive and good.  Kant's categorical imperative became the framework of his moralistic view of religion. 
       What does all of this mean, and what is its impact?  Kant effectively brought two different philosophies of truth and knowledge into one.  Out of Kant's philosophy came the idea of worldviews, which is still used today.  Kantian philosophy came as a dynamic progression of its Enlightenment predecessors, and paved the way for modern philosophy.  In regards to theology, Kant affirmed man's experience and rationality as the center for understanding spiritual morality.  God is not a personal being who is known, rather he is impersonal.  Kant's philosophy leads to deism. 
      Kant's impact on philosophy and theology is incredible.  The impact Kant made during the Enlightenment still affects philosophy and religion today.  Because of Kant, truth became viewed as personally subjective and religion focused on morality.  This leads to deism and liberal theology based on experience.  Studying Kant reveals the evolution of theological and philosophical thought.  Knowing what Kant believed gives insight into why modern liberal theology and philosophy are the way they are today. 


More on Kant Found At:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/#ForUniLawNat