Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (Religion, hereafter) is a passionate statement of Kant's mature philosophy of religion. As the title suggests, Kant believes that religious experience is best understood through rationalism, an important philosophical movement in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries that argues we know some things intuitively, not through experience, and that we can determine certain absolute truths by relying on this intuitive knowledge.
In Religion, Kant explores the legitimacy of religious experience. He argues that organized religion often gets in the way of genuine religious experience, thereby threatening the moral development of humanity. This argument spans four sections.
In Part One, Kant discusses whether human nature is inherently evil or inherently good. He thinks we have a predisposition to engage in good behavior, which comes in three instinctual urges: propagating the species, fostering meaningful, stable relationships with others, and respecting the moral law. Kant thinks that in addition to our inclination to be good, we have a simultaneous propensity for evil or immoral behavior. Kant suggests that we will see the truth of his thesis if we examine the evil abroad in the world around us. The state of current political and social life will convince skeptics that people are in need of moral development.
In Part Two, Kant argues that it is possible for us to become morally good by following the example of Jesus Christ, who resisted enticing temptations, and by instituting a wholehearted change in behavior.
In Part Three, Kant says it may be possible to create a society that fosters moral behavior. Such a society would emulate the ideal "church invisible," an association of individuals committed to living morally upright lives. Kant says that rituals and professions of faith are not essential for the establishment of a morally sound religious community. We can know our duty to observe the moral law without the aid of miracles or common religious practices.
In Part Four, Kant continues to criticize certain aspects of organized religion. He says that much of existing organized religion does not help people improve their moral standing. Incantations, professions of faith, and even consistent participation in religious services cannot transform the morally corrupt into the morally upright.
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Philosophers since Kant have quarreled with two main problems that arise in this section. First, one might wonder why maxims—the rules that human beings formulate internally when they make choices—have to be either good or bad, rather than both at the same time. Second, one might question Kant's assertion that any action not performed wholly from a sense of duty is evil.
Kant says that maxims cannot encompass both good and bad desires. He believes that every desire that we face, every impulse that competes for our ratification, falls into one of two categories: run-of-the-mill, everyday desires, or the desire to fulfill your duty and do what the moral law requires. He says we can only be good if we do what duty calls for, and when we act on everyday desires and impulses, as we often do, we are acting immorally.
Kant excludes the possibility that maxims can include more than one desire or impulse. Professional philosophers have struggled with this issue, and most of them either admit Kant's belief that maxims are only motivated by one desire, or insist that maxims can, strictly speaking, include more than one desire or inclination. The latter theory appears to be more consistent with Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. For instance, Kant says in 6:24 that free action not based on the moral law must be based upon an everyday desire, and that "it follows that his disposition as regards the moral law is never indifferent (never neither good nor bad)." This quotation shows Kant's idea that an everyday desire and duty can be unified in one maxim, although the resulting behavior must be considered evil, not good.
This brings us to the second problem: why do maxims forged from a combination of duty and everyday desire have to be considered evil? Again, philosophers have given two responses. Some have said that actions done from both duty and desire are not necessarily evil, but rather lack (in Kantian terminology) full moral worth. This response assumes that passages where Kant describes as evil actions motivated by duty and desire are merely exaggerations. Yet some philosophers have said that Kant did mean to call such behavior evil.
Kant might mean to stress that our predisposition to evil is the real problem, not the moral worth of the actions themselves. In 6:30, Kant says that humans have an overwhelming tendency to engage in immoral behavior, and "the mind's attitude is thereby corrupted at its root, and hence the human being is designated as evil".
Kant regards Christianity as the preliminary step in developing a truly moral religion. If Christianity will change, or even vanish, to be replaced by moral religion, what will become of the faith Christians have in Jesus? Kant does not clarify whether people will always need to believe that Jesus truly existed on this earth as a perfect man, as God's human representative, or whether eventually people will be satisfied with striving to emulate an abstract, nonexistent perfect person. Kant does think that role models are important for human beings, which might suggest a belief that people will continue to believe in Jesus. However, he also seems hopeful that people will realize that their faith in Jesus is truly a faith in the ideal of moral perfection.
Kant believes the innate good in people will cause them to turn away from ecclesiastical faith and religious practices, and toward moral religion. He does not claim that people will convert to moral religion because it is simpler than traditional religions. In fact, moral religion is more demanding than ecclesiastical faith, for it requires every individual to take full responsibility for becoming a better person. Neither does Kant claim that people will turn to moral religion from a desire to unite all religious traditions. Kant does claim that Human nature naturally tends toward reforming itself, especially when moral insights are a matter of public discussion: "Truth and goodness (and in the natural predisposition of every human being there lies the basis both for insight into these and heartfelt sympathy for them) do not fail, once made public, to propagate everywhere, in virtue of their natural affinity with the moral predisposition of rational beings" (6:123). Here Kant says that once the advantages of moral religion are made public, the good in human beings will help them feel an affinity for moral religion. Moral religion is true to human nature itself. In Kant's narrative, good ultimately triumphs over evil, not because God's grace grants it (as Christian theology explains it), but because of human agency.
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