Kant On Reason Authority And The Creator
A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Chapters
Individual intellect and divine authority
Immanuel Kant. Being a son of the Enlightenment, Kant strongly advocated the right and duty of every man to judge for himself in religious and secular matters.
Indeed, he considered the motto of the Enlightenment to be: "Have courage to make use of your own intellect." The emphasis here is on individual freedom and on the ability of man to intuit the truth.
Does it mean that anyone, uh, whatever he does, uh, that is perfectly right? If he's given that freedom, then anyone will do anything as he likes.
So it will be taken as... well, at the same time, he considered the Bible to be the best vehicle for the instruction of the public in a truly moral religion. Then he has accepted some authority.
He believed that the individual can intuit truths within but could be helped from without by scripture. Yes. That means he should not become independent. But he had broken the beginning, that everyone should be independent.
So that is not a right proposal. One should be dependent on authority, and that authority should be recognized or well-established. Then knowledge is possible.
Evidence of design in nature
He writes: "Absolutely no human reason can hope to understand the production of even a blade of grass by mere mechanical causes." Therefore, he has to know everything from the person or authority who knows that thing.
That means this is the perfect way of understanding: to take knowledge from the authority who is actually cognizant of knowledge, things as they are.
He believes that behind nature or mechanical laws... he says that crude matter, or prakṛti, should have originally formed itself according to mechanical laws or automatically, that life should have sprung from the nature of what is lifeless, that matter should have been able to dispose itself into the form of a self-maintaining purpose, is contradictory to reason.
Simply by using our reason, we can intuit the creator behind the creation. No. Unless there is a brain. Matter has no brain. Matter cannot combine together without a brain behind. That brain is the Supreme Lord, God.
That is quite reasonable. And if somebody thinks matters automatically combine together and become the sun, becomes the moon so bright without any brain behind it, that is ludicrous.
Well, he sees the design in nature, but he says the design only suggests a designer. It doesn't prove the existence of the... As soon as there is an earthen pot, immediately the potter is understood. And that is a fact.
You cannot say it is simply understanding that there is a potter, but there is no potter; that is foolishness. Without a potter, the pot is never manufactured.
As soon as you see the pot, you can immediately understand that some potter has made it. That is logic. That is because suffering and calamities overwhelm man in nature, it is impossible for man to see nature's final end.
No, nature is not the final end. Nature is only an instrument. I beat you with a stick. The stick is not beating you. I am beating you. The stick is in my hand.
So from nature, when you get tribulation, pain, that is designed by God, and nature is an instrument. Sṛjati, sa sṛjati, sa pālayati... The change of season we find in nature, but why?
It is systematically changing unless there is a brain behind nature. In such and such a month there will be winter; by accident or by some otherwise, the month of April does not become winter.
The month of December becomes winter. There is a judgment. So therefore there is a brain behind these natural changes and activity. That is confirmed: mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ sūyate etc.
Knowledge through revelation and devotion
He says this can be intuited but not known. Not known. To a foolish man everything is unknown. But to a man with his knowledge, he knows everything, from the authority or by his direct perception.
Somehow or other the knowledge is there. So unknown means that he doesn't care to know. Where to take knowledge he doesn't know. Like that, he personally knows. Therefore he doesn't know.
For him we cannot experience God through our senses. No, that is not possible. We always say that when God explains himself, that is also not to everyone, only to the devotees.
The devotees can accept the personality of Godhead and his structure. And non-devotee, or at least he cannot understand, he simply speculates. But by speculation it is not possible to understand God.
Kant says that, um, speculative reason is unable to attain to a sure or adequate conception of God. Yeah, that is our... that, uh, the speculator cannot reach, uh, vicinity of God. That is not possible.
Only one can understand by the mercy of God, and this mercy is bestowed upon a person who is a devotee, who is surrendered to God. Otherwise this mercy is deserved as it is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā:
nāhaṁ prakāśaḥ sarvasya. "I'm not revealed to everyone and anyone. Rather, I'm covered by yogamāyā." Whereas revelation means when one becomes a devotee, this covering curtain is, um, what is called... curtain, curtain.
No, curtain closed and open. Open. Yes. Then one can understand. Just like at night, there is sun, uh, in the sky, there is no doubt about it. But the night is, uh, uh, preventing me to see the sun.
But when the sun, by his mercy, rises in the morning, the night is immediately over and one can see the sun. So at night, by speculation, you cannot understand sun. But when the sun rises in the morning...
Sometimes we see from the airplane how within a second the sun comes out from the sea and everything becomes illuminated and you can see things. You have got that experience, all of us, as if it is coming from the sea. He
Divine foundation of moral law
rejects the traditional proofs of God's existence in order to clear the ground for his assertion that God is morally necessary in a moral universe.
In this universe, every soul is an end in itself, and these individual souls are like citizens in a kingdom of ends. He calls it a "kingdom of ends." So why does he use that word "kingdom" if there is no king?
This is unreasonable. Why does he say "kingdom"? Oh, he would say there isn't. He does not believe in God. The individual souls are ends in themselves. Oh, he believes in God, but he rejects the traditional proofs of God.
He says that God is morally necessary in a moral universe. His philosophy is a philosophy of ethics and morality. That's all right.
But if his morality does not accept God—and God is there because we have already discussed that behind nature there is God— so if his morality denies the existence of God, then where is the value of this morality?
This morality can change at any time into degradation. His emphasis on morality is based on this. He says... So what is morality?
He says for a rational but finite being, the only thing... One man is thinking that animal killing is good, and another man is thinking animal killing is immorality; then who is correct?
Unless you know morality means this, it is coming from authority. Then you have to follow it, otherwise you will be punished. Then morality.
Otherwise, if there is no background laws, then morality can be degraded into immorality at any moment. Well, this seems to be the weakness in his philosophy.
He says for a rational but finite being, the only thing possible is an endless progress from the lower to the higher degrees of moral perfection. That means endless struggle to understand real morality.
But if he takes the order of God, then he must do it. That is final morality. What he means by morality is rather vague. He does not say what this moral law is other than it's called the categorical imperative.
That says one should act in such a way—though how he acts is immoral, how is that moral unless there's force for
him? He says the categorical imperative is that one should act in such a way that the maxim of one's action becomes the principle for universal law.
That cannot be that by individual choice; it is impossible for a man to do something which will be universally accepted. That is nonsense. That is not possible. A man cannot establish a universal law by his own action. No.
God can do it. Just like God says, "sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ". Because God says it, it has to be accepted. But if some individual says, "sarva-dharmān parityajya, follow me", nobody does that.
We are preaching that you surrender to Krishna. We do not say that you surrender to me. Who is hearing me? Who are you? Surrender to you? But if one understands God wants this, then he'll agree.
Life and the limits of matter
According to the Christian religion, at the end of the world there is a resurrection of the body, that is the gross material body. Kant does not think very much about this.
He writes, "For who is so fond of his body that he would wish to drag it about with him through all eternity if he could get on without it?" That is the nature. Even a hog, pig, he's living so abominable.
Still, when he's captured for being killed, he cries. He does not think that "My body is so low-graded that I have to eat stool, I live in a filthy place and very bad smell, and I am trying to save my this body."
But he cries. So this is māyā. Although his body is so abominable, he wants to protect it perpetually. This tendency is there because the living entity has actually his perpetual living condition. He wants that.
But he wants that in this material body—that is his mistake.
He writes that man alone can be regarded as nature's own end or highest product because on earth only man is capable of complying with the categorical imperative, the moral law. So it is accepted that nature creates man.
And that is not very good, that nature creates man. The nature is supreme? There is no such thing. And nature is ultimate? Nature is dull matter. What do you call nature?
Bhūmi, āpaḥ, anala, vāyu... Earth, water... They cannot create; nature cannot create. Otherwise, the materialist scientists, they could do it by combining this earth, water, air. So, nature is dull, lifeless.
How nature can create life? What is the logic? What is the phenomenon? He wouldn't say that. He would say that man is nature's final end, because man's moral nature alone is worthwhile.
He is giving stress, and nature has made man. That is our objection. Nature cannot do anything.
Nature has given a body, just like a tailor can give me a set of dress, but the dress, when I put on, the dress looks like a man with hands and legs.
A dress is nothing; it is simply outward covering of a man, a living entity. Similarly, nature gives us this material body, outward coating. The inside is living entity. That is not the creation of this material nature.
That is creation or part and parcel of God. This knowledge is imperfect, that nature has created man. There is in part of it.
Faith and the divine lawgiver
He maintains that certain knowledge of God's existence would destroy a man's freedom and reduce human experience to a show of puppets frantically currying the favor of the Almighty. Yeah, that is his fear.
It's like nobody wants to die, but the superior power obliges everyone to die. So he is dependent. Why should you think that he is independent? That is foolishness. He sees uncertainty as a necessary ingredient for faith.
What is that? Uncertainty is a necessary ingredient. No, faith should not be blind; that is useless. Faith—just like I believe in the government—this is not faith. This is fact.
There is government, and I am under government's law. So I have to obey the orders of... This is not faith. This is fact. Similarly, to one who knows God and becomes dependent on Him, that is not faith. That is fact.
He is happy by depending on God. Just like a child: he knows that "he is my father and mother." He voluntarily depends on the parents and he's happy. In his last work, Kant seems to shift his position.
He says, "Morality thus leads ineluctably to religion, through which it extends itself to the idea of a powerful moral lawgiver outside of mankind, for whose will, that is the final end of creation, which at the same time can and ought to be man's final end, make the highest good possible in the world your own final end."
So he seems to point to an absolute lawgiver or an absolute morality which is God, but he believes that this knowledge of God is ultimately uncertain. Uncertain? For the man who does not possess the perfect knowledge.
But if we believe in God, if we know God, we can get perfect knowledge from Him. Then we become perfect.
Theocratic ideals and universal service
He says, "An ethical commonwealth can be thought of only as a people under divine commands, that is, as a people of God, and indeed under laws of virtue." We might indeed conceive of a people of God under statutory laws.
Under such laws that obedience to them would concern not the morality, but merely the legality of acts, that this would be a commonwealth of which indeed God would be the lawgiver. Yeah. That is the best quality of state.
If we abide by the orders of God, or the king or the government abides by the order of God, that is ideal.
It says, thus the constitution of the state would be theocratic, but man as priest receiving his bequests directly would build up an aristocratic government, like the brāhmaṇas would receive the knowledge from God.
Theocratic government is Manu-saṁhitā. That is Vedic literature given by Manu for the benefit of the whole world. Hmm.
Here he writes, "It does not enter men's heads that when they fulfill their duties to men, they are performing God's commands and are therefore in all their actions, so far as they concern morality, perpetually in the service of God, and that it is absolutely impossible to serve God directly in any other way, since they can affect and have an influence upon earthly beings alone and not upon God."
He says we can only relate to man, we can only serve man and not serve God directly, but only serve God through man. Like a humanitarianism.
Well, if he doesn't have God, then how he get direction how to serve the humanity? If he does not know how to serve humanity from God, then what is the value of service to humanity?
Giving direction that you serve humanity in this way by preaching His message about Gita to all humanity, then he becomes very, very faithful servant of God.
So to give service to the humanity means when one is a faithful servant of God, he can give service to the humanity or to all other living entities. And if he manufactures his service, that is useless.
Kant writes, "There is only one true religion, but there can be faiths of several kinds. It is therefore more fitting to say this man is of this or that faith—Jewish, Mohammedan, Christian, Catholic, Lutheran—than he is of this or that religion."
Yes, that is very well. Actually, religion means obedience to God. So this does not mean some faith. They are trying to understand God in some way. That is not actually religion. That is a method of understanding God.
But religion begins when one has actually understood God and giving Him, rendering Him service, that is religion.
Spiritual practice and pleasing God
For Kant, the true religion is the divine ethical state. He was fond of quoting the Christian Bible.
When Christ was demanded of the Pharisees when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation, neither shall they say, 'Lo here' or 'lo there', for behold, the kingdom of God is within you."
Now Kant footnotes this passage by saying here a kingdom of God is represented not according to a particular covenant, but moral, knowable through unassisted reason.
So again he insists on the priority of God within, on the priority of ethical action, and the freedom to accept ethical action. And this is epitomized in his famous line: "The starry sky above and the moral law within."
The starry sky above is the abode of God, is very far away, but the moral law within is very close. If one is actually aware of God and His structure, then the kingdom of God is within each other.
In "Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone", that is one of his last books, he condemns prayer as an inner formal service to God because God does not need information regarding the inner disposition of the person offering prayers.
In other words, God does not need formal prayer to know what man needs. Such a prayer would be "Give us this day our daily bread."
However, Kant believes that it is good to teach children to pray so that in their early years they may accustom themselves to a life pleasing to God, so that prayer might aid their—that is religion, how to please God.
That is not only restricted among the children, but as well as to the children's father, one must know how to please God. That is the end. He rejects temple attendance, churchgoing as a means to salvation.
He says, "Sensuous representations of God are contrary to the command of reason: 'Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.'" So he would reject some images. Some images. That is not required.
But actually, just like you keep the photograph of your beloved. That is not image. Image is imagination. But when you keep the photograph of your beloved, that is not imagination.
When you keep a photograph, that's other stuff. So that is all.