Kant’s Robust Theory of Grace

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Array Array Purdue University, USA

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Keywords: Kant, grace, revelation, divine aid, church, ethical community, Christ, deus in nobis, change of heart, propensity to evil

Abstract

In this paper I argue against two prevailing views of Kant’s Religion. Against commentators such as Michalson and Quinn, who have argued that Kant’s project in Religion is riddled with inconsistencies and circularities, I show that a proper understanding of Kant’s views on grace reveals these do not exist. And contra commentators that attribute to Kant at best a minimalist conception of grace (e.g., Wood 1991 and Pasternack 2014), I show that Kant’s view of it is remarkably robust. I argue that Kant works with three different conceptions of grace. These are: a) grace and the God within, b) grace and the transformation of the fundamental orientation, and c) grace that can be laid hold of; the first and the last play a significant role in his philosophy of religion.

Author Biography

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Jacqueline Mariña is professor of philosophy at Purdue University. She is author of Transformation of the Self in the Thought of Friedrich Schleiermcher (Oxford University Press, 2008) and editor of The Cambridge Companion to Friedrich Schleiermacher (Cambridge University Press, 2005). She has authored 29 journal articles and book chapters, and is currently working on two books on Kant, one on personal identity and the other on Kant’s religion. Recent publications include “What Perfection Demands: an Irenaean Reading of Kant on Radical Evil,” in Kant and the Question of Theology, edited by Chris L. Firestone, Nathan A. Jacobs and James H. Joiner (Cambridge University Press, 2017) and “Selfhood and Relationality,” in The Oxford Handbook of 19^th Century Christian Thought, edited by Joel D. S. Rasmussen, Judith Wolfe and Johannes Zachhuber (Oxford University Press, 2017).

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