Dios en la guillotina. El cambio de paradigma efectuado por Kant en la concepción filosófica de la religión

Abstract

Trying to emulate the ironic pen of Heinrich Heine, I use his legendary comparison between the figures of Kant and Robespierre to give title to my paper, in which I expose the decisive paradigm shift that Kant carries out in the philosophical tradition with respect to the conception of the problem of the existence of God. In a first moment, I refer to the reasons that lead Kant, in the Critique of Pure Reason, to dislodge the problem of the “existence” of God from the realm of theoretical reason. In a second moment, I address the displacement of this question to the realm of the Critique of Practical Reason, emphasizing how difficult and paradoxical such a thesis seems to be. Finally, by way of conclusion, I try to formulate a thesis of greater depth that serves as support, in Kant, to the two previous ones, namely, the primacy of philosophy over any other science or discipline, including theology, which can be illustrated in a special way with the case of the censorship of which he was a victim and which led him to the publication of The Conflict of the Faculties.