Purely Moral Religion

“The only faith that can found a universal church is pure religious faith, for it is a plain rational faith which can be convincingly communicated to everyone, whereas a historical faith, merely based on facts, can extend its influence no further than the tidings relevant to a judgment on its credibility can reach. Yet, due to a peculiar weakness of human nature, pure faith can never be relied on as much as it deserves, that is, [enough] to found a Church on it alone.

“Conscious of their impotence in the cognition of supersensible things, and though they allow ever honor to be paid to faith in these things (as the faith which must carry conviction for them universally), human beings are yet not easily persuaded that steadfast zeal in the conduct of a morally good life is all that God requires of them to be his well-pleasing subjects in his Kingdom. They cannot indeed conceive their obligation except as directed to some service or other which they must perform for God–wherein what matters is not the intrinsic worth of their actions as much as, rather, that they are performed for God to please him through passive obedience, however morally indifferent the actions might be in themselves. It does not enter their heads that, whenever they fulfill their duties toward human beings (themselves and others), by that very fact they also conform to God’s commands; hence, that in all their doings and non-doings, so far as these have reference to morality, they are constantly in the service of God; and that it is absolutely impossible to serve him more intimately in some other way (for they can act and exercise their influence on no other than earthly beings, not on God). Since every great lord of this world has a special need of being honored by his subjects, and of being praised through signs of submissiveness; nor can he expect, without this, as much compliance with his orders from his subjects as he needs to rule over them effectively; and, in addition, however reasonable a human being may be, he always finds an immediate pleasure in attestations of honor: so we treat duty, to the extent that it is equally God’s command, as the transaction of an affair of God, not of humans; and thus arises the concept of a religion of divine service instead of the concept of a purely moral religion.”

Of course, what we really need is a purely moral religion, Kant wants to argue. Does this have the result that the contingent facts of Christianity are irrelevant to the real moral/spiritual truth? One way of reading Kant is that he thinks such facts are a crutch, and actually an inhibition to forming the right kind of ethical community (the Church). Then again, he realizes that such an ethical community is best founded on “a holy Scripture”. What does the indefinite article there admit of? Anyway, these are important paragraphs and everyone should think about them.