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CRITIQUE OF KA T’S AG OSTICISM CO CER I G THE EXISTE CE OF

GOD

Paul Gerard Horrigan, Ph.D., 2008. The Transcendental Dialectic

In the transcendental dialectic of The Critique of Pure Reason,1 the transcendental

idealist Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) studies the function of “reason” (reason in the sense of the 1 Studies on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: E. ADICKES, Kant und das Ding an sich, Pan Verlag, Berlin, 1924 ; N. K. SMITH, A Commentary to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, Macmillan, London, 1930 ; H. J. PATON, Kant’s

Metaphysic of Experience: A Commentary on the First Half of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 2 vols, Macmillan, New York, 1936 ; A. C. EWING, A Short Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, Methuen, London, 1938 ; T. D. WELDON, Introduction to Kant’s ‘Critique of Pure Reason,’ Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1945 ; G. MARTIN, Kant’s Metaphysics and Theory of Science, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1955 ; G. BIRD, Kant’s

Theory of Knowledge, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1962 ; R. P. WOLFF, Kant’s Theory of Mental Activity, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1963 ; N. ROTENSTREICH, Experience and Its Systematization:

Studies in Kant, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1965 ; J. BENNETT, Kant’s Analytic, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1966 ; D. P. DRYER, Kant’s Solution for Verification in Metaphysics, Allen & Unwin, London, 1966 ; H. HEIMSOETH, Transzendentale Dialektik: Ein Kommentar zu Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 4 vols., Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 1966-1971 ; J. HARTNACK, Kant’s Theory of Knowledge, Harcourt, Brace & World, New York, 1967 ; M. S. GRAM, Kant, Ontology, and the A Priori, Northwestern University Press, Evanston, 1968 ; T. K. SWING, Kant’s Transcendental Logic, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1969 ; S. J. AL-AZM, The Origins of

Kant’s Arguments in the Antinomies, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1972 ; A. MELNICK, Kant’s Analogies of

Experience, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1973 ; A. LLANO, Fenómeno y trascendencia en Kant, EUNSA, Pamplona, 1973 ; L. BECK (ed.), Kant’s Theory of Knowledge, Reidel, Dordrecht, 1974 ; J. BENNETT, Kant’s

Dialectic, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1974 ; W. H. WALSH, Kant’s Criticism of Metaphysics, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1975 ; T. E. WILKERTON, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1976 ; G. G. BRITTAN, Kant’s Theory of Science, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1978 ; R. VERNEAUX, E. Kant: ‘Critica della ragion pura,’ Japadre, L’Aquila, 1979 ; J. N. FINDLAY, Kant and the

Transcendental Object: A Hermeneutic Study, The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1981 ; J. V. BUROKER, Space and

Incongruence: The Origin of Kant’s Idealism, D. Reidel, Dordrecht, 1981 ; K. AMERIKS, Kant’s Theory of Mind:

An Analysis of the Paralogisms of Pure Reason, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1982 ; J. N. MOHANTY and R. W. SHAHAN (eds.), Essays on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK, 1982 ; R. WALKER, Kant on Pure Reason, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1982 ; R. B. PIPPIN, Kant’s Theory of

Form: An Essay on the Critique of Pure Reason, Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn., 1982 ; H. E. ALLISON, Kant’s Transcendental Idealism, Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn., 1983 ; G. NAGEL, The Structure of

Experience: Kant’s System of Principles, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1983 ; R. E. AQUILA, Representational Mind: A Study of Kant’s Theory of Knowledge, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 1983 ; K. ASCHENBRENNER, A Companion to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: Transcendental Aesthetic and Analytic, University Press of America, Lanham, MD, 1983 ; P. GUYER, Kant and the Claims of Knowledge, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987 ; M. MEYER, Science et Métaphysique chez Kant, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1988 ; A. T. WINTERBOURNE, The Ideal and the Real: An Outline of Kant’s Theory of Space,

Time, and Mathematical Construction, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1988 ; P. FAGGIOTTO, Introduzione alla metafisica kantiana della analogia, Massimo, Milan, 1989 ; F. O’FARRELL, Per leggere la

‘Critica della ragion pura’ di Kant, Pontificia Università Gregoriana, Rome, 1989 ; R. E. AQUILA, Matter in Mind:

A Study of Kant’s Transcendental Deduction, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1989 ; E. FÖRSTER (ed.), Kant’s Transcendental Deductions: The Three ‘Critiques’ and the ‘Opus postumum,’ Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 1989 ; P. KITCHER, Kant’s Transcendental Psychology, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1990 ; C. T. POWELL, Kant’s Theory of Self-Consciousness, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1990 ; H. SCHWYZER, The

Unity of Understanding: A Study in Kantian Problems, The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1990 ; V. MELCHIORRE, Analogia e analisi trascendentale. Linee per una nuova lettura di Kant, Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1991 ; M.

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faculty that researches the unconditioned) in order to determine the possibility of metaphysics. The “ideas” of reason are: soul (the unconditioned which lies at the foundation of psychical phenomena), world or cosmos (the unconditioned that lies at the foundation of physical phenomena), and God (the unconditioned that lies at the foundation of all reality). Kant retains that metaphysics arises from a legitimate exigency but sustains that it is impossible for us to demonstrate the objective noumenal value of the ideas of reason. The idea of soul is the result of paralogisms, the idea of cosmos or world falls into antinomies, and the idea of God is founded upon three “proofs” (two of them, the cosmological and teleological, being ultimately reducible to the ontological argument) that are all invalid. The ideas of reason, therefore, have only a regulative use (they indicate a point of problematic convergence) and not a constitutive use (they don’t represent objects to us). Regarding the existence of God Kant was an agnostic, a logical consequence of his transcendental idealist gnoseological immanentism where one is trapped in appearances within human consciousness and incapable of transcending to extra-mental reality and knowing things-in-themselves.

Kant on the Existence of God

Regarding the question of the capacity of man’s reason to demonstrate the existence of

God,2 the Immanuel Kant replies that, since all our experience is limited to what is in our

FRIEDMAN, Kant and the Exact Sciences, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1992 ; S. GARDNER, Kant

and the Critique of Pure Reason, Routledge, London, 1999 ; E. WATKINS, Kant and the Metaphysics of Causality, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005 ; J. V. BUROKER, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006 ; J. LUCHTE, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: A Reader’s Guide, Continuum, London, 2007 ; D. BURNHAM and H. YOUNG, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: An Edinburgh

Philosophical Guide, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2007 ; O. HÖFFE, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: The Foundations of Modern Philosophy, Springer, Dordrecht, 2010. 2 Studies on Kant’s rational theology (philosophy of God or rational theology) and philosophy of religion: C. C. J. WEBB, Kant’s Philosophy of Religion, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1926 ; F. E. ENGLAND, Kant’s Conception of

God, Dial Press, New York, 1930 ; A. W. WOOD, Kant’s Moral Religion, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1970 ; W. J. SULLIVAN, Kant on the Existence of God in the Opus Postumum, “The Modern Schoolman,” 48 (1971), pp. 117-133 ; M. DESPLAND, Kant on History and Religion, McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal, 1973 ; G. E. MICHALSON, The Role of History in Kant’s Religious Thought, “Anglican Theological Review,” 59:5 (1977) ; A. W. WOOD, Kant’s Rational Theology, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1978 ; P. BYRNE, Kant’s

Moral Proof for the Existence of God, “Scottish Journal of Theology,” 32 (1979) ; G. E. MICHALSON, The

Historical Dimensions of a Rational Faith: The Role of History in Kant’s Religious Thought, University Press of America, Washington, DC, 1979 ; D. WIEBE, The Ambiguous Revolution: Kant on the 6ature of Faith, “Scottish Journal of Theology,” 33 (1980) ; J. C. LUIK, The Ambiguity of Kantian Faith, “Scottish Journal of Theology,” 36 (1983) ; W. B. HUND, The Sublime and God in Kant’s Critique of Judgement, “The New Scholasticism,” 57 (1983), pp. 42-70 ; B. M. G. REARDON, Kant as Philosophical Theologian, Barnes and Noble Books, Totowa, NJ, 1988 ; P. J. ROSSI and M. WREEN (eds.), Kant’s Philosophy of Religion Reconsidered, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1991 ; A. W. WOOD, Rational Theology, Moral Faith, and Religion, in The Cambridge Companion

to Kant, edited by P. Guyer, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992 ; A. DAVIDOVICH, Religion as a

Province of Meaning: The Kantian Foundations of Modern Theology, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 1993 ; H. J. NELSON, Kant on Arguments Cosmological and Ontological, “American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly,” 67:2 (1993), pp. 167-184 ; R. DELL’ORO, From Existence to the Ideal: Continuity and Development in Kant’s Theology, Peter Lang, New York, 1994 ; S. NICOLOSI, Metafisica ed esistenza di Dio nel periodo precritico di Kant, “Aquinas,” 37 (1994), pp. 501-521 ; A. DAVIDOVICH, How to Read Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, “Kant-Studien,” 85 (1994) ; B. M. G. REARDON, Kant as Theologian, “Downside Review,” 93 (1995) ; G. E. MICHALSON, Kant and the Problem of God, Blackwell, Oxford, 1999 ; C. L. FIRESTONE, Kant and Religion:

Conflict or Compromise?, “Religious Studies,” 35:2 (1999) ; S. PALMQUIST, Kant’s Critical Religion, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2000 ; N. FISCHER (ed.), Kants Metaphysik und Religionsphilosophie, Felix Meiner Verlag, Hamburg,

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sensibility and if the categories of the human understanding can operate only on the objects given to our understanding in and through the forms of sensibility, then all theoretical knowledge of God is rendered impossible. God, who is supra-sensible, is not given in the mass of sense impressions that we receive and is incapable of being an object of theoretical knowledge to the human mind. He “applies to God the conditions required of all objects of experience and hence of all knowable realities. The judgments constitutive of philosophical knowledge are only possible ‘when we relate the formal conditions of a priori intuition, the synthesis of imagination and the necessary unity of this synthesis in a transcendental apperception, to a possible empirical knowledge in general.’3 Those things alone are knowable which are temporal, subject to some finite, concrete pattern of imagination, included within the order of appearances, and given through empirical, sensuous intuition. On all four counts, God (as conceived by Western theists) lies patently outside the scope of speculative knowledge. He is eternal and not temporal; His being is infinite and unimaginable; He is not an appearance but the supreme intelligible reality or thing-in-itself; He lies beyond all sensuous intuition, and man is endowed with no intellectual intuition for grasping His intelligible reality. Not only His existence but also His nature and causal relation with the world remain intrinsically impenetrable to our speculative gaze. Natural theology has no possibility of providing us with true knowledge about God and should be abandoned.”4

Kant maintained that there were only three possible ways of demonstrating the existence

of God with speculative reason, namely, the ontological argument or proof, the cosmological proof, and the physico-theological proof (the teleological proof). In his Critique of Pure Reason, he writes: “There are only three modes of proving the existence of a Deity, on the grounds of speculative reason. All the paths conducting to this end begin either from determinate experience and the peculiar constitution of the world of sense, and rise, according to the law of causality, from it to the highest cause existing apart from the world – or from a purely indeterminate experience, that is, some empirical experience – or abstraction is made of all experience, and the existence of a supreme cause is concluded from à priori conceptions alone. The first is the physio-theological argument, the second the cosmological, and the third the ontological. More there are not and more there cannot be.”5 Kant the transcendental idealist agnostic holds that all three proofs (the ontological argument, the cosmological proof, and the teleological proof) are invalid, the latter two, in the final analysis, being reduced to the invalid ontological argument, which entails an illicit jump from the conceptual (or logical) order to the existential (or real) order.

2004 ; G. DI GIOVANNI, Freedom and Religion in Kant and His Immediate Successors: The Vocation of

Humankind 1774-1800, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005 ; C. L. FIRESTONE and S. PALMQUIST (eds.), Kant and the 6ew Philosophy of Religion, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 2006 ; P. BYRNE, Kant on God, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2007 ; C. L. FIRESTONE and N. JACOBS (eds.), In Defense of Kant’s Religion, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 2008. 3 I. KANT, Critique of Pure Reason, A 158 ; B 197, 2nd ed., trans. N. K. Smith, Macmillan, London, 1933, p. 194. 4 J. COLLINS, God in Modern Philosophy, Regnery Gateway, Chicago, 1967, pp. 182-183. Collins notes that “the coercive force of the Kantian critique of natural theology depends upon acceptance of his view that the requirements for the knowledge proper to classical physics are the requirements for all knowledge, that the conditions of the object of physics are therefore the same as the conditions for all knowable experience, that experience is confined to sensible appearances and their formal conditions, that the general, formal factors in knowledge derive entirely from the nature of consciousness, and that man has only sensuous intuition”(J. COLLINS, op. cit., p. 183). 5 I. KANT, Critique of Pure Reason, translated by J. M. D. Meiklejohn, Macmillan, New York, 1900, p. 331.

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Kant is correct in maintaining that the ontological argument is an invalid proof, But he is in serious error in maintaining that the cosmological proof from contingency to the Absolutely Necessary Being (the third way) and the teleological demonstration from finalized non-intelligent beings to the supreme Orderer of the Universe (the fifth way), as they are correctly

understood in Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae, I, q. 2, a. 3, are both nothing but reductions to the invalid ontological argument, lumping them with the rationalist versions of the cosmological and teleological proofs. Kant is also is error in maintaining that there are only three possible demonstrations for the existence of God, since the history of philosophy preceding Kant has shown that other ways of demonstrating God’s existence (different from the ontological, cosmological and teleological proofs) have been given, such as Aquinas’ first way demonstration from motion, the second way demonstration from secondary efficient causality and the fourth way demonstration from pure transcendental perfections. And these ways, like the third way and fifth way of St. Thomas, are in fact, successful, unlike the invalid ontological argument which the Angelic Doctor himself has refuted many times.

Kant on the Cosmological Proof

Regarding the cosmological argument (or the demonstration from contingency of things

to the Absolutely Necessary Being) Kant describes what he thinks the demonstration consists in as follows: “If something exists, an absolutely necessary being must likewise exist. Now I, at least, exist. Consequently, there exists an absolutely necessary being. The minor contains an experience, the major reasons from a general experience to the existence of a necessary being. Thus this argument really begins at experience, and is not completely à priori, or ontological. …The proof proceeds thus: A necessary being can be determined in only one way, that is, it can be determined by only one of all possible opposed predicates; consequently, it must be completely determined in and by its conception. But there is only a single conception of a thing possible, which completely determines the thing à priori: that is, the conception of the ens

realissimum. It follows that the conception of the ens realissimum is the only conception, by and in which we can cogitate a necessary being. Consequently a supreme being necessarily exists.”

Now, Kant rejects the cosmological argument for two main reasons. His first reason is

that the argument from contingency is, in the final analysis, nothing but the ontological argument in disguise. He attempts to prove this as follows: “That it may possess a secure foundation, it bases its conclusion upon experience, and thus appears to be completely distinct from the ontological argument, which places its confidence entirely in pure à priori conceptions. But this experience merely aids reason in making one step – to the existence of a necessary being. What the properties of this being are, cannot be learned from experience; and therefore reason abandons it altogether, and pursues its inquiry in the sphere of pure conceptions, for the purpose of discovering what the properties of an absolutely necessary being ought to be, that is, what among all possible things contain the conditions (requisita) of absolute necessity. Reason believes that it has discovered these requisites in the conception of an ens realissimum – and in it alone, and hence concludes: The ens realissimum is an absolutely necessary being. But it is evident that reason has here presupposed that the conception of an ens realissimum is perfectly adequate to the conception of a being of absolute necessity, that is, that we may infer the existence of the latter from the former – a proposition which formed the basis of the ontological argument, and which is now employed in the support of the cosmological argument, contrary to

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the wish and professions of its inventors. For the existence of an absolutely necessary being is given in conceptions alone. But if I say – the conception of the ens realissimum is a conception of this kind, and in fact the only conception which is adequate to our idea of a necessary being, I am obliged to admit that the latter may be inferred from the former. Thus it is properly the ontological argument which figures in the cosmological and constitutes the whole strength of the latter; while the spurious basis of experience has been of no further use than to conduct us to the conception of absolute necessity, being utterly insufficient to demonstrate the presence of this attribute in any determinate existence of a thing.”6 In other words Kant says in the above passage from the Critique of Pure Reason, that we go from the experience of existing and ‘contingent’ things to the idea of a ‘necessary being,’ and from this idea we argue to the existence of the necessary being, and this is nothing but the illicit jump from the conceptual or logical order to the real or existential order that the invalid ontological argument makes.

The second main reason that Kant advances for his rejection of the cosmological

argument consists in his denial that the principle of causality is universally applicable to all finite realities. He says that the cosmological argument (or the proof from contingency) possesses a large number of unproved assumptions, one of which being that “the transcendental principle, everything that is contingent must have a cause – a principle without significance, except in the sensuous world. For the purely intellectual conception of the contingent cannot produce any synthetical proposition, like that of causality, which is itself without significance or distinguishing characteristic except in the phenomenal world. But in the present case it is employed to help us beyond the limits of its sphere.”7 The main error of Kant is obvious: that in his erroneous transcendental idealist immanentist world, causality cannot be anything other that a category of the mind, in the mind prior to all experience, a subjective form or construct whose sole function it is to regulate the data of sense experience – the phenomena – in our thinking, and, as such, has no objective value in the world realities outside the self. Therefore, according to Kant’s erroneous immanentist epistemology that negates objective realist metaphysics, the principle of causality cannot lead us to God, because God is a thing-in-itself, a noumenon, which remains forever unknown and unknowable to the human intellect. Such is the agnostic position of our German transcendental idealist.

There is a big difference between the realist categories (made famous by Aristotle and

developed by Aquinas) and the subjectivist categories of Kant. For the Stagirite, categories, in their logical meaning, are the supreme class of predicates in our judgments. Since, however, these predicates represent reality, he also gave the categories an ontological meaning. These categories are the ultimate and supreme modes of real being, the supreme genera or classes into which finite being is divided. Aristotle distinguishes ten categories, namely, substance, quantity, quality, relation, action, passion, place, time, posture, and habitus. For Kant, on the other hand, the “categories” are not categories in the accepted and traditional sense. He lists the categories as a classification of judgments and his division is formally subjective and does not pertain to the objectivity of being. For Kant there are twelve categories, namely, unity, plurality, totality, affirmation, negation, limitation, substance, causality, reciprocity, possibility, existence, and necessity. These categories are, for him, the fundamental concepts of the pure understanding whose content is furnished by the data of sense experience. For Kant, the categories are

6 I. KANT, op. cit., pp. 339-340. 7 I. KANT, op. cit., p. 341.

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judgment-forms and modes of mental relations; they are innate mental forms which tells us nothing about noumenal reality or things-in-themselves, since, according to our German transcendental idealist, our knowledge is restricted to phenomena, and phenomena are only subjective constructs of the mind. For Kant, the fundamental concept of cause is not borrowed from or founded upon experience. The principle of causality is, for him, synthetic and a priori. In Kant’s transcendental idealism, the intellect expresses an a priori form by means of a judgment, and unifies it with a conglomeration of phenomena. Hence, the principle of causality is merely subjective and would have absolutely no value for any transcendental realities such as God. This is but a natural deduction from Kant’s erroneous and disastrous fundamental principle, which implicitly denies the possibility of ever knowing the noumena, that is, objective reality as it is in itself.

Explaining the big difference between the realist Aristotelian and transcendental idealist

Kantian categories, Bittle writes: “The difference is fundamental and essential. The Kantian categories are a priori mental forms, absolutely independent of, and anterior to, all experience and the knowledge derived from experience. The Aristotelian categories are supposed to classify our knowledge of reality as it exists outside the mind and as it is acquired through experience.

“The Kantian categories have value only for the mind and its subjective operations. They

merely bring the sense-intuitions or phenomena into a scheme of unity and give them necessity and universality. Since, however, the sense-intuitions or phenomena contain only knowledge which is purely subjective in character and does not reach to the noumena or things-in-themselves, the categories cannot tell us anything about the noumenal reality which lies outside and beyond the mind. Hence, the Kantian categories are not supreme classes of universal ideas and modes of being, but classes of judgment-forms and modes of mental relations. These categories give us no information about the objective content of the predicates or of the modes of being present in the things-in-themselves.

“Kant calls these mental forms ‘categories,’ but the term is a misnomer. The notion of

‘category’ was clearly defined by Aristotle, and the term thereby acquired a definite technical meaning. This meaning had been accepted in the sense given by Aristotle for a period of two thousand years and as such became fixed and traditional in the history of philosophy. For Kant, then, to use the term ‘category’ in the way he did, amounted to a distortion and falsification of philosophic language. This was unwarranted and unjustifiable, because the new meaning attached to the term ‘category’ was bound to produce a confusion of ideas. Aristotle and Kant simply do not mean the same thing when they speak of ‘categories.’ As such, therefore, Kant’s categories must be rejected as arbitrary. In no way can they be considered a satisfactory substitute for the categories of Aristotle.”8

Criticizing Kant (and Hume as well) on efficient causality, Charles Hart writes: “The

chief error in modern and contemporary philosophy concerning efficient causality is similar to the error concerning substance, namely, the denial of its objective reality and indeed of the objective reality of the notion of cause generally in the traditional metaphysical sense of the communication of existence between beings in some way. Indeed, it arises from a denial of the

8 C. BITTLE, Ontology, Bruce, Milwaukee, 1941, pp. 233-234.

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intellect’s power to make an unique metaphysical report of reality in terms of being as being or existing…

“Subjective Explanations of Causal 6ecessity. Various purely subjective explanations are

offered to explain the necessity or invariability of the cause-effect sequence. For Hume it was due entirely to force of habit or custom, which it would be entirely possible to set aside…For Kant, it is due to an a priori form or category of necessity innate in the intellect which imposes the note of necessity on certain sequences presented by the senses….Hume and Kant have this in common: They reject the intellect’s metaphysical report of efficiency in terms of being simply as existing and communicating existence. They accept only the sense report of causality as a sensible sequence of events in time and place. Any necessity whereby the intellect declares this effect must have an adequate cause comes entirely from the mind’s own action, from the force of habit or custom according to Hume, from the imposing of an innate form according to Kant. But such an explanation is quite evidently unsatisfactory. If the intellect is the sole source of the necessity, how are we to account for the distinction the mind makes between necessary or causal sequences and nonnecessary, and therefore noncausal or casual sequences?

“Inadequacy of Subjective Explanations. In either the Humean or the Kantian explanation

the distinction must be attributed to the arbitrary action of the mind since from the standpoint of sense data alone both the causal and the noncausal or casual sequences are quite similar. This common-sense distinction thus becomes a complete mystery for empiricism and Kantianism. On the other hand, from the metaphysical standpoint of a realistic philosophy such as that of St. Thomas, the distinction is based on the compulsion, not of the mind itself, but from that of the realities involved. Going beyond the sense data and considering the various sequences from the standpoint of the existence of the beings concerned, the intellect is compelled to say that certain sequences are causal and others noncausal, or casual, because the different realities involved compel such distinction.

“…A completely mysterious, arbitrary, and subjective decision of the mind, quite apart from the influence of the reality involved, is unsatisfactory. At bottom of course, the dispute resolves itself into a question of the very possibility of a valid metaphysical report of reality. We believe that we have already established that validity. Causality, concerned with the very being or existence of things, can find adequate explanation only on the metaphysical level.”9

9 C. HART, Thomistic Metaphysics, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1959, pp. 293-295. In his proof for the existence of objective efficient causality, Celestine Bittle writes: “In proving the existence of efficient causality among things, it will be necessary first to show that the assumptions which underlie the position of the opponents are unwarranted; then it will be necessary to adduce the positive evidence which supports the view that efficient causality actually is present in nature. “The opposition against the existence of efficient cause is based primarily on an adverse theory of knowledge, and not on the facts themselves. As such, the denial is made primarily on epistemological grounds. Kant, since he maintained that we can have no knowledge of things-in-themselves, naturally had to deny any knowledge of efficient causality as existing among these things-in-themselves. It is the purpose of epistemology to vindicate the sources of our knowledge, among them being sense-perception, consciousness, and reason. In this connection we will restrict ourselves to one consideration. If Kant’s fundamental assumption were correct, we could know nothing of the existence and activity of other minds beside our own, because these ‘other minds’ are evidently things-in-themselves. But we have a knowledge of other minds. This is proved conclusively by the fact of language, whether spoken or written or printed. We do not use language to converse with ourselves; conversation is essentially a dialogue between our mind and ‘other minds.’ Hence, we can and do acquire knowledge of things-in-themselves, as

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they exist in themselves, through the medium of language. Kant’s fundamental assumption is, therefore, incorrect. Consequently Kant is wrong, when he asserts that we could know nothing of efficient causality, if it existed among things. If we can show that efficient causality exists in ourselves, we prove that efficient causes exist in nature, because we ourselves are a part of nature. “Hume, Mill, and others, denied efficient causality because of their phenomenalism. According to their assumption, all we can perceive are the phenomena, and phenomena are revealed to us in our senses merely as events in ‘invariable sequence.’ Whenever, then, we perceive phenomena as invariably succeeding each other in place and time, we are prompted by habit and the association of ideas to imagine a causal connection to exist between them, so that the earlier event is the ‘cause’ and the later even the ‘effect.’ This is, in their view, the origin within our mind of the concept of efficient causality. “This is a deplorable error. The fact is, we clearly distinguish between mere ‘invariable sequence’ and ‘real causality.’ We notice, for example, an invariable sequence between day and night every twenty-four hours, and we are convinced that this sequence has been maintained throughout the ages; at any rate, we have never experienced a single exception in this sequence. We also notice, when the day is hot and humid, and a sudden, decisive drop in temperature occurs, that a rainstorm develops; this sequence, however, is by far not as invariable as the sequence between day and night. No one, however, dreams of considering day and night as being in any causal connection, as if the day ‘produced’ or ‘caused’ the night. On the other hand, we certainly are convinced of the existence of a causal connection between the states of the weather, although the occurrence has by no means the invariability of the sequence we observe between day and night. Hence, the fundamental assumption of the phenomenalists, that our observation of ‘invariable sequence’ is the basis of our concept of ‘efficient causality’ is opposed to fact. In accordance with their principle, the phenomenalists must maintain a parity in all cases of invariable sequence. We, however, do not judge the cases to be the same. There must, then, be some other reason why we judge a causal connection to exist between phenomena, between things and events. “Besides this, we clearly distinguish between conditions and causes, even if there be an invariable succession between them. We know by experience that we are unable to see objects except in the presence of light. In the dark all objects are invisible; light must first be admitted before we can see. There is an invariable sequence between the presence of light and the seeing of objects. According to the phenomenalists’ principle, therefore, we should judge that light is the ‘cause’ of vision, because its presence invariably precedes vision. But we do not so judge. We consider light to be the condition, not the cause, of vision, although vision must always ‘follow after’ the admission of light in sound eyes. And so it is with all ‘conditions.’ “It is entirely untrue to assert that we obtain our concept of cause and effect from the observation of the frequency of an occurrence through habit and the association of ideas. We judge of the presence of causality even in

single cases. When the first steam engine, or the first telephone, or the first automobile, went into operation, no one waited for the hundredth or thousandth appearance or operation in order to apply the principle of causality; this was done immediately. Similarly, when an accident or disaster occurs, we do not wait until it occurs frequently before we think of cause and effect; we look for the causal connection as soon as it occurs. On the other hand, though we see a million automobiles follow each other down the highway, we never think of the one being the cause of the other, due to association of ideas or habit. “Hence, mere sequence, no matter how frequent and invariable, is not the principle which forces us to accept the concept of efficient cause and causal connection as valid in nature. The facts themselves compel our reason to judge that the relation of cause and effect exists between things. “Our experience proves causality. Critical analysis of our internal states and of external nature convinces us of its reality. Internal consciousness is an indubitable witness to the fact that our mental activities not only take place in us, but that they are also produced by us. Such are the activities of thinking, imagining, desiring, willing. They are clearly observed to be ‘produced’ by ourselves, and this production is observed to be due to our own action, so that their existence is intrinsically dependent on this productive action. Thus, we are conscious that we deliberately set about to solve a certain mental problem by combining ideas into judgments, judgments into inferences, and a whole chain of inferences into an extended argumentation. With the help of our imagination we work out poems, essays, melodies, pictorial scenes, machines, etc., before they ever appear outside the mind. We desire certain things and consciously will them; and we are fully aware that we are the responsible agents of these desires and acts of the will, because we produce them by direct action. No one can deny these facts; they are present for everyone to observe. But if the conscious knowledge of ourselves as the active agents in the production of these internal activities is unreliable and false, all our knowledge, of whatever character, must be adjudged an illusion, because knowledge rests ultimately on the testimony of consciousness. In that case, however, universal skepticism is the logical

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Holloway gives two other of Kant’s objections to the demonstration of the existence of God from contingency to the affirmation of the Absolutely Necessary Being, and replies to them: “1) Kant rejects our argument for the following reason. When the mind is confronted with contingent beings, there is a natural tendency to conclude to a necessary Being. But this is due to the passion the human mind has for unity, and not to the existence of a necessary Being. For from the existence of contingent beings all we can legitimately conclude to is the existence of

outcome, and that means the bankruptcy of all science and philosophy. Hence, our consciousness is a trustworthy witness to the fact of efficient causality within us. “External experience proves the same. We speak. Language is an external expression of our internal ideas. It is impossible for us to doubt that we actually produce the sounds of language which express our own thoughts. We intend to express these thoughts in conversation, and we actually do; and we are conscious of the fact that we are the agents in this process. If I am a painter, I set up my canvas, mix the paints, apply the colors, and with much effort project my mental images upon the canvas in form and color; I know that all this is not a mere ‘sequence of events,’ but a production of something in virtue of my own actions. So, too, if I take pen and ink and write something on paper, I not only perceive one word following the other, but I am also convinced beyond the possibility of any rational doubt that I am the ‘author’ of the words appearing on the paper. Neither Hume, nor Mill, nor any other phenomenalist, disclaimed the authorship of the books which appeared in their name, nor would they refuse to accept royalties from their publishers on the plea that they were not the efficient causes of these books. “Again, we are convinced that many bodily actions are of a voluntary nature. I move my hand, my arm, my head, and I know that these members move because I make them move. If I am set for a sprint, and the gun goes off, I jump into action. But I am conscious that there is not a mere sequence between the shot and my running; and I am also conscious that the shot does not make my limbs move so rapidly: it is I myself who decides to run and who deliberately produces this action of running. This is all the more obvious to me, when I compare this sort of action with the action of the heart or of the liver, etc., over which I have no control. I clearly distinguish between ‘sequence’ and ‘causality.’ Hume, as we have seen, claims that we cannot know of this causal connection between our will and our bodily movements, because we cannot ‘feel’ the energy involved in this operation. This merely proves that we do not observe the whole process. Of the fact of causation itself we are most assuredly aware, and we are also aware of the exertion and fatigue involved in producing these effects; but if we ‘produced’ nothing, of if there were no energy expended in the production (for instance, in walking, working, running, making a speech, etc.), why should we feel exertion and fatigue? And thus our external experience also testifies to the fact that we ourselves are efficient causes which produce definite effects. “In order to disprove the opponents’ contention, no more is required than to prove a single case of causality. We could, therefore, rest our case with the above argument taken from the internal and external experience of our own selves. However, we contend that the existence of other efficient causes in nature is also capable of proof. “Reason demands efficient causality in nature. If reason demands that we admit the existence of efficient causes acting in the universe, the philosopher cannot refuse to accept the verdict of reason, because science and philosophy are based on the operations of reason. Now, if I am convinced beyond doubt that I am the cause of the picture I paint, what am I to conclude, when I see someone else paint a picture? I must conclude that he is doing what I did, when I went through the same series of actions. Of course, all that my senses can observe is a ‘sequence’ of actions; my reason, however, demands that he, too, must be the ‘producer’ of his picture, just as I am of mine. This is common sense and sound logic. And the same principles applies to all actions performed by others, when I observe them doing the same things that I do or have done: if I am the efficient cause, they must be efficient causes for the same reason. There is a complete parity between my actions and their actions, and so I know, through a conclusion of reason, that real causality exists in nature in these and similar cases. “It is only a short step from instances of such activities to productive activities in the world at large. A farmer places seed into the soil. After a period of time it sprouts, grows, and eventually matures into an abundant harvest. Here something new has originated. And so with animals and men. We were not here a hundred years ago; but we are here now. We perceive new living beings coming into existence daily. They are new realities. But if they did not exist always and do exist now, they must have received existence. Their existence is a ‘produced’ existence, a ‘caused’ reality, because they were brought from non-existence to existence. That, however, which exerts a positive influence through its action in the production of another, is an efficient cause. Efficient causes, therefore, exist in nature. We must, then, reject phenomenalism as false and accept efficient causality as the only adequate interpretation of the facts as observed”(C. BITTLE, op. cit., pp. 343-349).

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other contingent beings, unless we want to go beyond the evidence – a common fallacy of the human mind.

“We answer that the human mind naturally tends toward its own proper perfection, which

is to know truth. The reason the human mind demands the existence of a necessary Being from the analysis of contingent beings is due to the truth of the matter, insofar as the intelligibility of contingent being requires a Being completely necessary. Otherwise a contingent being is not intelligible. Our intellect in a positive way sees this necessity of positing a necessary Being.

“2) But Kant insists that our argument makes the existence of an absolutely necessary

Being quite impossible. A necessary Being who is the cause of the existence of contingent beings, is by that very fact related to the contingent beings it causes. For between cause and effect there must needs be a mutual and real relation, since the necessary Being is the real cause of the existence of the contingent beings. But a necessary Being possessing a relation to other beings, is by that very fact not absolutely necessary, but in some sense relative, since it has a real relation to other beings.

“We reply that if the necessary Being causes the existence of contingent beings through

some operation distinct from its substance, it would have a real relation to contingent being. But in God His operation is His being, which is unchangeable. The whole change is in the creature. Therefore in the creature there is a real relation to God, but in God there is only a relation of reason to the creature.”10

Kant on the Teleological Proof (Physico-Theological Proof)

With regard to the physico-theological argument for the existence of God (also called the

teleological proof), Kant has respect for it, and says that, among all the proofs, it has the most persuasiveness: “The physico-theological proof always deserves to be mentioned with respect. It is the oldest, the clearest, and the most accordant with the common reason of mankind.”11 Nevertheless it is invalid, he asserts, since it, in the final analysis, needs the cosmological argument for it to be completed, and the cosmological argument is nothing but the invalid ontological argument in disguise. Kant writes in his Critique of Pure Reason: “After elevating ourselves to admiration of the magnitude of the power, wisdom, and other attributes of the author of the world, and finding we can advance no further, we leave the argument on empirical grounds, and proceed to infer the contingency of the world from the order and conformity to aims that are observable in it. From this contingency we infer, by the help of transcendental conceptions alone, the existence of something absolutely necessary; and, still advancing, proceed from the conception of the absolute necessity of the first cause to the completely determined or determining conception thereof – the conception of an all-embracing reality. Thus, the physico-theological, failing in its undertaking, recurs in its embarrassment to the cosmological argument; and, as this is merely the ontological argument in disguise, it executes its design solely by the aid of pure reason, although it at first professed to have no connection with this faculty, and to base its entire procedure upon experience alone.”12

10 M. HOLLOWAY, An Introduction to 6atural Theology, Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York, 1959, pp. 112-113. 11 I. KANT, Critique of Pure Reason, N. K. Smith ed., Macmillan, New York, 1933, B 651, p. 520. 12 I. KANT, Critique of Pure Reason, translated by J. M. D. Meiklejohn, Macmillan, New York, 1900, p. 352.

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Describing Kant’s physico-theological argument, Copleston writes: “The chief steps in the physico-theological argument are these. First, we observe in the world manifest signs of purposeful arrangement; that is, of adaptation of means to ends. Secondly, this adaptation of means to ends is contingent, in the sense that it does not belong to the nature of things. Thirdly, there must exist, therefore, at least one cause of this adaptation, and this cause or these causes must be intelligent and free. Fourthly, the reciprocal relations existing between the different parts of the world, relations which produce an harmonious system analogous to a work of art, justify our inferring that there is one, and only one, such cause.

“Kant thus interprets the proof of God’s existence from finality as based on an analogy

from human constructive adaptation of means to ends. And the proof had indeed been presented in this way in the eighteenth century. But, quite apart from any objections which can be raised on this score, Kant remarks that ‘the proof could at most establish the existence of an architect of

the world, whose activity would be limited by the capacity of the material on which he works, and not of a creator of the world…’13 …The idea of design brings us, by itself, to the idea of a designer, and not immediately to the conclusion that this designer is also creator of finite sensible things according to their substance. Kant argues, therefore, that to prove the existence of God in the proper sense the physico-theological proof must summon the aid of the cosmological proof. And this, on Kant’s view, relapses into the ontological argument. Thus even the physico-theological proof is dependent, even though indirectly, on the a priori or ontological argument. In other words, apart from any other considerations God’s existence cannot be proved without the use of the ontological argument, and this is fallacious. All three proofs, therefore, have some fallacies in common; and each has also its own fallacies. Natural theology or, as Kant often calls it, ‘transcendental theology’ is, therefore, worthless when it is regarded…as an attempt to demonstrate God’s existence by means of transcendental ideas or of theoretical principles which have no application outside the field of experience.”14

Criticizing Kant’s skepticism of the principle of finality found in his teleological proof,

Renard writes: “Kant himself, despite his goodwill, is not able to find certitude in the principle of finality. Consequently, according to him, we cannot come to a certain knowledge of the existence of a supreme architect by the demonstration from finality. He argues from analogy to accuse us of attaining unwarranted conclusions. Just as we see that an architect has a definite purpose in building a house, and that from a consideration of the house we come to the knowledge that there must have been an intellect and will determining its end; so from a study of the world we conclude that the order in the world must be due to a superior intellect. Such an analogy, however, says the philosopher of Koenigsberg, in no way gives us certitude but probability merely – ‘inferring from the analogy of certain products of nature with the works of human art…houses…and inferring from this that a similar causality, namely, understanding and will, must be at the bottom of nature.’15

“Evidently Kant either did not know or did not understand the argument from finality as

presented by St. Thomas. We do not argue from an analogy, which may or may not give

13 B 655. 14 F. COPLESTON, op. cit., pp. 299-300. 15 I. KANT, op. cit., Transcendental Dialectics, Book II, chapter 3, section 6.

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certitude, but we argue from a metaphysical necessity which we discover from an analysis of ‘being,’ and which ultimately must lead us to the affirmation of a Pure Intellect.”16

Holloway criticizes Kant on the teleological proof as follows: “Kant and the Kantians see

in the fifth way of St. Thomas a simple and naïve anthropomorphism. Man sees that he acts for an end and has a purpose in what he does. He washes because he wants to clean his face, he studies because he wants to become a philosopher. And then man transfers this notion of purpose to non-human beings and asserts that they also, when they act, must be acting for an end or purpose. But it is highly arbitrary to transfer finality found in man to finality in the universe.

“As is quite clear from our solution, St. Thomas in his fifth way makes no such transfer.

We did not start with any analysis of human activity but with the regular and constant activity of things that have no intellect. And we did not conclude to the presence of an intellect ordering natural things by way of an analogy with our own human intellect, but by way of necessity, to explain the existence of the very order present in such activity. Furthermore, our own human intellect is itself a natural power that is ordered to its proper end. For man does not order his intellect to the truth; he finds that of its very nature it is already ordered to the truth. And man finds that his will is naturally finalized toward good. While man can order himself in many of his actions for ends that he sets up for himself, he nevertheless finds his powers initially finalized toward ends that he has not established, but toward which these powers tend of their very nature.

“But if natural things are ordered by their very nature to their proper end, such ordering is

intrinsic and from within, and so they need not be ordered from without by an intellect distinct from these natural beings. The answer to such an objection should be obvious. A natural being is ordered to its proper end both by its nature and by an intellect. Immediately and intrinsically, it is ordered by its nature, but ultimately and extrinsically, it is so ordered by the divine intellect who has established the end and created the nature.”17

Kant could not formulate a valid demonstration of the existence of God because of his

negation of abstraction, the metaphysical value of our primary concepts in favor of a reduction of knowledge to what appears to the senses, and his inevitable negation of the objective validity of the principle of causality, which is at the foundation of every valid a posteriori demonstration of God’s existence. All this because of his acceptance of sensism and his absolutization of Newtonian physics that would replace metaphysics as first philosophy. Kant criticizes the a

posteriori demonstrations of the existence of God, namely, the cosmological and teleological arguments as formulated by certain rationalists, and concludes that they are but variants of the invalid ontological argument and should be rejected. But these are not the a posteriori demonstrations of St. Thomas (in particular, the third and fifth ways), which are by no means reducible to the ontological argument, a type of argumentation which Aquinas himself refutes many times. Rather, the Thomistic five ways are valid effect to cause quia demonstrations that have as their starting points extra-mental objects given in sensible experience, which are then interpreted metaphysically. Using the objective metaphysical principle of causality and the impossibility of infinite regress in a per se series of subordinated efficient causes, one successfully arrives at God. From a real starting point one concludes to a real Supreme Being.

16 H. RENARD, The Philosophy of Being, Bruce, Milwaukee, 1950, p. 155. 17 M. HOLLOWAY, op. cit., pp. 145-146.

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There is no question here of an illegitimate transfer from the logical order to the existential order of being (which the ontological argument does). Why then does Kant erroneously dismiss all possible a posteriori arguments for God’s existence? It is because he is operating within the framework of his immanentist theory of experience and theory of existence, which excludes a realist point of departure, as Collins explains: “The Kantian explanation of the three stages in any a posteriori demonstration of God’s existence rests upon his theory of experience and his conception of existence. The steps in the process impose themselves upon human intelligence not through any necessity inherent in the human intellect itself or in God’s own being but only on condition that the intellect is operating within the framework of the Kantian view of experience and existence. What has been described, then, is the way an a posteriori inference to God must adapt itself to the exigencies of this view, not the way in which such an inference must always develop. Thus the analysis has a sharply limited scope. Kant’s four empirical criteria (temporality, synthesis in imagination, limitation to appearances, and presence through sensuous intuition) are determinants of the objects studied in classical physics. It does not follow that they are the defining marks which characterize everything we can either know experientially or infer from experience. They constitute the empirical principle operative within Newtonian physics, but they are not identical with the experiential principle operative within our ordinary acquaintance with the existing world and our metaphysical analysis of this world. Human experience and its existentially based causal inferences are not restricted to the factors required for the construction of the physical object of Newtonian mechanics. Kant’s fourfold empirical principle is a univocal rule for testing the validity of scientific reasoning. By its nature, it can extend only to objects which already belong to the world of the physicist’s investigation. Hence it cannot be used to answer the question of whether experience contains causal implications, leading to the existence of a being distinct from the world of physics. It can settle nothing about whether our inferences, which start with the sensible world, must also terminate with this world and its immanent formal conditions. Hence, Kant’s use of the empirical principle to rule out the a

posteriori demonstration of God’s existence is unwarranted. Granted that the starting point is found in sensible things, it cannot be concluded, by the deductive application of such a principle, that these objects are the only things we can know from causal analysis of experience…It is because Kant failed to grasp the precise starting point of the realistic argument from changing and composite sensible existents that his account of the general procedure of a posteriori demonstration is inapplicable to the realistically ordered inference.”18

Kant’s Reduction of “God” to a Postulate of Practical Reason

But it is true that man forms his notion of God and can ask a great many questions

regarding a Supreme Being, the First Cause of all reality. How is this so? The reason for this, according to Kant, lies in the very structure of the human mind, for its categories of understanding (of cause, substance, etc.) enable the mind to posit questions about a first cause, a necessary substance, etc. But there can never be a real answer to these questions for here the mind’s categories are working without anything, without content. Now, categories can only work on content, and that content must come in and through the forms of sensibility. Content without form is unintelligible and, likewise, is form without content. Thus, questions regarding the existence, nature, attributes, etc., of God are, for him, empty questions, for it is simply impossible to provide an answer to them in terms of theoretical or speculative knowledge. Man 18 J. COLLINS, op. cit., pp. 184-185.

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can only speculate about, organize and make causal relations with objects of experience, and such objects are strictly limited, for speculative theoretical knowledge, to the phenomena given to the understanding through the a priori forms of sensibility. So, Kant rejects the existence of God as an object of speculative reason. Yet, he believes that His existence is a postulate of practical reason.

For Kant, God is postulated as something practically necessary to the carrying out of our

moral obligations, so that we may be happy in the doing of our duty; He is a postulate of man’s practical reason, posited by the will of man, and held by a blind faith. God is not inferred by the practical reason, He is postulated. He answers a need. Did Kant believe in the extra-mental real existence of God, as postulated by practical reason? How could he possibly do so since his faith was blind. He could say that there was a God, or think there was a God, but the simple fact is that he truly did not know if there was a God. Is knowledge through faith possible? Yes in as much as faith is an act of the intellect moved to assent by the authority of another. We know, for example, that Julius Caesar was murdered by Brutus and his co-conspirators. This is not a postulate or an hypothesis but an historical fact. But we know this only on faith, our intellects being moved to assent by the authority of another (in this case written testimonies, historical documents, historians of eminent professional standing and competence). But this is not Kant’s faith in God for he postulates Him by a sheer act of the will, and hence he can never be sure whether there really is a God or not. His position is that of agnostic, and a dogmatic agnostic at that. So, what exactly is this “God” that he writes about in his critical period? A simple postulate of practical reason that does not transcend the domain of his own mind. Kant writes: “The subject of the categorical imperative…is God. That such a being exists cannot be denied but it cannot be affirmed that it exists outside of the man thinking according to reason.”19 “There is a God in the moral practical reason, i.e., in the idea of the relation of men to right and duty. But not as a being outside of men.”20 “The categorical imperative does not presuppose a highest command-giving substance that is outside of me but lies in my own reason.”21 “The categorical imperative does not presuppose a highest commanding substance which would be outside of me but is a command or prohibition of my own reason.”22 “God,” for him, is not the extra-mental reality of the Supreme Being, but a subjective certainty made up by the mind that serves or is useful towards man’s practical or moral life.

Kant’s Reduction of “God” to Immanent Self-Legislating Practical Reason in the

Opus Postumum

In the final position of Kant, as found in his Opus Postumum, we find a “God” reduced to

the immanent self-legislating practical reason itself: “The concept of God is the idea of a moral being which as such is directing and commanding overall. This is not a hypothetical thing but pure practical reason itself.”23 “The concept of such an essence (God) is not that of a substance, i.e., of a thing that exists independent of my thinking but the idea (self-creation) thing of thought ens rationis of a reason constituting itself as a thing of thought which produces a priori

19 I. KANT, Opus Postumum, VII.V.3-XXII, 55.6. 20 I. KANT, op. cit., VII.V.4-XXII, 60.14. 21 I. KANT, op. cit., VII.V.3-XXII, 56.13. 22 I. KANT, op. cit., VII.V.2-XXII, 51.2. 23 I. KANT, op. cit., VII.X.1-XXII, 118.14.

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according to the principles of the transcendental philosophy synthetic propositions an an ideal from it…”24 “God is the concept of a personality of a being of thought and ideal being which reason creates for itself.”25 “The concept of God is the idea of a moral being which as such is directing and commanding overall. This is not a hypothetical thing but pure practical reason itself.”26 The Kantian position on God is the bridge that links agnostic phenomenalism with the crypto-atheist pantheistic systems of absolute idealism, which in turn would pave the way for the openly atheistic philosophies of Feuerbach, Nietzsche, and Marx, the architects of the horrors of the twentieth century.

Renard gives us a general critique of Kant’s denial of our ability to demonstrate the existence of God, and provides an answer to Kantian transcendental idealist agnosticism with the advocacy of a perennial realist metaphysics rooted in objective being: “Kant, the leader of the agnostic idealist school, destroyed all hope of obtaining certain knowledge of objective reality. With telling cogency, he asserts the impossibility of establishing an objective demonstration of the existence of God. God, the supreme reality, lies beyond all human scientific knowledge, because such a being transcends the limited value of the Kantian principle of causality. It is obvious that, since Kant posited such an erroneous foundation for his thought, all his subsequent criticisms of the proofs of the existence of God are worthless. The reason is that they are vitiated by the subjective postulates which are the basis of his argumentation.

“It seems more than probable from reading his so-called destruction of the arguments of

the scholastic philosophers that Kant never knew or, at least, never understood the fundamental principles which underlie the Five Ways of St. Thomas… Let us recall the fundamental truths we learned in metaphysics and in the philosophy of man. These will suffice to indicate the dangerous error in Kant’s initial reflection which does away with the objectivity of knowledge.

“1. Being is intelligible. It is the adequate object of any intellect. “2. The object and not the knowing subject is the initial cause of human knowledge. “3. The intellect of man is the spiritual faculty of a spiritual principle, the soul. It is made

not merely to know material phenomena, but to understand being. From this understanding of being, the intellect of man is able to form the first metaphysical principles which flow necessarily from an analysis of being.

“4. The principle of causality transcends corporeal entities. Indeed, in the course of

metaphysics, we established its universality as well as its certitude from an analysis of limited being as such and not from an induction founded upon our experience of corporeal being.27

24 I. KANT, op. cit., I.III.1.-XXI, 27.16. 25 I. KANT, op. cit., I.IV.3-XXI, 48.4. 26 I. KANT, op. cit., VII.X.1-XXII, 118.4. 27 Two distinct questions arise regarding the principle of causality. The first is concerned with a psychological inference; the second deals with a metaphysical analysis. (1) The psychological problem is this: How and when do we arrive at our first knowledge of the principle of causality; how do we come to a first realization that every effect has a cause? We answer that, like all first principles, the principle of causality flows from the habit of principles. This knowledge is obtained by means of an induction which is almost immediate and which results from a personal experience. This realization may be called a quasi-intuition. (Cf. Tonquédec, La Critique de la Connaissance, p.

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“5. Applying the principle of causality to the consideration of a limited ‘to be,’ we are able to rise with metaphysical certitude to the affirmation of a cause that is ‘To Be.’

“To the query, ‘Can it be demonstrated that God exists?’ St. Thomas, to whom

subjectivism is identical with intellectual suicide, very simply answers: ‘When an effect is better known to us than its cause, from the effect we proceed to the knowledge of the cause. And from every effect the existence of its proper cause can be demonstrated so long as its effects are better known to us; because, since every effect depends upon its cause, if the effect exists, the cause must pre-exist.28 Hence the existence of God, in so far as it is not self-evident to us, can be demonstrated from those of His effects which are known to us.’29”30

249ff.) It is therefore common to all men who have reached the age of reason. The certitude obtained is sufficient for all practical purposes. (2) The philosopher then institutes an analysis of the principle thus obtained; he inquires into the certitude and the universality of this principle. This analysis is not from experience; it is not effected by means of an induction, but by a metaphysical deduction which results from the analysis of a being that is limited, composed, changeable. From such an analysis, we come to understand the absolute validity and universality of the principle of causality. For as we discovered in this analysis, the principle of causality is so linked up with the principle of contradiction that to limit it as Kant does to the world of phenomena is to deny the principle of contradiction; it is to deny all truth. 28 A proper cause is an existential cause. Consequently, the actual influx of the cause is necessary here and now for the existence of the effect. 29 Summa Theologiae, I, q. 2, a. 2, c. 30 H. RENARD, The Philosophy of God, Bruce, Milwaukee, 1952, pp. 14-16.