Kant’s Christ
Kant’s effort is to make an idea or an archetype out of Christ, so that it is pre-eminently “mankind (rational earthly existence in general) in its complete moral perfection“ through which all things are made, which has descended from heaven and dwells with us (in our “morally-legislative reason”). No actual instance of human moral perfection is necessary for the archetype to already press itself upon us. That’s not to say, of course, that it’s impossible that some man has been such an example—“as perfect an example of a man well-pleasing to God as one can expect to find in external experience (for be it remembered that the archetype of such a person is to be sought nowhere but in our own reason)”—but that even if there were, it would be morally speaking counter-productive to think of this man as anything but naturally begotten. If we imagine that he was supernaturally begotten, we can no longer have him as a moral example—since he possessed from the beginning a holy will more capable than ours of purity and obedience. The idea of one who empties himself of eminence might inspire gratitude, and he could even still be a model for us, but “he himself could not be represented to us as an example for our imitation, nor, consequently, as a proof of the feasibility and attainability for us of so pure and exalted a moral goodness.”
But (say I), one who comes to work for us, to do things on our behalf we ourselves could not do, can also be an example for our imitation if he gives us the (not merely natural) power to do so. “As the Father sent me, so I am sending you… Receive the Holy Spirit.” “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” The very Son of God can also be a moral exemplar because he is not merely a moral exemplar; he also frees us from the power of death by conquering death on the cross, and he gives us the Spirit to guide us into his perfection. Even the perfect obedience of Jesus was not a private accomplishment, but performed by virtue of his communion with the Father who sent him and by the Spirit’s power given him in his birth and baptism. Since Christ became flesh, we have also been sent; our flesh has also, through baptism, been made able to receive the Holy Spirit’s perfection.
8 July 2007 |
tags: Christology, Holy Spirit, Philosophy
![[RSS for this post]](/images/feed-icon-14x14.png){kind=icon}
Kant goes even further perhaps. It is not only that no instance of human moral perfection is necessary for the archetype to press itself upon us demanding the conformity of our own moral maxims, but it is only on account of such an a priori imperative that man is at all able to recognize moral perfection in another. This applies even to recognition of the God-man.
“Moreover, worse service cannot be rendered morality than that an attempt be made to derive it from examples. For every example of morality presented to me must itself first be judged according to principles of morality in order to see whether it is fit to serve as an original example, i.e., as a model. But in no way can it authoritatively furnish the concept of morality. Even the Holy One of the gospel must first be compared with our ideal of moral perfection before he is recognized as such.” — Kant, Groundwork 408,409.
as an interesting comparison:
“For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father in heaven.”
But the comparison perhaps ends there, for what has Rome to do with Königsberg?
afterthought: by suggesting a comparison I meant only that both German Idealism and Christianity see recognition of the Divine (or it’s deontologized equivalent) as being about more than mere empirical observation (albeit in very different ways). I guess this is nothing new though, as I would take it to be the subject matter of works at least as early as Plato’s Meno, and a frequently re-occuring problem throughout the history of philosophy (De Magistro, Summa, Meditations, Critique, Philosophical Fragments, etc.)