Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone

by Immanuel Kant (1793)

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

…

        But although for its own sake morality needs no representation of an end which must precede the determining of the will, 

it is quite possible that it is necessarily related to such an end, taken not as the ground but as the [sum of] inevitable consequences

 of maxims adopted as conformable to that end. For in the absence of all reference to an end no determination of the will can take place 

in man, since such determination cannot be followed by no effect whatever; and the representation of the effect must be capable of being 

accepted, not, indeed, as the basis for the determination of the will and as an end antecedently aimed at, but yet as an end conceived of 

as the result ensuing from the will's determination through the law (finis in consequentiam veniens). Without an end of this sort a will,

 envisaging to itself no definite goal for a contemplated act, either objective or subjective (which it has, or ought to have, in view), 

is indeed informed as to how it ought to act, but not whither, and so can achieve no satisfaction. It is true, therefore, that morality 

requires no end for right conduct; the law, which contains the formal condition of the use of freedom in general, suffices. Yet an end 

does arise out of morality; for how the question, What is to result from this right conduct of ours? is to be answered, and towards what,

 as an end--even granted it may not be wholly subject to our control--we might direct our actions and abstentions so as at least to be in

 harmony with that end: these cannot possibly be matters of indifference to reason. Hence the end is no more than an idea of an object

 which takes the formal condition of all such ends as we ought to have (duty) and combines it with whatever is conditioned, and in harmony

 with duty, in all the ends which we do have (happiness proportioned to obedience to duty)--that is to say, the idea of a highest good in 

the world for whose possibility we must postulate a higher, moral, most holy, and omnipotent Being which alone can unite the two elements 

of this highest good. Yet (viewed practically) this idea is not an empty one, for it does meet our natural need to conceive of some sort of 

final end for all our actions and abstentions, taken as a whole, an end which can be justified by reason and the absence of which would be a 

hindrance to moral decision. 

        Most important of all, however, this idea arises out of morality and is not its basis; it is an end the adoption of which as one's own 

presupposes basic ethical principles. Therefore it cannot be a matter of unconcern to morality as to whether or not it forms for itself the 

concept of a final end of all things (harmony with which, while not multiplying men's duties, yet provides them with a special point of focus 

for the unification of all ends); for only thereby can objective, practical reality be given to the union of the purposiveness arising from 

freedom with the purposiveness of nature, a union with which we cannot possibly dispense. Take a man who, honoring the moral law, allows the

 thought to occur to him (he can scarcely avoid doing so) of what sort of world he would create, under the guidance of practical reason, were

 such a thing in his power, a world into which, moreover, he would place himself as a member. He would not merely make the very choice which 

is determined by that moral idea of the highest good, were he vouchsafed solely the right to choose; he would also will that[such] a world 

should by all means come into existence (because the moral law demands that the highest good possible through our agency should be realized) 

and he would so will even though, in accordance with this idea, he saw himself in danger of paying in his own person a heavy price in 

happiness--it being possible that he might not be adequate to the [moral] demands of the idea, demands which reason lays down as conditioning

 happiness. Accordingly he would feel compelled by reason to avow this judgment with complete impartiality, as though it were rendered by 

another and yet, at the same time, as his own; whereby man gives evidence of the need, morally effected in him, of also conceiving a final 

end for his duties, as their consequence.

        Morality thus leads ineluctably to religion, through which it extends itself to the idea of a powerful moral Lawgiver, outside of 

mankind, for Whose will that is the final end (of creation) which at the same time can and ought to be man's final end.

        If morality finds in the holiness of its law an object of the greatest respect, then at the level of religion it presents the

 ultimate cause, which consummates those laws, as an object of adoration and thus appears in its majesty. But anything, even the most 

sublime, dwindles under the hands of men when they turn the idea of it to their own use. What can truly be venerated only so far as respect 

for it is free must adapt itself to those forms which can be rendered authoritative only by means of coercive laws; and what of its own accord

 exposes itself to the public criticism of everyone must submit itself to a criticism which has power, i.e., a censorship.

        Meanwhile, since the command, Obey the authorities! is also moral, and since obedience to it, as to all injunctions of duty, can 

be drawn into religion, it is fitting that a treatise which is dedicated to the definite concept of religion should itself present an 

example of this obedience, which, however, can be evinced not through attention merely to law in the form of a single state regulation and 

blindness with respect to every other, but only through combined respect for all [regulations] taken together.

        Now the theologian who passes on books can be appointed either as one who is to care for the soul's welfare alone or as one who is 

also to care for the welfare of the sciences; the first judge is 

appointed merely as a divine; the second, as a scholar also. It rests with the second, as a member of a public institution to which (under 

the name of a university) all the sciences are entrusted for cultivation and defense against interference, to limit the usurpations of the 

first by the stipulation that his censorship shall create no disturbance in the field of the sciences. And when both judges are Biblical 

theologians, the superior censorship will pertain to the second as a member of the university and as belonging to the faculty 

which has been charged with the treatment of this theology: for, as regards the first concern (the welfare of souls), both have a mandate 

alike; but, as regards the second (the welfare of the sciences), the theologian in his capacity as university scholar has, in addition, a 

special function to perform. If we depart from this rule things must finally come to the pass to which they came of yore (for example, 

at the time of Galileo), where the Biblical theologian, in order to humble the pride of the sciences and to spare himself labor in 

connection with them, might actually venture an invasion into astronomy, or some other science, as for example the ancient history of the

 earth, and -- like those tribes who, finding that they do not have either the means or the resolution sufficient to defend themselves 

against threatened attacks, transform all about them into a wilderness -- might arrest all the endeavors of human reason.

        Among the sciences, however, there is, over and against Biblical theology, a philosophical theology, which is an estate entrusted

 to another faculty. So long as this philosophical theology remains within the limits of reason alone, and for the confirmation and 

exposition of its propositions makes use of history, sayings, books of all peoples, even the Bible, but only for itself, without wishing to 

carry these propositions into Biblical theology or to change the latter's public doctrines -- a privilege of divines -- it must have complete 

freedom to expand as far as its science reaches. And although the right of censorship of the theologian (regarded merely as a divine) cannot 

be impugned when it has been shown that the philosopher has really overstepped his limits and committed trespass upon theology, yet, 

the instant this is in doubt and a question arises whether, in writing or in some other public utterance of the philosopher, this trespass 

has indeed occurred, the superior censorship can belong only to the Biblical theologian, and to him as a member of his faculty; for he has 

been assigned to care for the second interest of the commonwealth, namely, the prosperity of the sciences, and has been appointed just as 

legally as has the other [the theologian regarded as a divine].

        And under such circumstances it is indeed to this faculty and not to the philosophical that the ultimate censorship belongs; for the 

former alone is privileged in respect of certain doctrines, while the latter investigates its doctrines freely and openly; hence only the 

former can enter a complaint that its exclusive rights have been violated. But despite the approximation of the two bodies of doctrine to one 

another and the anxiety lest the philosophical faculty overstep its limits, doubt relating to such trespass is easily prevented if it is 

borne in mind that the mischief occurs not through the philosopher's borrowing something from Biblical theology, in order to use it for his 

purpose -- even granting that the philosopher uses what he borrows from it in a meaning suited to naked reason but perhaps not pleasing to 

his theology-- but only so far as he imports something into it and thereby seeks to direct it to ends other than those which its own economy 

sanctions. For Biblical theology will itself not want to deny that it contains a great deal in common with the teachings of unassisted reason 

and, in addition, much that belongs to historical and philological lore, and that it is subject to the censorship of these [disciplines].

        Thus, for example, we cannot say that the teacher of natural rights, who borrows many a classical expression and formula for his 

philosophical doctrine of rights from the codex of the Romans, thereby trespasses -- even if, as often happens, he does not employ them in 

exactly the same sense in which, according to the expositors of Roman Law, they were to be taken -- so long as he does not wish jurists proper, 

and even the courts of law, also to use them thus. For were that not within his competence, we could, conversely, accuse the Biblical theologian 

or the statutory jurist of trespassing countless times on the province of philosophy, because both must borrow from philosophy very often, 

though only to mutual advantage, since neither can dispense with reason, nor, where science is concerned, with philosophy. Were Biblical 

theology to determine, wherever possible, to have nothing to do with reason in things religious, we can easily foresee on which side would 

be the loss; for a religion which rashly declares war on reason will not be able to hold out in the long run against it.

        I will even venture to ask whether it would not be beneficial,upon completion of the academic instruction in Biblical theology, always 

to add, by way of conclusion, as necessary to the complete equipment of the candidate, a special course of lectures on the purely philosophical 

theory of religion (which avails itself of everything, including the Bible), with such a book as this, perhaps, as the text (or any other, 

if a better one of the same kind can be found). For the sciences derive pure benefit from separation, so far as each first constitutes a whole 

by itself; and not until they are so constituted should the attempt be made to survey them in combination. Let the Biblical theologian, then, 

be at one with the philosopher, or let him believe himself obliged to refute him, if only he hears him. Only thus can he be forearmed against 

all the difficulties which the philosopher might make for him. To conceal these, or indeed to decry them as ungodly, is a paltry device which 

does not stand the test; while to mix the two -- the Biblical theologian, for his part, casting but an occasional fleeting glance at 

philosophy -- is to lack thoroughness, with the result that in the end no one really knows how he stands towards the theory of religion as a whole.

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