Kant on Christianity, religion and politics: Three hopes, three limits

Journal article


Insole, Christopher J.. (2016). Kant on Christianity, religion and politics: Three hopes, three limits. Studies in Christian Ethics. 29(1), pp. 14 - 33. https://doi.org/10.1177/0953946815611111
AuthorsInsole, Christopher J.
Abstract

This article makes two key claims in succession. First of all, Kant’s own religious hope is significantly and studiedly distanced from the traditions of Christianity that he would have received, in ways that have not yet been fully, or widely, appreciated. Kant makes an ideal moral community the object of our religious hopes, and not the transcendent God of the tradition. Secondly, Kant nonetheless has a notion of transcendence at play, but in a strikingly different key to traditional Christianity. Both concepts of transcendence, the Christian and the Kantian, deflate, in their own distinctive ways, our hopes for politics and history, in a way that can unsettle the certainties, and vanities, of both the traditional theologian and the secular Rawlsian. The Christian hope is not the same as Kant’s religious hope, which is distinct, in origin, depth and ambition from his more limited hope for politics.

KeywordsChristianity; history; hope; Kant; politics; progress; religion; theology
Year2016
JournalStudies in Christian Ethics
Journal citation29 (1), pp. 14 - 33
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc.
ISSN0953-9468
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1177/0953946815611111
Scopus EID2-s2.0-84964033702
Page range14 - 33
Research GroupInstitute for Religion and Critical Inquiry
Publisher's version
File Access Level
Controlled
Place of publicationUnited Kingdom
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