Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason

XIII
Introduction.

(1755), the entire first part of which (Philosophical Library Vol. 48, pp. 7–12) is dedicated to showing the harmony between the author's system and religion, specifically because in his view "after the mist has been dispersed, the glory of the highest Being breaks forth with the most vivid radiance." Here he still recognizes the value of the physico-theological proof A traditional argument for the existence of God based on the evidence of design and order in the physical universe., but he believes that the "defenders of religion" and "advocates of faith"—one of whom he depicts disputing with a "free-thinker" and a "naturalist"—were "accustomed to using it in a poor manner." The theories of Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucretius, to which his own was related, by no means had to lead to the denial of God. On the contrary, "there is a God precisely because nature, even in chaos, cannot proceed in any way other than regularly": a thought which the important eighth chapter of the work later explains in more detail. The principle of his later Criticism original: "Kritizismus." Kant’s later philosophical system that separates what we can know through science from what we must believe through faith.—the clean separation of knowledge and faith—is already noticeable here. In the field of natural science, the strictly mechanical view is valid; beyond that, however, space remains for the religious view.

2. Less important for us is the Latin-written Habilitation thesis A high-level academic thesis required in Germany to qualify for a professorship. from the same year: A New Elucidation original: "Nova dilucidatio." Full title: Principiorum primorum cognitionis metaphysicae nova dilucidatio (A New Elucidation of the First Principles of Metaphysical Cognition). etc. It does indeed deal in several places with the existence of God as the "absolutely necessary principle of all possibility," with the relationship of divine "foresight" to human free will, and seeks to justify the deity regarding the evil in the world, but it does so in such a logical-dogmatic manner that no further conclusions can be drawn from it regarding the author's personal religious development. None, at least, other than that—despite occasional polemics on specific points—he still resides by and large within the tracks of the dominant Wolffian school The rationalist school of philosophy founded by Christian Wolff, which dominated German universities in the mid-18th century.. The simultaneous lectures on logic (1755/6) show a similar picture, except that a number of examples are also borrowed from the tenets of church dogma.