Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason

XVII

will allow to occur. To want to know the manner in which he would carry this out would be inquisitiveness, even presumption. Miracles and mysteries may have been necessary at the time of the first spreading of Christianity; now that the building stands, the scaffolding must fall away. I cannot base the salvation of my soul on uncertain historical reports to which I am not chronologically close enough "to make such dangerous and bold decisions." For Kant "freely admits: that regarding historical matters, our New Testament writings can never be brought to such authority that we might dare to entrust ourselves to every line of them with unmeasured confidence." Religious delusion original: "Religionswahn." Kant used this term to describe the mistake of prioritizing ritual and dogma over moral action. consists in "ceremonial acts of worship (observances)," "confessions of faith," and the "invocation of holy names"; religion, on the other hand, in which the true salvation of humanity lies, consists in the "purity of our disposition" original: "Reinigkeit unserer Gesinnung." In Kantian ethics, the "disposition" or "intent" behind an action is more important than the action itself. and the "conscientiousness of a good life." Even the apostles, to be sure, had already "taken the auxiliary doctrine of the Gospel as the fundamental doctrine" and, "instead of praising the holy teacher's practical religious doctrine as the essential thing, they praised the worship of this teacher himself and a kind of seeking of favor through flattery and praise-singing of him, against which that teacher had spoken so emphatically and often."

The following draft of a letter, which is intended to provide a supplement to the first "interrupted" correspondence—and which, by the way, remained a fragment—only carries these same thoughts further. The Gospel is not the foundation, but serves only to strengthen my (moral) faith. That which I am duty-bound to do must be clearly separated from what God perhaps does for my benefit. No book and no revelation occurring to me personally can impose anything on me as religion that has not already become a duty for me through the holy law within me...

In addition to these letters to Lavater, another letter from March 28, 1776, to the director of the Dessau Philanthropinum A famous reformist school in Germany founded on Enlightenment principles, emphasizing "philanthropy" (love of mankind) and practical moral education rather than traditional rote learning., Christian Heinrich Wolke, is also highly interesting for our topic, including from a pedagogical perspective,