Book Review: Kant and the Creation of Freedom: A Theological Problem

Kant and the Creation of Freedom: A Theological Problem. By Christopher J. Insole. Changing Paradigms in Historical and Systematic Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. xiv + 264 pp. $125.00 (cloth).In this clear and well-organized volume, Insole argues that Kant's critical project was, in part, generated by an "irreducibly theological" problem (p. 1). How can we coherently explain human freedom, given the assertion that human beings are created by God?Chapters 2 through 5 provide the core exposition of Insole's exegetical claim. Kant's view of divine freedom, despite shifting epistemic status, is constant across the pre-critical and critical periods. Like Anselm, in Kants view "Gods perfect freedom is compatible with God being unable to do other than the good" (p. 26), where God is constrained by the moral-metaphysical necessities internal to God's own nature. Kant, Insole remarks, has a positive and teleological conception of freedom simpliciter "in his bones ... where what matters for freedom is that an agent wills the good" (p. 57).Kant's view of what constitutes meaningful human freedom continues to develop throughout his life. Originally a compatibilist, Insole argues, Kant comes to believe that human freedom requires both ultimate responsibility and the ability to do otherwise (although this later "feature" of freedom is conceived of as a human failing). By Insole's reading, transcendental idealism develops to protect the possibility of human freedom from physical determinism Newtonian science demands while protecting divine impassability from emanationism. Kant, Insole notes, comes to distinguish between human dependence on God (which does not threaten freedom) and human dependence on other created substances (which does). The possibility of meaningful human freedom, ultimately realized in the Kingdom of Ends in Kant's mature view, is where the noumenal self is dependent upon God alone, who enables reciprocal and nondependent interaction within a community of noumenal selves.Insole anticipates and replies to objections to more controversial aspects of this eonstrual of Kant. He addresses atemporal noumenal first causation and the inexplicability of the origins of evil when human freedom is construed as outside of space-time (chap. 6), and worries about the status of the Kant's belief in God after 1770 (chap. 7). These are significant obstacles, but Insole presents his case in a clear and well-cited way and even those who are not convinced by his reading will find Insole an articulate and well-versed opponent.In the last three chapters, Insole turns to a fuller theological evaluation of Kant's mature position on divine-human interaction. Insole recites the well-established evaluation that Kant's rational theology is hamstrung by the limits Kant's epistemic discipline places on grace and atonement. Furthermore, Insole argues that Kant highlights "the problem with the problem" (p. 226) when Insole considers what more can be known or hoped about divine action than creation and conservation, given Kant's articulation of human freedom within transcendental idealism. The argument between concurrentism and mere conservation stems from concerns about the metaphysical possibility of meaningful human causality of events which are directly and sufficiently caused by divine agency. …