Kant's Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant's 1793 Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone argues that the New Testament teaches a hermeneutic strategy in which "not scriptural scholarship but the pure religion of reason must be the law's interpreter."Book IV, Part 1, Section 1, “The Christian religion as a natural religion,” as translated by Theodore M. Greene[Jesus] claims that not the observance of outer civil or statutory churchly duties but the pure moral disposition of the heart alone can make man well-pleasing to God (Mt 5:20-48); … that injury done one’s neighbor can be repaired only through satisfaction rendered to the neighbor himself, not through acts of divine worship (Mt 5:24). Thus, he says, does he intend to do full justice to the Jewish law (Mt 5:17); whence it is obvious that not scriptural scholarship but the pure religion of reason must be the law’s interpreter, for taken according to the letter, it allowed the very opposite of all this.Book IV, Part 1, Section 1The Old Testament was interpreted by the Pharisees as a statutory religion . Kant claims that the New Testament intends to replace statutory religion with a "moral religion," which combines all duties into a single universal rule, "Love thy neighbor as thyself."Book IV, Part 1, Section 1Whatever, over and above good life-conduct, man fancies that he can do to become well-pleasing to God is mere religious delusion.Book IV, Part 2, Section 2Such delusions, Kant argues, must be abandoned to fulfill the New Testament's demand for a rational religion.
Kant's Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant's 1793 Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone argues that the New Testament teaches a hermeneutic strategy in which "not scriptural scholarship but the pure religion of reason must be the law's interpreter."Book IV, Part 1, Section 1, “The Christian religion as a natural religion,” as translated by Theodore M. Greene[Jesus] claims that not the observance of outer civil or statutory churchly duties but the pure moral disposition of the heart alone can make man well-pleasing to God (Mt 5:20-48); … that injury done one’s neighbor can be repaired only through satisfaction rendered to the neighbor himself, not through acts of divine worship (Mt 5:24). Thus, he says, does he intend to do full justice to the Jewish law (Mt 5:17); whence it is obvious that not scriptural scholarship but the pure religion of reason must be the law’s interpreter, for taken according to the letter, it allowed the very opposite of all this.Book IV, Part 1, Section 1Kant understood the Pharisees to have interpreted the Old Testament as a statutory religion , and he claims that the New Testament intends to replace statutory religion with a "moral religion," which combines all duties into a single universal rule, "Love thy neighbor as thyself."Book IV, Part 1, Section 1Whatever, over and above good life-conduct, man fancies that he can do to become well-pleasing to God is mere religious delusion.Book IV, Part 2, Section 2Such delusions, Kant argues, must be abandoned to fulfill the New Testament's demand for a rational religion.
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