Thursday, May 23, 2019

How does Kant support God’s existence? Essay

Immanuel Kant feels that no-one, human or otherwise, can know that God exists. This is imputable to various flaws and necessities for humanity. For one, when we cannot open an a posteriori proof for Gods existence due to the fact that it is completely dependent on our personal experience of the world and, in that respectfore, our senses. This is not to be relied upon as we can n invariably see the world for what it real is lone(prenominal) what it appears to us. Kant names the real world, the world we cannot see, the Noumenal World. The world which we perceive through our senses is known to him as the Phenomenal World. The Phenomenal World is the way it is as we cannot do but see the world in a spatio-temporal state of mind, as we ar spatio-temporal beings ourselves.The Noumenal World is inexperienceable to us because it really is completely unknowable. Therefore, we cannot know Gods existence as we cannot make correct a posteriori arguments for it, due to our biased and incorr ect perception of the world around us. However, Kant also feels that God must evermore remain a necessary postulate of practical reason. This means that although we cannot, in any way, prove Gods existence, the world will only ever make sense if we postulate, or assume, that God exists. Kant also felt that Gods existence is beyond the experience of our five senses, and so we cannot ever know that He exists through either our senses and, through them, our mind. It is amongst these principles that Kants moral argument for the existence of God is based.Kants argument for the existence of God is as follows firstly, it must be understood that the aim of all morality is the Summum Bonum, or the highest good. This highest good is both(prenominal) moral perfection and perfect happiness. For the Summum Bonum to be achieved, these must both be present, as one cannot be without the other. Morality, a universal concept, demands of us that we must aim for this Summum Bonum. We must all strive to be perfectly good, take up moral perfection and the perfect happiness. However, we cannot possibly achieve this ultimate good. This is due to the fact that we are flawed, weak and contingent beings, prone to mistakes and filled with imperfections. Although we may be able to strive towards virtue in our thought and conduct, we cannot achieve true happiness along with it to ensure perfection. We cannot achieve what we deserve for our efforts because we are not omnipotent.Therefore, we cannot go for to achieve this Summum Bonum. However, in Kants point of view, ought implies can. This means that if we are obliged to achieve the Summum Bonum, or highest good, then it must mean that it is achievable. Kant says it is a demand connected with duty as a requisite to presuppose the possibility of this highest good. This means that because we are required by our sense of duty to gauge to bring about the Highest Good, it must, therefore, be a possibility it must be attainable. However, t his poses a natural contradiction we cannot possibly hope to do something, and yet we are expected to do it, because we can. This means that we cannot achieve this ultimate good alone, but we must have outside help, from an external and omnipotent agency, or God. We also have an unlimited time to achieve this good in, immortality, which gives way to a definite afterlife. Therefore, Kant concludes, it is morally necessary to assume the existence of God.In this argument, there are two major assumptions upon which the argument rests upon. These are that, firstly, there is an absolute moral order within the world. This is shown to us through both the Bible and perform teachings. Another of the major assumptions is that we, humanity as a whole, are responsible to some transcendent self, in our unconsciousness. This means that we do not feel guilt, do to morality, to our superior, equals or inferiors in society. Rather, all our guilt is towards God. We all account towards him.Therefore, although Kant feels that we cannot possibly prove Gods existence, he feels that His existence must be a necessary postulate for the world to make sense. He, therefore, doesnt necessarily make sense of Gods existence and support it employ his moral argument, but, instead, he uses it to make sense of, and support, morality and why it exists. He had no intention of ever arguing towards the existence of God. Instead he vehemently opposed it, using our senses as our drawback in our arguments.

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