Explain and discuss Kant's attempted refutation of the Ontological Argument for the existence of God

17. Explain and discuss Kant's attempted refutation of the Ontological Argument for the existence of God.

Kant begins his attempt on the presupposition that (1) God is a thing; (2)we have just empirical intuitions of things, and if we don’t it is impossible to think a thing into existence, or logic is always abstract from existence or reality. The predicate of being is illegitimate. The contradiction may arises only if the thing with its predicates is given, but if we cancel the existence of a thing all its predicates are automatically cancelled. God does possess the predicate of the greatest, but this predicate exists only as far the concept of God is posited. It the latter is cancelled, the former is cancelled too without a contradiction. Hence, the ontological argument is a tautological one, because it proves what was already presupposed…

We can doubt (1), saying God is not a thing, not anything like we encounter in sensual experience. It is the greatest in transcendental sense. Also we can doubt (2), and say: we possibly can have non-empirical intuitions, which are transcendent to our regular ones. Still, those transcendent intuitions deal with different kind of reality, or existence, beyond the realm of physical senses.

In this case Kant’s noumena becomes Knowable to us when ever we have those transcendental intuitions, which are usually inaccessible for the majority of us, and that is why we need proofs of logic.

We can also say: “God being transcendental sometimes projects Himself as a phenomenon, in order for those without developed transcendental intuition to perceive His at least in this reduced fashion”. At those times He is given even in empirical intuition and is not just an empty concept.

But can we (on the condition of these) prove the possibility of the ontological argument and save it from Kant’s critique? I think it is worth a try. I already wrote on the subject before, and believe, can do more and better, but it will be in some other essay, because the limits of this one are already overstretched.

18. Critics of Kant say that while Hume awakened him from his dogmatic slumbers, the moral argument for God and immortality [in either the second Critique or in the Canon of Pure Reason in the first Critique, culminating in A815/B843] shows him returning comfortably to that sleep. Is that fair? Does Kant’s distinction between an “immanent” and a “transcendent” moral theology [Cf. A819/B847] provide an answer to such a critic?

It is not a precise question, because it does not state what kind of critics are those and what are their favorite conception of Hume. Also, it presupposes that Hume himself was not dogmatic, which is at least not obvious. We could also question Kant’s possible dogmatism even before that chapter on the Cannon of Pure Reason. But anyway, we could speculate in general and give an answer as good or bad as the question itself is.

Hume was an empiricist which with his skepticism brought the empiricism itself to a ridicules position, but his reasoning looked consistent, powerful and impressive to many and Kant himself. It was also offensive toward contemporary dogmatic philosophy and theology. But the point is that before and after Hume was a believer “in the name of Fact” as C. Dickens put it:

Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. . . . Stick to Facts, sir!” (Charles Dickens, Hard Times, Chapter I)

Baconian method impressed so many, that Hume and others started to apply it to all human knowledge and understanding. Kant was also excited, but could not remain blind to the ridicules paradoxes of that kind of philosophy, its incapability to answer certain questions, particularly, how it is that contingent world of experience allows apodictic laws of science and pure mathematical certainty, how experience itself can be possible without presupposing the unity of apperception, etc.

Kant surely appreciated empirical knowledge and even set the limitations for pure reason, which made him awake for empiricists. But they could not forgive Kant serious speculation on any possible valid knowledge about “the freedom of the will, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of God” (A798). They loved Kant’s confession that “it is humiliating for human reason that it accomplishes nothing in its pure use…” (A795), but hated his “final aim to which in the end the speculation of reason in its transcendental use is directed…”(A798). So they went ad hominem and claimed that Kant was “returning comfortably to that sleep”.

Kant’s argument for God’s existence is based on the validity for reason of the ideas of happiness, worthiness, freedom, and purpose. All those are applicable to the sensual world in a certain sense, but form moral laws which transcend its causality. The moral laws command us to freely choose certain actions in the world which would make us worthy of happiness desired by us. ”Do that through which you will become worthy to be happy” (A809).

Appealing “to the moral judgment of every human being” Kant says: “Pure reason thus contains – not in its speculative use, to be sure, but yet in a certain practical use, namely the moral use – principles of a possibility of experience, namely of those actions in conformity with moral precepts… since they command that those actions ought to happen, they must also be able to happen” (A807) He points to the history full of facts of moral behavior making his assertion stronger. “The idea of moral world thus has objective reality, not if it pertained to an object of an intelligible intuition, but as pertaining to the sensible world, although as an object of pure reason in its practical use and a corpus mysticum of the rational beings in it, insofar as their free choice under moral laws has thoroughgoing systematic unity in itself as well as with the freedom of everyone else” (A808.)

The very existence of such presented morality “cannot be cognized through reason if it is grounded merely in nature, but may be hoped for only if it is at the same time grounded on a highest reason, which commands in accordance with moral laws, as at the same time the cause of nature”(A810). Kant calls that idea of such intelligence the ideal of the highest good. Only in this can pure reason find the ground for the practically necessary connection of both elements of the highest derived good, i.e., moral world. Thus God and the future life are two presuppositions that pure reason imposes on us in accordance with its principles.

I think that Kant fairly produces his argument for the existence of God and immortality from the observed morality. If this is dogmatic what isn’t? Hence the critique of his opponents is unfair. In addition he says in A819: “So fat as practical reason has the right to lead us, we will not hold actions to be obligatory because they are God’s commands, but will rather regard them as divine commands because we are internally obligated to them”. For Kant “moral theology is only of immanent use, namely for fulfilling our vocation here in the world by fitting into the system of all ends, nor for fanatically . . . abandoning the guidance of a morally legislative reason . . . . a transcendental use, like the use of mere speculation, must pervert and frustrate the ultimate ends of reason”. So reason is still the judge and its laws are valuable and should not be ignored.