ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the dilemma that moral reconstruction poses for Immanuel Kant on two fronts. The paradox of atonement is that real repentance seems to require that the self that recognizes its guilt be both morally identical and yet radically distinct from the self that has transgressed. In a world considered as a totality of rational beings, there is also a totality of morally practical Reason, and consequently of an imperative Right and therewith also a God. By presenting autonomy as a quality that both “always already” and “never yet” characterizes the human will, Kant seems to offer the beginnings of a new way of understanding the Postulates of Pure Practical reason. Kant’s ideal of moral perfection is to be found not in God, but in the image of Christ. Kant resolves the paradoxes of human moral reconstruction by appeal to the grace of God.
