ABSTRACT
Kant’s view of God’s nature is, to a large extent, patterned after his view of human nature. Some commentators regard this theory of intuitive understanding, or intellectual intuition, as ‘Kant’s conception of God in its profoundest form’. But it actually just skims the surface of his theology. Kant limits the scope of his theological reflection to ‘philosophical’ or ‘rational’ as opposed to ‘revealed’ theology. He never denies the legitimacy of the latter, but regards it as lying outside the boundaries of the Critical philosopher’s proper field of inquiry. Theology, indeed, can contain speculative elements, but to religion these must remain foreign.’ The proposition ‘there is a God’, Kant tells us at the very outset of his earliest excursion into theology, is ‘the most important of all our cognitions.’ Kant’s most positive contribution to rational theology thus consists, as we shall see in the remainder of this chapter, in his construction of various rational, analogical models for God’s nature.
