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German Developments

The Idealist Legacy

Although critical of the idea of revelation and concrete forms of traditional religious practice, the father of German idealism Emmanuel Kant (1724-1804) is not generally regarded as an atheist in the strict sense. However, Kant's strong criticism of prudential forms of religious morality together with his rejection of the possibility of the main traditional metaphysical proofs for God's existence have led some to see him as generally anti-religious,[1] while others have seen him as trying to make room for religion beyond traditional metaphysics by basing reasons for belief in God on what Kant called 'moral faith'.[2]

According to Kant, we can only properly speaking have knowledge about spatiotemporal objects of experience - what lies beyond these falls outside the powers of human reason. This amounts to neither an affirmation nor a denial of God's existence, but in Kant's view it did invalidate a priori the main traditional metaphysical proofs of his existence. In their place he developed a moral argument for God's existence (and the soul's immortality). Kant claimed that we pursue the 'highest good' as the object of our moral or (in his own terms) 'practical' use of reason, and he defined the highest good as necessarily including happiness, but Kant was also aware that leading a virtuous moral life did not necessarily lead our happiness. Doing the right thing morally often leads to our unhappiness - indeed, according to Kant, acting out of purely moral reasons involves us bracketing aside any thoughts about their possible efficacy in producing happiness for us.

Since doubts about the efficiency of properly moral behaviour in producing happiness and the possibility of realising a perfect moral will (Kant's 'holy will') within an ordinary human lifetime might undermine motivation to lead a properly moral life, Kant insisted on the principle that our 'practical' (or moral) reason cannot require the impossible from us. Therefore we must be capable of achieving the highest good, and this can be the case if the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are assumed. On this reasoning the latter two claims are not theoretically proven (as with the traditional metaphysical proofs) but rather postulated as an article of 'moral faith'. This justifies us in supposing that we will have an eternal life - brought about by God - within which we can pursue the achievable goal of a perfect moral will.[3]

Kant's ideas were critically assimilated and taken further by his students Fichte (1762-1814), Hegel (1770-1831), and Schelling (1775-1854), and the traditions of German Idealism which resulted were and still are interpreted by many commentators as atheistic systems. The contemporary French historian of atheism, George Minois, however, claims that the first great atheistic system after the Enlightenment was that of Hegel.[4] Hegel himself would deny that his system was atheistic, and so would numerous (although by no means all) commentators. Bruno Bauer, one of the most famous of these, claimed that Hegel's philosophy is deceitful: according to Bauer, Hegel swallows up religion into a philosophical pantheism (i.e., atheism). In rationalising traditional religious dogma, Hegel denatures it to such an extent that he effectively destroys it, and eliminates the transcendent dimension in religion.[5] In Hegel's hands, the traditional dogmas become myths, and Christianity is reinterpreted as a mythical form of a representation of the Absolute.

What is undisputed, however, is that Hegel's system made possible the atheistic anthropological theology of Feuerbach (1804-1872), the mythological 'Life of Jesus' [Leben Jesu] history of Strauss (1808-1874), the egoistic solipsism of Max Stirner (1806-1856), and Marx (1818-1883) and Engels' (1820-1895) 'ideological' explanation of religion. Hegel, if himself not atheist, can thus nevertheless plausibly be interpreted as the (indirect, and perhaps unintentional) begetter of German atheism.

References

Collins, James. The Emergence of Philosophy of Religion. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967.
Minois, Georges. Histoire de L'atheisme. La Fleche: Fayard, 1998. Rossi, Philip. "Kant's Philosophy of Religion." In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ed Edward N. Zalta. Place Published, 2005.
Walsh, W. H. "Kant, Immanuel: Philosophy of Religion." In The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed Paul Edwards. Place Published: Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc. & The Free Press, 1967.

Bibliography

Footnotes

[1]↑ See for example W. H. Walsh. "Kant, Immanuel: Philosophy of Religion." In The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed Paul Edwards. (Place Published: Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc. & The Free Press, 1967.
[2]↑ See for example James Collins, The Emergence of Philosophy of Religion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967).
[3]↑See Philip Rossi. "Kant's Philosophy of Religion." In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ed Edward N. Zalta. (Place Published, 2005), Online entry., sections 3.2-3.5.
[4]↑ See Georges Minois, Histoire de L'atheisme (La Fleche: Fayard, 1998), 493ff.
[5]↑ Ibid., 493.

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