This book examines the transcendental dimension of Kant's philosophy as a positive resource for theology. Firestone shows that Kant's philosophy establishes three distinct grounds for transcendental theology and then evaluates the form and content of theology that emerges when Christian theologians adopt these grounds. To understand Kant's philosophy as a completed process, Firestone argues, theologians must go beyond the strictures of Kant's critical philosophy proper and consider in its fullness the transcendental significance of what Kant calls 'rational religious faith'. This movement takes us into the promising but highly treacherous waters of Kant's Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason to understand theology at the transcendental bounds of reason.

Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason is a key element of the system of philosophy which Kant introduced with his Critique of Pure Reason, and a work of major importance in the history of Western religious thought. It represents a great philosopher's attempt to spell out the form and content of a type of religion that would be grounded in moral reason and would meet the needs of ethical life. It includes sharply critical and boldly constructive discussions on topics not often treated by philosophers, including such traditional theological concepts as original sin and the salvation or 'justification' of a sinner, and the idea of the proper role of a church. This volume presents it and three short essays that illuminate it in new translations by Allen Wood and George di Giovanni, with an introduction by Robert Merrihew Adams that locates it in its historical and philosophical context.

Shedding new light on enlightenment and religion, this is an introduction to the influence of Kant's thoughts on theology and the response from theology.

Kant scholars and analytic philosophers use varied perspectives to address problems surrounding Kant's theories of God and religion.

This book examines the transcendental dimension of Kant's philosophy as a positive resource for theology. Firestone shows that Kant's philosophy establishes three distinct grounds for transcendental theology and then evaluates the form and content of theology that emerges when Christian theologians adopt these grounds. To understand Kant's philosophy as a completed process, Firestone argues, theologians must go beyond the strictures of Kant's critical philosophy proper and consider in its fullness the transcendental significance of what Kant calls 'rational religious faith'. This movement takes us into the promising but highly treacherous waters of Kant's Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason to understand theology at the transcendental bounds of reason.

Presenting new opportunities in the dialogue between philosophy and theology, this interdisciplinary text addresses the contemporary reshaping of intellectual boundaries. Exploring human experience in a ’post-Christian’ era, the distinguished contributors bring to bear what have been traditionally seen as theological resources while drawing on contemporary developments in philosophy, both ’continental’ and ’analytic’. Set in the context of two complementary narratives - one philosophical concerning secularity, the other theological about the question of God - the authors point to ways of reconfiguring both traditional reason / faith oppositions and those between interpretation / text and language / experience. Contributors: David Brown, Philip Clayton, Chris Firestone, Grace Jantzen, Nicholas Lash, George Pattison, Dan Stiver, Charles Taylor, Kevin Vanhoozer, Graham Ward, Martin Warner.

Kant's Religion Within The Bounds of Mere Reason was written late in his life, following his most famous works including Critique of Pure Reason and Groundwork of Metaphysics of Morals. In it he considers the consequences of transcendental criticism for theology. Kant identifies a moral core to the Christian faith and asserts that because of that core and because the faith contains a principle for dispensing with the morally extraneous statutes and history associated with it, this faith can count as a moral, world religion. Seen by most philosophers and theologians as one of the most significant texts by this world famous philosopher, understanding is crucial for completion of any basic theology or philosophical qualification.

Throughout his career, Kant engaged with many of the fundamental questions in philosophy of religion: arguments for the existence of God, the soul, the problem of evil, and the relationship between moral belief and practice. Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason is his major work on the subject. This book offers a complete and internally cohesive interpretation of Religion. In contrast to more reductive interpretations, as well as those that characterize Religion as internally inconsistent, Lawrence R. Pasternack defends the rich philosophical theology contained in each of Religion’s four parts, and shows how the doctrines of the "Pure Rational System of Religion" are eminently compatible with the essential principles of Transcendental Idealism. The book also presents and assesses: the philosophical background to Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason the ideas and arguments of the text the continuing importance of Kant’s work to philosophy of religion today.

Kant is a key thinker in the emergence of our contemporary sense of what 'human freedom' is, and why it is important. This book shows that important features of Kant's philosophy were forged out of difficulties he had in reconciling his belief in God as creator with the concept of human freedom.

The book offers a definitive study of the development of Kant's conception of the highest good, from his earliest work, to his dying days. Insole argues that Kant believes in God, but that Kant is not a Christian, and that this opens up an important and neglected dimension of Western Philosophy. Kant is not a Christian, because he cannot accept Christianity's traditional claims about the relationship between divine action, grace, human freedom and happiness. Christian theologians who continue to affirm these traditional claims (and many do), therefore have grounds to be suspicious of Kant as an interpreter of Christian doctrine. As well as setting out a theological critique of Kant, Insole offers a new defence of the power, beauty, and internal coherence of Kant's non-Christian philosophical religiosity, 'within the limits of reason alone', which reason itself has some divine features. This neglected strand of philosophical religiosity deserves to be engaged with by both philosophers, and theologians. The Kant revealed in this book reminds us of a perennial task of philosophy, going back to Plato, where philosophy is construed as a way of life, oriented towards happiness, achieved through a properly expansive conception of reason and happiness. When we understand this philosophical religiosity, many standard 'problems' in the interpretation of Kant can be seen in a new light, and resolved. Kant witnesses to a strand of philosophy that leans into the category of the divine, at the edges of what we can say about reason, freedom, autonomy, and happiness.