General Remark on Teleology
Original German
Allgemeine Anmerkung zur Teleologie. 475
Wenn die Frage ist: welchen Rang das moralische Argument, welches das Dasein Gottes nur als Glaubenssache für die praktische reine Vernunft beweiset, unter den übrigen in der Philosophie behaupte: so läßt sich der ganze Besitz dieser letzteren leicht überschlagen, wo es sich dann ausweiset, daß hier nicht zu wählen sei, sondern ihr theoretisches Vermögen vor einer unparteiischen Kritik alle seine Ansprüche von selbst aufgeben müsse.
Auf Thatsache muß sie alles Fürwahrhalten zuvörderst gründen, wenn es nicht völlig grundlos sein soll; und es kann also nur der einzige Unterschied im Beweisen Statt finden, ob auf diese Thatsache ein Fürwahrhalten der daraus gezogenen Folgerung als Wissen für das theoretische, oder bloß als Glauben für das praktische Erkenntniß könne gegründet werden. Alle Thatsachen gehören entweder zum Naturbegriff, der seine Realität an den vor allen Naturbegriffen gegebenen (oder zu geben möglichen) Gegenständen der Sinne beweiset; oder zum Freiheitsbegriffe, der seine Realität durch die Causalität der Vernunft in Ansehung gewisser durch sie möglichen Wirkungen in der Sinnenwelt, die sie im moralischen Gesetze unwiderleglich postulirt, hinreichend darthut. Der Naturbegriff (bloß zur theoretischen Erkenntniß gehörige) ist nun entweder metaphysisch und völlig a priori; oder physisch, d. i. a posteriori und nothwendig A 469 nur durch bestimmte Erfahrung denkbar. Der metaphysische Naturbegriff (der keine bestimmte Erfahrung voraussetzt) ist also ontologisch.
Der ontologische Beweis vom Dasein Gottes aus dem Begriffe eines Urwesens ist nun entweder der, welcher aus ontologischen Prädicaten, wodurch es allein durchgängig bestimmt gedacht werden kann, auf das absolut-nothwendige Dasein, oder aus der absoluten Nothwendigkeit des Daseins irgend eines Dinges, welches es auch sei, auf die Prädicate des Urwesens schließt: denn zum Begriffe eines Urwesens gehört, damit es nicht abgeleitet sei, die unbedingte Nothwendigkeit seines Daseins und (um diese sich vorzustellen) die durchgängige Bestimmung durch den Begriff desselben. Beide Erfordernisse glaubte man nun im Begriffe der ontologischen Idee eines allerrealsten Wesens zu finden: und so entsprangen zwei metaphysische Beweise.
Der einen bloß metaphysischen Naturbegriff zum Grunde legende (eigentlich-ontologisch genannte) Beweis schloß aus dem Begriffe des allerrealsten 476 Wesens auf seine schlechthin nothwendige Existenz; denn (heißt es) wenn es nicht existirte, so würde ihm eine Realität, nämlich die Existenz, mangeln. — Der andere (den man auch den metaphysisch-kosmologischen Beweis nennt) schloß aus der Nothwendigkeit der Existenz irgend eines Dinges (dergleichen, da mir im Selbstbewußtsein ein Dasein gegeben ist, durchaus eingeräumt werden muß) auf die durchgängige Bestimmung desselben als allerrealsten Wesens: weil alles Existirende durchgängig bestimmt, das schlechterdings Nothwendige aber (nämlich was wir als ein solches, mithin a priori erkennen sollen) durch seinen Begriff durchgängig bestimmt sein müsse; welches sich aber nur im Begriffe eines allerrealsten Dinges antreffen lasse. Es ist hier nicht nöthig, die Sophisterei in beiden Schlüssen aufzudecken, welches schon anderwärts geschehen A 470 ist; sondern nur zu bemerken, daß solche Beweise, wenn sie sich auch durch allerlei dialektische Subtilität verfechten ließen, doch niemals über die Schule hinaus in das gemeine Wesen hinüberkommen und auf den bloßen gesunden Verstand den mindesten Einfluß haben könnten.
Der Beweis, welcher einen Naturbegriff, der nur empirisch sein kann, dennoch aber über die Gränzen der Natur als Inbegriffs der Gegenstände der Sinne hinausführen soll, zum Grunde legt, kann kein anderer, als der von den Zwecken der Natur sein: deren Begriff sich zwar nicht a priori, sondern nur durch die Erfahrung geben läßt, aber doch einen solchen Begriff von dem Urgrunde der Natur verheißt, welcher unter allen, die wir denken können, allein sich zum Übersinnlichen schickt, nämlich den von einem höchsten Verstande als Weltursache; welches er auch in der That nach Principien der reflectirenden Urtheilskraft, d. i. nach der Beschaffenheit unseres (menschlichen) Erkenntnißvermögens, vollkommen ausrichtet. — Ob er nun aber aus denselben Datis diesen Begriff eines obersten, d. i. unabhängigen, verständigen Wesens auch als eines Gottes, d. i. Urhebers einer Welt unter moralischen Gesetzen, mithin hinreichend bestimmt für die Idee von einem Endzwecke des Daseins der Welt zu liefern im Stande sei, das ist eine Frage, worauf alles ankommt; wir mögen nun einen theoretisch hinlänglichen Begriff von dem Urwesen zum Behuf der gesammten Naturkenntniß, oder einen praktischen für die Religion verlangen.
Dieses aus der physischen Teleologie genommene Argument ist verehrungswerth. Es thut gleiche Wirkung zur Überzeugung auf den gemeinen Verstand, als auf den subtilsten Denker; und ein Reimarus in seinem A 471 noch nicht übertroffenen Werke, worin er diesen Beweisgrund mit der 477 ihm eigenen Gründlichkeit und Klarheit weitläuftig ausführt, hat sich dadurch ein unsterbliches Verdienst erworben. — Allein wodurch gewinnt dieser Beweis so gewaltigen Einfluß auf das Gemüth, vornehmlich in der Beurtheilung durch kalte Vernunft (denn die Rührung und Erhebung desselben durch die Wunder der Natur könnte man zur Überredung rechnen), auf eine ruhige, sich gänzlich dahin gebende Beistimmung? Es sind nicht die physischen Zwecke, die alle auf einen unergründlichen Verstand in der Weltursache hindeuten; denn diese sind dazu unzureichend, weil sie das Bedürfniß der fragenden Vernunft nicht befriedigen. Denn wozu sind (fragt diese) alle jene künstliche Naturdinge; wozu der Mensch selbst, bei dem wir als dem letzten für uns denkbaren Zwecke der Natur stehen bleiben müssen; wozu ist diese gesammte Natur da, und was ist der Endzweck so großer und mannigfaltiger Kunst? Zum Genießen, oder zum Anschauen, Betrachten und Bewundern (welches, wenn es dabei bleibt, auch nichts weiter als Genuß von besonderer Art ist), als dem letzten Endzweck, warum die Welt und der Mensch selbst da ist, geschaffen zu sein, kann die Vernunft nicht befriedigen: denn diese setzt einen persönlichen Werth, den der Mensch sich allein geben kann, als Bedingung, unter welcher allein er und sein Dasein Endzweck sein kann, voraus. In Ermangelung desselben (der allein eines bestimmten Begriffs fähig ist) thun die Zwecke der Natur seiner Nachfrage nicht Genüge, vornehmlich weil sie keinen bestimmten Begriff von dem höchsten Wesen als einem allgenugsamen (und eben darum einigen, eigentlich so zu nennenden höchsten) Wesen und den Gesetzen, nach denen sein Verstand Ursache der Welt ist, an die Hand geben können.
Daß also der physisch-teleologische Beweis, gleich als ob er zugleich A 472 ein theologischer wäre, überzeugt, rührt nicht von der Benützung der Ideen von Zwecken der Natur als so viel empirischen Beweisgründen eines höchsten Verstandes her; sondern es mischt sich unvermerkt der jedem Menschen beiwohnende und ihn so innigst bewegende moralische Beweisgrund in den Schluß mit ein, nach welchem man dem Wesen, welches sich so unbegreiflich künstlich in den Zwecken der Natur offenbart, auch einen Endzweck, mithin Weisheit (obzwar ohne dazu durch die Wahrnehmung der ersteren berechtigt zu sein) beilegt und also jenes Argument in Ansehung des Mangelhaften, welches ihm noch anhängt, willkürlich ergänzt. In der That bringt also nur der moralische Beweisgrund die Überzeugung und auch diese nur in moralischer Rücksicht, wozu jedermann seine Beistimmung 478 innigst fühlt, hervor; der physisch-teleologische aber hat nur das Verdienst, das Gemüth in der Weltbetrachtung auf den Weg der Zwecke, dadurch aber auf einen verständigen Welturheber zu leiten: da denn die moralische Beziehung auf Zwecke und die Idee eines eben solchen Gesetzgebers und Welturhebers, als theologischer Begriff, ob er zwar reine Zugabe ist, sich dennoch aus jenem Beweisgrunde von selbst zu entwickeln scheint.
Hiebei kann man es in dem gewöhnlichen Vortrage fernerhin auch bewenden lassen. Denn dem gemeinen und gesunden Verstande wird es gemeiniglich schwer, die verschiedenen Principien, die er vermischt, und aus deren einem er wirklich allein und richtig folgert, wenn die Absonderung viel Nachdenken bedarf, als ungleichartig von einander zu scheiden. Der moralische Beweisgrund vom Dasein Gottes ergänzt aber eigentlich auch nicht etwa bloß den physisch-teleologischen zu einem vollständigen Beweise; sondern er ist ein besonderer Beweis, der den Mangel der Überzeugung A 473 aus dem letzteren ersetzt: indem dieser in der That nichts leisten kann, als die Vernunft in der Beurtheilung des Grundes der Natur und der zufälligen, aber bewunderungswürdigen Ordnung derselben, welche uns nur durch Erfahrung bekannt wird, auf die Causalität einer Ursache, die nach Zwecken den Grund derselben enthält, (die wir nach der Beschaffenheit unserer Erkenntnißvermögen als verständige Ursache denken müssen) zu lenken und aufmerksam, so aber des moralischen Beweises empfänglicher zu machen. Denn das, was zu dem letztern Begriffe erforderlich ist, ist von allem, was Naturbegriffe enthalten und lehren können, so wesentlich unterschieden, daß es eines besondern, von den vorigen ganz unabhängigen Beweisgrundes und Beweises bedarf, um den Begriff vom Urwesen für eine Theologie hinreichend anzugeben und auf seine Existenz zu schließen. — Der moralische Beweis (der aber freilich nur das Dasein Gottes in praktischer, doch auch unnachlaßlicher Rücksicht der Vernunft beweiset) würde daher noch immer in seiner Kraft bleiben, wenn wir in der Welt gar keinen, oder nur zweideutigen Stoff zur physischen Teleologie anträfen. Es läßt sich denken, daß sich vernünftige Wesen von einer solchen Natur, welche keine deutliche Spur von Organisation, sondern nur Wirkungen von einem bloßen Mechanism der rohen Materie zeigte, umgeben sähen, um derentwillen und bei der Veränderlichkeit einiger bloß zufällig zweckmäßigen Formen und Verhältnisse kein Grund zu sein schiene, auf einen verständigen Urheber zu schließen; wo alsdann auch zu einer 479 physischen Teleologie keine Veranlassung sein würde: und dennoch würde die Vernunft, die durch Naturbegriffe hier keine Anleitung bekommt, im Freiheitsbegriffe und in den sich darauf gründenden sittlichen Ideen einen praktisch-hinreichenden Grund finden, den Begriff des Urwesens diesen A 474 angemessen, d. i. als einer Gottheit, und die Natur (selbst unser eigenes Dasein) als einen jener und ihren Gesetzen gemäßen Endzweck zu postuliren und zwar in Rücksicht auf das unnachlaßliche Gebot der praktischen Vernunft. — Daß nun aber in der wirklichen Welt für die vernünftigen Wesen in ihr reichlicher Stoff zur physischen Teleologie ist (welches eben nicht nothwendig wäre), dient dem moralischen Argument zu erwünschter Bestätigung, soweit Natur etwas den Vernunftideen (den moralischen) Analoges aufzustellen vermag. Denn der Begriff einer obersten Ursache, die Verstand hat (welches aber für eine Theologie lange nicht hinreichend ist), bekommt dadurch die für die reflectirende Urtheilskraft hinreichende Realität; aber er ist nicht erforderlich, um den moralischen Beweis darauf zu gründen: noch dient dieser, um jenen, der für sich allein gar nicht auf Moralität hinweiset, durch fortgesetzten Schluß nach einem einzigen Princip zu einem Beweise zu ergänzen. Zwei so ungleichartige Principien, als Natur und Freiheit können nur zwei verschiedene Beweisarten abgeben, da denn der Versuch, denselben aus der ersteren zu führen, für das, was bewiesen werden soll, unzulänglich befunden wird.
Wenn der physisch-teleologische Beweisgrund zu dem gesuchten Beweise zureichte, so wäre es für die speculative Vernunft sehr befriedigend; denn er würde Hoffnung geben, eine Theosophie hervorzubringen (so würde man nämlich die theoretische Erkenntniß der göttlichen Natur und seiner Existenz, welche zur Erklärung der Weltbeschaffenheit und zugleich der Bestimmung der sittlichen Gesetze zureichte, nennen müssen). Eben so wenn Psychologie zureichte, um dadurch zur Erkenntniß der Unsterblichkeit der Seele zu gelangen, so würde sie eine Pneumatologie, welche der speculativen A 475 Vernunft eben so willkommen wäre, möglich machen. Beide aber, so lieb es auch dem Dünkel der Wißbegierde sein mag, erfüllen nicht den Wunsch der Vernunft in Absicht auf die Theorie, die auf Kenntniß der Natur der Dinge gegründet sein müßte. Ob aber nicht die erstere als Theologie, die zweite als Anthropologie, beide auf das sittliche, d. i. das Freiheitsprincip gegründet, mithin dem praktischen Gebrauche der Vernunft angemessen, ihre objective Endabsicht besser erfüllen, ist eine andere Frage, die wir hier nicht nöthig haben weiter zu verfolgen.
480 Der physisch-teleologische Beweisgrund reicht aber darum nicht zur Theologie zu, weil er keinen für diese Absicht hinreichend bestimmten Begriff von dem Urwesen giebt, noch geben kann, sondern man diesen gänzlich anderwärts hernehmen, oder seinen Mangel dadurch als durch einen willkürlichen Zusatz ersetzen muß. Ihr schließt aus der großen Zweckmäßigkeit der Naturformen und ihrer Verhältnisse auf eine verständige Weltursache; aber auf welchen Grad dieses Verstandes? Ohne Zweifel könnt Ihr Euch nicht anmaßen: auf den höchst-möglichen Verstand; denn dazu würde erfordert werden, daß Ihr einsähet, ein größerer Verstand, als wovon Ihr Beweisthümer in der Welt wahrnehmet, sei nicht denkbar: welches Euch selber Allwissenheit beilegen hieße. Eben so schließt Ihr aus der Größe der Welt auf eine sehr große Macht des Urhebers; aber Ihr werdet Euch bescheiden, daß dieses nur comparativ für Eure Fassungskraft Bedeutung hat, und, da Ihr nicht alles Mögliche erkennt, um es mit der Weltgröße, so weit Ihr sie kennt, zu vergleichen, Ihr nach einem so kleinen Maßstabe keine Allmacht des Urhebers folgern könnet, u. s. w. Nun gelangt Ihr dadurch zu keinem bestimmten, für eine Theologie tauglichen Begriffe eines Urwesens; denn dieser kann nur in dem der Allheit der mit A 476 einem Verstande vereinbarten Vollkommenheiten gefunden werden, wozu Euch bloß empirische Data gar nicht verhelfen können: ohne einen solchen bestimmten Begriff aber könnt Ihr auch nicht auf ein einiges verständiges Urwesen schließen, sondern (es sei zu welchem Behuf) ein solches nur annehmen. — Nun kann man es zwar ganz wohl einräumen, daß Ihr (da die Vernunft nichts Gegründetes dawider zu sagen hat) willkürlich hinzusetzt: wo so viel Vollkommenheit angetroffen wird, möge man wohl alle Vollkommenheit in einer einzigen Weltursache vereinigt annehmen; weil die Vernunft mit einem so bestimmten Princip theoretisch und praktisch besser zurecht kommt. Aber Ihr könnt denn doch diesen Begriff des Urwesens nicht als von Euch bewiesen anpreisen, da Ihr ihn nur zum Behuf eines bessern Vernunftgebrauchs angenommen habt. Alles Jammern also oder ohnmächtiges Zürnen über den vorgeblichen Frevel, die Bündigkeit Eurer Schlußkette in Zweifel zu ziehen, ist eitle Großthuerei, die gern haben möchte, daß man den Zweifel, welchen man gegen Euer Argument frei heraussagt, für Bezweifelung heiliger Wahrheit halten möchte, um nur hinter dieser Decke die Seichtigkeit desselben durchschlüpfen zu lassen.
Die moralische Teleologie hingegen, welche nicht minder fest gegründet 481 ist wie die physische, vielmehr dadurch, daß sie a priori auf von unserer Vernunft untrennbaren Principien beruht, Vorzug verdient, führt auf das, was zur Möglichkeit einer Theologie erfordert wird, nämlich auf einen bestimmten Begriff der obersten Ursache als Weltursache nach moralischen Gesetzen, mithin einer solchen, die unserm moralischen Endzwecke Genüge thut: wozu nichts weniger als Allwissenheit, Allmacht, Allgegenwart u. s. w. als dazu gehörige Natureigenschaften erforderlich sind, die A 477 mit dem moralischen Endzwecke, der unendlich ist, als verbunden, mithin ihm adäquat gedacht werden müssen, und kann so den Begriff eines einzigen Welturhebers, der zu einer Theologie tauglich ist, ganz allein verschaffen.
Auf solche Weise führt eine Theologie auch unmittelbar zur Religion, d. i. der Erkenntniß unserer Pflichten als göttlicher Gebote: weil die Erkenntniß unserer Pflicht und des darin uns durch Vernunft auferlegten Endzwecks den Begriff von Gott zuerst bestimmt hervorbringen konnte, der also schon in seinem Ursprunge von der Verbindlichkeit gegen dieses Wesen unzertrennlich ist; anstatt daß, wenn der Begriff vom Urwesen auf dem bloß theoretischen Wege (nämlich desselben als bloßer Ursache der Natur) auch bestimmt gefunden werden könnte, es nachher noch mit großer Schwierigkeit, vielleicht gar Unmöglichkeit es ohne willkürliche Einschiebung zu leisten verbunden sein würde, diesem Wesen eine Causalität nach moralischen Gesetzen durch gründliche Beweise beizulegen, ohne die doch jener angeblich theologische Begriff keine Grundlage zur Religion ausmachen kann. Selbst wenn eine Religion auf diesem theoretischen Wege gegründet werden könnte, würde sie in Ansehung der Gesinnung (worin doch ihr Wesentliches besteht) wirklich von derjenigen unterschieden sein, in welcher der Begriff von Gott und die (praktische) Überzeugung von seinem Dasein aus Grundideen der Sittlichkeit entspringt. Denn wenn wir Allgewalt, Allwissenheit u. s. w. eines Welturhebers als anderwärts her uns gegebene Begriffe voraussetzen müßten, um nachher unsere Begriffe von Pflichten auf unser Verhältniß zu ihm nur anzuwenden, so müßten diese sehr stark den Anstrich von Zwang und abgenöthigter Unterwerfung bei sich führen; statt dessen, wenn die Hochachtung für das sittliche Gesetz uns ganz frei laut Vorschrift unserer eigenen A 478 Vernunft den Endzweck unserer Bestimmung vorstellt, wir eine damit und zu dessen Ausführung zusammenstimmende Ursache mit der wahrhaftesten Ehrfurcht, die gänzlich von pathologischer Furcht unterschieden 482 ist, in unsere moralischen Aussichten mit aufnehmen und uns derselben willig unterwerfen42.
Wenn man fragt, warum uns denn etwas daran gelegen sei, überhaupt eine Theologie zu haben: so leuchtet klar ein, daß sie nicht zur Erweiterung oder Berichtigung unserer Naturkenntniß und überhaupt irgend einer Theorie, sondern lediglich zur Religion, d. i. dem praktischen, namentlich dem moralischen Gebrauche der Vernunft, in subjectiver Absicht nöthig sei. Findet sich nun, daß das einzige Argument, welches zu einem bestimmten Begriffe des Gegenstandes der Theologie führt, selbst moralisch ist: so wird es nicht allein nicht befremden, sondern man wird auch in Ansehung der Zugänglichkeit des Fürwahrhaltens aus diesem Beweisgrunde zur Endabsicht desselben nichts vermissen, wenn gestanden wird, daß ein solches Argument das Dasein Gottes nur für unsere moralische Bestimmung, d. i. in praktischer Absicht, hinreichend darthue, und die Speculation in demselben ihre Stärke keinesweges beweise, oder den Umfang A 479 ihres Gebiets dadurch erweitere. Auch wird die Befremdung, oder der vorgebliche Widerspruch einer hier behaupteten Möglichkeit einer Theologie mit dem, was die Kritik der speculativen Vernunft von den Kategorieen sagte: daß diese nämlich nur in Anwendung auf Gegenstände der Sinne, keinesweges aber auf das Übersinnliche angewandt, Erkenntniß hervorbringen können, verschwinden, wenn man sie hier zu einem Erkenntniß Gottes, aber nicht in theoretischer (nach dem, was seine uns unerforschliche Natur an sich sei), sondern lediglich in praktischer Absicht gebraucht sieht. — Um bei dieser Gelegenheit der Mißdeutung jener sehr nothwendigen, aber auch zum Verdruß des blinden Dogmatikers die Vernunft in ihre Gränzen zurückweisenden Lehre der Kritik ein Ende zu machen, füge ich hier nachstehende Erläuterung derselben bei.
Wenn ich einem Körper bewegende Kraft beilege, mithin ihn 483 durch die Kategorie der Causalität denke: so erkenne ich ihn dadurch zugleich, d. i. ich bestimme den Begriff desselben als Objects überhaupt durch das, was ihm als Gegenstande der Sinne für sich (als Bedingung der Möglichkeit jener Relation) zukommt. Denn ist die bewegende Kraft, die ich ihm beilege, eine abstoßende: so kommt ihm (wenn ich gleich noch nicht einen andern, gegen den er sie ausübt, neben ihm setze) ein Ort im Raume, ferner eine Ausdehnung, d. i. Raum in ihm selbst, überdem Erfüllung desselben durch die abstoßenden Kräfte seiner Theile zu, endlich auch das Gesetz dieser Erfüllung (daß der Grund der Abstoßung der letzteren in derselben Proportion abnehmen müsse, als die Ausdehnung des Körpers wächst, und der Raum, den er mit denselben Theilen durch diese Kraft erfüllt, zunimmt). — Dagegen wenn ich mir ein übersinnliches Wesen als den ersten Beweger, mithin durch die Kategorie der Causalität in Ansehung derselben Weltbestimmung (der Bewegung der Materie) denke: A 480 so muß ich es nicht in irgend einem Orte im Raume, eben so wenig als ausgedehnt, ja ich darf es nicht einmal als in der Zeit und mit andern zugleich existirend denken. Also habe ich gar keine Bestimmungen, welche mir die Bedingung der Möglichkeit der Bewegung durch dieses Wesen als Grund verständlich machen könnten. Folglich erkenne ich dasselbe durch das Prädicat der Ursache (als ersten Beweger) für sich nicht im mindesten: sondern ich habe nur die Vorstellung von einem Etwas, welches den Grund der Bewegungen in der Welt enthält; und die Relation desselben zu diesen, als deren Ursache, da sie mir sonst nichts zur Beschaffenheit des Dinges, welches Ursache ist, Gehöriges an die Hand giebt, läßt den Begriff von dieser ganz leer. Der Grund davon ist: weil ich mit Prädicaten, die nur in der Sinnenwelt ihr Object finden, zwar zu dem Dasein von Etwas, was den Grund der letzteren enthalten muß, aber nicht zu der Bestimmung seines Begriffs als übersinnlichen Wesens, welcher alle jene Prädicate ausstößt, fortschreiten kann. Durch die Kategorie der Causalität also, wenn ich sie durch den Begriff eines ersten Bewegers bestimme, erkenne ich, was Gott sei, nicht im mindesten; vielleicht aber wird es besser gelingen, wenn ich aus der Weltordnung Anlaß nehme, seine Causalität, als die eines obersten Verstandes nicht bloß zu denken, sondern ihn auch durch diese Bestimmung des genannten Begriffs zu erkennen: weil da die lästige Bedingung des Raumes und der Ausdehnung wegfällt. — Allerdings nöthigt uns die große Zweckmäßigkeit in der Welt, eine oberste Ursache zu derselben und deren Causalität als durch einen Verstand zu 484 denken; aber dadurch sind wir gar nicht befugt, ihr diesen beizulegen (wie z. B. die Ewigkeit Gottes als Dasein zu aller Zeit zu denken, weil wir uns sonst gar keinen Begriff vom bloßen Dasein als einer Größe, d. i. als Dauer, machen können; oder die göttliche Allgegenwart als Dasein A 481 in allen Orten zu denken, um die unmittelbare Gegenwart für Dinge außer einander uns faßlich zu machen, ohne gleichwohl eine dieser Bestimmungen Gott als etwas an ihm Erkanntes beilegen zu dürfen). Wenn ich die Causalität des Menschen in Ansehung gewisser Producte, welche nur durch absichtliche Zweckmäßigkeit erklärlich sind, dadurch bestimme, daß ich sie als einen Verstand desselben denke: so brauche ich nicht dabei stehen zu bleiben, sondern kann ihm dieses Prädicat als wohlbekannte Eigenschaft desselben beilegen und ihn dadurch erkennen. Denn ich weiß, daß Anschauungen den Sinnen des Menschen gegeben und durch den Verstand unter einen Begriff und hiemit unter eine Regel gebracht werden; daß dieser Begriff nur das gemeinsame Merkmal (mit Weglassung des Besondern) enthalte und also discursiv sei; daß die Regeln, um gegebene Vorstellungen unter ein Bewußtsein überhaupt zu bringen, von ihm noch vor jenen Anschauungen gegeben werden, u. s. w.: ich lege also diese Eigenschaft dem Menschen bei als eine solche, wodurch ich ihn erkenne. Will ich nun aber ein übersinnliches Wesen (Gott) als Intelligenz denken, so ist dieses in gewisser Rücksicht meines Vernunftgebrauchs nicht allein erlaubt, sondern auch unvermeidlich; aber ihm Verstand beizulegen und es dadurch als durch eine Eigenschaft desselben erkennen zu können, sich schmeicheln, ist keineswegs erlaubt: weil ich alsdann alle jene Bedingungen, unter denen ich allein einen Verstand kenne, weglassen muß, mithin das Prädicat, das nur zur Bestimmung des Menschen dient, auf ein übersinnliches Object gar nicht bezogen werden kann, und also durch eine so bestimmte Causalität, was Gott sei, gar nicht erkannt werden kann. Und so geht es mit allen Kategorien, die gar keine Bedeutung zum Erkenntniß in theoretischer Rücksicht haben können, wenn sie nicht auf Gegenstände A 482 möglicher Erfahrung angewandt werden. — Aber nach der Analogie mit einem Verstande kann ich, ja muß ich mir wohl in gewisser anderer Rücksicht selbst ein übersinnliches Wesen denken, ohne es gleichwohl dadurch theoretisch erkennen zu wollen; wenn nämlich diese Bestimmung seiner Causalität eine Wirkung in der Welt betrifft, die eine moralisch-nothwendige, aber für Sinnenwesen unausführbare Absicht enthält: da alsdann ein Erkenntniß Gottes und seines Daseins (Theologie) durch bloß nach 485 der Analogie an ihm gedachte Eigenschaften und Bestimmungen seiner Causalität möglich ist, welches in praktischer Beziehung, aber auch nur in Rücksicht auf diese (als moralische) alle erforderliche Realität hat. — Es ist also wohl eine Ethikotheologie möglich; denn die Moral kann zwar mit ihrer Regel, aber nicht mit der Endabsicht, welche eben dieselbe auferlegt, ohne Theologie bestehen, ohne die Vernunft in Ansehung der letzteren im bloßen zu lassen. Aber eine theologische Ethik (der reinen Vernunft) ist unmöglich: weil Gesetze, die nicht die Vernunft ursprünglich selbst giebt, und deren Befolgung sie als reines praktisches Vermögen auch bewirkt, nicht moralisch sein können. Eben so würde eine theologische Physik ein Unding sein, weil sie keine Naturgesetze, sondern Anordnungen eines höchsten Willens vortragen würde; wogegen eine physische (eigentlich physisch-teleologische) Theologie doch wenigstens als Propädeutik zur eigentlichen Theologie dienen kann: indem sie durch die Betrachtung der Naturzwecke, von denen sie reichen Stoff darbietet, zur Idee eines Endzweckes, den die Natur nicht aufstellen kann, Anlaß giebt; mithin das Bedürfniß einer Theologie, die den Begriff von Gott für den höchsten praktischen Gebrauch der Vernunft zureichend bestimmte, zwar fühlbar machen, aber sie nicht hervorbringen und auf ihre Beweisthümer zulänglich gründen kann.
42 Die Bewunderung der Schönheit sowohl, als die Rührung durch die so mannigfaltigen Zwecke der Natur, welche ein nachdenkendes Gemüth noch vor einer klaren Vorstellung eines vernünftigen Urhebers der Welt zu fühlen im Stande ist, haben etwas einem religiösen Gefühl Ähnliches an sich. Sie scheinen daher zuerst durch eine der moralischen analoge Beurtheilungsart derselben auf das moralische Gefühl (der Dankbarkeit und der Verehrung gegen die uns unbekannte Ursache) und also durch Erregung moralischer Ideen auf das Gemüth zu wirken, wenn sie diejenige Bewunderung einflößen, die mit weit mehrerem Interesse verbunden ist, als bloße theoretische Betrachtung wirken kann.
Musean translation
A complete machine-assisted translation from the German text of the 1793 edition in the 1913 Academy printing, including Kant’s notes. The faculty table is given as lines.
General Remark on Teleology. 475
If the question is what rank the moral argument—which proves the existence of God only as a matter of faith for pure practical reason—holds among philosophy’s other arguments, philosophy’s entire possession can readily be surveyed. It then becomes clear that there is no choice here, but that before an impartial critique its theoretical capacity must of itself surrender all its claims.
It must first ground all assent on a matter of fact if assent is not to be wholly groundless. Thus the sole possible distinction in proving is whether assent to the consequence drawn from this matter of fact can be grounded as knowledge for theoretical cognition or merely as faith for practical cognition. All matters of fact belong either to the concept of nature, which proves its reality in objects of the senses given, or capable of being given, before all concepts of nature; or to the concept of freedom, which sufficiently demonstrates its reality through reason’s causality with respect to certain effects possible through it in the sensible world, effects that reason irrefutably postulates in the moral law. Now the concept of nature, belonging solely to theoretical cognition, is either metaphysical and wholly a priori, or physical, that is, a posteriori and necessarily A 469 conceivable only through determinate experience. The metaphysical concept of nature, which presupposes no determinate experience, is therefore ontological.
The ontological proof of God’s existence from the concept of an original being is either one that infers absolutely necessary existence from ontological predicates through which alone that being can be conceived as thoroughly determined, or one that infers the predicates of the original being from the absolute necessity of the existence of some thing, whatever it may be. For the concept of an original being, if it is not to be derivative, includes the unconditional necessity of its existence and, in order to represent this, thoroughgoing determination through its concept. Now both requirements were believed to be found in the concept of the ontological idea of a most real being, and thus two metaphysical proofs arose.
The proof based on a merely metaphysical concept of nature, called ontological in the proper sense, inferred from the concept of the most real 476 being its absolutely necessary existence; for, it is said, if it did not exist, it would lack a reality, namely existence.—The other, also called the metaphysical-cosmological proof, inferred from the necessity of the existence of some thing—a necessity that must certainly be admitted, since an existence is given to me in self-consciousness—its thoroughgoing determination as the most real being. For everything existing is thoroughly determined, but what is absolutely necessary, namely what we are to know as such and thus a priori, must be thoroughly determined through its concept; and this could be found only in the concept of a most real thing. There is no need here to expose the sophistry in both inferences, which has already been done elsewhere, A 470 but only to note that such proofs, even if they could be defended through all manner of dialectical subtlety, could never pass beyond the school into the public sphere or have the slightest influence on mere sound understanding.
The proof based on a concept of nature that can only be empirical, yet is supposed to lead beyond nature’s limits as the sum of the objects of the senses, can be none other than the proof from natural ends. Their concept cannot be given a priori, but only through experience; yet it promises a concept of nature’s original ground that alone, among all those we can conceive, is suited to the supersensible: that of a highest understanding as world-cause. This it indeed accomplishes fully according to principles of reflective judgment, that is, according to the character of our human cognitive faculty.—But whether from the same data it can also supply this concept of a supreme, that is, independent intelligent being as a God, an author of a world under moral laws, and thus sufficiently determined for the idea of a final end of the world’s existence, is the question on which everything depends, whether we demand a theoretically sufficient concept of the original being for all knowledge of nature, or a practical one for religion.
This argument drawn from physical teleology is worthy of respect. It works equally toward conviction in the common understanding and in the subtlest thinker; and Reimarus, in his A 471 still unsurpassed work, in which he develops this ground of proof at length with his 477 characteristic thoroughness and clarity, has thereby earned an immortal merit.—But how does this proof gain so powerful an influence on the mind, especially when judged by cool reason, producing a calm assent that yields itself wholly to it? For the mind’s emotion and elevation through the wonders of nature might be counted as persuasion. It is not the physical ends, all pointing to an unfathomable understanding in the world-cause; these are insufficient, because they do not satisfy inquiring reason’s need. For what, reason asks, are all those artfully formed natural things there for? What is the human being himself there for, with whom we must stop as the ultimate natural end conceivable for us? What is this entire nature there for, and what is the final end of so great and manifold an art? That the world and the human being himself should have been created for enjoyment, or for intuiting, contemplating, and admiring—which, if it stops there, is likewise nothing but enjoyment of a particular kind—as their ultimate final end cannot satisfy reason. For reason presupposes a personal worth that the human being alone can give himself, as the condition under which alone he and his existence can be a final end. In the absence of this worth, which alone admits of a determinate concept, natural ends do not satisfy reason’s inquiry, especially because they can supply no determinate concept of the highest being as an all-sufficient being, and for that very reason the single highest being properly so called, nor of the laws according to which its understanding is cause of the world.
Thus, that the physicoteleological proof convinces as though it were also A 472 a theological proof does not arise from using ideas of natural ends as so many empirical grounds of proof for a highest understanding. Rather, the moral ground of proof dwelling in every human being and moving him so intimately slips unnoticed into the inference. According to it, one also ascribes a final end, and thus wisdom, to the being revealed with such inconceivable art in natural ends, although perception of those ends does not authorize this, and so arbitrarily supplies the deficiency still attaching to that argument. In fact, therefore, only the moral ground of proof produces conviction, and this only in moral respects, to which everyone feels his most inward assent. 478 The physicoteleological proof has only the merit of leading the mind, in contemplating the world, onto the path of ends and thereby to an intelligent author of the world. Then the moral relation to ends and the idea of a legislator and author of the world of that kind, as a theological concept, seem to develop of themselves from that ground of proof, although they are a pure addition.
The customary presentation may continue to leave matters at this. For the common, sound understanding generally finds it difficult to separate as heterogeneous the different principles it mingles, from only one of which it actually and correctly infers, when distinguishing them requires much reflection. But the moral ground of proof for God’s existence does not properly merely supplement the physicoteleological proof into a complete proof. It is a distinct proof that replaces the lack of conviction A 473 from the latter. For the latter can in fact accomplish nothing but this: in judging the ground of nature and its contingent yet admirable order, known to us only through experience, it directs reason toward the causality of a cause containing that ground according to ends—a cause we must conceive as intelligent given the character of our cognitive faculties—and makes reason attentive and thus more receptive to the moral proof. For what is required for the latter concept is so essentially different from anything concepts of nature can contain and teach that a distinct ground of proof and proof, wholly independent of the previous one, is needed to supply the concept of the original being sufficiently for a theology and to infer its existence.—The moral proof—which admittedly proves God’s existence only in a practical yet also indispensable respect of reason—would therefore retain its force even if we encountered no material at all in the world for physical teleology, or only ambiguous material. We can conceive rational beings finding themselves surrounded by a nature showing no clear trace of organization, but only effects of a mere mechanism of raw matter. In view of this, and of the variability of certain merely contingently purposive forms and relations, there would seem no ground for inferring an intelligent author. There would then be no occasion for a 479 physical teleology. Yet reason, receiving no guidance here through concepts of nature, would find in the concept of freedom and the moral ideas grounded upon it a practically sufficient ground to postulate the concept of the original being in conformity with these ideas, A 474 that is, as a deity, and nature, even our own existence, as a final end conforming to them and their laws, with regard to the indispensable command of practical reason.—But that in the actual world there is abundant material for physical teleology for the rational beings within it—which need not necessarily have been so—serves as welcome confirmation of the moral argument, insofar as nature can exhibit something analogous to reason’s moral ideas. For the concept of a supreme cause possessing understanding—which is far from sufficient for a theology—thereby acquires reality sufficient for reflective judgment. But this is not required as a foundation for the moral proof; nor does the moral proof serve to complete the former, which by itself does not point to morality at all, into one proof through a continued inference according to a single principle. Two such heterogeneous principles as nature and freedom can yield only two different kinds of proof; and the attempt to conduct the proof from the former is found inadequate for what is to be proved.
If the physicoteleological ground of proof sufficed for the proof sought, it would be very satisfying to speculative reason, for it would offer hope of producing a theosophy. This is what we would have to call theoretical knowledge of the divine nature and its existence sufficient to explain the world’s constitution and also to determine moral laws. Likewise, if psychology sufficed to attain knowledge of the immortality of the soul, it would make possible a pneumatology equally welcome to speculative A 475 reason. But neither, however pleasing to the conceit of curiosity, fulfills reason’s wish regarding theory, which would have to be grounded in knowledge of the nature of things. Whether the former as theology and the latter as anthropology, both grounded on the moral principle, that is, the principle of freedom, and thus suited to the practical use of reason, might better fulfill their objective final intention is another question, which we need not pursue further here.
480 The physicoteleological ground of proof is insufficient for theology because it does not, and cannot, give a concept of the original being sufficiently determined for this purpose. Rather, this concept must be taken entirely from elsewhere, or its absence remedied by what amounts to an arbitrary addition. From the great purposiveness of natural forms and their relations you infer an intelligent world-cause; but to what degree of understanding? You surely cannot claim to infer the highest possible understanding. That would require you to see that no greater understanding than the one whose evidences you perceive in the world is conceivable—which would mean ascribing omniscience to yourselves. Likewise, from the world’s magnitude you infer a very great power in its author; but you will acknowledge that this has meaning only comparatively, for your power of comprehension, and that since you do not know everything possible in order to compare it with the magnitude of the world as far as you know it, you cannot infer the author’s omnipotence by so small a standard, and so on. Thus you arrive at no determinate concept of an original being suited to a theology. Such a concept can be found only in that of the totality of perfections compatible with A 476 an understanding, which merely empirical data cannot help you attain. Yet without such a determinate concept you also cannot infer a single intelligent original being, but can only assume one, for whatever purpose.—Now it may quite readily be conceded that, since reason has nothing well-grounded to say against it, you may arbitrarily add: Where so much perfection is found, one may well assume all perfection united in a single world-cause, because reason fares better theoretically and practically with so determinate a principle. But you still cannot commend this concept of the original being as one you have proved, since you have assumed it only for a better use of reason. All lamentation or impotent anger over the supposed outrage of questioning the cogency of your chain of inference is therefore vain bluster. It would like people to take the doubt freely expressed against your argument as doubt of a sacred truth, merely to let the argument’s shallowness slip through under this cover.
Moral teleology, on the other hand, which is no less firmly grounded 481 than physical teleology, and indeed deserves preference because it rests a priori on principles inseparable from our reason, leads to what the possibility of a theology requires: a determinate concept of the supreme cause as a world-cause according to moral laws, and hence of a cause satisfying our moral final end. This requires nothing less than omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, and so on as natural properties belonging to it, which A 477 must be conceived as united with, and thus adequate to, the moral final end, which is infinite. Moral teleology alone can thus supply the concept of a single author of the world suited to a theology.
In this way a theology also leads directly to religion, that is, the recognition of our duties as divine commands. For knowledge of our duty and of the final end imposed upon us within it by reason could first produce the determinate concept of God, which is thus inseparable, even in its origin, from obligation toward this being. By contrast, even if a determinate concept of the original being could be found on the merely theoretical path, namely as the mere cause of nature, it would afterward be very difficult, perhaps impossible without arbitrary interpolation, to ascribe to this being, through well-grounded proofs, a causality according to moral laws. Without this, however, that allegedly theological concept can form no foundation for religion. Even if a religion could be founded on this theoretical path, it would actually differ, in respect of disposition, in which its essence consists, from one in which the concept of God and the practical conviction of his existence spring from fundamental ideas of morality. For if we had to presuppose the all-power, omniscience, and so on of an author of the world as concepts given to us from elsewhere, merely to apply afterward our concepts of duty to our relation to him, these would have to bear a strong coloring of coercion and forced submission. Instead, when respect for the moral law, quite freely according to the precept of our own A 478 reason, presents the final end of our vocation to us, we include in our moral prospects a cause agreeing with this end and its realization, with the truest reverence, entirely distinct from pathological fear, 482 and willingly submit ourselves to it.42
If we ask why it matters to us to have a theology at all, it is plainly evident that we need it subjectively not to expand or correct our knowledge of nature, or any theory whatsoever, but solely for religion, that is, the practical, specifically moral use of reason. If it now turns out that the sole argument leading to a determinate concept of theology’s object is itself moral, then it will not merely cease to be surprising: we will also find nothing lacking in the accessibility of assent from this ground of proof for its final intention, when it is admitted that such an argument sufficiently demonstrates God’s existence only for our moral vocation, that is, for practical purposes, and that speculation by no means proves its strength in it or thereby expands the scope A 479 of its domain. The surprise, or supposed contradiction, between the possibility of a theology asserted here and what the critique of speculative reason said about the categories will also disappear: namely, that these can produce cognition only when applied to objects of the senses, and by no means when applied to the supersensible. It disappears when we see them used here for knowledge of God, not for theoretical purposes, concerning what his nature, inscrutable to us, is in itself, but solely for practical purposes.—To put an end on this occasion to the misinterpretation of that very necessary doctrine of the Critique, which also, to the annoyance of the blind dogmatist, recalls reason to its limits, I append the following elucidation.
If I ascribe moving force to a body, and thus 483 conceive it through the category of causality, I thereby also cognize it: that is, I determine its concept as an object in general through what belongs to it in itself as an object of the senses, as a condition of the possibility of that relation. For if the moving force I ascribe to it is repulsive, then even if I do not yet place beside it another body against which it exercises that force, it possesses a place in space; further, extension, that is, space within itself; moreover, the filling of this space through the repulsive forces of its parts; and finally the law of this filling: the ground of the repulsion of those parts must diminish in the same proportion as the body’s extension grows and the space that it fills through this force with the same parts increases.—By contrast, if I conceive a supersensible being as the first mover, and thus through the category of causality with regard to the same determination of the world, the motion of matter, A 480 I must not conceive it as in any place in space, nor as extended; indeed, I may not even conceive it as existing in time and simultaneously with other things. Thus I have no determinations at all that could make intelligible to me the condition of the possibility of motion through this being as its ground. Consequently, through the predicate of cause as first mover, I do not in the least cognize this being in itself. I have only the representation of a something containing the ground of motions in the world; and its relation to these as their cause, since it otherwise supplies nothing belonging to the constitution of the thing that is cause, leaves the concept of that cause entirely empty. The reason is that with predicates finding their object only in the sensible world I can indeed advance to the existence of something that must contain the ground of that world, but not to determining its concept as a supersensible being, which excludes all those predicates. Thus through the category of causality, when I determine it by the concept of a first mover, I do not in the least cognize what God is. But perhaps I shall succeed better if I take the order of the world as an occasion not merely to conceive his causality as that of a supreme understanding, but also to cognize him through this determination of the concept in question, since the troublesome condition of space and extension then falls away.—Certainly the great purposiveness in the world compels us to conceive a supreme cause for it and its causality as through an understanding; 484 but this by no means authorizes us to ascribe understanding to it. Similarly, we may conceive God’s eternity as existence at all times, because otherwise we can form no concept of mere existence as a magnitude, that is, as duration; or divine omnipresence as existence A 481 in all places, to make immediate presence to things external to one another comprehensible to ourselves, without nevertheless being entitled to ascribe either of these determinations to God as something cognized in him. If I determine human causality regarding certain products explicable only through intentional purposiveness by conceiving it as the human being’s understanding, I need not stop there. I can ascribe this predicate to him as a well-known property and thereby cognize him. For I know that intuitions are given to human senses and brought by understanding under a concept and thereby under a rule; that this concept contains only the common characteristic, omitting the particular, and is therefore discursive; that understanding gives the rules for bringing given representations under one consciousness in general even before those intuitions; and so on. Thus I ascribe this property to the human being as one through which I cognize him. But if I wish to conceive a supersensible being, God, as intelligence, this is not merely permitted but unavoidable in a certain respect of my use of reason. Yet to flatter myself that I can ascribe understanding to it and thereby cognize it through a property of its own is by no means permitted. For I must then omit all those conditions under which alone I know an understanding; hence the predicate serving only to determine the human being cannot be referred to a supersensible object at all, and what God is cannot be cognized through a causality so determined. And so it is with all categories, which can have no significance for cognition in theoretical respects unless applied to objects A 482 of possible experience.—But by analogy with an understanding I can, indeed in a certain other respect must, conceive even a supersensible being without wishing thereby to cognize it theoretically: namely, if this determination of its causality concerns an effect in the world containing a morally necessary intention that sensible beings cannot accomplish. Then a knowledge of God and his existence, theology, is possible through properties and determinations of his causality conceived in him merely by 485 analogy. In practical relation, but also only with regard to this relation as moral, such knowledge has all the reality required.—Thus an ethicotheology is indeed possible. For although morality can subsist without theology as regards its rule, it cannot do so as regards the final intention that this very rule imposes, without leaving reason exposed concerning that intention. But a theological ethics of pure reason is impossible: laws that reason does not originally give itself, and whose observance it does not itself also effect as a pure practical faculty, cannot be moral. Likewise a theological physics would be an absurdity, because it would present not natural laws but arrangements of a highest will. By contrast, a physical, properly physicoteleological, theology can at least serve as a preparation for theology proper. Through contemplating natural ends, for which it offers abundant material, it occasions the idea of a final end that nature cannot supply. It can thus make us feel the need for a theology sufficiently determining the concept of God for reason’s highest practical use, but cannot produce that theology or ground it adequately on its own proofs.
42 Both admiration of beauty and the emotion aroused by nature’s so manifold ends, which a reflective mind can feel even before having a clear representation of a rational author of the world, contain something akin to a religious feeling. They therefore seem first to act upon the moral feeling—of gratitude and reverence toward the cause unknown to us—through a way of judging them analogous to moral judgment, and thus to act on the mind by awakening moral ideas, when they inspire that admiration bound up with far greater interest than mere theoretical contemplation can produce.
Plain English translation
A complete, independent machine-assisted translation from the German text of the 1793 edition in the 1913 Academy printing, including Kant’s notes. The faculty table is given as lines.
General Remark on Teleology. 475
Suppose we ask what rank the moral argument occupies among the other arguments in philosophy, since it proves God's existence only as a matter of faith for pure practical reason. We can easily survey philosophy's entire resources. It then becomes clear that there is no choice here: before an impartial critique, its theoretical capacity must give up all its claims on its own.
Philosophy must first ground all acceptance as true on a matter of fact if it is not to be wholly groundless. The only distinction in proof can therefore be whether acceptance of the conclusion drawn from this fact can be grounded as knowledge for theoretical cognition, or merely as faith for practical cognition. All matters of fact belong either to the concept of nature, which proves its reality in objects of the senses given, or possibly given, prior to all natural concepts; or to the concept of freedom. This sufficiently demonstrates its reality through reason's causality regarding certain effects in the sensible world possible through it, which reason incontrovertibly postulates in the moral law. The concept of nature, which belongs only to theoretical knowledge, is either metaphysical and wholly a priori, or physical, that is, a posteriori, and necessarily A 469 thinkable only through determinate experience. The metaphysical concept of nature, which presupposes no determinate experience, is therefore ontological.
Now the ontological proof of God's existence from the concept of an original being is of either of two kinds. It infers absolutely necessary existence from ontological predicates through which alone that being can be thought as completely determined. Or it infers the predicates of the original being from the absolute necessity of the existence of something, whatever it may be. For the concept of an original being requires the unconditioned necessity of its existence, so that it is not derived, and, to represent this necessity, its complete determination through its concept. People believed they found both requirements in the ontological idea of a most real being. Thus two metaphysical proofs arose.
The proof based on a merely metaphysical concept of nature, called ontological in the proper sense, inferred from the concept of the most real 476 being to its absolutely necessary existence. For, it says, if that being did not exist, it would lack a reality, namely existence.—The other, also called the metaphysical-cosmological proof, inferred from the necessity of something's existence to its complete determination as the most real being. Such necessity must be admitted, since an existence is given to me in self-consciousness. For everything existing is completely determined, while what is absolutely necessary—what we are to know as such and thus a priori—must be completely determined through its concept. But this can be found only in the concept of a most real thing. There is no need here to expose the sophistry in both inferences, which has already been done elsewhere A 470. We need only note that even if such proofs could be defended through every kind of dialectical subtlety, they could never move beyond the schools into the community or have the slightest influence on mere common sense.
A proof based on a concept of nature that can only be empirical, yet is supposed to lead beyond nature's bounds as the totality of objects of the senses, can only be a proof from nature's ends. Their concept cannot be given a priori, but only through experience. Yet it promises a concept of nature's original ground that alone, among all we can think, is appropriate to the supersensible: a highest understanding as world cause. It does in fact fully accomplish this according to principles of reflective judgment, that is, given the character of our human cognitive power.—But can it supply from the same data this concept of a supreme, independent intelligent being also as a God, an author of a world under moral laws? Can it thus determine the concept sufficiently for the idea of a final end of the world's existence? Everything depends on this question, whether we seek a theoretically adequate concept of the original being for the whole of natural knowledge, or a practical one for religion.
This argument drawn from physical teleology deserves respect. It works equally toward conviction in ordinary understanding and in the subtlest thinker. Reimarus, in his A 471 still unsurpassed work, developed this ground of proof at length with his 477 characteristic thoroughness and clarity, thereby earning an enduring distinction.—But how does this proof gain such powerful influence over the mind, especially in judgment by cool reason, producing a calm assent that surrenders itself entirely? For the mind's being moved and elevated by nature's wonders could be counted as persuasion. It is not the physical ends, all pointing to an unfathomable understanding in the world cause. They are insufficient, because they do not satisfy the need of questioning reason. Reason asks: what are all those artfully constructed natural things for? What is the human being himself for, at whom we must stop as the ultimate natural end we can think? What is this entire nature there for, and what is the final end of so great and diverse an art? Reason cannot be satisfied with the answer that the world and human beings were created for enjoyment, or for looking, contemplating, and admiring—which, if we stop there, is also nothing more than enjoyment of a special kind—as the ultimate final end of their existence. For reason presupposes a personal worth that human beings can give themselves alone, as the condition under which alone they and their existence can be a final end. Without this, which alone admits a determinate concept, natural ends do not satisfy reason's inquiry. Above all, they can supply no determinate concept of the highest being as an all-sufficient being, and therefore as the single being properly called highest, or of the laws according to which its understanding causes the world.
Thus the physicoteleological proof convinces as though it were also A 472 theological, not because it uses ideas of natural ends as so many empirical grounds of proof of a highest understanding. Rather, the moral ground of proof, present in every human being and moving him so deeply, slips unnoticed into the inference. By it, we attribute to the being that reveals itself so incomprehensibly artful in natural ends a final end as well, and thus wisdom, although perceiving the former does not authorize this. We thereby arbitrarily supplement the argument in its remaining deficiency. In fact, then, only the moral ground of proof produces conviction, and even this only morally—a conviction to which everyone feels inward assent 478. The physicoteleological argument has only the merit of guiding the mind, in contemplating the world, onto the path of ends, and thereby to an intelligent author of the world. The moral relation to ends and the idea of a corresponding legislator and author of the world, as a theological concept, then seem to develop by themselves from that ground of proof, although they are purely an addition.
We may continue to leave matters this way in ordinary presentation. For ordinary sound understanding generally finds it difficult to distinguish as different in kind the various principles it mixes together, from only one of which it actually and correctly infers, when separating them requires much reflection. But the moral proof of God's existence does not really merely complete the physicoteleological proof into a full proof. It is a separate proof that makes up for the lack of conviction A 473 from the latter. For the latter can do nothing more than direct reason's attention, in judging the ground of nature and its contingent but admirable order known to us only through experience, to the causality of a cause containing that ground according to ends. Given our cognitive powers, we must think of this as an intelligent cause. In doing so, the argument makes reason more receptive to the moral proof. For what is required for this latter concept differs so essentially from everything natural concepts can contain and teach that a special ground of proof and proof, entirely independent of the former ones, is needed to specify the original being's concept sufficiently for theology and infer its existence.—The moral proof, which admittedly proves God's existence only in a practical yet unavoidable respect for reason, would therefore retain its force even if we found no material for physical teleology in the world, or only ambiguous material. We can imagine rational beings surrounded by a nature displaying no clear trace of organization, only effects of the mere mechanism of raw matter. Given these effects and the variability of some merely accidentally purposive forms and relations, there would seem to be no ground for inferring an intelligent author. There would then also be no 479 occasion for physical teleology. Yet reason, receiving no guidance here from natural concepts, would find in the concept of freedom and in the moral ideas grounded on it a practically sufficient ground for postulating the concept of the original being in agreement with these A 474, as a deity, and for postulating nature, including our own existence, as a final end conforming to those ideas and their laws. It would do this with regard to practical reason's unavoidable command.—But the fact that in the actual world its rational beings have abundant material for physical teleology, which need not have been so, gives welcome confirmation to the moral argument, insofar as nature can present something analogous to reason's moral ideas. For the concept of a supreme cause possessing understanding, though far from sufficient for theology, thereby acquires reality sufficient for reflective judgment. But this concept is not required as a foundation for the moral proof. Nor does the moral proof serve to complete that argument, which by itself gives no pointer to morality, into one proof through continued inference according to a single principle. Two principles as different as nature and freedom can yield only two different kinds of proof. The attempt to conduct the proof from the former is then found inadequate for what is to be proved.
If the physicoteleological ground of proof were sufficient for the proof sought, it would be very satisfying to speculative reason. For it would give hope of producing a theosophy. This is what we would have to call theoretical knowledge of the divine nature and its existence sufficient to explain the world's character and also to determine moral laws. Likewise, if psychology were sufficient to reach knowledge of the soul's immortality, it would make possible a pneumatology equally welcome to speculative A 475 reason. But however pleasing both may be to the conceit of curiosity, they do not fulfill reason's wish for a theory that would have to be grounded in knowledge of things' nature. Whether the first as theology and the second as anthropology, both grounded on the moral principle of freedom and thus suited to reason's practical use, better fulfill their objective final intention is another question, which we need not pursue further here.
480 The physicoteleological ground of proof is insufficient for theology because it does not and cannot give a concept of the original being determined sufficiently for this purpose. We must take this concept entirely from elsewhere, or replace its absence by an arbitrary addition. You infer an intelligent world cause from the great purposiveness of natural forms and their relations. But to what degree of understanding do you infer? Surely you cannot presume to infer the highest possible understanding. That would require you to see that no greater understanding is thinkable than the one whose evidence you perceive in the world, which would mean attributing omniscience to yourselves. Likewise, from the world's magnitude you infer a very great power in its author. But you must admit that this has meaning only comparatively, for your capacity to grasp it. Since you do not know everything possible so as to compare it with the world's magnitude as far as you know it, you cannot infer the author's omnipotence by so small a standard, and so on. Thus you arrive at no determinate concept of an original being suitable for theology. Such a concept can be found only in the totality of perfections united with A 476 an understanding, which merely empirical data cannot help you attain. Without such a determinate concept, you also cannot infer a single intelligent original being, but can only assume one, for whatever purpose.—We may certainly allow you, since reason has no grounded objection, arbitrarily to add that where so much perfection is found, we may assume all perfection united in a single world cause. For reason proceeds better theoretically and practically with so determinate a principle. But you still cannot advertise this concept of the original being as proved by you when you have assumed it only to serve a better use of reason. All lamentation or impotent anger at the supposed impiety of doubting the cogency of your chain of inference is therefore empty boasting. It would like open doubt about your argument to be treated as doubt about sacred truth, merely to let the argument's shallowness slip through under this cover.
Moral teleology, on the other hand, is no less firmly grounded 481 than physical teleology. Indeed, it deserves preference because it rests a priori on principles inseparable from our reason. It leads to what the possibility of theology requires: a determinate concept of the supreme cause as a world cause according to moral laws, and thus one that satisfies our moral final end. This requires nothing less than omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, and so on, as the natural properties belonging to it. These A 477 must be thought as connected with the moral final end, which is infinite, and therefore as adequate to it. Moral teleology can thus, all by itself, supply the concept of a single author of the world suitable for theology.
In this way a theology also leads directly to religion, the recognition of our duties as divine commands. For knowledge of our duty and of the final end reason imposes on us in it first made possible a determinate concept of God. From its very origin this concept is therefore inseparable from obligation toward this being. By contrast, even if a determinate concept of the original being could be found on the merely theoretical path, as a mere cause of nature, it would afterward be very difficult, perhaps impossible without arbitrary interpolation, to attribute to this being a causality according to moral laws through sound proofs. Without this, however, that allegedly theological concept cannot provide a foundation for religion. Even if a religion could be grounded on this theoretical path, it would really differ in disposition, where its essence lies, from a religion in which the concept of God and practical conviction of his existence arise from fundamental ideas of morality. For if we had to presuppose a world author's absolute power, omniscience, and so on as concepts given from elsewhere, and only afterward apply our concepts of duties to our relation to him, these duties would strongly bear the appearance of compulsion and forced submission. Instead, when respect for the moral law presents us quite freely, according to the prescription of our own A 478 reason, with the final end of our vocation, we include in our moral outlook a cause agreeing with that end and its realization, with the truest reverence, wholly distinct from fear arising from feeling 482, and willingly submit to it42.
If someone asks why we care about having a theology at all, it is clear that we need it subjectively not to extend or correct our knowledge of nature, or any theory in general, but solely for religion: the practical, specifically moral use of reason. If it turns out that the only argument leading to a determinate concept of theology's object is itself moral, it will not be surprising to admit that such an argument sufficiently demonstrates God's existence only for our moral vocation, for practical purposes. Nor will anything be missing regarding the accessibility of acceptance as true from this ground of proof for its final intention. Speculation by no means proves its strength in this argument or extends A 479 its domain through it. Any surprise, or supposed contradiction, between the possibility of theology asserted here and what the Critique of speculative reason said about the categories will also disappear. The Critique said they can produce knowledge only when applied to objects of the senses, never to the supersensible. Here we see them used for knowledge of God, but not theoretically, concerning what his nature, unfathomable to us, is in itself; solely for practical purposes.—To end, on this occasion, the misinterpretation of that very necessary doctrine of the Critique, which also, to the blind dogmatist's annoyance, sends reason back within its limits, I add the following explanation of it.
When I attribute moving force to a body, and thus think of it 483 through the category of causality, I also thereby know it. That is, I determine its concept as an object in general through what belongs to it in itself as an object of the senses, as a condition of the possibility of that relation. For if the moving force I attribute to it is repulsive, then it has a place in space, even if I do not yet place another body beside it on which it exercises this force. It also has extension, space within itself, and fills this space through its parts' repulsive forces. Finally, it has the law of this filling: the ground of the parts' repulsion must decrease in the same proportion as the body's extension grows and the space it fills with the same parts through this force increases.—By contrast, suppose I think of a supersensible being as the first mover, thus through the category of causality regarding the same determination of the world, the motion of matter A 480. I must not think of it as located anywhere in space, nor as extended; indeed, I must not even think of it as existing in time and simultaneously with others. So I have no determinations at all that could make the condition of the possibility of motion through this being as its ground understandable to me. Consequently, through the predicate of cause, as first mover, I do not know this being in itself in the least. I have only the representation of something containing the ground of motions in the world. Its relation to them as their cause gives me nothing further belonging to the character of the thing that is their cause, and so leaves the concept of that cause entirely empty. The reason is this: with predicates whose objects are found only in the sensible world, I can indeed advance to the existence of something that must contain that world's ground, but not to the determination of its concept as a supersensible being, which excludes all those predicates. Thus, through the category of causality, determined by the concept of a first mover, I do not know in the least what God is. But perhaps I will succeed better if the world's order prompts me not merely to think of his causality as that of a supreme understanding, but also to know him through this determination of that concept, since the troublesome condition of space and extension then falls away.—Certainly the world's great purposiveness compels us to think a supreme cause of it, and to think its causality as operating through an understanding 484. But this does not authorize us to attribute understanding to it. Similarly, we may think God's eternity as existence at every time, since otherwise we can form no concept of mere existence as a magnitude, as duration; or divine omnipresence as existence A 481 in every place, to make immediate presence to things external to one another understandable to ourselves. Yet we may not attribute either determination to God as something known in him. When I determine a human being's causality regarding certain products explainable only through intentional purposiveness by thinking it as his understanding, I need not stop there. I can attribute this predicate to him as a well-known property and thereby know him. For I know that intuitions are given to human senses and brought by understanding under a concept and thus under a rule; that this concept contains only the common feature, omitting the particular, and is thus discursive; that understanding supplies the rules for bringing given representations under one consciousness in general even before those intuitions, and so on. I therefore attribute this property to the human being as one through which I know him. But if I want to think a supersensible being, God, as an intelligence, this is not only permissible in a certain respect of my use of reason, but unavoidable. Yet I am by no means permitted to flatter myself that I can attribute understanding to him and thereby know him through one of his properties. For I must then leave out all the conditions under which alone I know an understanding. Thus the predicate that serves only to determine the human being cannot be referred to a supersensible object at all. Through causality determined in this way, therefore, we cannot know what God is. This holds for all categories: they can have no meaning for theoretical knowledge unless applied to objects A 482 of possible experience.—But by analogy with an understanding, I can, and indeed in a certain other respect must, think even a supersensible being, without intending thereby to know it theoretically. This is the case when this determination of its causality concerns an effect in the world containing a morally necessary intention that sensible beings cannot carry out. Then knowledge of God and his existence, theology, is possible through properties and determinations of his causality thought in him merely by 485 analogy. This knowledge has all the required reality practically, but also only in this moral respect.—Ethicotheology is therefore possible. For morality can subsist without theology regarding its rule, but not regarding the final intention that the same rule imposes, without leaving reason unsupported concerning that intention. But a theological ethics of pure reason is impossible. Laws that reason does not originally give itself, and whose observance it does not also bring about as a pure practical capacity, cannot be moral. A theological physics would likewise be an absurdity, since it would present not natural laws but arrangements of a highest will. By contrast, a physical, properly physicoteleological theology can at least serve as preparation for theology proper. By considering natural ends, for which it offers abundant material, it gives occasion for the idea of a final end that nature cannot present. Thus it can make us feel the need for a theology that would determine the concept of God sufficiently for reason's highest practical use. But it cannot produce that theology or adequately ground it on its own proofs.
42 Admiration of beauty, and the emotion aroused by nature's many diverse ends, which a reflective mind can feel even before having a clear representation of a rational author of the world, have something like a religious feeling about them. They therefore seem first to act on moral feeling—gratitude and reverence toward the cause unknown to us—through a way of judging them analogous to moral judgment, and thus to affect the mind by arousing moral ideas. This happens when they inspire the admiration connected with far greater interest than mere theoretical contemplation can produce.
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General Remark on Teleology is part of Critique of Judgment by Immanuel Kant. This page sets the German original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is part 21 of 21 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
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