Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T20:10:47.888Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Kant on the Hiddenness of God

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Eric Watkins
Eric Watkins
Affiliation:
University of California, San Diego
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Kant's sustained reflections on God have received considerable scholarly attention over the years and rightly so. His provocative criticisms of the three traditional theoretical proofs of the existence of God, and his own positive proof for belief in God's existence on moral grounds, have fully deserved the clarification and analysis that has occurred in these discussions. What I want to focus on, however, is the extent to which Kant's position contains resources sufficient to answer a line of questioning about the existence of God that has recently been called the problem of the ‘hiddenness of God’ in contemporary discussions in philosophy of religion. If God exists roughly as the Judeo-Christian philosophical tradition conceives of him, it is puzzling, at least prima facie, why he does not make his existence overwhelmingly obvious to one and all, but rather is hidden from us. For if God is omnipotent, as the tradition maintains, it seems that he would have the power to reveal himself to us and, for that matter, with sufficient clarity that we would be left with no doubt about the matter. And if, as the tradition maintains further, it is important to God that we accept his existence and reject false idols who would pretend to divine status, it would seem that he has a significant reason to reveal himself to us. In short, given that God can make his existence obvious to all, and that doing so would fulfil an important purpose, why does he remain hidden from us?

Type
Articles
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , March 2009 , pp. 81 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © Kantian Review 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, Robert (1972) ‘Must God create the best?’, Philosophical Review, 81: 317–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adams, Robert. (1995) ‘Moral faith’, Journal of Philosophy, 92: 75–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chignell, Andrew (2007) ‘Belief in Kant’, Philosophical Review, 116: 323–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Descartes, Rene (1985) Principles of Philosophy, in Cottingham, J., Stoothoff, R., Murdoch, D. (trans.), The Philosophical Writings of Descartes: Volume 1 (New York: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Hare, John (1996) The Moral Gap: Kantian Ethics, Human Limits, and God's Assistance (Oxford: Clarendon Press).Google Scholar
Howard-Snyder, Daniel and Paul, Moser (eds) (2002) Divine Hiddenness: New Essays (New York: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Hume, David (1966) An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Selby-Bigge, L. A. (New York: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Hume, David. (1977) Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, ed. Price, J. (Oxford: Clarendon Press).Google Scholar
Plantinga, Alvin (1974) God, Freedom and Evil (New York: Harper and Row).Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1902–) Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Königliche Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin: de Gruyter), volumes 1–29.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. (1996a) Practical Philosophy, trans, and ed. Mary, Gregor (New York: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. (1996b) Religion and Rational Theology, trans, and ed. Wood, Allen and Giovanni, George di (New York: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. (1997) Lectures on Metaphysics, trans, and ed. Karl, Ameriks and Steve, Naragon (New York: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kvanig, Jonathan (2002) ‘Divine hiddenness: What is the problem?’, in Daniel, Howard-Snyder and Paul, Moser (eds), Divine Hiddenness: New Essays (New York: Cambridge University Press), pp. 149–63.Google Scholar
Leibniz, G. W. (1989) ‘From the letters to Clarke’, in Leibniz, G. W., Philosophical Essays (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company).Google Scholar
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim (1780) Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts (Berlin: Voß).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murray, Michael (1993) ‘Coercion and the hiddenness of God’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 30: 27–35.Google Scholar
Neiman, Susan (1994) The Unity of Reason: Rereading Kant (New York: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newton, Isaac (1730) Opticks, or Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light (London).Google Scholar
Nozick, Robert (1969) ‘Coercion’, in Sidney, Morgenbesser, Patrick, Suppes, and Morton, White (eds), Philosophy, Science, and Method: Essays in Honor of Ernest Nagel (New York: St. Martin's Press), pp. 440–72.Google Scholar
Ripstein, Arthur (2004) ‘Authority and coercion’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 32: 2–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schellenberg, J. L. (1993) Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press).Google Scholar
Van Inwagen, Peter (2002) ‘What is the problem of the hiddenness of God?’, in Daniel, Howard-Snyder and Paul, Moser (eds), Divine Hiddenness: New Essays (New York: Cambridge University Press), pp. 24–32.Google Scholar
Watkins, Eric (2005) Kant and the Metaphysics of Causality (New York: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Watkins, Eric. (2008) ‘Kant and the myth of the given’, Inquiry, 51: 512–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, Allen (1970) Kant's Moral Religion (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press).Google Scholar
Yaffe, Gideon (2003) ‘Indoctrination, coercion and freedom of will’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 67: 335–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar