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Document Details : Title: Kants Religionsschrift door de bril van twee hedendaagse theologen Subtitle: Bedenkingen bij In Defense of Kant's Religion van Firestone en Jacobs Author(s): VAN EEKERT, Geert Journal: Bijdragen Volume: 72 Issue: 4 Date: 2011 Pages: 382-407 DOI: 10.2143/BIJ.72.4.2152702 Abstract : Chris L. Firestone belongs to the new wave of a theologically affirmative interpretation of Kant’s philosophy of religion that is also advocated by prominent thinkers such as Alston, Plantinga and Wolterstorff (among others). However, in Kant and Theology at the Boundaries of Reason (2009) Firestone points to the need to take this new wave a step further by investigating to what extent Kant’s philosophy of religion affirms not only generic religion and talk of God generally, but also more specific Christian claims such as human depravity, redemption, incarnation and grace. According to his own saying, in Jacobs’ and his volume In Defense of Kant’s Religion (2008) Firestone has managed to proof that Kant really affirms this convictions by rereading Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. This article intends to assess this reading. It not only criticizes the way in which Firestone and Jacobs reject interpretations of Kant’s Religionsschrift that are not theologically affirmative. It also checks to what extent their reading 'is firmly based in the internal textual specifics' of Kant’s Religion, by taking their interpretation of the first part of Kant’s book (dealing with radical evil in human nature) as an example. By rubbing their noses in what Kant actually said, it is shown that Firestone and Jacobs blatantly neglect those ‘internal textual specifics’ that contradict the possibility of reading that first part as a defense of the Christian doctrine of peccatum originale. |
