Kant: Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason And Other Writings

Except for misprints and certain few expressions that have been corrected, nothing has been altered in this edition. Newly added supplements have been placed at the foot of the text, marked with a dagger (†).

Regarding the title of this work (since doubts have been expressed also regarding the intention hidden behind it) I note: Since, after all, revelation can at least comprise also the pure religion of reason, whereas, conversely, the latter cannot do the same for what is historical in revelation, I shall be able to consider the first as a wider sphere of faith that includes the other, a narrower one, within itself (not as two circles external to one another but as concentric circles); the philosopher, as purely a teacher of reason (from mere principles a priori), must keep within the inner circle and, thereby, also abstract from all experience. From this standpoint I can also make this second experiment, namely, to start from some alleged revelation or other and, abstracting from the pure religion of reason (so far as it constitutes a system on its own), to hold fragments of this revelation, as a historical system, up to moral concepts, and see whether it does not lead back to the same pure rational system of religion [from which I have abstracted]. The latter, though not from the theoretical point of view (under which must also be reckoned the technicopractical point of view of pedagogical method, as a technology) may yet, from the morally practical point of view, be independent and sufficient to genuine religion, which, as a rational concept a priori (remaining after everything empirical has been removed), only obtains in this relation. If this is the case, then we shall be able to say that between reason and Scripture there is, not only compatibility but also unity, so that whoever follows the one (under the guidance of moral concepts) will not fail to come across the other as well.