BÓG I RELIGIA CZŁOWIEKA OŚWIECONEGO WEDŁUG KANTA
Abstract
GOD AND RELIGION OF ENLIGHTENED MAN ACCORDING TO KANT
Having revealed an illusion of man’s cognitive efforts, Kant
sealed the progress of enlightenment inscribed into a historical process,
with a deep conviction that an ancient Greek prescription to „know
thyself” was finally fulfilled. A man became aware of being equipped
with a mind, and accordingly, with freedom as well as the ability to act
morally, still of remaining a finite natural being with cognitive skills
limited. This critical self-knowledge of an enlightened man relieved him
of his nonage to open his eyes for a new vision of both the world and a
man himself regarded as a self-conscious subject and active creator of
his fate.
The character and ontological status of religious beliefs the
enlightened man confesses are in fact defined by the famous Kantian
formula: as if (als ob.) Driven by moral reasons, they are distinguished
with a rationality for which a fundamental value is the Highest Good,
purely rationalistic construction, a kind of god thought to be an
essential being and a ration for existence of the phenomenal world.