Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone Quotes

“...Ethical laws cannot be thought of as emanating originally merely from the will of this superior being as statutes, which, had he not first commanded them, would perhaps not be binding, for then they would not be ethical laws and the duty proper to them would not be the free duty of virtue but the coercive duty of law.”
― Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone

“Hence a necessary consequence of the physical and, at the same time, the moral predisposition in us, the latter being the basis and the interpreter of all religion, is that in the end religion will gradually be freed from all empirical determining grounds and from all statutes which rest on history and which through the agency of ecclesiastical faith provisionally unite men for the requirements of the good; and thus at last the pure religion of reason will rule over all, “so that God may be all in all.”
― Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone

“When, therefore, (in conformity with the unavoidable limitation of human reason) an historical faith attaches itself to pure religion, as its vehicle, but with the consciousness that it is only a vehicle, and when this faith, having become ecclesiastical, embraces the principle of a continual approach to pure religious faith, in order finally to be able to dispense with the historical vehicle, a church thus characterized can at any time be called the true church; but, since conflict over historical dogmas can never be avoided, it can be spoken of only as the church militant, though with the prospect of becoming finally the changeless and all-unifying church triumphant! We call the faith of every individual who possesses moral capacity (worthiness) for eternal happiness a saving faith. This also can be but a single faith; amid all diversity of ecclesiastical faiths [or creeds] it is discoverable in each of these in which, moving toward the goal of pure religious faith, it is practical. The faith of a religion of divine worship, in contrast, is a drudging and mercenary faith (fides mercenaria, servilis) and cannot be regarded as saving because it is not moral. For a moral faith must be free and based upon an ingenuous disposition of the heart (fides ingenua). Ecclesiastical faith fancies it possible to become well-pleasing to God through actions (of worship) which (though irksome) yet possess in themselves no moral worth and hence are merely acts induced by fear or hope – acts which an evil man also can perform. Moral faith, in contrast, presupposes that a morally good disposition is requisite.”
― Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone

“Pure religious faith alone can found a universal church; for only [such] rational faith can be believed in and shared by everyone, whereas an historical faith, grounded solely on facts, can extend its influence no further than tidings of it can reach, subject to circumstances of time and place and dependent upon the capacity [of men] to judge the credibility of such tidings. Yet, by reason of a peculiar weakness of human nature, pure faith can never be relied on as much as it deserves, that is, a church cannot be established on it alone.”
― Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone

“In traditional forms of the doctrine of original sin, human beings are said to have inherited two moral liabilities from their first ancestors, Adam and Eve. One is guilt: we are said to share in the guilt of the first sin that our ancestors committed. The other is corruption, a perversion of motivation that is itself evil and makes people likelier to do wrong deeds.”
― Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason and Other Writings

“Now the ground of this evil cannot be placed, as is so commonly done, in man's senses and the natural inclinations to evil (rather do they afford the occasion for what the moral disposition in its power can manifest, namely, virtue); we cannot, must not even be considered responsible for their existence since they are not implanted in us and we are not their authors. We are accountable, however, for the propensity to evil, which, as it affects the morality of the subject, is to be found in him as a free-acting being and for which it must be possible to hold him accountable as the offender--this, too, despite the fact that this propensity is so deeply rooted in the will that we are forced to say that it is to be found in man by nature.”
― Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone

“...Freedom of the will is of a wholly unique nature in that an incentive can determine the will to an action only so far as the individual has incorporated it into his maxim (has made it the general rule in accordance with which he will conduct himself); only thus can an incentive, whatever it may be, co-exist with the absolute spontaneity of the will (i.e., freedom).”
― Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone