Kant and the present

Abstract

Epistemologically Christianity cannot be true, since it is predicated upon a claim to a particularity that, subsequent to the scientific advance in the eighteenth century, has been recognized as untenable. Ethically, Christianity is necessarily heteronomous; as indeed Kant adduces in his What is Enlightenment?. Feminists must find Kant's stand against heteronomous relations attractive. Kant's Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone may well be counted the first great demythologization of Christianity. But it is open to question whether the Christian myth acting as a vehicle (to employ Kant's term) is in the first place a carrier of innate moral precepts. May it not rather express human awareness of a dimension of reality which has previously been hypostasized and named God? It is for us to find ways of expressing this reality that are epistemologically tenable (thus not involving belief in particular revelation). There is no reason why such an understanding should be heteronomous or anything other than gender inclusive. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.