The joyful voice of the creature

In Church Dogmatics III/1, Barth discusses 'creation as justification'. Creation is good, really good, because it is good in God's sight. But why is that so? Barth is clear that we do not find the goodness, the rightness - the justification - of creation in our experience of the world, not even our good experience:

Created order has what we may call its brighter side. But its justification by its Creator and His self-disclosure is not bound up with this brighter side. It is not connected with the fact that the sun shines, that there are blossoms and fruits, pleasing shapes, colours and sounds, realities and groups of realities which preserve and foster life, purposeful relationships and order, intelligible and serviceable elements and powers, which enlighten the created mind of man, speak to his heart, and in some way correspond with his will for life and foster it.

This brighter side of creation is not enough to justify the creature, to render it really good. After all, we acknowledge in referring to a brighter side that there is a darker side, which might push us to exactly the opposite conclusion. But this not mean that the beauty and order of creation is meaningless. It simply means that its meaning can only be really understood, and placed on a secure foundation in our knowledge, in the light of God's revelation, the covenant brought to fulfillment in Jesus Christ:

An affirmative judgement on creation has its foundation and rightful place. The recognition of its direct and immanent goodness is demanded from the man whom the Creator in His revelation has confronted with Himself. 

Note that it is really the immanent goodness of creation which is to be recognised here. The beauty and order that we see in creation really do speak of its goodness in God's sight. Creation speaks goodness in itself, and thus witnesses to God's goodness all the time; this voice, however, is only heard and heard rightly when God is known in Christ, and the covenant is known as the meaning of creation. 

The joyful voice of the creature rings out where the self-revelation of God has been apprehended.

Quotes from CD III/1, 370-1.

The known and unknown God

As is relatively well known, for his whole life (at least from 1921) Karl Barth carried on a running battle with natural theology, most concisely expressed in his reply to Emil Brunner on the subject, published under the title "Nein!" - which is in itself fairly clear.  But what is the natural theology which Barth rejects, and what does it mean to reject it?  I've been enjoying reading the posthumously published work 'The Christian Life', in which Barth explores the Lord's Prayer; under the petition 'Hallowed be your name' he sheds a great deal of light on what he is saying.

First of all, Barth acknowledges that God's name is hallowed in the wider, non-human created sphere.  "It may well be that the universe in its movements (besouled or not?) - from those of the heavenly bodies to those of the red and white blood corpuscles in our veins, not to speak of the infinitesimal units out of which everything is constructed - hallows the name of God infinitely more seriously than everything that comes into consideration as hallowing of this name among and by men."  And Barth is clear that this glory of God in creation may be seen.  So whatever it is that Barth is rejecting under the title of natural theology, it is not the idea that God's glory shines in the heavens.

Within the human sphere - in the world at large - Barth says God "is indeed well known, and yet he is also unknown..."  He means that human nature, and each individual human being, is ordered towards God; this is true because God is the Creator of each person, and so (quoting Augustine) "his heart is restless until it finds its rest in Him".  So God is known, necessarily known.  But all the structures of worldly life betray the fact that God is unknown - humanity as a whole has perverted the relationship to God which goes with their creation, such that human beings per se do not know the God who is so well known to them.  It's a paradox, which Barth eventually boils down to the difference between the objective and the subjective: objectively, God is known, in that each person is oriented towards the true God; subjectively, God is not known, in that this God is not acknowledged, his name is not hallowed.

It's worth noting here that Barth is not talking about a generic idea of god which is known in the world.  No, it is "the one true and living God who is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" who is so well known in the world and yet totally unknown.  And humanity, and each human, stands guilty before God for not knowing what is so well known.  "Man, not God, is at fault if a subjective knowledge of God on man's side does not correspond to God's objective knowledge."  God continually hallows his name in the world, even where human beings deny his name.  "Is not his name holy in every blade of grass and every snowflake?  Apart from us and even in spite of us, it is holy in every breath we draw, in every thought we think..."

So here is the ambiguity.  Humanity as such stands in the position of knowing God and not knowing him.  It knows him because objectively his name is continually hallowed in the world around and in each human life.  It does not know him because it is wilfully blind, will not acknowledge him, and is therefore plunged into ignorance.  This is real ignorance for Barth; it is not that everyone really, deep down, knows God.  The muddle is deeper than that.  To the depths, the sinful human being does not know God, just as to the depths they are continually confronted with the knowledge of him.

Now here comes natural theology.  Sometimes God overcomes our blindness.  Sometimes in the world God's name is hallowed effectively, the knowledge of God shines through, even in the most avowedly non-Christian places.  Far from wishing to deny this in his battle against natural theology, Barth insists on it.  "God the Creator does not contradict the contradiction of his creature for nothing".  God hallows his name.  But here is the thing: we cannot make a theology of this.  We cannot take these brief flashes of insight and systematise them, as if they were the basis, or at least a possible basis, of an understanding of God.  It cannot be so.  The objective knowledge may be there - the real hallowing of God's name in creation - but is the subjective acknowledgement of God present?  Not as it should be.  Not as it must be.  For Barth, the problem with natural theology is not that we do not have an object for knowledge in creation; the problem is that we do not have a subject.  The known God (really known) does not meet with a knowing humanity (not really knowing, in the sense of acknowledging, hallowing).  And so natural theology is impossible.

"As we search for a knowledge of God in the world that is unequivocally achieved both objectively on God's side and subjectively on man's, as we look for a point where his name might be clearly and distinctly hallowed on both sides in and for the world, we can think only of the one Jesus Christ."  And so he has to be a starting point.

On disliking John Frame

Periodically, I return to the writings of John Frame, even though I know they will frustrate me.  Partly that's because there are people I seriously respect who have a high regard for him as a theologian, and I am trying to understand just why that is.  Partly it's because he is the foremost representative, to my knowledge, of a particular way of doing theology, a way which claims to represent continuity with historic Reformed Orthodoxy.  But I just can't get on with him, and I think I've worked out why.

Most recently I've been reading Frame's Doctrine of the Word of God, and it has really brought to the fore where I think things go wrong.  For Frame, everything is revelatory of God; everything is a medium of God's word.  "Clearly, everything that God has made, and every event that takes place, reveals God in some way" (p. 76).  Now, this does not seem ever so clear to me.  The logic behind it is that since the word of God is God (this identification is important), and since God is providentially in control of everything, everything is a medium of the word of God.  Note that he is absolutely not saying that all things and events, being subject to God's providence, are potentially bearers of God's word; he is saying that in actual fact all things and events are media of God's revelatory word.

This means that Scripture is "one word of God among many" (p. 410), albeit a word which in some way corrects and refines our understanding of the other divine words.  Frame is keen on Calvin's analogy - Scripture is like spectacles.  Without it, we do not see clearly what is being revealed of God through nature and history; with Scripture, our blurry vision comes into focus and we can see God in all things.  Note that "this is not to say that Scripture is more authoritative than the words of God in creation" (p. 411) - this cannot be said, because the word of God is God, and therefore speaks with equal authority wherever it is spoken (and it is spoken everywhere and in everything!)  But Scripture does have the role of correcting our understanding and interpretation of God's word spoken in creation and history.

What does this mean for Jesus Christ, whom Frame acknowledges to be the living Word of God, as per John 1?  Well, explicit discussion of this doesn't kick in until chapter 42 (on page 304!), because Frame follows a schema of creation-word, verbal-word, person-word.  In the end, all that he seems to do with the idea of Christ as Word is to say that he is the mediator of all revelation - because he is the creator God and the Lord of Providence, as well as the teacher par excellence.  It is particularly telling that in the next chapter Frame goes on to say that all humans are revelatory of God; Jesus seems to me on this scheme to be just the best of us.

What I really miss here is any sense of the cross in Frame's epistemology.  Everything seems to sail on in smooth continuity: God in creation, God in history, God in Jesus, God in Scripture...  There is no sense of Jesus as the light shining in the darkness; no sense of the revelation of God as that which decisively contradicts and overturns human wisdom.  God is never hidden, he never veils himself.  In fact, he is so clearly revealed in everything that Frame maintains not only that people can know about God from creation, but that each and every individual actually does know God.  He bases this on an exegesis of Romans 1 which I reject.  In Frame, I think it just serves as a powerplay.

And here's the heart of it: I think that what has happened in Frame is that the divine sovereignty has taken over from every other attribute of God.  Everything collapses into providence: God's authority and control.  It's no coincidence that Frame's multi-volume work is A Theology of Lordship, nor that he makes a slightly bizarre attempt to read concepts of lordship back into the divine name YHWH.  It seems to me that for Frame all theology boils down to this: God is in charge.  Now that's a truth, but unless it's read through the cross I think it's a truth which is hugely distorted.  And I see this not only in Frame but in many of the neo-Reformed across the pond.  In the end, it's a theology of glory, and not of the cross.

Oh, also, he says lots of nasty things about Karl Barth, which I understood much better after I read a bit about Van Til and how ridiculous he was.

"Philosophical Theology"

The scare quotes are to indicate that I don't think there is any such thing.  Permit me to make a couple of remarks.  They are not all that well thought through yet, but perhaps you'll bear with me and even make helpful suggestions.  It is my blog after all.

1.  The best philosophical argument for the existence of God is the ontological argument.  It is the best, not only because there is something rather elegant about it, but primarily because - if it were valid - it would actually show that God exists with the degree of certainty which every theistic religion demands of its adherents.  Sadly, there is no such thing as a valid ontological argument.  If anyone tells you otherwise, I permit you to chide them gently.  Try not to extend this into scoffing.  Be nice.

2.  I am increasingly convinced that probabilistic arguments for God's existence have, as well as their failings to persuade anyone as far as I can tell, the major failing that they are actually blasphemous.  Let me put it this way: if Christian Theism is true, it is impossible that anything should exist on the supposition that Christian Theism were false.  If we say of any thing, 'does this not make it more probable that God exists?', we are doing one of two things (or most likely both).  Either we are moving God into the class of things which may or may not exist - a class which contains all things other than God already - and in so doing denying Christian Theism, or we are actually meaning something more like 'does this not make you feel more like God exists?', in which case we are appealing to subjectivity in a way which makes me uncomfortable.

3.  If the existence of God is a philosophical question, not one of the Biblical authors ever thought to address the issue.  Scripture is full of history; it is full of God proving himself in his words and deeds.  It contains not a word of anything we might recognise as philosophy.  I do not think Christians should be relying on a methodology which the Biblical witnesses, inspired by the ultimate Witness, saw fit to completely neglect.  For us, it is history or bust; resurrection or atheism.

4.  "Philosophical Theology" leads to Theism.  Theism is not Christianity, or a relation of Christianity, or a stepping stone to Christianity.

5.  "Philosophical Theology" generally wants to appear rational and sensible in conversation with the outside world.  This desire may be well motivated in many, although I know that in my own period of chasing the no-god of natural theology that for some at least (i.e. me) the driving force is pride, and a desire to avoid the offence of the cross - which is foolishness to those who are perishing.

The stars that speak

The heavens declare the glory of God, 
   and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. 
Day to day pours out speech, 
   and night to night reveals knowledge. 
There is no speech, nor are there words, 
   whose voice is not heard. 
Their voice goes out through all the earth, 
   and their words to the end of the world.


Thus Psalm 19.


I think there are two basic models for understanding this sort of text.  On the one hand, there is the model which sees creation as a brute fact - something that is just there - from which it can be inferred that there is a God, and that he is glorious.  This approach leads to cosmological and teleological arguments.  On the other hand, there is the model which sees creation as communicative, as something that speaks and sings the glory of God.  This approach leads to less arguments, and more mysticism.


It seems to me that Psalm 19 very definitely presents the latter approach to creation.  The creation is not dumb, but speaks.


Our post-Enlightenment worldview does not prepare us well for this.  We are expecting to be subjects approaching a world make up of objects.  We are the active ones, and everything else is meant to be more or less passive.  But this subject-object epistemology breaks down when faced with the communicative power of creation.  Creation speaks - not of its own resources, but God speaks through it.  We live in an inter-subjective universe; we are always in the presence of the word of another Person.


In practice, that means less arguments from creation and more marvelling at creation.  It means that the feeling of wonder at the night sky matters, perhaps more than all the evidence of God that can be culled from philosophy.  There is no getting away from the voice of God.

The Empty Chair

Tomorrow in the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, the philosopher and apologist William Lane Craig will give a lecture critiquing Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion.  Apparently there will be an empty chair present.  This symbolises the fact that Prof Dawkins was invited to turn this lecture into a debate, and declined.  Foes of Dawkins have made much of this, including an amusing but somewhat triumphalistic bus campaign.

I have some thoughts, naturally.

Firstly, if I were Dawkins I would certainly have turned down this invitation.  If Dawkins debated Craig, he would lose, badly.  It may well be humiliating.  And it would mean nothing at all, in terms of the substantive issues.  Craig is a very good debater; he thinks on his feet, exudes confidence, and runs rings around most other people.  But that doesn't make him right.  The debate format would hardly be likely to be helpful, if by helpful we mean allowing people to investigate the question of whether God does or does not exist.  It would be a tribal exercise.  And on that note, it is worth mentioning that even if Dawkins stood his ground it would just mean that both tribes had something to celebrate - I doubt anyone would change their minds.  I remember reading a couple of different write-ups of a debate between Prof Dawkins and John Lennox, and surprisingly enough the atheist thought Dawkins won and the Christian thought Lennox humiliated him.  Pointless exercise.

Secondly, any debate about the existence of God is likely to be useless at a deeper level.  These sorts of debates are almost inevitably about theism, a concept in which the Bible has no interest.  They also tend to revolve around philosophical arguments, whereas the Scriptural evidence for God's existence is historical rather than philosophical and testimonial rather than argumentative.  I don't think there are any good philosophical arguments for God, but even if there were, what use would it be to demonstrate theism in this way - in a way which is so different to the method which God uses to demonstrate himself?

Thirdly - and this is my real point - the motivation behind this event is shown by the reaction of those on the Christian side.  This could be characterised as triumphalism, smugness, and crowing.  It depresses me.  People seem to have remembered that atheism is a travesty, and forgotten that it is a tragedy.  They seem to have remembered that God triumphs, and forgotten that he does it through the cross.  They seem to have remembered that God's people get glory, and forgotten that they get it by being faithful unto death.  Where is the humility?  Where is the pain over the atheists' ultimate fate?

Anyway, since I've now sounded off in a self-righteous manner, I'm off.

Which God?

Suppose Anselm's ontological argument worked.  Suppose it could be demonstrated, using nothing but commonly available logic, that there must exist a being greater than which nothing could be thought - and that we agreed that this is the being which all call 'God'.  Suppose - and a valid ontological argument would yield this result - the existence of such a being were shown to be necessary.

Is this the God of the Bible?

We could ask, is the being described to be identified with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit?  Is the being described that same being which is revealed by Jesus Christ?

Let me sharpen it up a little.  Suppose we accept that the God we know from Scripture - the God we see revealed in Jesus Christ, and who makes himself known to us in the testimony of the prophets and apostles - could be described as the most perfect being imaginable.  Would the converse be true?  Could the most perfect being imaginable be described as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ?

I believe the answer is firmly 'no'.  In fact, the two 'Gods' being spoken of here have nothing in common.  The God of the ontological argument is perfect - but what does this mean in the abstract?  Would it include dying in agony on a cross under the curse of God?  Could it mean that?  When we start from Christ, and then say that God is perfect, that word has content - and the content is Jesus.  (Which is just to say, that word is the Word).  But if we start from the 'God' of the ontological argument, we start from an empty being - an abstraction, a general and not a particular god - not God.

We are not, then, dealing with another source of knowledge of God which could be coordinated with Jesus Christ; we are dealing with an idol.  And the same could be said of any purported knowledge of God apart from Christ.  (This could even be said of knowledge derived from Scripture!  John 5:39, in context).

Might not this flight into the abstract and general god be the last defence of humanity against the actual God - the God who interferes with my life and my rule over my own world?  Might not theism be the last line of defence against Christ?

Knowing God?

I feel like the question of how we come to know God occupies a lot of my time.  It's a funny question.  For me, it doesn't spring from any anxiety about my own knowledge of God.  Perhaps there is some angst over the fact that other people don't see what I think I see.  Mainly, though, the question is not an existential but a theological one for me.  Given that we know God, how are we to understand that knowing?  Given that it is the case, how can it be the case?  The question is important because at all stages of the theological development of the church the different answers that have been given have represented fundamentally different views of what it means to be a Christian, and by implication what it means to be a human being.  More importantly, different views of how we come to know God lead to different views of the God we come to know.

Consider the first few centuries of the church.  The initial strong consensus that one comes to know God through Jesus Christ - the visible Son of the invisible Father, the precise image of God in the flesh - is challenged by a culturally much stronger and more acceptable form of mystery religion.  Yes, Jesus, but also some sort of mystery - a kind of top-up knowledge.  To really know God, you need Jesus+spiritual experience, or Jesus+secret knowledge.  And of course, because knowing God is caught up with salvation, it turns out that your ascent to salvation is also through secret knowledge.  And given this secret knowledge, one is able to 'see' that of course Jesus was not God in the flesh, but something else, something more refined and more worthy of the dignity of the deity revealed in the mystery.

Or consider the reformation period.  Here there is a more promising starting point, for all are agreed that one comes to know God through Jesus.  The question at issue between Protestant and Catholic is actually 'which Jesus?'  Is it the historical, once-for-all Jesus, to whom the Scriptures bear witness with a finality that cannot be gainsaid?  Or is it the Jesus who is present in the church, to the extent that the church's tradition and teaching reveal him?  That cannot be unrelated to the main difference between the two sides when it comes to salvation: is it by the once-for-all achievement of Christ on the cross, or is it by the repeated sacrifice of Christ on the altar?

Or think about the 'enlightenment'.  The early church period is in some ways reversed.  The prevalent view is that common sense and experience can lead all people to know God.  Jesus helps to clarify that knowledge, and sharpen it, and give shape to the relationship with God that all people everywhere have by virtue of creation.  This view was opposed by versions of the Protestant and Catholic dogmas of the reformation era, both to some extent hardened and weakened, but both demanding (rightly) that Jesus comes in some sense first - although this was sadly muddied on the Catholic side by a strong commitment to the Aristotelian thought of Aquinas.

What is the point?

The point is simply this: whenever you see something co-ordinated with Jesus Christ as a source of knowledge about God, you know you are in trouble.  Doesn't matter whether it's spiritual experience, natural theology, church tradition or anything else.  It's trouble.

On which, more shortly...

'General' revelation? Suppressing the truth in Romans 1

Romans 1:18-32 is also often interpreted as affirming a broad view of revelation. Verses 19 and 20 certainly seem to point in this direction: "For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made."

I feel much more tentative in advancing a contradiction of this interpretation than I did regarding Acts 17, and I would be very interested in comments.

Firstly, there is revelation going on in this passage - "the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven". However, if we ask to whom this revelation is made, the answer seems to be that it is made to Christians. If we read verses 17 and 18 together, we get: "For in [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith... For the wrath of God is revealed..." In other words, from the standpoint of faith in the gospel it is possible to see the wrath of God revealed in the way pagan history has played out. The pagans themselves, of course, do not see this.

Secondly, this passage is a description of pagan history. In chapter 2, Paul will go on to discuss Gentile responsibility to God, and then move to the question of whether the Jews escape condemnation through having the law. So it seems most sensible to read this second half of Romans 1 as Paul's review of how the Gentiles got into this mess in the first place. I think this view helps to explain the phrase "ever since the creation of the world", and also helps to explain Paul's description of decline from a high level of knowledge. Obviously, at the beginning there was recollection of God's personal revelation - his close personal fellowship - with Adam and Eve. But this has been gradually squandered. Knowledge had been exchanged for ignorance. (Doubtless this does also describe the general trend in societies which neglect God, but I think Paul is here describing history, not sociology).

Thirdly, this perspective on pagan history can only be delivered from the point of view of Biblical faith. I am uncomfortable in the extreme with the use of this passage to say "everyone does actually know that God exists, even if they won't admit it - they're just suppressing the truth". Paul's description of history points to the conclusion that people actually do not know that God exists, because since the creation of the world there has been systematic suppression of this truth. Only from the point of view of God's self-revelation can it be seen that this truth has been suppressed.

What then of the fact that "what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them"? And more acutely, what about the fact that this has been plain "ever since the creation of the world" - i.e. not just in the beginning, but ever since?

I think Paul is saying: the information is all still there - but without God's special self-disclosure this will inevitably lead to ignorance, due to human sin. Again, I question whether this should be called 'revelation'. A process which cannot lead to anyone knowing God, but will through sin always lead to idolatry does not seem to me to deserve the label. At the very least, we must say that Romans 1 does not teach that people actually know about God - precisely the opposite!

'General' revelation? Paul before the Areopagus

One passage often thought to teach a broader concept of revelation than the one I've been hinting at here is Acts 17:16-34. Paul is granted a hearing before the Areopagus in Athens, and he proceeds to preach the gospel. He begins with the Athenian altar "to the Unknown God", proceeds to explain the folly of idolatry in typical OT and Jewish terms (but terms with which his sophisticated pagan audience would have had some sympathy), explains God's dealings with the nations in the past, and concludes by calling all to repent since God has now raised Jesus from the dead. (As an aside, this seems to be an extended and sophisticated version of Paul's address to the people of Derbe in Acts 14).

Two aspects of Paul's sermon might seem to imply a broad concept of revelation. The first is his use of the Athenian's 'unknown god'. Of course, in and of itself this is nothing more than an incidental point of Athenian culture, which was crowded (physically and metaphysically) with gods. However, Paul states his intention in his sermon thus: "what therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you". Is Paul here identifying the God of the OT, and the Father of Jesus Christ, with the Athenian idol? Is he saying that the worship the Athenians have directed to this unknown God has in fact been directed to the Creator God?

In my opinion, the answer to both questions must be 'no'. I'll come to the reasoning behind this shortly. But first, notice that the whole point here is that the Athenians do not know God. The altar to the unknown god represented, for them, the simple enough pagan fear that they might have overlooked a deity. For Paul, I would suggest, it represents more profoundly the emptiness that lies at the heart of all pagan religion. The fact that the altar is there testifies to a space - a void - that exists within this religious system. That void must necessarily exist in any religion of untrue gods, for religion is directed toward a deity (or deities), and unless the direction is toward the true and living God all the worship, prayer and devotion simply disappears into nothingness.

The second point which might seem to indicate a broad concept of revelation is Paul's outline of history: "he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined alotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way towards him and find him". Paul might well be taken to mean here that the general cultural history of the world is in itself a vehicle of revelation. History has been ordered such that there is potential for people to find God in it.

But note what the outcome has been: nobody has found God. "Yet he is actually not far from each one of us". All the reaching out and grasping that humanity has done, all the history of religion and philosophy, has only produced the altar to the unknown god. All the worship has only produced temples made with hands, containing gods which cannot move or act or speak. Human culture, religion and philosophy has by-passed the God who not far from each one of us, seeking a different god, a 'better' god, a god more to our taste. The conclusion of this history is that the true God breaks in in Jesus Christ and calls for repentance. Note that it is precisely this seeking after god which the nations are called to repent of, in the light of the fact that God has decisively sought after them.

Is the Unknown God to be identified with YHWH, with the Father of Jesus Christ? Absolutely not. Paul speaks consistently from the standpoint of revelation here - i.e. from the standpoint of faith in Jesus Christ and the Scriptures which testify to him. His critique of idolatry is derived thence, as is his interpretation of history. From that standpoint, Paul sees the void represented by the unknown god as the evidence of the absence of revelation, and he proceeds to proclaim Christ.

P.S. Any attempt to see broader revelation here actually leads to a very muddled concept of revelation - it is revelation that does not reveal, revelation that leads to unknowing. The sign of the unknown god bars the way to any such doctrine.

Postulating God

You could be forgiven for thinking that a person who spent as much time arguing against the theistic proofs as Kant did probably wasn't a firm believer in God. You would, however, be mistaken. Kant most certainly believed in God. His arguments for God rest primarily on morality.

It is worth beginning by stating that Kant believed very strongly in original sin, specifically in the corruption of every human nature. (He does not believe in original guilt, nor does he believe that this corruption is inherited - rather it is chosen in some way by the individual). He sees the evidence of original sin, which he defines as the adoption of a bad moral principle, in human behaviour. People act badly, therefore they must have chosen to pursue bad ends.

Despite this, human beings have a duty to be moral, indeed, perfectly virtuous. This is our moral end. (Incidentally, you cannot really argue for this; on Kant's view it is simply the case that we have a duty to be perfectly virtuous). As well as a moral end, human beings have a natural end, which is perfect happiness. Although the moral end and natural end belong together, and together constitute the highest good for human beings, Kant is clear that the moral end is more important than the natural end - it is better to be virtuous than happy. But the most important thing is that we cannot have a duty to be happy, whilst we do have a duty to be virtuous.

From this, Kant derives the concept of God, in three distinct ways:

1. I cannot have a duty to do what is impossible for me; moral perfection is impossible for me in this life; nevertheless, moral perfection is my duty; therefore there must be an afterlife in which I can continue my progress. (Thus the immortality of the soul is proved - not yet God, but God is very much connected with the concept of the soul).

2. The moral end and natural end of human beings belong together, viz. the good deserve to be happy; but it is often the case that the good are not happy and that the causal link between virtue and happiness is obscured; nevertheless, it is our duty to pursue a situation where the highest good (i.e. the correlation of virtue and happiness) obtains; this situation can only obtain if there is a just, omniscient, omnipotent God.

3. It is my duty to be morally perfect; but in fact I have an evil disposition due to my original choice of an evil principle; therefore, even in eternity I could only ever make progress - I could never actually be perfect; but I cannot have an impossible duty; therefore, there must be a God to make up the shortfall.

I have perhaps not stated those arguments in their most clear and impressive form. It isn't that important. The most important thing is that for Kant God is a concept to make morality work. In fact, in Religion within the bounds of mere reason, Kant is clear that an actual God may not be necessary - it is only necessary to recognise that the idea of God is possible. If God is possible, then there is hope of our duties being possible, and so we will not despair of them. God is a "practically necessary hypothesis", a "postulate of practical reason" - nothing more.

The grand weakness in all Kant's argument is simply put: Nietzsche. Even assuming the validity of Kant's arguments (and that is assuming a lot), there is still the fact that we must assume the duty to be moral. The arguments boil down to: morality only works with God; morality must work; therefore God. Nietzsche will categorically deny the minor premise - and where is God then for Kant?

I raise this because arguments like this are used regularly by Christian apologists - I have used them myself in the past. They are weak, extraordinarily weak. They may have had some subjective appeal in an age when people believed in objective morality, but I think the time has come to drop them. We can still point out that ethics only makes sense on Christian presuppositions, and this may be useful in getting others to re-examine their worldviews, but we need to understand that this in no way proves God, or even contributes a gram of evidence for his existence.

Arguing for God

Kant famously rejects most of the traditional arguments that philosophers advance in favour of the existence of God. He breaks them down into three categories:

At the tertiary level, there are what Kant calls physicotheological arguments. These take as their starting point a particular feature of the world (e.g. apparent design, order, etc.) and argue from these to the existence of a God responsible for these features. Kant is unimpressed, suspecting that any argument of this sort must secretly depend on a cosmological argument. No one would begin to look for explanations of particular features of the world unless they were convinced already that the world as a whole required explanation.

The cosmological argument represents the second layer in the traditional proof for God. It proceeds, not from any particular aspect of the universe, but from the existence of the physical universe at all. In other words, it sees God as the answer to the question "why is there something rather than nothing?". Kant is equally dismissive of this argument. He believes that is essentially a cover for the ontological argument. No one would feel the need to posit God as an explanation for the world unless they already considered the notion of a necessary being to be coherent, and to require the actual existence of such a being.

At the most basic level, there are ontological arguments for God. These move from the concept of a necessary being, arguing that by definition the most perfect being must exist. Kant refutes the argument by asserting that existence simply is not a predicate and does not work in that way. In this opinion most philosophers have followed him. I'm not so sure myself, but I'm certain on other grounds that any form of ontological argument must ultimately fail.

In this fashion, Kant dismisses all traditional natural theology. You could argue that in fact what Kant shows is that one only finds God at the conclusion of the traditional theistic proofs if one is already predisposed to seek him there. This is the death of natural theology as traditionally conceived.

A question I would put to fellow Christians is whether they are content to take these arguments seriously? Are they prepared to leave natural theology behind? Note that this is something that we have to do even if we find the arguments convincing. Because of course we would find them convincing. We are looking for God, and lo and behold there he is. If you find design in the world around you that requires explanation, fair enough - so you should! But if your Christianity needs this philosophical foundation, I honestly think you're in trouble.

Religion within the bounds of mere reason

Sorry, apparently when I say "tomorrow" I may well mean "sometime next week if you're lucky..."

Kant's starting point has a very serious effect on his approach to religion. Because he starts with the autonomous human being, and makes the autonomous human being the measure of many if not all things, he is inclined to emphasise the things that are (in principle at least) open to everyone, and to minimise anything particular. In religion, that means Kant is keen on things that can be worked out about God by reason, without revelation. He is not keen on anything that requires a particular story to be told, or things that rely on particular facts. He wants us to run after "a plain rational faith which can be convincingly communicated to everyone" rather than "a historical faith, merely based on facts". (This is also tied up with Kant's idea of duty in the field of ethics - possibly more of this later). So natural theology is in (except that Kant doesn't think you can do much of it - again, more possibly to follow on this) and revealed theology is out, or at least is strictly speaking superfluous.

And Kant's direction has a similar effect. He is interested in practical reason, with the emphasis on practical. Kant has no time for any doctrine which does not improve us (morally). Into this bracket fall such things as the idea of atonement, the historical incarnation and the like. If the incarnation is to be of use, it can only be as presenting a perfect example of humanity for us to follow, in which case it must not be strictly a historical incarnation, but a simple idea of reason. Everything is about what it means for me in practice. The further we get from this concern, the more we veer into speculation and useless debates. Religion, for Kant, is basically a department of ethics.

I think both these concerns still lurk in our church culture today. The latter is most obvious - how many times have I been in a Bible study discussing the most astonishing truths about Christ and been asked "yes, but what does it mean for me? What do I have to do?" And this is antiChristian through and through. The former concern shows itself more subtly, most obviously in the desire to make natural theology work, primarily as an apologetic (i.e. an answer to "what about those who haven't heard..?") I think this is also antiChristian.

At some point in the future, I'll suggest some steps to shake these things out of our minds...