Stone Life

“Surely it is permissible to insert speculations into the progression of a history in order to fill gaps in the reports, because what comes before, as a distant cause, and what follows, as effect, can give a fairly reliable clue for discovering the intervening causes so as to make the transition comprehensible.” (109)

In other words, he questions whether doing what Milton does in Paradise Lost or, to be current, what Mel Gibson does with the crucifixion is allowable. Is it so wrong to fill in the gaps where explicit history leaves off?

What follows is an explanation of the fall of man viewed through the lense of reason and imagination alone. Mankind is endowed with reason, and ruled by this inherited nature he is content. He and his wife are unashamed, comfortable, and well provided for. Instinct, provided from their birth, guides them.

Desire in the form of imagination precipitated his downfall. Rather than contentment with what man had, he began comparing different options, and soon greed and luxury took control. He writes,

“Perhaps a mere fruit whose appearance resembled that of others that he had tasted and found agreeable tempted man to experiment… He discovered in himself an ability to choose his own way of life and thus not to be bound like other animals to only a single one.”

“…He stood as if at the edge of the abyss; for besides the particular objects of desire on which instinct had until now made him dependent, there opened to him an infinitude of them…and it was now impossible for him to turn back from his once taste state of freedom to his former servitude.” (112-3)

The remainder of the essay gets somewhat convoluted, but a central point is made that the unsocial behaviour that results from man’s withdrawal into himself actually brings about societal good. In this way, one can make a fortunate fall argument, exalting Providence in the process.

In another of Kant’s essays, “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Intent” he explains this more clearly, writing,

“Man wills concord; but nature better knows what is good for the species: she wills discord. He wills to live comfortably and pleasantly; but nature wills that he should be plunged from laziness and inactive comfort into work and hardship, so that he will in turn seek by his own cleverness to pull up from them."

"The natural impulse to do this – the sources of unsociability and of thoroughgoing resistance that give rise to so much evil but also drive men anew toward further exertions of their powers… - indicates the design of a wise creator, not the hand of a malicious spirit who fiddled with the creator’s masterful arrangement or enviously spoiled it.” (21-2)

What Kant leaves us with, contrary to popular opinion, is an optimistic potential outcome for humanity. He is by no means wholly optimistic, and he seems to leave room for man to step from his perch over the abyss back into barbarism, but there is yet potential for good. There is, by virtue of a providential order a move from bad to good in human history, and it is thus that he advocates the social, rational morality for which he is so famous. This move towards good is not achievable entirely, and so maybe bad to good is a bit of a misnomer; instead, he says we move from worse to better.

Why You Should Care?

Do I lose my Jesus-card completely when I herald Kant as a spiritual handmaid, along with Nietzsche, Thoreau and, God forbid, Darwin? – or is there possibly room for them under the larger umbrella of Christian formation?

I make not secret that my bias is toward these thinkers, and maybe this is owing in part to the same spirit within me that enjoyed skipping high school because it was illicit; nonetheless, I hold this to be entirely beneficial to a believer in much the same way as those other thinkers previously spoken of.

There are a host of comments I could make about this, but today I think I will limit it to the comfort of them. It is just nice to point out some reasonableness amidst those areas that call for faith in that which is unseen. One finds himself on the verge of bowing out when he constantly must confront the Nietzsche’s of the world (both past and present) with the miraculous.

Miracles, by their very nature defy rationality. It is just not reasonable that a burning-bush spoke the words of God, that the Earth stood still, or that a Jewish god-man in the 1st century rose from the dead in atonement for our sins. I stand in support of the miraculous, but touting these arguments alone makes for crack-pots and the zealots destined for late-night TBN. Is God not also the God of rationality?

Christianity is too often laughed out of the public-square, because its adherents refuse to dialogue with the world on the world’s terms.

I say, “Cheers!” to the reasonable.