I know, I know, it is a cheap tag-line, but I wanted to include a couple of quotes from Kant to help with my present argument with myself. I have been chewing on these notions of Truth and Beauty, and I was reminded of his Critique of Judgment that I read in my undergrad, so I pulled it from the shelf and read a bit to see what he came up with. Here are a few snippets that might be worth consideration.
**Kant is talking about aesthetic-judgment here, but I think it applies equally well to the present considerations***
"If we wish to decide whether something is beautiful or not, we do not use understanding to refer the presentation to the object so as to give rise to cognition; rather, we use imagination to refer the presentation to the subject and his feeling of pleasure or displeasure. Hence a judgment of taste is not a cognitive judgment and so is not a logical judgment but an aesthetic one, by which we mean a judgment whose determining basis cannot be other than subjective."
In my present musings, I liken what he is writing to the Christian faith. The question that must be answered when defending a position such as the one that I have taken is: Do you believe in absolute truth? The answer is one of those great Yes/No's that modern and postmodern philosophers love to give. The very fact that we can get to the notion of God logically (see: Aquinas...etc) necessitates that there is perfection (aka: Truth), but surely we cannot for a second believe that finite human beings are capable of grasping such a thing.
Let us take Kant's words as an example. In the same way that I cannot judge beauty without filtering the perception through the instrument of imaginative thought, so too must abstract concepts such as Truth, Beauty, God, grace..... go through a similar, if not the same, filter. To believe that our filters cannot be dirtied or obstructed in some fashion seems absurd at best, and outright hubristic at worst. Why must we insist on having insight into such things with the same clarity as the mind of God?
***I lost the other passage that went along with what I was saying (cut me some slack, though; it's a bit book), so I have one other piece that is relatively unrelated but interesting to the study***
"A judgment of taste requires everyone to assent; and whoever declares something to be beautiful holds that everyone ought to give his approval.... We solicit everyone else's assent because we have a basis for it that is common to all. Indeed, we could count on that assent, if only we could always be sure that the instance had been subsumed correctly under that basis, which is the rule for approval."
Even big-scary-enemy-of-the-church Kant leaves more than mere room for religious expression. I believe denominational worship could fall under this umbrella. We agree on certain principles of the faith as a community, and our community might differ in areas from another (ex: Catholic vs. Baptist vs. Methodist...etc), but each is agreeing on terms that their members agree upon as standards of worship. Within these standards there is room for expectations of propriety and solidarity of belief, but the one group cannot in good conscience denigrate the others who are merely assenting to different boundaries and interpretations.
I realize this line of thought is not expanded to its fullest potential, and questions abound that must be dealt with, particularly relating to limits on deviation from one group to another while still being considered an interpretation of the same thing, but I do not think this is far off. The beauty of grace (at least the way I understand it) is in the ability as believers to approach the taking up of our faith with fear and trembling, but not a fear that leads to stagnation.
**Kant is talking about aesthetic-judgment here, but I think it applies equally well to the present considerations***
"If we wish to decide whether something is beautiful or not, we do not use understanding to refer the presentation to the object so as to give rise to cognition; rather, we use imagination to refer the presentation to the subject and his feeling of pleasure or displeasure. Hence a judgment of taste is not a cognitive judgment and so is not a logical judgment but an aesthetic one, by which we mean a judgment whose determining basis cannot be other than subjective."
In my present musings, I liken what he is writing to the Christian faith. The question that must be answered when defending a position such as the one that I have taken is: Do you believe in absolute truth? The answer is one of those great Yes/No's that modern and postmodern philosophers love to give. The very fact that we can get to the notion of God logically (see: Aquinas...etc) necessitates that there is perfection (aka: Truth), but surely we cannot for a second believe that finite human beings are capable of grasping such a thing.
Let us take Kant's words as an example. In the same way that I cannot judge beauty without filtering the perception through the instrument of imaginative thought, so too must abstract concepts such as Truth, Beauty, God, grace..... go through a similar, if not the same, filter. To believe that our filters cannot be dirtied or obstructed in some fashion seems absurd at best, and outright hubristic at worst. Why must we insist on having insight into such things with the same clarity as the mind of God?
***I lost the other passage that went along with what I was saying (cut me some slack, though; it's a bit book), so I have one other piece that is relatively unrelated but interesting to the study***
"A judgment of taste requires everyone to assent; and whoever declares something to be beautiful holds that everyone ought to give his approval.... We solicit everyone else's assent because we have a basis for it that is common to all. Indeed, we could count on that assent, if only we could always be sure that the instance had been subsumed correctly under that basis, which is the rule for approval."
Even big-scary-enemy-of-the-church Kant leaves more than mere room for religious expression. I believe denominational worship could fall under this umbrella. We agree on certain principles of the faith as a community, and our community might differ in areas from another (ex: Catholic vs. Baptist vs. Methodist...etc), but each is agreeing on terms that their members agree upon as standards of worship. Within these standards there is room for expectations of propriety and solidarity of belief, but the one group cannot in good conscience denigrate the others who are merely assenting to different boundaries and interpretations.
I realize this line of thought is not expanded to its fullest potential, and questions abound that must be dealt with, particularly relating to limits on deviation from one group to another while still being considered an interpretation of the same thing, but I do not think this is far off. The beauty of grace (at least the way I understand it) is in the ability as believers to approach the taking up of our faith with fear and trembling, but not a fear that leads to stagnation.
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