Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, pages 56-57
We do not need the example of Christ to know and follow the moral law
“For how it is possible that the bare idea of conformity to law, as such, should be a
stronger incentive for the will than all the incentives conceivable whose source is personal
gain, can neither be understood by reason nor yet proved by examples from experience.
As regards the former, the law commands unqualifiedly; and as regards the latter, even though there
had never existed an individual who yielded unqualified obedience to this law, the objective
necessity of being such an one would yet be undiminished and self-evident.
We need, therefore, no empirical example to make the idea of a person morally well-pleasing
to God our archetype; this idea as an archetype is already present in our reason.”
… “Now if it were indeed a fact that such
a truly godly-minded man at some particular time had descended, as it were, from heaven
to earth and had given men in his own person, through his teachings, his conduct, and his
sufferings, as perfect an example of a man well-pleasing to God as one can expect to
find in external experience (for be it remembered that the archetype of such a person is to
be sought nowhere but in our own reason), and if he had, through all this, produced
immeasurably great moral good upon earth by effecting a revolution in the human race—even
then we should have no cause for supposing him other than a man naturally begotten.
(Indeed, the naturally begotten man feels himself under obligation to furnish just such
an example in himself.)
This is not, to be sure, absolutely to deny that he might be a man supernaturally begotten.
But to suppose the latter can in no way benefit us practically, inasmuch as the archetype
which we find embodied in this manifestation must, after all, be sought in ourselves (even
though we are but natural men).
And the presence of this archetype in the human soul is in itself sufficiently incomprehensible
without our adding to its supernatural origin the assumption that it is hypostasized in
a particular individual.
The elevation of such a holy person above all the frailties of human nature would rather,
so far as we can see, hinder our adoption of the idea of such a person for our imitation.”
Interpretation Kant claims that doing one’s duty for duty’s
sake is the strongest possible motivation for the human will.
That this is so cannot be proved by reason, because the moral law does not come with a
“because” clause: e.g., “Tell the truth!” is a categorical command.
That this is so also cannot be proved by empirical reasoning from cases, since the moral law’s
weight would be unchanged even if there never were a person who lived it out in perfect
obedience.
The archetype or model of perfect moral behavior is found in our reason, not in any historical
or mythical individual.
Thus the example of Jesus Christ as a morally perfect being is not strictly necessary to
motivate us to fulfill our ethical duty.
We could know and will the moral law equally well while being ignorant of His exemplary
life.
And furthermore, Kant claims, even if such a morally perfect person existed in history,
and had by his teachings transformed the human race, this would still be no cause for believing
in His divinity.
We might believe Jesus is divine, but such belief can have no practical effect on our
moral lives, knowledge of the law, motivation, and decision making.
And again, this is because the model of moral perfection is implicit in human reason, not
provided by an empirical example.
Kant ends this passage by suggesting that positing the divinity of Christ is not only
unnecessary from a practical point of view; it can even frustrate our desire to live out
moral perfection,¬ by giving us a model that is more-than-human.