IMMANUEL KANT
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| "The world depends on a supreme
being, but the things in the world all mutually depend on one another. Taken together they
constitute a complete whole." (Kant, 22) "The sum total of all
possible knowledge of God is not possible for a human being, not even through a true
revelation. But it is one of the worthiest inquiries to see how far our reason can go in
the knowledge of God." "But if we ask who has so firmly established
the laws of nature and who has limited its operations, then we will come to God as the
supreme cause of the entirety of reason and nature." |
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| KANT_____
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"Our knowledge is only a shadow
in comparison with the greatness of God, and our powers are far transcended by Him." (Ibid, 26) "That the
world created by God is the best all possible worlds, is clear for the following reason.If
a better world than the one willed by God were possible, then a will better than the
divine will would also have to be possible. For indisputably that divine will is better
which chooses what is better. But if a better will is possible, then so this being who
could express this better will. And therefore this being would be more perfect and better
than God. But this is a contradiction; for God is omnitudo realitatis." |
| KANT_______
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"God created the world for his
honor's sake because it is only through the obedience to his holy laws that God can be
honored. For what does it mean to honor God? What, if not to serve him? But how can He be
served? Certainly by trying to entice his favor by rendering him all sorts of praise. For
such praise is best only a means for preparing our hearts to a good disposition. Instead,
the service of God consists simply and solely in following his will and observing his holy
laws and commands." (Ibid, 143) "God's
omnipresence is not local, but virtual. That is, God's ower operates constantly and
everywhere in all things." |
| KANT_____
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"God has no need of experience
at all. He knows everything a priori, because he himself created everything he cares for;
and everything is possible only through him. Hence God formulated the laws governing the
world in light of a true aquintance with every single event which would be given in the
course of it. And in the establishment of the world's course he certainly had the greatest
possible perfection in view, because God himself is the all wise and is all in all." (Ibid, 153) "It is
enough that everything is subject to God's direction. This is sufficient for us to place
an immeasurable trust in God." |
| KANT_____
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"God is the only ruler of the
world. He governs as a monarch, but not as a despot; for He wills to have his commands
observed out of love, and not out of servile fear. Like a father, he orders what is good
for us, and does not command out of mere arbitrariness, like a tyrant. God even demands of
us that we reflect on the reason for his commandments, and he insists on our observing
them because he wants first to make us worthy of happiness and then participate in it.
God' s will is benevolence, and his purpose is what is best. If God commands something for
which we cannot see the reason, then this is because of the limitation of our knowledge,
and not because of the nature of the commandment itself. God carries out his rulership of
the world alone. For He surveys everything with one glance. And certainly he may often use
wholly incomprehensible means to carry out His benevolent aims. (Ibid, 156) |
Soren Kierkegaard
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| "The fact that God could create
free beings vis-a-vis of Himself is the cross which philosophy could not carry, but
remained hanging therefrom." (Auden, 1966, 29) "The
human race ceased to fear God. Then came its punishment; it began to fear itself, began to
cultivate the fantastic, and now it trembles before this creature of its own
imagination." |
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| KIERKEGAARD__ -- |
"I love a father and a mother
differently, and every distinct sort of love has its distinct expression, but there is
also a love by which I love God, and there is only one word in the language which
expresses it... it is repentance. When I do not love Him thus, I do not love Him
absolutely, do not love Him with my inmost being, and every other sort of love for the
absolute is a misunderstanding for when thought clings to the absolute with all its love,
it is not the absolute I love, I do not love absolutely, for I love necessarily; as soon
as I love freely and love God I repent. And if there might be any reason why the
expression for my love of God is repentance, it would be because He has loved me
first." (Ibid, 81-82) "For if
God does not exist it would of course be impossible to prove it; and if He does exist it
would be folly to attempt it." |
| KIEKERGAARD__
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"But between God and His works there exists
an absolute relationship;...The works of God are such that only God can perform
them." (Ibid, 143) "The
despairer understands that it is weakness to take the earthly so much at heart , that it
is weakness to despair. But, then, instead of veering sharply away from despair to faith,
humbling himself before God for his weakness, he is more deeply absorbed in despair and
despairs over his weakness." |
| KIEKERGAARD___
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" For in order to pray there must be a God,
there must be a self plus possibility, or a self and possibility, or a self and
possibility in the pregnant sense; for God is that all things are possible, and that all
things are possible is God; and only the man whose being has been so shaken that he became
spirit by understanding that all things are possible, only he has had dealings with God.
The fact that God's will is the possible makes it possible to pray; if God's will is only
the necessary, man is essentially as speechless as the brutes." (Ibid, 151) "Perfect love means
to love the one through whom one became unhappy. But no man has the right to demand to be
thus loved. God can demand it; that is infinite majesty. And it is true of the man of
religion, in the strictest sense of the word, that in loving God he is loving him through
whom he became unhappy, humanly speaking, for this life-although blessed. |
| KIEKERGAARD___
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PRAYER O Thou who art unchangeable, whom nothing changes! Thou who art unchangeable in love, precisely for our welfare not submitting to any change: may we too will our welfare, submitting ourselves to the discipline of Thy unchangeableness, so that we may, in unconditional obedience, find our rest and remain at rest in thy unchangeableness. Thou art not like a man; if he is to preserve only some degree of constancy he must not permit himself too much to be moved, nor by too many things. Thou on the contrary art moved, and moved in infinite love, by all things. Even that which we human beings call an insignificant trifle, and pass by unmoved, the need of a sparrow, even this moves Thee, O Infinite Love! But nothing changes Thee, O Thou who art unchangeable! O Thou who is infinite love dost submit to be moved, may this our prayer also move Thee to add Thy blessing, in order that there may be wrought such a change in him who prays as to bring him into comformity with Thy unchangeable will, Thou who art unchangeable!"
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