Question

Immanuel Kant (1784), “What is Enlightenment?”

Study Questions: What is enlightenment, according to Kant? What is wrong with religious dogma and authority, according to Kant?

Alvin Plantinga (2000), Warranted Christian Belief, Part IV, Chapter 12 “Two (or More) Kinds of Scripture Scholarship” Sections I-IV. Focus on section III: Historical Biblical Criticism.

Study Questions: Describe the differences between Spinozistic, Troeltschian, and Duhemian Biblical Criticism. How are these approaches to Biblical interpretation influenced by the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment?

Answer 1

• Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity." He argues that the immaturity is self-inflicted not from a lack of understanding, but from the lack of courage to use one's reason, intellect, and wisdom without the guidance of another.
• According to Immanuel Kant, enlightenment is when a person grows out of his self-imposed immaturity. He defines immaturity as one's inability to use his own understanding without the guidance of another.
  
• He says that people impose immaturity on themselves because they fear the use of their own understanding without someone else's help. Furthermore he adds that laziness and cowardice cause people to gladly remain immature for life. Because of these qualities, he says that others may easily establish themselves as the guardians or authorities on certain subjects.
• Kant says that the only thing required for enlightenment is freedom, namely the freedom to publicly use reason. By public use of reason he means, a scholar's use of reason before the entire literate world. He says that this public use of reason alone can bring about enlightenment among people. Private reason, he points out, may be narrowly restricted as long as it does not hinder the enlightening process.
• Thus, freedom is essential for enlightenment. People must be able to express their thoughts. By spreading ideas and information, people will be able to be their own guardians because they will have all the things necessary to do so. By allowing freedom of thought, people will spread ideas which will urge others to think for themselves.  
• The main controversy was that Kant said we cannot have any Knowledge of God. For Kant, humans are too weak-minded to grasp the details of God’s Reality. We can only infer the existence of God, and after that we must remain silent.
• Kant does not criticize all aspects of organized religion, but he does find many tensions between moral principles and religious traditions. There are many religions, all of them influenced by their historical period, but according to Kant there is one universal moral law.
• Furthermore, humans can determine that moral law by relying on their own instincts. They do not need organized religion to explain it to them. Kant also believes that religious practices often conflict with or undermine moral principles. He thinks that community life, even religious community life, can foster ugly impulses toward revenge and competition.
• Kant objects to those religious traditions that say God's grace will save you, not your own good behavior. According to Kant, our actions have true moral worth only if we performed them independently, without God's assistance.
• due to time constraints,only some questions could be answered,the remaining can be asked as another question,they will be answered,thankyou for your cooperation