By Schubert Ogden
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[W
...
]hen
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Kant,
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working
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out
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Descartes'
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ideas
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a
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stage
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further,
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says,
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'I
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must abolish knowledge
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in
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order
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to
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make
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room
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for
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faith,'
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he does
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certainly
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mean that God,
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freedom,
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and
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immortality
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cannot
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be
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proved;
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but
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this
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is
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not
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because they are
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not
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real,
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for
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in
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his
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view
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they
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are
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real,
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nor
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because
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he
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thinks
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we
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cannot or need
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not
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be
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absolutely
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certain
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that
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they
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are
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real,
...
for
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nothing
...
is
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further
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from his mind
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than
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the
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suggestion
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that
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they
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are
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mere
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postulates
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or
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hypotheses,
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the suggestion that
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we
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ought
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to
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act
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as
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if
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God
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existed,
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whether
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he
...
does
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exist
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or
...
not.
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God,
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freedom,
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and
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immortality
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are
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truths,
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according
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to
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Kant,
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of
...
which
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life itself assures
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us:
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all
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life,
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not
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merely
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this
...
or
...
that
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special
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form
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of
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experience,
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like undergoing conversion
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or
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seeing
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ghosts.
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These special
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experiences
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do
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not
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prove anything in
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particular,
...
for
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the
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conversion
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may
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be
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a
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nerve-storm,
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and
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the
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ghost
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a fraud or
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a
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hallucination.
...
But
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in
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our
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universal
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and
...
necessary
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experience
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of
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every day we
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are
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actually
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aware,
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if
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only
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we
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can
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detect
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and
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isolate
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this
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awareness,
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of our own
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responsibility
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and
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spontaneity,
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of
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our
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timeless
...
and
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eternal
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reality,
...
and of the
...
existence
...
of
...
an
...
infinite
...
mind
...
upon
...
which
...
our
...
own
...
finite
...
nature somehow depends. These are certainties of precisely the same kind as Descartes' cogito ergo sum. They cannot be proved, because they lie too close to us; you cannot demonstrate them any more than you can button up your own skin; they are the presuppositions of all proof whatever, not like the Aristotelian axioms, which enter into all particular arguments as their premises, but rather as the conditions of there being any arguments at all (Faith & Reason: 114 f.).
Compare Hartshorne's statement:
Kant was noble in saying that our moral obligations and the starry heavens awakened his reverence; he was right in holding that we must view ourselves as in some sense everlastingly (not eternally, timelessly) real, also in some genuine sense free; that we should believe in a superintelligent being worthy of worship; should value ourselves and other people according to the same principles and live entirely for the summum bonum as made possible by God but also partly dependent on our use of our freedom (The Zero Fallacy: 167)
20 April 2005 somehow depends. These are certainties of precisely the same kind as Descartes'_ _cogito ergo sum._ _They cannot be proved, because they lie too close to us; you cannot demonstrate them any more than you can button up your own skin; they are the presuppositions of all proof whatever, not like the Aristotelian axioms, which enter into all particular arguments as their premises, but rather as the conditions of there being any arguments at all_ _(Faith_ _&_ _Reason:_ _114 f.)._ _Compare Hartshorne's statement:_{_}Kant was noble in saying that our moral obligations and the starry heavens awakened his reverence; he was right in holding that we must view ourselves as in some sense everlastingly (not eternally, timelessly) real, also in some genuine sense free; that we should believe in a superintelligent being worthy of worship; should value ourselves and other people according to the same principles and live entirely for the summum bonum as made possible by God but also partly dependent on our use of our freedom{_}_(The Zero Fallacy: 167)._ _20 April 2005_
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