Question In his "Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason", Kant argues that it is possible for people to become moral by following the example of Jesus Christ. How then would he comment on Abraham's actions during the Binding of Isaac? Isn't Abraham treating Isaac as a means to an end, even if that commandment is from God during a time when Jesus was not yet born? In other words, is Jesus just one example of moral guidance out of many and there is no one true religion; that is, anyone else can serve the same role?

Accepted:
April 25, 2013

Comments

Actually, I am 99% sure Kant actually rejected the (at least surface) interpretation of the narrative of the binding. That is, Kant thought it would never be reasonable for Abraham to think God (or any good being) would require a sacrifice of the innocent. My own reading of the text is that it should be read chiefly as a prohibition of child-sacrifice. The point of the story is that the God of Abraham is NOT like the other gods who demand human offerings. The purpose of the (divine) command of offering Abraham's son (verse 2) is only to set the stage for the dramatic prohibition of such sacrifice (11-12). The narrative stress on God providing a ram to take the place of Abraham's son further highlights the emphatic prohibition of human sacrifice. Abraham's naming the place where this substitution took place "God provides" (verse 14) rather than something like "This is the place where I almost lost my son" or "This is the place where Kant would have insisted that what I thought was a command to sacrifice my son was an illusion" (joke) makes the story about God providing ways of divine offerings that are NOT human.

If the above interpretation is plausible, then the lesson of the narrative is that Isaac should not be treated as a means to an end (a means of offering a proper sacrifice to God).

As for Kant's view of Jesus Christ, this is a matter of massive scholarly debate. John Hare at Yale goes quite far in reading Kant as more in line with traditional Christianity than some others who see Jesus as only a moral exemplar. You might check out Hare's book, The Moral Gap. According to Hare, Kant thought that grace was needed for us to overcome the gap that separates us from rectitude. To investigate this further, you might look at Kant's view of radical evil.