THEOLOGY

God as truth and truth as God

Causality without Kantian theology is a dialectical illusion.

The dialectical illusion

Dialectical illusion

The dialectical illusion was seen by David Hume and later criticized by Immanuel Kant.

Kant Writes.

"Hume started mainly from a single but important concept in metaphysics, namely, that of the connection of cause and effect, and called upon reason, which pretends to have generated this concept in her womb, to give him an account of by what right she thinks: that something could be so constituted that, if it is posited, something else necessarily must thereby also be posited; for that is what the concept of cause says. ... The question was not, whether the concept of cause is right, useful, and, with respect to all cognition of nature, indispensable, for this Hume had never put in doubt; it was rather whether it is thought through reason a priori." (Text)/(AA IV:257)

Hume's attack

David Hume writes:

"When we say we desire to know the ultimate and operating principle, as something, which resides in the external object, we either contradict ourselves, or talk without a meaning. This deficiency in our ideas is not, indeed, perceiv’d in common life, nor are we sensible, that in the most usual conjunctions of cause and effect we are as ignorant of the ultimate principle, which binds them together, as in the most unusual and extraordinary. But this proceeds merely from an illusion of the imagination." (Text)

Hans Kelsen writes:

"Hume’s real achievement does not consist in the pointing out that no necessary connection of cause and effect can be assumed on the basis of experience. That had already been ascertained before his time. It consists rather in the fact that he gave up looking for the necessity of the causal nexus in the will of God, and abandoned it together with the entire previous notion of causality." (Text)

Hume rejected the relationship between God and causality.

Kant's response

Kant reestablished the relationship between God and causality.

Kant writes:

"The world is tired of metaphysical assertions; what’s wanted are the possibility of this science, the sources from which certainty could be derived in it, and sure criteria for distinguishing truth from the dialectical illusion of pure reason." (Text)/(AA IV:377)

By distinguishing between empirical truth, logical truth and transcendental truth, Kantian theology shows how the connection between cause and effect is thought by reason a priori.

Theos

Theos

Theos is the transcendental truth in time and space.

The transcendental truth precedes and makes possible every logical and empirical truth.

Kant writes:

"In the whole of all possible experience, however, lie all our cognitions; and the transcendental truth that precedes all empirical truth and makes it possible consists in the universal reference to this possible experience." (Text)/(AA B185)

Kant uses the words ‘omnitudo realitatis’ to describe Theos as 'a regulative principle'.

Kosmos

Kosmos

Everything is in Kosmos, and in Kosmos, everything is relative.

Kosmos is four pure forms.

This is neither a limitation nor a division of Theos.

Kosmos and Theos are separate entities.

Logos

Logos

Logos is both the connection and the coherence between the four pure forms.

Logos is in Kosmos, but Logos is not of Kosmos. Logos is of Theos.

The Gospel of John says:

"In the beginning was Logos and Logos was with Theos, and Logos was Theos. This one was in the beginning with Theos. All things came into being through him, and apart from him not one thing came into being that has come into being." (Jn 1:1-3)

Dictionary of untranslatables says:

"The Greek word logos [λόγος] has such a wide range of meanings and so many different usages that it is difficult to see it from the perspective of another language except as multivocal, and in any case it is impossible to translate it except by using a multiplicity of distinct words." (Text)

Logic

Logic

Logic is reflection of judgments based on Theos, Kosmos and Logos.

Judgment

A judgment consists of causality, modality and content.

Judgment

Content

The content of a judgment consists of quantity, relation and quality.

Content

A compound sentence consists of smaller sentences and truth-functional connectives.

Truth-functional
connectives

Connectives

In other words, the content of a judgment is an affirmation or negation [quality] of a simple or compound [relation] true or false sentence [quantity].

Modality

Kant writes:

"The modality of judgments is a quite special function of them, which is distinctive in that it contributes nothing to the content of the judgment (for besides quantity, quality, and relation there is nothing more that constitutes the content of a judgment)". (Text)/(AA B99)

The modality of a judgment is either synthesis/prior, analysis/prior, analysis/posterior, or synthesis/posterior.

Causality

The causality of a judgment is either freedom or nature.

Nature

Nature

In nature, the connection between the pure form SYNTHESIS/PRIOR and the pure form ANALYSIS/PRIOR is closed from the pure form ANALYSIS/PRIOR to the pure form SYNTHESIS/PRIOR.

Because the connection between the pure form SYNTHESIS/PRIOR and the pure form ANALYSIS/PRIOR is closed from the pure form ANALYSIS/PRIOR to the pure form SYNTHESIS/PRIOR, no one in nature can judge in the pure form SYNTHESIS/PRIOR.

Freedom

Freedom

In freedom, the connection between the pure form SYNTHESIS/PRIOR and the pure form ANALYSIS/PRIOR is open from the pure form ANALYSIS/PRIOR to the pure form SYNTHESIS/PRIOR.

Because the the connection between the pure form SYNTHESIS/PRIOR and the pure form ANALYSIS/PRIOR is open from the pure form ANALYSIS/PRIOR to the pure form SYNTHESIS/PRIOR, everyone in freedom can judge in the pure form SYNTHESIS/PRIOR.

Causality

Kant writes:

"In respect of what happens, one can think of causality in only two ways: either according to nature or from freedom." (Tekst)/(AA B560)

Kantian theology shows how nature and freedom are the only two types of causality and how there is a relationship between God and causality.