Table of Contents

GENERAL INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................... 3

CHAPTER 1

THE RISE OF KANT’S COPERNICAN PHILOSOPHY

1.1. A LIFE IN WORK ............................................................................................................... 5

1.1.1. Towards the Critical Philosophy ............................................................................... 6
1.2. KANT’S COPERNICAN REVOLUTION .................................................................................. 6
1.2.1. Difference between Pure and Empirical knowledge ................................................. 7
1.2.2. The Limited Dominance of a priori Knowledge ....................................................... 7
1.2.3. Analytic and Synthetic Judgement ............................................................................ 8
1.2.4. The Copernican Hypothesis of Kant’s synthetic a priori .......................................... 9
1.3. METAPHYSICS UNDER FIRE ............................................................................................. 10
1.3.1. The Transcendental Idealism .................................................................................. 11
1.3.2. The Refutation of Idealism ...................................................................................... 12
1.4. THE METAPHYSICS OF GOD ............................................................................................ 12
1.4.1. The Impossibility Proof for the Existence of God in Metaphysics ......................... 13
1.5. THE LIMITATION OF THE CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON ..................................................... 13
Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 14

CHAPTER 2

METAPHYSICAL NECESSITY FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.

2.1. THE NOTION OF IMPERATIVES IN KANT. ......................................................................... 15

2.2. THE POSSIBILITY OF CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE. ........................................................... 17
 2.3. THE POSTULATES OF THE PRACTICAL REASON IN GENERAL ........................................... 18
2.4. THE EXISTENCE OF GOD AS A POSTULATE OF PURE PRACTICAL REASON ....................... 18
2.5. PROOFS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. ............................................................................. 19
2.5.1. Contingency in the Phenomenal World. ................................................................. 20
2.5.2. Metaphysical Necessity for the Existence of God .................................................. 20
2.6. THE IDEA OF GOD AS THE ULTIMATE GROUND ............................................................... 22
Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 23

GENERAL CONCLUSION .................................................................................................. 24

BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................................................................................... 26

2
 General Introduction

Ancient Greek philosophy was divided into three sciences: physics, ethics and logic. All
rational knowledge is either materialistic or is concerned with the form of understanding with
the reason alone. All philosophy that is founded on experience is empirical, which sets its
doctrines on a priori principles. However, the base of every philosophy was the formal
philosophy, called logic. It is as such because logic was necessary to explain any philosophy
whether be it empirical or rational.
The modern philosophy began with Descartes, who was the pioneer of rationalism. It was
in his reign that the legendary theory of Aristotle was replaced with a better theory. The
Copernican revolution made a great impact on the philosophy of that time. It was in this time
that the rationalists came forward giving importance to the rational faculty of man. In contrast,
many philosophers began to stage proving the importance merely on experience. It was in this
midst that Kant rose over them with his greatest contribution to the world of philosophy,
converging both rationalism and empiricism. As far as Kant is concerned, he came up with the
idea to merge the twofold metaphysics of nature and metaphysics of morals. The problem of
evil and the existence of God was always the major friction in ethics. Kant was successful in
his unique way of proving the existence of God.
This study on the metaphysical necessity for the existence of god according to Kant will
deal how Kant arrived at this conclusion. Primarily in the first chapter, Kant’s Copernican
philosophy will lead us to the refutation of the existence of God. This is based on the
refutation of the transcendental idealism which includes God in it. This attempt is done on the
basis of the apprehension made through pure reasoning. In this chapter God is seen as a non-
existent being so far pure reasoning is maintained.
The second chapter is just the opposite of the first one. The non-existence of God will be
contradicted by Kant’s moral postulate. Moral postulate is less adequate to prove the existence
of God in reality. Hence, we will look over to Kant’s metaphysical possibility proof to

3
establish the existence of God in reality. Kant’s moral postulate as well as metaphysical
necessity will be sufficient enough to prove the existence of God not merely in ideas or
thoughts but in reality.

4
 Chapter 1

The Rise of Kant’s Copernican Philosophy

Immanuel Kant is one of the most admirable figures in the whole of the history of
Philosophy. His contributions to the realm of philosophy are extraordinary and exciting,
tantamount to the radical revolution of western thought, contributions which mark the
beginning of an era in philosophical thought that would be able to present philosophy in its
fullness. Aristotle was the first to present philosophical knowledge in a systematized and
classified way. Kant was the man who undertook the hectic and complex work to critically
evaluate and analyze the main doctrines of philosophy.
1.1. A Life in Work
Immanuel Kant was born at Konigsberg on April 22nd 1724, where he died almost eighty
years later, on February 12th 1804. 1 His parents brought him up in the true spirit of the
Pietistic movement. Pietism was a reform movement within Lutheranism that placed great
stress on the importance of personal faith and conscience. Being a pious pietist in childhood,
he was fortunate enough to attend the leading pietistic school in the city where he was taught
pietist theology. They also offered him rigorous training in Latin language, Greek, Hebrew,
Logic, Geometry, and history of philosophy.2 Great knowledge in Latin enabled him to pursue
great classical works that sowed the seedlings of early philosophy. In 1740, Kant entered his
university studies in his home town and attended a wide variety of lectures.3 Although the
main indentions of all those who enroll in that university were to matriculate in Theology, he
was interested in the unrestricted course of study in classical literature and philosophy. His
main teacher, Martin Knutzen was an eclectic thinker, influenced by both pietism and

1
Paul Guyer, Kant, Routledge, London, 2006, 16.
2
Paul Guyer, Kant, 16.
3
Frederick Copleston, S.J., A History of Philosophy, volume 6, part 1, Image Books, New York, 1964,
210.

5
empiricism of John Locke and Christian Wolff.4 After his university studies, he was driven by
financial issues that made him be a family tutor, although he intended to pursue the chair of
Knutzen as the next professor in the same university. But he was appointed as a lecturer not
because of his incapability, but because of the extraordinary teaching skills that were glistened
on Knutzen. For the next fifteen years, he gave an enormous number of lectures on a wide
variety of topics and this enabled him to critically evaluate the philosophies of his
predecessors which should have made great enlightenment in him.
1.1.1. Towards the Critical Philosophy
Even during heavy lectures, he found time to write philosophical works that show how
committed he was to the task of philosophizing. After his gushed publications in the field of
philosophy, he established himself as a true lecturer in the university that had once denied him
the professorship. From his new beginning of this career, he tried to merge the rationalistic
and newtonic ideals. There was also a considerable revival in his philosophy, where he stood
for the importance to upheld the position of Metaphysics and promote the concerns of
reasoning. Kant developed transcendental idealism as the solution to the problem of synthetic
a priori knowledge.5 His masterpiece of philosophy, Critique of Pure Reason was followed by
the Critique of Practical Reason and Critique of Judgement. Almost by these works, his work
on the foundations of philosophy was done. His contributions to philosophy earned him the
title of the Copernican Revolutionary.
1.2. Kant’s Copernican Revolution
Right from the Aristotelian period, the whole of mankind believed in the geocentric theory,
which was replaced by Nicholas Copernicus by the heliocentric theory. Such an alternation
was brought by Kant through his Critique of Pure Reason. If Copernicus was honored for his
magnificent achievement in the realm of terrestrial bodies, Kant is so-called the Copernican in
philosophy for the exuberant contributions to philosophy in the various modes and forms of
thought and realism. He is the man who made a great change in the field of knowledge,

4
Paul Guyer, Kant, 17.
5
Paul Guyer, Kant, 40.

6
judgments and categories. If it was Socrates who made the people of Athens wake from the
dogmatic slumber, it is Kant who prompted the modern society to rise from this dogmatic and
skeptic slumber who were dominated by the vague and incomplete notions of both rationalism
and empiricism.
1.2.1. Difference between Pure and Empirical knowledge
Right from the beginning of the modern philosophy, there existed the difference between
pure and empirical knowledge. The term ‘pure’ is used in the sense that is has its origin and
reflection in the mind that was thought to contain innate ideas. “But though all our knowledge
begins with experience, it by no means follows, that all arises out of experience.”6 Knowledge
of this kind, that is not derived out of experience or empirical knowledge is called a priori and
the rest of knowledge a posteriori, that is in experience originated.7 In fact, a priori is entirely
independent of experience, which is subject immanent; whereas a posteriori is that which
exists objectively in nature.8 One of the main tasks of Critique of Pure Reason is to verify the
empirical and non-empirical conditions. For empirical conditions, you need some instruments
at some time for accumulating the knowledge claims whereas in pure or a priori conditions
you need not have to depend on these instruments in any case for it is independent of
experience relations. Kant uses the term 'pure' in the sense it is non-experiential and not in the
sense that it has its origin in the rationalistic viewpoint, for all knowledge does not come alone
from reasoning capabilities of man. Necessity and universality are the secure indications of an
a priori cognition or knowledge.9
1.2.2. The Limited Dominance of a priori Knowledge
The general problem of the Critique of Pure Reason is the possibility of a priori
knowledge. By a priori knowledge, Kant does not mean knowledge that is relatively a priori
or that in relation to experience, but about innate ideas that are present in the human mind
before experience in a temporal sense. Pure a priori knowledge does not explicitly mean

6
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, J.M. Dent and Sons Ltd, London, 1969, 25.
7
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 25.
8
Herbert Herring, Essentials of Kant's Theoretical and Practical Philosophy, Ajanta Publications,
New Delhi, 1993, 17.
9
Paul Guyer, Kant, 46.

7
which is present in the mind before all experience, but that which is underived from
experience, even if it makes its appearance on the occasion of experience. 10 “That all our
knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt. For how is it possible that the
faculty of cognition should be awakened into exercise otherwise…… In respect to time,
therefore, no knowledge of ours is antecedent to experience, but begins with it.”11 Since there
are ambiguities in terms of what really are the sources of a priori knowledge, it cannot be
claimed to be dominant than the a posteriori knowledge claims.
1.2.3. Analytic and Synthetic Judgement
A judgement is the affirmation or denial of something about something. When this
judgement is expressed in language it becomes a proposition. A proposition contains a subject
and a predicate. “In all judgements wherein the relation of a subject to the predicate is
cogitated, this relation is possible in two different ways. Either the predicate B belongs to the
subject A, as somewhat which is contained in the conception A; or the predicate lies
completely out of the conception A, although it stands in connection with it.”12 The former
one is called the Analytical where the latter is the Synthetic form of judgement. While in the
Analytical judgements, the predicate is conceived in the subject itself (for example all white
roses are white), in the synthetic judgements the predicate gives new information about the
antecedent as the predicate is not conversed in the subject (for example all roses are white).
Apart from the mutual connection between the predicate and the subject, both analytical and
synthetic judgements confer more ideas too. Synthetic judgements are capable of giving new
information where analytical judgements can only be a tautology in most cases. In the process
of knowledge progression, both analytical and synthetical judgements play a vital role. A
knowledge claim can be created only with the help of either analytic or synthetic judgements.
Analytic judgements make the knowledge process easier since the predicate is contained in the
subject. Synthetic judgements make the knowledge claim more vivid since it has got much to
say apart from the subject.

10
Frederick Copleston, S.J., A History of Philosophy, volume 6, part 2, 12-13.
11
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 25.
12
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 30.

8
1.2.4. The Copernican Hypothesis of Kant’s synthetic a priori
Philosophers before Kant were bearing the fact that only analytic a priori or synthetic a
posteriori was possible. It was Kant who proved for the first time that synthetic a priori was
possible. This proof earned him the honour of ‘Copernican revolutionary’. The proper
problem of pure reason is contained in the question: how are in synthetical judgements a
priori possible?13 In all our attempts to find the nature of the world, the metaphysical realities,
the mathematical possibilities, the conclusions of various practical sciences, we are merely
satisfied with the disposition of the mind to the metaphysics, with the existence of the faculty
of the pure reason. The sciences are confined to the realm of reasoning for her explanations to
completely understand her problems and powers with regard to objects that are seen in
experiences. It becomes easy to determine securely the extent and limit of its application that
confine to experience alone at first. If the analytic methods are a mere dissection of
conceptions which has its objects in extension14, we cannot arrive at a priori in analytical
methods that were first considered by the philosophers before Kant. But, according to Kant,
there is another class of synthetic propositions, in which the connection between the predicate
and subject is not known by mere analysis of the conception of the subject, which at the same
time is necessary and universal. These are called synthetic a priori prepositions.15 In order to
explain the nature of synthetic a priori prepositions, Kant showed that there are a priori
particulars namely space and time and the application of categories.16 The famous example of
Kant is as follows: "Everything which has happens has a cause". The proposition is synthetic
in a way that the predicate 'has a cause' is not contained in the concept of 'what happens'. But,
at the same time, it is a priori because it has the characteristics of strict universality and
necessity. This synthesis is not merely transcendental, but also purely intellectual, as the
condition to which this conformity must be necessarily be submitted to the objects of human
intuition. This synthesis of the manifold of sensuous intuition, which is necessarily a priori,

13
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 35.
14
The actual or non-actual existence of a being in the extended category like space.
15
Frederick Copleston, S.J., A History of Philosophy, volume 6, part 2, 16.
16
S. Korner, Kant, Penguin Books, London, 1964, 70.

9
may be called figurative synthesis when it has relation only to the transcendental reality apart
from the purely intellectual cognition.17 This means that synthetic a priori can arise from the
faculty of intellect and transcendental cognition too.
Furthermore, Kant brings into light the sources of pure reason through which synthetic a
priori knowledge can be inferred. Kant prefers these sources or schemes to be called
‘Categories’. “When we call into play a faculty of cognition, different conceptions manifest
themselves according to the different circumstances, and make known this faculty, and
assemble themselves into a more or less extensive collection, according to the time or
penetration that has been applied to the consideration of them”. 18 The collections or series that
embodies the whole of these concepts are called Categories by Kant. These categories are all
together twelve excluding the space and time transcendentals. The twelve categories include
Unity, Plurality and Totality under Quantity; Reality, Negation and Limitation under
Qualities; Inherence and Subsistence, Causality and Community under Relation and
Possibility, Existence and Necessity under Modality. Kant sees these categories as some sort
of a filter through which anything that filters out can be considered as Pure Reason. Kant
maintains that this knowledge obtained from these categories to be synthetic a priori
knowledge.
In his Copernican thought pattern, he does not claim to have a complete knowledge that are
synthetic a priori. But, at the same time, he advocates the existence of analytic a posteriori
knowledge claims too. He should rather be seen as the culmination of both rationalism and
empiricism, who worked out both giving a slight importance to a priori knowledge.
1.3. Metaphysics under Fire
Kant was inspired by the metaphysics of A.G.Baumgarten and the metaphysics that Kant
adopted in his philosophy was of Baumgarten. Baumgarten defines metaphysics as the
philosophical science which contains the primary principles that which is within the
understanding of human knowledge. Post-Aristotelian metaphysics owes its development not
to the adoption and elaboration of an allegedly pre-existent Aristotelian system but the failure

17
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 104.
18
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 71-72.

10
to understand the doubtful and unsettled state in which Plato and Aristotle left the central
problems. Kant remained faithful to this purpose of metaphysics to shift its centre of gravity
towards speculative metaphysics.19 Kant’s purpose in his critique of metaphysics believes that
the illusions of metaphysics are natural. Kant’s argument is that pure reason leads to illusion
when we attempt to use it independently of sensibility and its inherent limitations to gain
theoretical knowledge of objects lying beyond the limits of our senses. God, Soul and other
transcendent beings or objects that are supersensible, are beyond our reach of apprehension;
but that only pure reason can provide what is necessary in the practical sphere of moral
conduct. 20 Here, Kant strictly ignores the division of metaphysics: critical or immanent
metaphysics and transcendental metaphysics. The traditional metaphysics that the primitive
philosophers focused on was the transcendental metaphysics, which is denied by Kant by his
argument of the refutation of metaphysics.
1.3.1. The Transcendental Idealism
Kant had established the main points about the existence of pure reason in the arguments of
transcendental aesthetic. For him,

“all our intuition is nothing but the representation of the phenomena; that the things which
we intuite, are not in themselves the same as our representations of them in intuition, nor
are their relations in themselves so constituted as they appear to us; and that if we take
away the subject, or even only the subjective constitutions of our senses in general, then
not only the nature and relations of objects in space and time, but even space and time
themselves disappear; and that these, as phenomena, cannot exist in themselves, but only in
us”.21

Here, Kant distinguishes between the ideal (noumenal) and the appearing (phenomenal)
realities. For him, something that is transcendental, are what we speak of space, of extended
things and beings exclusively from the human standpoint. We can know the objects of this

19
Martin Heidegger, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, Indiana University Press, United States of
America, 1968, 12-14.
20
Paul Guyer, Kant, 127.
21
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 54.

11
reality only as they conform to our mode of perceiving. The reason why we cannot get these
things into our total control or perception is that both space and time are a form of our
intuition. Through our intuition, we can only represent appearances and not things in
themselves. These appearances thus known exist only in us. Thus his thesis proves that no
knowledge of things in themselves can be acquired through space or time or any sensations.22
1.3.2. The Refutation of Idealism
In arguing that we know ourselves only as we appear to ourselves, Kant took up a position
which was decisively different from that of traditional and rationalistic philosophers. He broke
into argument radically in their attitude towards Idealism that the thesis of the existence of
minds is certain, but that of external things are always subject to doubt.23 In Kant’s meaning,
material idealism is that theory which declares the existence of objects in space without us to
be either doubtful and indemonstrable or false and impossible. Both the Problematic
Idealism 24 of Descartes and the Dogmatic idealism 25 of Berkeley are no longer subject to
existence since the foundation of these kinds of Idealisms was destroyed and ignored by the
transcendental aesthetics of Kant.26
1.4. The Metaphysics of God
God is portrayed or depicted as a supersensible reality by Kant. When it is said that it is
supersensible, it does not conform to the idea of non-existing being, but it only points out to
the being in the transcendence realm. Kant holds that the chief canons of traditional
metaphysics arise from the normal tendency of human reason to use the categories for
knowledge for limitless objects beyond the limits of human sensibility. But rather the
tendency does not give rise to outright ambiguity; pure concepts can never yield knowledge
apart from intuitions and their inherent limits. In his analysis, the traditional metaphysics of
the self arises from attempting to obtain knowledge of God as a substance from the mere

22
Norman Kemp Smith, A Commentary to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, Humanities Press Inc, New
Jersey, 1984, 143.
23
W.H. Walsh, Kant’s Criticism of Metaphysics, Edinburgh University Press, London, 1975, 189.
24
Idealism which admits the undoubted certainty of only one empirical assertion. Descartes was of the opinion
that only our existence and inner self could be apprehended and perceptions are merely a modification.
25
An idealism that admits that a thing which is in itself is inseparable like space together with all objects in it.
26
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 170.

12
representation of God. The arguments for the existence of God as the pool for all possibilities,
the sole necessary being, or the most real of all possible beings assume the existence of
something that is a mere idea.27
1.4.1. The Impossibility Proof for the Existence of God in Metaphysics
Kant does not despair of the possibility of philosophical insight into the nature of God and
of a philosophical basis for belief in the existence of God. 28 It is obvious that on Kant’s
premises no proof of God’s existence is possible. But, he wishes to make this impossibility
clear by showing that every line of proof is fallacies. For him, there are only three ways of
God’s existence in speculative metaphysics.29 Kant establishes various proofs for the denial of
the possibility of the existence of God, contradicting and strictly challenging the Ontological,
Cosmological and Physico-Theological arguments that were once considered the sole source
for the instituting possibilities towards the existence of God. Whatever the reasons or
negations he provides for the impossibility insights, his grand argument is based on the
synthetic a priori knowledge claims. In the Critique of Pure Reason, where he maintains the
basic problem of true knowledge, his response by giving a new formulation of synthetic a
priori knowledge, is capable of denying the possibility proof that was claimed to be true by
the predecessor philosophers. At the outset, what Kant claims is not merely to refute their
arguments, but to show that God who is beyond our capacities and capabilities is purely
transcendental which is outside the realm of our pure cognition and human intuition.
However, he does not come to the claim that God does not exist but merely comes to the
conclusion that God cannot be apprehended by our reasoning faculties.
1.5. The Limitation of the Critique of Pure Reason
The delimitation of the boundaries of theoretical or scientific knowledge does not show
that God is unthinkable or that the term is meaningless. What it does is to put freedom,
immortality and God beyond the range of either proof or disproof. He says that he has to do
away with the knowledge to make scope for faith and that his destructive criticism of
metaphysics' claim to be a science that strikes a block at the path of materialism, fatalism and

27
Paul Guyer, Kant, 153.
28
Paul Guyer, Kant, 152.
29
Frederick Copleston, S.J., A History of Philosophy, volume 6, part 2, 88.

13
atheism. For the truths that there is a spiritual soul, that man is free and that God exists no
longer rests on fallacious arguments which that afford a ground for those who deny these
truths; they are moved to the sphere of the practical or moral reason and become objects of
faith rather than of knowledge.30 Thus Kant comes to the notion that those who are moved by
faith cannot ably be possible to attain knowledge that he proposes. Kant was successful in
invoking the creation of a new knowledge claim (synthetic a priori), but in no manner was
successful to prove that either God exists or does not exist. If David Hume had beheaded
metaphysics, Kant had ignored the traditional transcendental metaphysics through which the
existence of God could have been possibly be made realistic.
Conclusion
Whatever problematic be the Critique of Pure Reason among the philosophers who
claimed to have the proper knowledge of God even if is to be considered as the transcendental
idea, this work is truly a gift to the world of philosophy, no matter what all loopholes it has.
Kant was successful as far as he could make the culmination of both Rationalism and
Empiricism that was a major concern to the philosophical realm through the Critique of Pure
Reason. Critique of Pure Reason was not only successful to make the notion of synthetic a
priori, it was also successful to be the reason behind the initiation of Critique of Practical
Reason, as the Critique of Pure Reason could not explain the grounds for the existence of
God, which that is a requisite for the practical modes of life whether be it prayer or morals of
life. Kant could overcome this criticism of God’s refutation by the Critique of Practical
Reason.

30
Frederick Copleston, S.J., A History of Philosophy, volume 6, part 2, 28.

14
 Chapter 2

Metaphysical Necessity for the Existence of God.

In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant emphasized the importance of synthetic a priori
judgements. The notion of the existence of God was considered to be a sort of transcendental
idealism that was impossible to be known with the faculty of reason alone. But, in the realm of
practical life, at least for the sake of morality he had to consider some reality to exist that
would necessarily govern the moral concerns of life. He introduces two imperatives in life that
are necessary to be done either for the sake of reward or the accomplishment of obligations
towards life. It is from this categorical imperative where one is obliged to do his duties that he
draws the idea of moral virtue and life after death. Practically speaking he needed to have a
supreme good that would govern the subordinate goods of life. He identifies this supreme
good as God. Further, in his quest of truth, he recognizes the metaphysical necessity of God
apart from the practical necessity alone.
2.1. The Notion of Imperatives in Kant.
The representation of an objective principle, insofar as it is necessitating for a will is called
a command and the formula of the command is called an Imperative. 31 Everything in nature
works always following laws that make rational beings with the capacity to reason out, act by
the representation of laws, which means that it has its principles or will. Since reason is the
factor of derivation behind the actions from laws, the will is nothing but the practical reason
so far understood. If reason infallibly determines the will, then the actions that are derived to
be objectively necessary would also become subjectively necessary. Therefore, the relation of
objective laws to a will that is not thoroughly good would be represented as the capacity of the
will to choose good through the grounds of reason. 32 All imperatives are expressed or

31
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom,
1997, 24.
32
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 24.

15
signified by an ought and indicates this relation of an objective law of reason to a will that by
its subjective constitution is not necessarily determined by it. Practical good is not that which
is determined by subjective but objective cases and which determines the will employing
reason.33
All the imperative commands are either hypothetical or categorical. While the former
represents the practical necessity of a possible action as a means of achieving something else
that one wills, the latter would be represented as objectively necessary of itself, without
reference to another end. 34 Every practical law represents a possible action as good. All
imperatives that are the formula for the determination of the actions are necessary for
accordance with the principle of a will. The principle of will has to be good in some or the
other way. Now, if the action would be good merely as a means to something else that is not
for itself or the sake of itself, this would be a hypothetical imperative. The action that remains
as in itself good and thus necessarily in a will in itself conforming to reason, it becomes the
categorical imperative.35
The categorical imperative is that imperative, which is not based upon any condition or
have no other purpose to be achieved by certain conduct or commands. It is not concerned
with the matter of the action and what result proceeds from it. But it is only concerned with
the form and the principles from the actions that it necessarily follows. The essential good in
the action consists in its disposition alone whatever the results might be. Thus, the categorical
imperative is also called the imperative of morality.36 The imperative contains beyond the law,
only the necessity that the maxim conforms with this law. A maxim is the subjective principle
of acting and must be distinguished from the very objective principle that it governs namely
the practical law.37 The law has to do nothing with the condition to which it would be limited.
Therefore, nothing is left out with which the maxim of action is to conform. This conformity

33
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 24-25.
34
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 25.
35
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 25.
36
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 27.
37
Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom, 1996, 73.

16
is what the imperative properly represents as necessary. 38 Hence, only a single categorical
imperative is possible that is: "act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can
at the same time will that it become a universal law".39
2.2. The Possibility of Categorical Imperative.
Kant finds ‘in freedom’ the condition for the possibility of a categorical imperative. But, at
the same time freedom cannot be proved and hence it is more accurate and apt to mention that
the condition of the possibility of a categorical imperative is to be found ‘in the idea of
freedom’. 40 “Every being that cannot act otherwise than under the idea of freedom is just
because of that really free in a practical respect, that is, all laws that are inseparably bound up
with freedom hold for him just as if his will had been validly pronounced free also in itself
and in theoretical philosophy”.41 The practical necessity of the idea of freedom involves not
only in this world of senses but also is determined by the intelligible or the noumenal world.
Being a member of this world of senses, I am bound to the laws of nature, where at the other
hand being a member of the intelligible world, I am under the laws which have their
foundations in reason alone. Hence the categorical imperative is possible by this that the idea
of freedom makes me a member of an intelligible world. Consequently, if I were only this all
my actions would be always conformed to the autonomy of the will; but since at the same time
I intuit myself as a member of the sensual world also, they ought to be in conformity with it;
and this categorical ought represents a synthetic proposition.42 But at the same time, it has to
be noted that it is not matching with what Kant has to say all about moral virtue. Kant held
that the moral value of an action depends upon the intention of the individual who performs it
and that an act has moral value only if it is done ‘from duty’. This means that it must not
merely accord with what duty requires, but must be done for the sake of fulfilling the agent’s
duty. An act might only accord with duty if done with fear of reward and punishment or with a

38
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 31.
39
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 31.
40
Frederick Copleston, S.J., A History of Philosophy, volume 6, part 2, Image Books, New York, 1964, 125.
41
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 53.
42
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 58.

17
view to some other personal advantage that is often willed by all, but it would not then have
moral value.43
2.3. The Postulates of the Practical Reason in General
The postulates are not theoretical doctrines, but beliefs practically necessary. They do
extend our speculative knowledge and give objective reality to the ideas of speculative reason
in general and give it a right to concepts and possibility. These postulates are those of
immortality, freedom considered as the causality of a being so far as he belongs to the
intelligible world and the existence of God. They all continue from the principle of morality,
which is not a postulate but a law. Reason establishes the will directly and immediately just
because it is determined as a pure will. The will necessitates the essential condition of
obedience to its precept. Immortality develops from the practically necessary condition of a
duration adequate to the complete fulfilment of the moral law; freedom from the necessary
deduction of independence of the sensible world, and of the faculty of determining one’s will
according to the law of an intelligible world, the existence of God from the necessary
condition of the existence of the summum bonum in such an intelligible world, by the
supposition of the supreme independent good, that is, the existence of God.44
2.4. The Existence of God as a Postulate of Pure Practical Reason
Happiness is the condition of a rational being in the world with whom everything goes
according to his wish and will. Now the moral law as a law of freedom orders by determining
principles, which ought to be quite independent of nature and its harmony with our faculty of
desire. But the acting rational being in the world is not the cause of the world and of nature
itself. There is no least grounding the moral law for a necessary connection between morality
and balanced happiness. A rational being belongs to the world as a part of it, and therefore
reliant on it. He cannot be that reason that by his will be a cause of this nature, nor by his
power make it fully harmonize with his practical principles. Nevertheless, in the practical
problem of pure reason, the necessary search of the summum bonum, such a connection is
postulated as necessary: we ought to attempt to promote the summum bonum, which,

43
H.B.Acton, Kant’s Moral Philosophy, Macmillan, London, 1970, 30.
44
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom, 1997, 110.

18
therefore, must be possible. Consequently, the existence of a cause of all nature, different
from nature itself and containing the principle of this connection, namely, of the exact
harmony of happiness with morality, is also postulated. Now, this supreme cause must contain
the principle of the harmony of nature, not only with a law of the will of rational beings, but
with the notion of this law, in so far as they make it the supreme determining principle of the
will, and accordingly not merely with the form of morals, but with their morality as their
motive. Therefore, the summum bonum is possible in the world only on the supposition of a
Supreme Being having a causality corresponding to moral character. Now a being that is
capable of acting on the concept of laws is an intelligence and the causality of such a being
according to this conception of laws is his will. Therefore, the supreme cause of nature, which
must be presumed as a condition of the summum bonum, is a being which is the cause of
nature by intelligence and will, consequently its author that is God. It follows that the
postulate of the possibility of the highest derived good is likewise the postulate of the reality
of the highest original good, that is to say, of the existence of God.45
2.5. Proofs for the Existence of God.
In the Critique of Practical Reason, he speaks of the necessity of the establishment of
morality by some sake. He is in need to prove the existence of God at least in the practical
realm whether be God exists or not. The real significance of the idea of a first cause becomes
recognized that the whole phenomenal events are necessarily connected in space and time
presupposes an ultimate ground that governs it.46 As Saint Paul says in the epistle of Romans
that “yet, if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin” (Rm: 7.7),
If God would not have been there then the possibility of explaining morality and social
justice would not have been made feasible. At first, he aims at explaining the courses in nature
that are quite practical to achieve the proof of the existence of God. He considers the
contingency in the phenomenal world that is necessitating to oversee that there would be a life
that would make life morally stable through his notion of life after death. His notion of the life

45
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, 104-105.
46
F.E.England, Kant’s Conception of God, Humanities Press, New York, 1968, 137.

19
after death would create a feeling in the minds of people that rewards and punishment would
be granted only based on their life here on earth; making a sort of fear in them to live
accordingly to what the law of the state and law of God points to in short.
2.5.1. Contingency in the Phenomenal World.
Contingency in the phenomenal world makes it clear that the world must have been created
by a being that is necessary for itself. His necessity draws to the conclusion that He must exist,
where existence is one of the prime qualities of necessary beings. When we think of the moral
laws especially divine laws, we can imagine the existence of a being who has the power and
authority to execute these laws and to declare reward or punishment in accordance with their
actions.47 A man receives rewards for the goods that he has done and obtains punishment for
the evil deeds that he has made. Although this notion of both reward and punishment prevail
in this world most often there are more wicked men than righteous men. Moreover, it is
observed that the wicked men may flourish and the righteous may be trampled down. If in
justice, the opposite should have happened then why is it so happening in the reverse order?
Furthermore, the righteous who have to be rewarded for his deeds and the wicked punished,
there should be at least a place for final judgement. Kant calls this state as the life after death
where God would be the arbitrator. “Therefore, the highest good in the world is possible only
insofar as a supreme cause of nature having causality in keeping with moral disposition is
assumed.48 Thus, in the phenomenal world that is occupied by the contingent beings must be
out of the plan of God who wills that all should be moral. But, on the contrary, when it
happens, it makes the space for the final judgement after death that is proceeded by God
himself, which proves his existence.
2.5.2. Metaphysical Necessity for the Existence of God
Kant does not begin by assuming that anything exists or that what exists has any particular
nature or appearance of design. It assumes merely that something is possible. He then argues
that, if something is possible, there exists a ground of this possibility. Facts about what is
possible cannot be “brute”; they require grounds. He identifies the grounds of possibility with
the powers of existing substances; an object or state of affairs is possible in virtue of the

47
Immanuel Kant Lectures on Ethics, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, 1979, 52.
48
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, 104.

20
power of some substance to produce that object or cause that state of affairs to obtain. He goes
on to argue that all possibilities must be grounded in a single necessarily existing substance,
God. If God did not exist, nothing would be possible.
One of the central concepts in Kant’s modal metaphysics in Only Possible Ground of Proof
is the concept of absolute necessity. His proof of the existence of God is proof that there is a
unique being that exists necessarily.49 Kant's argument for the existence of a necessary being
in Only Possible Ground is given in four parts each describing a particular notion of God’s
Existence.
Part One: Necessarily, something exists
(M1) It is absolutely necessary that p just in case not-p cancels all possibility.
(M2) If it is possible that p, then it is possible that p in virtue of there being an existing ground
of the possibility that p.
(M3) ∴ The hypothesis that nothing exists cancels all possibility. [From (M2)]
(M4) ∴ It is absolutely necessary that something exists. [From (M1) and (M3)]
Part Two: Something exists necessarily
(M5) There is at least one ground of possibility. [From (M1) through (M3)]
(M6) For all x, if x is a ground of possibility, then the non- existence of x cancels some
possibility.
(M7) Any proposition that cancels some possibility cancels all possibility (that is, if, were it
the case that p, something actually possible would not be possible, then, were it the case that
p, nothing would be possible).
(M8) ∴ Any object whose nonexistence cancels some possibility exists absolutely necessarily.
[From (M1) and (M7)]
(M9) All grounds of possibility exist absolutely necessarily. [From (M6) and (M8)]
(M10) There is at least one absolutely necessary being. [From (M5) and (M9)]
Part Three: It is a ground of all possibility
(M11) Any absolutely necessary being is a ground of all possibility.

49
https://philarchive.org/archive/STAKPPv1, 285, accessed on 09/01/2020.

21
Part Four: It is unique
(M12) Assume: there exist two distinct absolutely necessary beings, A and B.
(M13) ∴A is a ground of all possibility, and so is B. [From (M11) and (M12)]
(M14) For all x, if x is a ground of all possibility, then x is possible without a ground, and
other substances are possible as consequences of x.
(M15) ∴ A is the ground of the possibility of B. [From (M13) and (M14)]
(M16) B is possible without a ground. [From (M13) and (M14)] This contradicts (M15).
(M17) ∴ (M12) is false: that is, there do not exist two absolutely necessary beings.
(M18) ∴ There is a unique absolutely necessary ground of all possibility.50
2.6. The idea of God as the Ultimate Ground
The above-given argument draws to Kant’s unique conception of a real ground of all
possibility: a being that grounds possibilities of all other substances through its powers. It
follows that if substance A is a ground of all possibility, then substance B is possible as a
consequence of substance A’s powers, and substance A’s powers have no ground. This
directly necessitates that substance B cannot be a ground of all possibility. There can be at
most one ground of all possibility.51 The key to understanding Kant’s conception of God as
the ground of all possibility is in his general conception of grounds of possibility. Kant
grounds possibilities for finite objects in the powers of existing substances to make those
possibilities real. This entails the following condition on grounds of possibility:
For all propositions p concerning finite objects, x is a ground of the possibility that p just in
case x has the power to make it actual that p.
This demands that God is a ground of possibilities for finite substances in virtue of having
the power to produce any possible finite substance or any possible alteration in any finite
substance.52

50
https://philarchive.org/archive/STAKPPv1, 285-286, accessed on 09/01/2020.
51
https://philarchive.org/archive/STAKPPv1, 293, accessed on 09/01/2020.
52
https://philarchive.org/archive/STAKPPv1, 290, accessed on 09/01/2020.

22
Conclusion
Kant was sure of his conception of God without any doubt that although we cannot know
God as an object of experience in the strictest sense, God could be entitled the position of a
real object corresponding to the idea of supreme good which eludes our faculty of
apprehension. At first, in the Critique of Pure Reason, God was a problematic object in the
intelligible world. But later he came to the understanding that the same intelligible world is
the unseen reservoir of dynamic activities that should necessarily proceed from an all dynamic
and powerful source which he assumed to be God. Moreover, when he was concerned about
the morality of life he was compelled to accept the practical necessity of God. Practical
necessity never proved the existence of God because this necessity might result from merely
the sakes of something. But his later research on God was furnished in reaching the
metaphysical necessity that proves God’s existence. So far, the practical necessity also calls
for the existence of God in reality because the supreme good that governs the minor good
must exist in reality for the governance. This deduction itself proves the metaphysical
existence of God Almighty.

23
 General Conclusion

Thinking of anything is impossible in this world with regard to good without the
qualification of the good willing end that is God. This was the urge from inside that enabled
Kant to reach at a conclusion that God should necessarily exist in order to govern and grade
the good qualities in this world. St. Thomas Aquinas in his fourth way of proving God’s
existence states that God is the perfection of all qualities and the gradation of goodness proves
the existence of God. I think Kant has also adopted a sort of gradation like theme in his ethical
philosophy to claim that God necessarily exists. It is all because of the fact that, Kant assumes
for the governance of the goodness in this world there should possibly be the existence of
God.
The medieval theistic philosophers and theologians were totally theocentric who over
emphasized the existence of God without regarding much of the problem of evil. This period
had very few atheists who challenged the existence of God which were seen as the golden
opportunity for the theistic champions to flourish. But it turned upside down when we proceed
post renaissance where religious influence and absolutism started to decline. Many came forth
to question the church and the existence of God. It has to be noted that Kant came forward
with his doctrine of the existence of God in this period midst all adversities and difficulties.
In the Critique of Pure Reason, God was a challenging idea in the comprehensible world.
Afterwards he understood that the same intelligible world is the invisible chamber of vigorous
endeavours that should necessarily proceed from an all vigorous and powerful source which
he accepted to be God. Moreover, when he was concerned about the morality of life, he was
compelled to accept the practical necessity of God. He was rather not satisfied merely with the
practical necessity of God. He aimed high to reach at the destination of metaphysical requisite
for the existence of God that surpasses all questions and doubts about God.
What surprises me a lot is his attitude to prove the metaphysical necessity of God even
when he was an atheistic philosopher. A theistic philosopher can easily prove the existence of
God at least on the grounds that he is convinced of it. But if an atheistic philosopher should

24
make an attempt on this endeavour, this provides more stronghold to the situation. This
becomes a sole proof for the existence of God. If an atheist is to ask something on the validity
of the existence of God, this peculiar proof grounded on Kant’s attitude is the adequate answer
for him.
Thus, it can be proved that God exists through the practical and metaphysical necessity
along with the attitude that Kant has formulated.

25
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books
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Copleston, Frederick, S.J., A History of Philosophy, volume 6, part 2, Image Books, New
York, 1964.

Copleston, Frederick., S.J., A History of Philosophy, volume 6, part 1, Image Books, New
York, 1964.

England, F.E., Kant’s Conception of God, Humanities Press, New York, 1968.

Guyer, Paul., Kant, Routledge, London, 2006.

Heidegger, Martin., Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, Indiana University Press, United
States of America, 1968.

Herring, Herbert., Essentials of Kant's Theoretical and Practical Philosophy, Ajanta

Publications, New Delhi, 1993.

Kant, Immanuel., Critique of Pure Reason, J.M. Dent and Sons Ltd, London, 1969.

Kant, Immanuel., Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Cambridge University Press,

United Kingdom, 1997.

Kant, Immanuel., Lectures on Ethics, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, 1979.

Kant, Immanuel., Practical Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom, 1996.

26
Kant, Immanuel., Critique of Practical Reason, Cambridge University Press, United
Kingdom, 1997.

Korner, S., Kant, Penguin Books, London, 1964.

Smith, Kemp, Norman., A Commentary to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, Humanities Press
Inc, New Jersey, 1984.

Walsh, W.H., Kant’s Criticism of Metaphysics, Edinburgh University Press, London, 1975.

Internet Sources

Stang, Nicholas, F., “Kant’s Possibility Proof”, History of Philosophy Quarterly, volume 27,
number 3, July 2010, https://philarchive.org/archive/STAKPPv1, accessed on
09/01/2020.

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