American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly

Volume 81, Issue 3, Summer 2007

Grace and the New Man
Conscious Humiliation and the Revolution of Disposition in Kant’s Religion

Kant’s discussion of radical evil and moral regeneration in Religion Within the Bounds of Reason Alone raises numerous moral and metaphysical problems. If the ground of one’s disposition does not lie in time, as Kant argues, how can it be reformed, as the moral law commands? If divine aid is necessary for this impossible reformation, how does this not destroy a person’s moral personality by bypassing her freedom? This paper argues that these problems can be resolved by showing how Kant can conceive the moral law itself as kind of grace which, willed properly, makes moral regeneration possible without destroying the autonomy of the individual.