The Middle Path of Rational Faith: Jaspers and Kant

Abstract

The philosophy of both Immanuel Kant and Karl Jaspers culminates in the motif of faith (the pure practical rational faith and the philosophical faith), but this similarity has received relatively little attention. The paper examines it with specific focus on three questions: First, can it be said that Kant advocates a narrower, morally bound conception of rational faith, while Jaspers holds a broader, existential conception? If so, what is the root of this “narrower”–“wider” distinction? Second, can we take Jaspers as “Kantian existentialist” with regard to his motif of philosophical faith? Third, what do these concepts imply in relation to Christianity? To what extent can philosophical standpoint co-exist with Christian belief? As for the first question, the interpretation shows that rather than narrower–wider, it is more appropriate to use the stricter (Kant)–looser (Jaspers) distinction in the concept of rational faith, that, (second), has in both cases different grounding. Third, contrary to seeming opposition, where Kantian faith tends to overlap with Christian belief while for Jaspers a philosopher cannot be a believer in traditional sense, both get to a “sibling proximity” on the one hand and tension to traditional religion on the other.

1. Introduction

In his letter of 12 February 1928, Karl Jaspers wrote to Martin Heidegger: “How my heart beats when you write about Kant! He’s the only one I actually trust” (Heidegger and Jaspers 1990, p. 89).1 These words suggest that the Jaspers-Kant relationship is not just a matter of a common “influence” but rather something stronger, namely inner trust. Although there is no evidence showing that Jaspers was inspired by Immanuel Kant in formulating his concept of philosophical faith (“der philosophische Glaube”), we cannot overlook its similarity to Kant’s concept of pure practical rational faith (“reine praktische Vernunftglaube”).2 This article aims to examine this similarity more closely and to help repay our debt to Jaspers, “underappreciated by the academy at large” (Wernicki 2018, p. 80).3 Although a comprehensive collective monograph on Jaspers’ philosophical faith already exists (Wautischer et al. 2012), none of its chapters is devoted to the Kant–Jaspers relationship with regard to this concept.

At first glance, it seems difficult to avoid a simple dichotomy: either a standpoint is rationally (i.e., philosophically) justified, or it is just accepted as a matter of belief. Both thinkers are convinced about not only possibility but also necessity of a “middle path” of rational faith, where rationality, not reduced to operative correctness, is internally connected with faith as a specific “taking for true” (Fürwahrhalten) with its propositional content. How can we identify the similarities and differences in both concepts of rational faith? To what extent can Jaspers, “the last Kantian”,4 be considered “the Kantian existentialist” in this respect? And what are the consequences of both forms of rational faith for the relationship with Christianity? First, we will focus on each concept separately in order to outline its structural features and gain the potential to answer these questions. My own perspective is more systematic and philosophical than historical because what ultimately matters is the extent to which both authors can contribute to our questioning of the relationship between rationality and religiosity.

2. Kant: I Will That There Be a God…

The first attempt to compare the two authors reveals an obvious difference: on the one hand, the thinker renowned for his “clarification of existence” (“Existenzerhellung”), and on the other, the thinker articulating principles that must be discovered and established (GMS, AA 04:392).5 Language that seeks self-clarification, and which serves as a means of blazing one’s trail out of a mere state of existence and towards a genuinely existential mode of life, is diametrically opposed to language that is born of faith in a priori principles6, which serve as an unquestionable, timeless foundation. Different thinkers, different concepts, different perspectives.7 And yet, perhaps this is where one of the privileged tasks of philosophising as the expression of a ‘total will to communication’ lies (Jaspers 2017, p. 39):8 namely, to act as mediation and bridge different worlds. In this ‘pontifical’ act, we discover that discrepancy does not prevent authentic communication. It is only through encountering contrasting views that we can truly appreciate the unique philosophical stance of a given point of view. Therefore, one might say that the effort to establish communication with a contrasting view is an expression of faith in philosophy; a broader act of philosophical faith (Jaspers 2017, p. 30).

Let us now turn our attention to Jaspers’ inspirer. Kant’s specification of “pure practical rational faith” from his Critique of Practical Reason is carefully set within the strictly articulated epistemological framework of the Critique of Pure Reason. This means that Kant takes great care not to go beyond the boundaries set out in the first Critique, with the aim to separate legitimate knowledge secured by its “birth certificate”, namely the relation to a possible intuition, “which for us humans can only be empirical” (KrV, B 34)—from merely apparent quasi-cognition. He succeeds in formulating a third way between provable knowledge and a mere empty assumption, while remaining faithful to his system. Pure practical rational faith is identified as the standpoint of “holding to be true from the need of pure reason” (KpV, AA 05:142). The basis of this standpoint is well captured in this passage:

It is a duty to realize the highest good to the utmost of our capacity; therefore it must be possible; hence it is also unavoidable for every rational being in the world to assume what is necessary for its objective possibility. The assumption is as necessary as the moral law, in relation to which alone it is valid (KpV, AA 05:143).

This passage summarises the thought sequence that can be described as the deduction of the postulates of pure practical reason, establishing the vital link between the moral law, the highest good and the conditions of its possibility. In this sequence, the specific moral duty shifts, so to say, from the moral imperative to the highest good and from that to the necessary conditions of the highest good, which are, in addition to free will, the metaphysical postulates of God’s existence and the immortality of the soul. The epistemic claim associated with the postulates of God and immortality is homogeneous with the claim placed on the agent by the moral law, which is autonomously imposed. Acknowledging the existence of God and the immortality of the soul is therefore specifically necessary, that is, necessary only from one’s own ethical perspective, not from one that is only theoretical and unbiased. Yet the ethical perspective is an elementary constellation where one stands in relation to the claim that is characterised by universal binding force.9 This claim—to put shortly Kant’s well-known “doctrine” from the second Critique—is a fact.10 Kant succinctly formulates this connection in the same chapter a few lines later:

…granted that the pure moral law inflexibly binds everyone as a command (not as a rule of prudence), the upright man may well say: ‘I will that there be a God, that my existence in this world be also an existence in a pure world of the understanding beyond natural connections, and finally that my duration be endless; I stand by this, without paying attention to rationalizations, however little I may be able to answer them or to oppose them with others more plausible, and I will not let this belief be taken from me; for this is the only case in which my interest, because I may not give up anything of it, inevitably determines my judgement (KpV, AA 05:143).

Perhaps nowhere else is the ethos of pure practical rational faith so clearly heard as in this passage, marked by the words “I will that…”, “I will not let this belief be taken from me”, “I may not give up anything of it”, which is connected with a truly irrefutable and irreversible self-confidence of good will. This self-confidence can at any time be assured of itself and together with it of its conditions—the necessary assumptions of God and immortality—without having to look around for any other reasons and justifications. For Kant, this is at the same time the part of the whole idea of autonomy that cannot be reduced to mere self-legislation. This self-confidence has greater validity than any speculative objections. Theoretical judgement—consideration of the necessary assumptions in the sense of “if X holds, then the Y, which makes this X possible, must apply”—is here combined with a practical interest, which is no random inclination, but something definitive, and, once recognized, unavoidable. It is, in fact, a response to a command which, paradoxically, the protagonist as a legislator imposes upon himself, thanks to which he can understand himself as a person in whom pure reason turns practical.

What Kant is ultimately trying to show is the necessary connection of the “practical metaphysical” chain of law–goodness–freedom–God–immortality. Since the connection is internally necessary, this is not just about our being led, like in a cascade, from one point to the next. Kant tries to show that to rule out any one of the members of this chain impacts the others, which is how the term “necessary connection” should be understood. This means that unless we acknowledge the validity of the moral law, we have little reason to speak of anything as the highest good, and consequently nor of anything like God or the immortal soul. At the same time, not recognizing the existence of God and of the immortal soul prevents us from thinking of the highest good, which, as a synthesis of virtue and happiness that is not inherently justifiable, falls apart, thereby ruling out any kind of moral law that impels us to promote it.11 The moral law is itself the formulation of the quintessential criterion of the “goodness of the good”. This criterion cannot be avoided if man is a rational being, i.e., unlike natural things, is capable of “acting according to the conception of laws, that is according to principles, i.e., has a will” (GMS, AA 04:412). It is only in this context that the basic contours of Kant’s practical philosophy emerge. Only an uninformed standpoint would identify it with a mere theory of the categorical imperative, overlooking the fact that it is a practical metaphysics.12

3. The Faith of Needy Reason

It is not the aim of this exposition of Kantian rational faith to provide a thorough analysis of its key moments. It is worth reminding that this motif represents the culmination of the ideas of the three Critiques.13 At the same time, with this concept Kant decisively addresses the intellectual controversy over Lessing’s Spinozism, known as the Pantheism Controversy,14 as evidenced by a remarkable minor work from 1786 entitled What Does it Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking? (AA 08:133–147).15 Here, we encounter the same grade of epistemic certainty connected with rational faith as in the second Critique.

In Kant’s text, it is the notion of orientation that is the guiding principle, the examination of which is supposed to enable an answer to the question of what orients our thinking about matters that transcend sensory evidence. Kant follows the semantic expansion of the concept of orientation, from a geographical meaning (determining the cardinal points by the sunrise, i.e., the “orient”) through an abstractly mathematical one, to a purely philosophical one. Importantly, already for the geographical meaning of orientation in the landscape, the situatedness of the physical subject feeling the difference between right and left hand plays a crucial role. An analogous subjective situatedness is also decisive for the philosophical meaning of orientation in the “landscape of thought”. However, it is no longer a reliable intuitive sense of right–left polarity, but a specifically subjectively felt need of reason (das Bedürfnis der Vernunft), from which the individual must ultimately make a subjectively certain judgment regarding God’s existence.

This need (Bedürfnis) is defined as practical, since it does not concern a cognitive relation to existing facts, but a personal practical relation to the world. While the speculative attitude and the associated need for final answers are essentially non-necessary (since there is always the possibility of abstaining from judgment), as embodied beings we must always act in some way. Therefore, we cannot avoid asking for the determining reason for action, as well as its ideal goal and its feasibility and stability. This is the highest good, in which, as already explained above, happiness somehow must be proportionate to morality and which can only be guaranteed by “the highest intelligence as the highest independent good” (WDO, AA 08:139). Human situatedness is thus, according to Kant, the basis of the attitude he calls the faith of reason, the pure rational faith from which we make a subjectively necessary and sufficient judgment concerning God’s existence. This is carefully distinguished from mere opinion on the one hand and knowledge on the other. In the specification of these motives lies the core of Kant’s interpretation and a valuable contribution to the timeless dialogue between rationality and faith. In postulating the existence of a supreme being lies the answer to the central question of the writing. The necessary orientation in the “dark night of the supersensible” (WDO, AA 08:137) is not provided by an objective rational demonstration, as in Mendelssohn, nor by a supra-rational intuition, as in Jacobi, but the compass sought is provided by the very need of reason itself, where the acknowledgement of one’s own insufficiency is a necessary and sufficient starting point.

This necessary postulate has a specific stability. Opinion, belief, and knowledge are, so to speak, fluid categories that can change in relation to the same substantive content. I can only believe in something, while additional information transforms this belief into knowledge. On the contrary, rational belief, according to Kant, stands outside this variability; it cannot be transformed into knowledge by additional information because its object lies beyond the scope of demonstrative rationality. Nevertheless, it is the standpoint that is both autonomously and rationally posited and is paradoxically grounded in the very need of reason.16 Kant sums up: “To the strength of faith belongs the consciousness of its immutability. I can be quite sure that no one will refute the sentence, ‘God exists’; for from where would he get this insight? With intellectual faith, then, it is not as with historical faith, for which evidence to the contrary may always be found, and in which we must still be prepared to change our minds if our knowledge of things increases.” (WDO, AA 08:141).

In summary: Pure practical rational faith is a theoretical–practical position between objectively assured knowledge and mere opinion. It depends on consciousness of ethical obligation, as well as an understanding of consequences and presuppositions. Therefore, it is not automatically transferable; rather, its emergence is linked to the awakening of the individual’s autonomy. This awakening requires intersubjective sharing, as demonstrated by Kant’s concept of ethical education in the methodological section of the Critique of Practical Reason (KpV, AA 05:151–161).

4. The Moral Core of Religion

Unlike Kant, Jaspers is unequivocal in his view that an authentic philosopher cannot be a devout Christian due to the ‘deadly claim to exclusivity’ inherent in traditional religion (Jaspers 2017, p. 70). However, Kant seems to take an opposing stand: only the critical philosopher gets to see true Christianity opened up before them, Christianity purged of the ritual layers whose role is merely instrumental in making the moral core of Christianity available and accessible. For Kant there follows with inner logic that an ethical standpoint leads inevitably to religion (RGV, AA 06:6).17

As is well known, Kant’s four-part Religion within the Limits of Mere Reason is devoted to exposition of the consequences of the ethics of autonomy for the vast domain of the Christian religion. Its point is to explicate the connection “leads inevitably to religion”.18 To summarize the gist of his treatise on religion, it rests on demonstrating how morality leads to religion. Kant places before mere historical religion a true rational and a priori religion, which is nothing else than the standpoint from which the protagonist conceives the moral law as the law of God: Religion is the (subjectively regarded) recognition of all duties as divine commands (RGV, AA 06:153).19

Cult practices, liturgy and worship are all acceptable as external means to the extent that they help to realise the essential goal of moral improvement, as exemplified by Jesus. For some, this programme fulfils a need for purification; for others, it is an expression of the Enlightenment’s distorted view of religion, which completely misses its essence. In order to provide a brief overview of this vast area in terms of its inner meaning, it is important to emphasise that Kant “only” expounds his single idea of moral autonomy as elementary existential honesty. In its name, he goes on to redefine and reconstruct Christianity, including such themes as soteriology and the Holy Trinity. He does so with an almost unpleasant cold sharpness of gaze that is difficult to avoid. Religion conceived in a manner that covers up such honesty can easily become an opium.20 Thus, it goes with St Paul’s theme of justification, the deductive reconstruction of which Kant formulates at the end of the first section of the second part of the Religionsschrift, where we read:

For, one sees from the deduction at issue that, for the human being encumbered by guilt, absolution before divine justice can be thought only on the presupposition of a complete change of heart, and hence that all expiations, whether they be of the penitential or the ceremonial kind, all invocations and laudations (even those of the proxy ideal, of the Son of God) cannot make up for the lack of the change of heart, or, if the change is there, increase in the least its validity before that court of law; for, this ideal must be adopted in our attitude in order to count in place of the deed (RGV, AA 06:76).

The key phrase ‘change of heart’ is repeated three times in the passage. In keeping with the idea of autonomy, it is something that the individual can and must do themselves; it cannot be done by an intermediary or replaced by ritual acts, which can only be an external symptom of this internal transformation. It is important to note that such an autonomising transformation is also a fundamental theme for Jaspers. If one’s reason is sufficiently autonomous, it can, through its internal dynamics, articulate the essence of Christianity. All that is needed is pure practical rational faith, which is also faith in the possibility of transformation according to the moral law. More precisely, it is a faith not only in the possibility of transformation, but also in its necessity, which guarantees that possibility (this being nothing else than human freedom).21 From Kant’s perspective, historical faith that clings to external, miraculous or ritual aspects needs to be cultivated and purified by rational faith. In return, rational faith is assisted and served by historical faith.22 This kind of cooperative synthesis is necessary if we are to avoid, in Kant’s words, “two religions in one person, which is absurd” (RGV, AA 06:13).

5. Jaspers: To Live from the Encompassing

Jaspers does not go that far; he advocates cooperation without subscribing to the idea of a final synthesis of Christianity and philosophy.23 Since “two religions in one person” is “absurd”, a true philosopher cannot be a Christian and remain a philosopher (Jaspers 1994, p. 294).24 What does “philosophical faith” mean for Jaspers? Given that it is not a religious faith, we might expect it to be something “in-between” a religious faith and a scientific standpoint. This raises the question of whether combining the concept of demonstrability with the willingness to “blindly” accept that which is beyond our power inevitably leads to contradiction. As these are questions that extend far beyond our scope, let us focus on Jaspers’ lecture series Philosophical Faith (1948) and the 1962 book Philosophical Faith in the Face of Revelation.25

Philosophical faith is conceived as a “third way” between the faith based on revelation and the scientistic approach, it represents an alternative to two apparent dilemmas: “Christ, or nihilism” and “total science, or illusion” (Jaspers 2017, p. 10). The formulation of this standpoint falls in line with the defence of the specific status of philosophy, which teaches us that these alternatives are too hasty. The key here is Jaspers’ posing of the question in the first lecture of his Philosophical Faith, formulated with the words “From where and to what end shall we live?” (Jaspers 2017, p. 9).26

These preliminaries outline the contours of Jaspers’ concept of philosophical faith. It represents a fundamental horizon or framework that gives meaning to all partial theoretical and practical acts. This seems to be a much broader concept than that of Kant, which is tied exclusively to moral domain. Can this thesis be confirmed? If we look again at the Kantian quote beginning with the words “granted that the pure moral law binds everyone…”, it seems better not to rush into that easy-to-reach conclusion. Of course, on the one hand, there is a distinction between Kant’s “to act” and Jaspers’ “to live”; nevertheless, that alone is not enough to consider one concept as “narrower” and the other as “broader”, should these words suggest something like restrictiveness versus openness. For it is true that Kant’s postulates, as correlates of rational faith, have in the first place a negative, liberating function, in the sense that they remove the limits and conditionalities imposed by the theoretical claim to correct, i.e., empirically bound epistemology.

Kantian rational faith is a transcending standpoint: the world is not merely an empirically verifiable categorical interconnection of phenomena, but also a noumenal world, a world of intelligences, forming community of the good will. At the same time, the imperative for promoting good is so strong that, in Kant’s view, humans cannot escape it, not even through death. This requires postulating a never-ending progress to the ideal of goodness. The postulate of immortality is not an expression of a reward, but of this unlimited claim of goodness. Jaspers does not reach that far with his “living from the Encompassing.” Therefore, rather than “narrower” and “broader”, it is more appropriate to speak of (Kant’s) “stricter” and (Jaspers’) “looser” positions, where Kantian strictness reaches farther than Jaspers’ looseness.27

Jaspers’ perception of rational faith, and of other phenomena, is characterised by a sense of dynamics, transformation and escalation. He opposes this to rigid, thesis-like thinking. At the same time, this emphasis expresses the key thesis of his thinking: that humans must grow from unreflective living to authentic existence in relation to transcendence. “Faith cannot become universal knowledge, but it should be present in my self-persuasion. And it should be ever clearer, more conscious, and driven forward by awareness” (Jaspers 2017, p. 14).

The concept of philosophical faith is not merely supplementary to an existing philosophical system but lies at its very heart. This is evident in Jaspers’ attempt to characterise philosophical faith, where he is compelled to revisit the fundamental principles of his philosophy, particularly the gradation of the “Encompassing” (das Umgreifende) and the intertwining of its various forms, as Jaspers calls the traditional motif of being. In this basic context, faith is “the inner appropriation of Being from the origin through history and thought” (Jaspers 2017, p. 15),28 a characteristic that also Heidegger could sign up. This also brings us to the fundamental difficulty and paradox of Jaspers’ understanding of philosophical faith, namely, that its modulation goes hand in hand with the modulation of his ontological scheme, and therefore that the somewhat problematic nature of this scheme contaminates the conception of philosophical faith.

This inconsistency is evident in the basic phrasing of the Encompassing. To this end, Jaspers uses traditional categories that, in some places, obscure rather than clarify the matter (which is why some important strands of the phenomenological tradition try to avoid them). These include the categories of “subject” and “object”, as well as the terms “the being that is ourselves” and “the being that surrounds us”. Spatial and locational terms tied to what Heidegger calls “objectifying thinking” turn out to be somewhat problematic tools for Jaspers’s purposes. Jaspers writes: “To get the concept of faith, we would have to clarify the Encompassing. … The Encompassing… shows itself to be a multitude of ways of the Encompassing” (Jaspers 2017, p. 16). He continues: “The Encompassing is either the Being in itself that surrounds us, or the Being that is ourselves” (Jaspers 2017, p. 16). Contrary to Kantian clarity, the specifications seem problematic here—whether the ultimative “either-or” or the somewhat naïve-sounding, spatially positioning “that surrounds us” or the very talk of “Being in itself”.

Although Jaspers recalls Kant in the first chapter of his lectures on rational faith, he does not do so with regard to Kant’s notion of rational faith, but to the elementary distinction between appearance and thing-in-itself. With Kant, this distinction establishes the standpoint of transcendental idealism, which is primarily negative and self-limiting. Jaspers invokes this distinction paradoxically to substantiate his position of a peculiar metaphysical realism, which is neither Kantian nor entirely intelligible, and remains largely unclarified. In short, Jaspers seeks to articulate a philosophy of Being that has its basis in Kant’s transcendental difference, which does not enable any direct ontology. Reality is reduced to what is given within the a priori frameworks of empirical intuition. The above-mentioned splitting of the Encompassing (where each of the two halves re-establishes itself again into a distinct whole),29 amounts to a peculiar situation, where the very notion that is intended to overcome such a split (the Encompassing) is itself split apart. Similar problem relates to the definition of transcendence: “… and it is transcendence, i.e., Being which is completely different from us, in which we have no part, but in which we are founded and to which we relate” (Jaspers 2017, p. 17). How are we to reconcile thoughts of “having no part in something” with the idea of “being based on something” or “relating to something”? How different is the otherness of transcendence when it is itself the source of our own being? For, as Jaspers says, “I am as an existence, once I know that I am given to myself through transcendence” (Jaspers 2017, p. 20).30

However, we should not allow these contradictions to undermine the entire programme of the philosophical faith. As for this programme, Jaspers is certainly not a direct follower of Kant. In his lectures on philosophical faith, he merely summarises and recapitulates what he elaborates on extensively, especially in his three-volume Philosophy. This programme is based on an impartial theism which, on the one hand, draws on tradition and, on the other, distances itself from traditional religion (Jaspers aims at Protestant Christianity), which claims authoritarian exclusivity. This tension between “drawing on” and “distancing oneself from” resembles Kant’s standpoint—without, unlike Kant, uniting the two perspectives and reconciling the philosopher and the Christian.

The word “transcendence” becomes somewhat inflationary, and, as with the analogous term “encompassing”, we need to distinguish between relative and absolute levels:

We need to distinguish the transcendence of all forms of the Encompassing and transcendence in the proper sense. We transcend in relation to each Encompassing, i.e., we transcend a certain objectivity to internalise that which encompasses it; it would therefore be possible … to call every form of Encompassing transcendence. We refer to transcendence in the proper sense, however, only in relation to the Encompassing proper, or rather, the Encompassing of all Encompassing. … In reference to universal transcendence, to transcendence that belongs to every form of Encompassing, it is the transcendence of all transcendences (Jaspers 1991, p. 108).

For this “transcendence of all transcendences”, mythical language uses the traditional word “God”. It is not, therefore, that Jaspers actually uses “transcendence” to mean “God”, but on the contrary: by the word “God” various cultures and traditions refer to this ultimate transcendence, which eventually defies any conceptual grasp.: “Behind all the ciphers and categories there is transcendence—but the word transcendence is again inappropriate, as a designation. It means going beyond all the objects and ciphers, crossing, transcending, but not transcending and overstepping as such, but instead that to which this transcending reaches and that cannot be captured by any statement” (Jaspers 2016a, p. 66).

We have not yet arrived at the essential point: how can we be assured of the transcendence in which existence is grounded? Jaspers’ philosophy of faith does not have its starting point in ethical phenomenon, as in Kant, but has a more theoretical foundation. It has already been mentioned in the definition of rational faith: “the inner appropriation of being from its origin through history and thought”; that is, it proceeds from the givenness of the “objective reality”, from the self or from the study of historical experience, of which authentic mystical experience is a part. The first two ways overlap to a certain extent, since they aim at the same end. The starting point in givenness involves a theoretical act, also called the “basic philosophical operation”, namely, a leap or stepping beyond the subject-object split towards the “awareness” of the Encompassing as such. Although Jaspers often uses the word “leap” (“Sprung”—echoing Kierkegaard, who, however, does not use this word), it is clear that what he means is a repeated and gradually deepening experience in which one becomes aware that behind all phenomenality there is a dimension called Encompassing in which one has one’s origin and end. In this way, this phenomenality is retrospectively clarified, and everything that appears in the realm of phenomena becomes the encrypted language of this encompassing dimension—the cipher of transcendence (Jaspers 2016b, p. 154).31

This is his basic stance from 1962. In the 1948 lectures on philosophical faith, the emphasis is on the assurance of transcendence in the consciousness of the original groundlessness of the self, echoing Descartes’ famous question “For from whom would I be?” (“Nempe a quo essem?”) from the third meditation (Descartes 1996, 33; AT 48): “As existence I am when I know that I am given to myself through transcendence. I am not in my decision through myself. But being through myself is being given to me in my freedom. … Proper faith is that act of existence in which we become aware of the reality of transcendence” (Jaspers 2017, p. 20). Twice repeated “to give” in the passive voice is essential in this context: “To be given” presupposes a “giver” giving the gift. Philosophical faith stems from the awareness that existence is a gift, directly related to the Giver. For Jaspers, faith concerning the transcendent Giver also represents a strong epistemic mode in which, to recall Kant, it “may...at times waver even in the well-disposed”, yet “it can never turn into unbelief” (KpV, AA 05:146).

6. Deadly Claim to Exclusivity

Despite different grounding, Jaspers’ position is Kantian in the emphasis on autonomy, which gives rise to sharp boundaries that Kant tries to overcome. This becomes striking in the question of the relationship between philosophical faith and traditional religiosity. As already mentioned, Jaspers advocates a sharp disjunction “either religion or philosophy”, where “no standpoint can sidestep this contradiction between philosophy and religion” (Jaspers 2017, p. 61). We can easily formulate objection concerning the uncritical nature of this dilemma, pointing to Christian thinkers and thinking (philosophising) Christians. It seems evident that there are examples of intersection of both groups and standpoints, from either side. However, to do so we would silence our author too soon and prevent us from sharpening the notion of philosophical faith.

The essential aspect which acts like a scalpel making a cut between religiosity and philosophy is for Jaspers the “claim to exclusivity” (“Ausschließlichkeitsanspruch”), which is a “deadly misfortune” and has to be “fought against” (Jaspers 2017, p. 69). Jaspers uses an apt example from his own conversations with theologians to illustrate it:

It is one of the pains of my life striving for the truth that a discussion with theologians stops at decisive points; they turn mute, utter some incomprehensible sentence, talk about something else, assert something unconditionally and talk friendly and kindly without really acknowledging what has just been said—and in the end, they probably have no particular interest in it. For, on the one hand, they feel confident in their truth, and on the other it seems that we, who to them seem such stubborn men, are not worth their effort. … Whoever possesses his ultimate truth cannot really engage in talking to another (Jaspers 2017, p. 61).32

Jaspers does not hide his disappointment, even disgust with this attitude, which is the opposite of rational faith viewed also as faith in communication. He interprets this attitude as inversion of the unconditionality of faith, which is always personal and situational, into a universally valid, unconditional truth for all, inversion of the act and the content. “I don’t see how anyone can take a neutral stance when faced with a claim to exclusivity” (Jaspers 2017, p. 73). According to Jaspers, this claim is “a human construction and not based on God, who has opened to mankind many paths to Himself”’ (Jaspers 2017, p. 75), and contains a dangerous potential for world domination, intolerance and violence, and at the same time “a ban on the unbound use of reason” (Jaspers 2017, p. 73). The intellectually honest must choose intellectual struggle and intolerance aimed at that attitude, “because one cannot avoid intolerance towards intolerance (but only towards that)” (Jaspers 2017, p. 73).

The heresy of philosophical faith lies in the willingness to add a question mark to any authoritative grip, which disrupts the cementing, integrating function of religion. Therefore, for Jaspers, “the claim that only one who believes in Christ will have eternal life is not convincing” (Jaspers 2017, p. 69). This does not mean that the figure of Jesus cannot be deeply inspiring and that one cannot read him as a cipher of transcendence. Jesus can be this without accepting Christ’s universal redemptive claim.33 The same is true for the whole of revelation: it comes down from a privileged position so that it can be read as another cipher of transcendence among others, as another part of the richness of the “world of ciphers”, which also includes great poetry, the art of speculative philosophy or myths.34 Revelation cannot give man definitive certainty, it can become an ambiguous sign in which God’s real presence shines on man for a moment, only to then return to the hardness of his created freedom, “for which God remains inexorably hidden.”35

Such words may sound harsh. Jaspers is not blind to the fact that not only society, culture, but also philosophy lives to a large extent from the contents (including against the contents) transmitted and cultivated by the Biblical religions. To this extent philosophy depends on religion, with the task to give it critical feedback, preventing the realisation of religion’s hazardous claims. However, he rejects the possibility that this tension should take place in one and the same being—it would be like “two religions in one person, which is absurd” (RGV, AA 06:13). Philosophical reflection receives a special reward for this state of “homelessness”: it alone is entitled to ask the question that Jaspers calls “the fateful question of the West”: what will become of Biblical religion? (Jaspers 2017, p. 69).

7. Conclusions

Returning to both philosophies from a brief synoptic perspective, they can be described as sibling concepts of rational faith. A closer look can be subdivided into three interconnected aspects: first, the access to the contents of rational faith (fides qua), second, these contents themselves (fides quae), and finally, their relationship to the Christian faith.

Regarding the aspect of accessibility, Jaspers asserts that the motif of rational faith is present from the outset of philosophical enquiry, as faith is a gradually unfolding relationship with the Encompassing, through which the world and intra-worldly entities are reinterpreted as ciphers of transcendence. The entry into this movement is the “basic philosophical operation”, which involves stepping out of the fundamental subject–object split towards its foundation. In this basic philosophical movement, Jaspers invokes Kant; however, in relation to the phenomenon of rational faith, there is no Kantian link. For Kant, rational faith is grounded in the awareness of universal ethical obligation and reflection on its consequences, rather than presuppositions, since this obligation is the expression of an autonomous, self-legislating act of pure practical reason.

As for the aspect of accessibility, for Jaspers the motif of rational faith is at play from the very beginning of philosophizing, since faith is a gradually unfolding relation to the Encompassing from which the world and the intra-worldly entities are re-read as ciphers of transcendence. The entry into this movement is the “basic philosophical operation”, which is the theoretical stepping out of the elementary subject-object split to its foundation. In this basic philosophical movement, Jaspers invokes Kant, but in relation to the phenomenon of rational faith there is no Kantian link.

Therefore, for Kant, there can be no metaphysics without ethics. Jaspers’ ontological starting point would be too hasty for Kant, since it leaves open the possibility that the human self “comes from matter” (Henrich 1960, p. 111), a possibility that the Kantian theoretical standpoint cannot resolve.36 Theoretical reflection can verify the presuppositions necessary for objectified knowledge, but it has no other metaphysics at its disposal. For the metaphysical move that Jaspers makes through awareness of Being beyond split phenomenality, Kant requires awareness of freedom in the face of ethical claims. This highlights the importance of examining the scope of Jaspers’s “fundamental philosophical operation” and its insufficiency.

The contents of rational faith overlap to some extent. For Kant, these are the metaphysical postulates of God’s existence and the immortality of the soul, complemented by the postulate of freedom. Here, the moral law is the starting point, acting as the “ratio cognoscendi” of freedom. In contrast, Jaspers’ trio of “unconditional claim–God–the transient nature of the world” is formulated more loosely and broadly: the unconditional claim is not, as in Kant, prior, but rather forms part of the content of rational faith.37 The most obvious difference concerns the question of the immortality of the soul: Kant’s postulate is grounded in the idea of infinite approximation to the ideal of the highest good and is therefore in opposition to Jaspers’s hesitancy and restraint. Alongside the obligatory rejection of the ontic notion of the immortality of the soul and the appeal to existential awareness, Jaspers uses words such as “consummation”, “refuge” and “foundation”.38 Therefore, Kant’s conception of both ‘fides qua’ and ‘fides quae’ can be described as stricter and more radical.

Thirdly and finally, in relation to Christianity, they both seem to occupy contrasting positions that nevertheless reach a kind of sibling proximity. With Kant, only the philosopher is a true Christian, since it is through the moral law that he is at the authentic core of the Christian religion. Kant’s radicalism is evident in his bold reinterpretation of Christianity in light of this core principle. However, measured in terms of standard Christian self-understanding, this becomes a heretical standpoint beyond orthodoxy, if its core is the free, forgiving, merciful love of Jesus Christ and the concept of the Trinity, rather than morality and the self-perfection of the moral subject. In this respect, Jaspers’ position is more moderate with his philosopher–Christian disjunction. Jesus, and therefore the entire concept of Revelation, is just one symbol of transcendence among many, bearing no claim to universal binding exclusivity. Nevertheless, this clear distinction does not imply an inability to communicate. On the contrary, both poles of this disjunction need each other. In summary, both Kant’s rationalisation of Christianity and Jaspers’ relativisation are consequences of the autonomy of rational faith. They both express, in different ways, a situation that can be described not only as respectful tension, but also as a loving fight,39 because of the mutual necessity of the two poles. Even if some aspects appear insufficient, their honest application of the best intellectual energy, starting from human autonomy, invites further reflection on the possibility of rational faith.

If we were to suggest a possible direction for further research, it could begin with questioning the alleged impossibility of ‘two religions in one person’, which is understood as the forced unification of two irreconcilable positions. Both Kant and Jaspers strive for a unifying, philosophy-centred approach to the tension between philosophical reflection and the acceptance of a religious doctrine. What seems an interesting alternative is taking both as two distinct yet mutually embracing perspectives, altering in one’s life according to the life situations.40 Nevertheless, two remarks need to be added to the tempting of situational perspectivism that ultimately challenge the thesis: First, these are not static, given contents, but dynamic, constantly changing and interacting domains, on part of each there is sort of transforming movement. It can be argued that in many respects this movement is leading to convergence or unity. Secondly, these perspectives are not a sort of “closed tunnels”, both remain basically “transparent”, which also means that from each one we can see the other. This means that there is a single viewer who lives, thinks and wills in their own life and necessarily asks for a unifying ground for these perspectives, however diverse they might be. Given the singularity of the self, it is difficult to accept an irreducible plurality of these perspectives. It seems obvious that both Kant and Jaspers respect this.