The actuality of a highest morally-legislating Author is therefore
sufficiently established merely _for the practical use_ of our Reason,
without determining anything theoretically as regards its being. For
Reason requires, in respect of the possibility of its purpose, which
is given to us independently by its own legislation, an Idea through
which the inability to follow up this purpose, according to the mere
natural concepts of the world, is removed (sufficiently for the
reflective Judgement). Thus this Idea gains practical reality, although
all means of creating such for it in a theoretical point of view, for
the explanation of nature and determination of the supreme Cause,
are entirely wanting for speculative cognition. For the theoretical
reflective Judgement physical Teleology sufficiently proves from the
purposes of nature an intelligent World-Cause; for the practical
Judgement moral Teleology establishes it by the concept of a final
purpose, which it is forced to ascribe to creation in a practical
point of view. The objective reality of the Idea of God, as moral
Author of the world, cannot, it is true, be established by physical
purposes _alone_. But nevertheless, if the cognition of these purposes
is combined with that of the moral purpose, they are, by virtue of the
maxim of pure Reason which bids us seek unity of principles so far as
is possible, of great importance for the practical reality of that
Idea, by bringing in the reality which it has for the Judgement in a
theoretical point of view.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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