Immanuel Kant i ontologiczny dowód na istnienie Boga

Abstract

This article discusses the critical position of Immanuel Kant towards the tradition of so called ontological proof of God’s existence. Kant treats the proof sceptically – he is convinced that any proof of God’s existence is impossible. However, Kant accepts the concept of God as the idea of pure reason, i.e. a sum of total positive “properties” and the ideal of pure reason. This ideal – an unconditional possibility of all – has a positive sense, but only as a formal concept. The ideal of pure reason – God is not something existing in reality, but it is only a postulate of pure reason and an a priori source idea. According to Kant, any attempt at finding a proof of real existence of this ideal (and in consequence of God’s real existence) makes no sense because it has no “objective” content and this ideal is only a formal condition of transcendental knowledge.