ii) Do you agree/disagree with the argument/ideas?
Within the Westphal's paper he has many different opinions expressed by not only himself but other philosophers to help to explain why there was a shift from the traditional theological philosophy to the philosophy of religion. The ideas that Westphal expresses within his paper about the emergence of the modern philosophy of religion have to agree with, such as his idea of the Kernel and the Husk. On the other hand some of the key thinkers that Westphal uses, within his paper to show their contribution to the emergence of philosophy of religion, I do not agree with all their ideas. I shall examine the thoughts of the philosophers Kant and Hegel as these are two of the most key thinkers within this topic and I also do not agree with their views of religion and philosophy. In order to show why I think their views do not work I shall examine the implications of their thoughts and the effects that they would have on human experience within the world.
Kant was an enlightenment thinker who believed that the kernel of religion should be morality. This lead him to believes such as radical evil, fetish faith and the 'summum bonum'. The first idea of Kant's that I do not agree with is his idea of radical evil. This idea is very similar to St. Augustine's idea of original sin; it means that humans can be deliberately evil, they freely choose it. This lead Kant to say : Ethically, human beings are either wholly evil or wholly good by virtue of whether or not an agent has adopted the moral law as the governing maxim for all of his or her maxims (Religion 6:22-23). Kant believed that humans have three basic predispositions and the one that is susceptible to corruption is humanity. It is from the positive characteristics within the predisposition of humanity, such as whether or not you are happy compared to others, that evil becomes a possibility and constitutes a tendency to egoistic and evil self-love as self-conceit. However I cannot agree with this style of thought for the implications of this would be that the God of classical theism would not be able to exists as an omnibenevolent God would not allow people to be wholly evil and an omnipotent God would stop this evil in the world. There would also be implications for religion as more people would turn to atheism seeing the crimes within the world and the worship of Satan as a God could rise due to Satan being classically seen as the bringer of evil. As for human experience if there are only wholly good and wholly bad people within the world then are they not God and Satan themselves, after all the idea of God is that he is a wholly good being, this therefore would mean that there would be no need for a God or religion and would lead to the problem of who was in charge. This idea would not work and cannot be true as we evidently see both good and evil within ourselves as well as others around us, therefore one can only conclude that this idea is not valid.
Kant also believed that religious practices are 'fetish-faith' and belong within the husk of religion as they distract the believer from their moral core and do not help their morality. Kant included means of grace such as prayer, church attendance, baptism and communion under the title 'fetish-faith'. Kant wanted to get rid of these fetish faiths and the implication for this would be huge. Kant wanted to unite people through religion and getting rid of church attendance would do just the opposite of this. Going to church creates a sense of community and a security net that people can rely on, without this human experience would be affected negatively as there because of this loss of a sense of community humans could also lose comfort and meaning that they gain from attending church.Within the church marriage guidance and helping those who are in need of help, such as drug addicts, is offered and without this things human experience would decline as potentially more divorces