to obey, that would be the “private use” of reason. It would be inappropriate and could not be allowed. In order for civil structures of society to function, there must be limits on this use of reason. On the other hand, Kant insisted, as a scholar who wants to argue the issue at hand in the public forum, subjecting the whole question to public judgment, this “public use” of reason should and must be available and exercised to assure that civil life can continue and that the public reason itself be reasonable.
This public use of reason is obviously required of all true science. Scientific positions are given credibility only if and when they disclose their method and evidence publicly so that it can be tested or replicated by others who can thereby independently confirm or negate the conclusions. The question we have seen in Updike’s novel is whether Reverend Wilmot must operate under a heteronomy or can be autonomous. The conflict between the two became so intense that he could not even seize upon the possibility suggested by his superior of realizing that the “official” position of the church was perhaps not as narrowly brittle and conservative as he had painted it. No, there was no option for him but to resign from the ministry, really a self-imposed exile, but produced by an image of the institution or what was supposed to be the real authority.
Kant answered that, as a clergyman, in that role, he certainly was obliged to “teach his pupils and his congregation according to the doctrine of the church” since this was the very condition upon which he was ordained. That was his “private” obligation or responsibility as a clergyman, not an obligation assumed by just anyone belonging to a religion as a lay person. However, Kant continued,
as a scholar, he has full freedom, in fact, even the obligation, to communicate to the public all his diligently examined and well-intentioned thoughts concerning erroneous points in that doctrine and concerning proposals regarding the better institution of religious and ecclesiastical matters. (135)
But as the clergyman continues to preach the church doctrine, is he not thereby being a hypocrite? This was the only way the Reverend Wilmot could conceive it. However, Kant insisted that is not necessarily the case, so long as the clergyman is persuaded that the doctrines of the church do not directly contradict “inner religion,” and so long as it is not inconceivable that they contain some elements of truth (136). By “inner religion” or “true religion” vis-à-vis “pseudo-religion,” Kant meant morality—as distinct from a religion that is primarily metaphysical or in which morality is distorted or plays only a minor role.
If the clergyman in his role as scholar has both the right and obligation to participate in the public discourse or public use of reason in examining anything, including religion, Kant was persuaded it would be unthinkable and even criminal for any group of clergy or church assembly to attempt to impose heteronomy or stifle the public discussion, thereby making doctrine unalterable, and perpetuating an endless guardianship and ignorance. Kant insisted that immaturity in matters of arts and sciences is repugnant, but “immaturity in matters of religion is not only most noxious but also most dishonorable” (139).
The real difficulty, of course, is to figure out what that clergyman could say or should not say as he applies Kant’s standard of it not being “inconceivable” that the doctrines contain “some elements of truth.” Can he retain his self-integrity? Is this assuming that his scholarly disclosures would never be known by his church? Or does it suppose that he should hide one from the other? But if the religious institution itself cannot impose heteronomy and stifle the public discussion, should not the entire church be made aware of this so that they are not left out of the conversation?
To differ just a bit with Kant, what I am suggesting is that obviously at some point the public use of reason and private use of reason do overlap. The public discourse or exchange among scholars itself engages only a very limited audience of participants, and the discussion filters down, at best, in rather piecemeal fashion, willy-nilly, to the nonscholarly world or general public. On that level, where the laity or general public hear of it, they may hear only the results or conclusions without much of the arguments or evidence, or they may for the most part hear only extreme reactions of other nonexperts’ responses to the conclusions. This is common experience not simply in religious matters but discourse on politics, science, economics, and so forth.
To resolve this gap of credibility, it is no answer to resort to the old heteronomy or trusting only the authorities. The general public too cannot be expected to be expertly informed in all vital concerns of life. One cannot escape the question of self-integrity. A society must simply safeguard the public freedom for public discourse, encouraging even greater scope and more diverse involvement in the discourse. All citizens must find confidence to both inform themselves as much as possible about the public discourse, and also to trust the authorities or experts, the more they confirm that they are personally disinterested, that is, have no more vested interests than anyone within the general public. Hopefully the latter will not be too insurmountable a problem. But everyone in the picture must remain flexible rather than turning judgmental of others.19
In the following chapters, as I pursue the simple thesis I have sketched, if it seems that I give only brief and rather negative space to positions that are heteronomous, it is because I do not believe one should or even can turn the clock backward. Heteronomy and authoritarianism can only exacerbate exclusivity and ill feelings between disparate religious communions and social, ethnic, political, and national entities. History supplies a sickening plethora of examples of the results of this divisiveness. Further, it is no longer possible to live as an integrated and realized self if one wants to be autonomous in certain realms of his or her life, while opting for total heteronomy in others. It is no longer possible for the scientist to be on the cutting edge of science, with its methods of openness, experiment, and public discussion, and then one day a week, while at church, mosque, synagogue, or just with one’s religious colleagues (or at least in the remote recesses of one’s mind) still profess some authoritarian, literal, or unreasonable religious beliefs that entirely contradict his or her scientific assumptions, methods, view of the world, and results. Cognitive dissonance is not the desired ideal life. The destructive nature of such cognitive dissonance seems to be even more sinister than the state of denial most people take toward their own deaths of which Heidegger was so critical.
Reason, trust, faith, or truth cannot be meaningful in contradictory areas with presuppositions that are incompatible—whether the scientist posits some idea of “God” “beyond” all time and space while holding to a finite and exponentially expanding universe and human evolution, or the religious person insists that while the ancient dinosaur bones and human bones or those of their predecessors, and various strata of our earth and other astrophysical data seem to indicate that our universe is 13 billions of years old is actually just God’s way of fooling people who do not want to believe that God really created it all just 6,000 years ago.20 To try to straddle between such incompatible worldviews as well as theologies creates a schizoid existence, the very opposite of the deeper goal of most religions and the nonreligious—the integrated self.
As I explore the possibility of a mutual self-realization as a legitimate primary goal of religion, even the Christian religion with which I am most familiar, I will attempt to show how that shift of emphasis can reform some traditional ideas, that is, those traditions or doctrines, in Kant’s terms in which it is not inconceivable that they still bear some truth and are not inimical to “inner religion.” I do not feel that some supranatural, eternal intelligence drives me to some abstract reinterpretation of Christian symbols; rather, the mutual self-realization I experience in my empowering relations with significant others in my life leaves no option. But Kant was right when he saw that the Absolute metaphysics per se has no inherent or obvious moral significance, we could add, no more than mythologies, superstitions, reifications, or an apotheosis of someone.
If we return to Updike’s novel, the Reverend Wilmot had been trained to think of religion as absolutely divinely revealed doctrine, but it eventually contradicted reality as he understood it. His actual faith manifested itself in his moving beyond his pseudo-faith, in his attempt
