Reading Kant from a Catholic Horizon: Ethics and the Anthropology of Grace

Abstract

For two centuries Catholic philosophers and theologians have generally treated Immanuel Kant's critical philosophy as incompatible with principles fundamental to Catholic accounts of the human condition in relation to God. This article argues that contemporary scholarship—particularly about the role of anthropological concerns in the critical project—indicates that Kant's understanding of finite human freedom provides a basis for Catholic theology to engage his thinking positively in the articulation of a theology of grace for humanity's postmodern context.