How does Kant support God's existence?

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(a): How does Kant support God's existence? (10 marks)

        Immanuel Kant feels that no-one, human or otherwise, can “know” that God exists. This is due to various flaws and necessities for humanity. For one, when we cannot have an a posteriori proof for God’s existence due to the fact that it is completely dependent on our personal experience of the world and, therefore, our senses. This is not to be relied upon as we can never see the world for what it really is; only what it appears to us. Kant names the real world, the world we cannot see, the Noumenal World. The world which we perceive through our senses is known to him as the Phenomenal World. The Phenomenal World is the way it is as we cannot help but see the world in a spatio-temporal state of mind, as we are spatio-temporal beings ourselves. The Noumenal World is inexperienceable to us because it really is completely unknowable. Therefore, we cannot know God’s existence as we cannot make correct a posteriori arguments for it, due to our biased and incorrect perception of the world around us. However, Kant also feels that God must always remain a “necessary postulate of practical reason”. This means that although we cannot, in any way, prove God’s existence, the world will only ever make sense if we postulate, or assume, that God exists. Kant also felt that God’s existence is beyond the experience of our five senses, and so we cannot ever know that He exists through either our senses and, through them, our mind. It is amongst these principles that Kant’s “moral” argument for the existence of God is based.

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        Kant’s argument for the existence of God is as follows: firstly, it must be understood that the aim of all morality is the “Summum Bonum”, or the highest good. This highest good is both moral perfection and perfect happiness. For the Summum Bonum to be achieved, these must both be present, as one cannot be without the other. Morality, a universal concept, demands of us that we must aim for this Summum Bonum. We must all strive to be perfectly good, attain moral perfection and the perfect happiness. However, we cannot possibly achieve this ultimate good. This is due to the ...

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