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.Now it has been abundantly proved that all a priori synthetical cognitionis possible only as the expression of the formal conditions of a possible experience; and that the validity of allprinciples depends upon their immanence in the field of experience, that is, their relation to objects ofempirical cognition or phenomena.Thus all transcendental procedure in reference to speculative theology iswithout result.If any one prefers doubting the conclusiveness of the proofs of our analytic to losing the persuasion of thevalidity of these old and time honoured arguments, he at least cannot decline answering the question- how hecan pass the limits of all possible experience by the help of mere ideas.If he talks of new arguments, or ofimprovements upon old arguments, I request him to spare me.There is certainly no great choice in this sphereof discussion, as all speculative arguments must at last look for support to the ontological, and I have,therefore, very little to fear from the argumentative fecundity of the dogmatical defenders of a non-sensuousreason.Without looking upon myself as a remarkably combative person, I shall not decline the challenge todetect the fallacy and destroy the pretensions of every attempt of speculative theology.And yet the hope ofbetter fortune never deserts those who are accustomed to the dogmatical mode of procedure.I shall, therefore,restrict myself to the simple and equitable demand that such reasoners will demonstrate, from the nature ofthe human mind as well as from that of the other sources of knowledge, how we are to proceed to extend ourcognition completely a priori, and to carry it to that point where experience abandons us, and no means existSECTION VII.Critique of all Theology based upon Speculative Principles of Reason.210 The Critique of Pure Reasonof guaranteeing the objective reality of our conceptions.In whatever way the understanding may haveattained to a conception, the existence of the object of the conception cannot be discovered in it by analysis,because the cognition of the existence of the object depends upon the object's being posited and given in itselfapart from the conception.But it is utterly impossible to go beyond our conception, without the aid ofexperience- which presents to the mind nothing but phenomena, or to attain by the help of mere conceptionsto a conviction of the existence of new kinds of objects or supernatural beings.But although pure speculative reason is far from sufficient to demonstrate the existence of a Supreme Being,it is of the highest utility in correcting our conception of this being- on the supposition that we can attain tothe cognition of it by some other means- in making it consistent with itself and with all other conceptions ofintelligible objects, clearing it from all that is incompatible with the conception of an ens summun, andeliminating from it all limitations or admixtures of empirical elements.Transcendental theology is still therefore, notwithstanding its objective insufficiency, of importance in anegative respect; it is useful as a test of the procedure of reason when engaged with pure ideas, no other thana transcendental standard being in this case admissible.For if, from a practical point of view, the hypothesisof a Supreme and All-sufficient Being is to maintain its validity without opposition, it must be of the highestimportance to define this conception in a correct and rigorous manner- as the transcendental conception of anecessary being, to eliminate all phenomenal elements (anthropomorphism in its most extendedsignification), and at the same time to overflow all contradictory assertions- be they atheistic, deistic, oranthropomorphic.This is of course very easy; as the same arguments which demonstrated the inability ofhuman reason to affirm the existence of a Supreme Being must be alike sufficient to prove the invalidity of itsdenial.For it is impossible to gain from the pure speculation of reason demonstration that there exists noSupreme Being, as the ground of all that exists, or that this being possesses none of those properties whichwe regard as analogical with the dynamical qualities of a thinking being, or that, as the anthropomorphistswould have us believe, it is subject to all the limitations which sensibility imposes upon those intelligenceswhich exist in the world of experience.A Supreme Being is, therefore, for the speculative reason, a mere ideal, though a faultless one- a conceptionwhich perfects and crowns the system of human cognition, but the objective reality of which can neither beproved nor disproved by pure reason.If this defect is ever supplied by a moral theology, the problematictranscendental theology which has preceded, will have been at least serviceable as demonstrating the mentalnecessity existing for the conception, by the complete determination of it which it has furnished, and theceaseless testing of the conclusions of a reason often deceived by sense, and not always in harmony with itsown ideas.The attributes of necessity, infinitude, unity, existence apart from the world (and not as a worldsoul), eternity (free from conditions of time), omnipresence (free from conditions of space), omnipotence,and others, are pure transcendental predicates; and thus the accurate conception of a Supreme Being, whichevery theology requires, is furnished by transcendental theology alone.APPENDIXAPPENDIX.Of the Regulative Employment of the Ideas ofPure Reason
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