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Click on the phrases to see them in context. The original texts by Immanuel Kant and David Hume are available from the Gutenberg Projet.
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God is omnipotent--that is a necessary judgement. But since the moral precept is, at the same time, my maxim (as reason requires that it should be), I am irresistibly constrained to believe in the existence of God and in a future life; and I am sure that nothing can make me waver in this belief, since I should thereby overthrow my moral maxims, the renunciation of which would render me hateful in my own eyes. The proposition, God is omnipotent, contains two conceptions, which have a certain object or content; the word is, is no additional predicate--it merely indicates the relation of the predicate to the subject. When I think of God, when I think of him as existent, and when I believe him to be existent, my idea of him neither encreases nor diminishes. Moreover, since the result of my attempts so frequently confirms the utility of this assumption, and since nothing decisive can be adduced against it, it follows that it would be saying far too little to term my judgement, in this case, a mere opinion, and that, even in this theoretical connection, I may assert that I firmly believe in God. The transcendental speculation of reason relates to three things; the freedom of the will, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of God. When I think of God, when I think of him as existent, and when I believe him to be existent, my idea of him neither encreases nor diminishes. For FIRST, it is far from being true, that in every judgment, which we form, we unite two different ideas; since in that proposition, GOD IS, or indeed any other, which regards existence, the idea of existence is no distinct idea, which we unite with that of the object, and which is capable of forming a compound idea by the union. I appeal to the most obstinate dogmatist, whether the proof of the continued existence of the soul after death, derived from the simplicity of its substance; of the freedom of the will in opposition to the general mechanism of nature, drawn from the subtle but impotent distinction of subjective and objective practical necessity; or of the existence of God, deduced from the conception of an ens realissimum--the contingency of the changeable, and the necessity of a prime mover, has ever been able to pass beyond the limits of the schools, to penetrate the public mind, or to exercise the slightest influence on its convictions.