133KIERKEGAARD, SØRENhuman beings as the final purpose of a
divine, creative intelligence. Similarly,
Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason
(1793) portrays religious symbols as
bridging nature and freedom. The prob-
lem of radical evil makes moral action
impossible without an appeal to God’s
grace. But believers, too, will inevitably
resort to evil and self-deception unless
they unite together in a church, guided by
internally-legislated principles of virtue.
True service of God thus consists of what-
ever beliefs and actions empower the
believer to be good. While he was highly
critical of most historical religious
faiths, Kant advanced an ideal model of
Christianity as the universal religion of
humankind.
Kant’s other works include The Only
Possible Argument in Support of a Dem-
onstration of the Existence of God (1763),
An Inquiry into the Distinctness of the
Fundamental Principles of Natural Theol-
ogy and Morals (1764), Observations on
the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sub-
lime (1764), Dreams of a Spirit-seer (1766),
Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics
(1783), Foundations of the Metaphysics
of Morals (1785), Metaphysical Elements
of Natural Science (1786), Metaphysics
of Morals (1797), and Conflict of the
Faculties (1798). See also CATEGORIAL
IMPERATIVE.
KARMA. Sanskrit for “action.” A belief in
Hinduism, Buddhism, and other Indian
religions in which morally good or evil
actions come back to the actor; a good
action comes back to the actor in benefits
and an evil action comes back to the actor
in punishments. In Hinduism there are
three types of karma: acts in a previous
life manifest in this life, acts in this life
manifest in this life, and acts in this life
manifest in a future life. A good action
reaps good karma while evil action reaps
bad karma. For example, if I donate a lot
of my money to charities, in the next life
I may become a queen, but if I cheat on an
exam, I may be fired from a job later in
this life. A popular expression summariz-
ing karma is “what goes around comes
around.” The religions that have a divine
figure believe that that figure deals out
the karma while non-theistic religions
believe that karma is simply cause and
effect and does not need any sort of judge.KATHENOTHEISM. From the Greek
kata + hena (“one by one”) + theism. The
worship of one god at a time. Max Müller
(1823–1900) coined the term to describe
the polytheism of Vedic religion, where
various gods are worshiped in succession,
one by one. See also HENOTHEISM.KIERKEGAARD, SØREN (1813–1855).
Contemporary Kierkegaard scholars are
divided when it comes to the question of
whether he is to be considered a great
philosopher or a more parochial figure,