8o Kant: A BiographyAll his works show that he knew and appreciated British philosophers more
than the traditional picture suggests. Even Erdmann, who does his best to
characterize Knutzen as a Wolffian, has to admit that his philosophical
views are closer to the British than to the German philosophers. They do
indeed "point in the direction of the empiricist skepticism and idealism of
English [sic] philosophy."^86 As far as epistemology was concerned, Locke
and his followers informed Knutzen's thought more than Wolff and his
school. Gottsched saw this clearly. He accused Knutzen of being too close
to Locke in his discussion of sensibility.^87 For Knutzen, just as for Locke,
internal and external sensation forms the basis of all knowledge. Without
the materials given us in sensation, the principle of contradiction does not
allow us to know anything.^88 There can be no doubt that Knutzen read
Locke's Essay and that he considered it important. Indeed, he constantly
referred to Locke in his lectures and advised his students to read him, and
at the time of his death he was still working on a translation of Locke's Of
the Conduct of the Human Understanding.^89
In 1740, the year that Kant entered the university, Knutzen published
in German his Philosophical Proof of the Truth of Christianity, which would
become his most successful work, and the one for which he was best known
in the eighteenth century.^90 In it, he defended Christianity against British
Deism, and especially against Toland, Chubb, andTindal.^91 Since Deism
constituted as much a threat to Christianity as Wolffianism did, the Deists
were an important object of criticism not just for the Pietists but also for
the orthodox. In writing this book, Knutzen not only showed how firmly
his views were rooted in the theological discussion of Königsberg, but also
revealed his intimate knowledge of a then relatively unknown aspect of
British philosophy. The book also provides a good insight into Knutzen's
theological outlook.
The Philosophical Proof contains such "theorems" as "We have the duty
to obey God" (§ 12) and "God must punish the perpetrators" (§ 17), as well
as such "propositions of experience" as "We are all guilty of not obeying
God" (§13). From these theorems and propositions Knutzen derives other
theorems, such as: "Everyone must expect severe punishment after death"
(§ 19). We need, accordingly, to be saved — and we can be saved only if we
are told that, and told how we can be saved. "In short, the necessity of
divine revelation is founded on the necessity of the means of salvation
{Begnadigungsmittel), and revelation presupposes the latter" (p. 42). This
proves that Tindal, who had argued that we need only natural religion, was
wrong. This is not all; Knutzen goes on to prove that either there is no