Aesthetics and Theology

As has been previously discussed, Kant previews, in the 1st Critique, beginning at B833, the 3rd Critique as an answer to the question "If I do what I ought to do, what may I then hope?'  Now, that 'hope' is a cognition, the object of which is Happiness, a natural event that entail two references to the Supersensible realm.  First, it is proportionate to Virtue, and second, its cause is God.  So, a primary task of the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment, in particular, is to establish a transcendental basis for that synthetic cognition.  As it turns out, that basis is Reflective Judgment, from which both references are derived.  First, it isolates, in the contemplation of the analogical presentations of Beauty, a proportionality between Imagination and Understanding.  Second, it projects, via its concept of Purposiveness, God as the ultimate source of objects of Beauty.  For, God is the creator of Nature, and all Beauty, even human-made, to which "nature gives the rule", as he asserts, at #46 of the 3rd Critique, is fundamentally a product of Nature.  Thus, for Kant, the cultivation of Aesthetic appreciation is a part of religious training, as defined by his concept of Moral Theology.