On the Supersensible Substrate and the Foundations of Finality
Quaeritur
Utrum notio Kantiana de substrato supersensibili, quod naturae et libertatis communis est, possit intellegi non solum transcendentaliter sed etiam ontologice, ita ut idem substratum theologice referatur ad Logos, in quo omnis finalitas creaturarum fundatur.
Whether Kant’s notion of a supersensible substrate, common to nature and freedom, may be understood not merely transcendently but ontologically, as the Logos in whom all creaturely purposiveness is grounded.
Thesis
The übersinnliches Substrat in Kant’s Critique of Judgment functions as the unifying ground that reconciles the realms of nature and freedom. While for Kant it remains an indeterminate concept, accessible only as a limiting idea, theology may recognize in it the ontological trace of the Logos—the living unity in which intelligibility, causality, and purposiveness converge. It is thus the hidden depth of divine reason through which all finality in creation derives its coherence.
Locus Classicus
Kritik der Urteilskraft, §57 (AA V:195–196):
“Es muß also ein gemeinschaftliches, aber uns unbekanntes, Substrat, dem sowohl der Natur, als dem Freiheitsgesetze gemäß, zum Grunde liegen, mithin die Möglichkeit der Einheit des Übersinnlichen, welches unter beiden liegt, sein.”
“There must therefore lie at the basis of both nature and the law of freedom a common, though to us unknown, substrate; hence there must be the possibility of a unity of the supersensible that underlies both.”
and §59 (AA V:198):
“Die Vernunft kann sich diese Übereinstimmung des Zweckmäßigen in der Natur mit demjenigen in der Freiheit gar nicht anders denken, als daß beide einer gemeinschaftlichen, aber uns unbekannten obersten Ursache, dem Übersinnlichen, angehören.”
“Reason can think this accord of what is purposive in nature with that in freedom in no other way than that both belong to a common, though to us unknown, highest cause—the supersensible.”
In these passages, Kant articulates the transcendental postulate that there must exist a common supersensible foundation underlying the two heterogeneous orders of experience, nature (necessity) and freedom (morality), even though reason cannot determine its nature conceptually.
Explicatio
The Critique of Judgment culminates in the discovery of a hidden unity that underlies the dualisms of Kant’s earlier critiques. Nature, governed by mechanical causality, and freedom, ruled by moral law, require a common ground if human reason is to see the world as one intelligible system. This ground is not empirical but supersensible; it is that which cannot appear within phenomena yet makes the unity of appearances and moral law possible.
For Kant, this übersinnliches Substrat is a necessary postulate of reason: it is the “unknown ground” (unbekanntes Substrat) in which the natural and moral orders share participation. It guarantees the possibility that the world of sense can be adequate to the purposes of reason, that creation as we know it can serve as a theater for the realization of moral ends.
Philosophically, this substrate is the transcendental condition of finality, the point of coincidence between efficient and final causality. It explains why the reflective judgment may legitimately interpret nature as if ordered toward ends. For, after all, such order is not accidental but rooted in a unity beyond the distinction of mechanism and teleology.
Theologically, this unity discloses the deep structure of participation. The supersensible substrate is the point at which creation remains held in being by the eternal Word. The Logos functions as the ens commune intelligibile, the "common intelligible being," the ontological depth in which form, purpose, and act coincide. What Kant calls “supersensible” is precisely what theology calls divine wisdom as immanent cause. It is the living intelligibility through which the world is not merely caused but constituted.
In the first Critique, reason was divided against itself; in the second, it sought its own autonomy. In the third, however, it begins to glimpse its unity in a common foundation. Kant’s “unknown cause” becomes, for theology, the known mystery, the Logos as the ground of both natural order and moral law.
Thus, the übersinnliches Substrat is not a sterile limit but a sign of participation. It is the horizon where finite being opens upon its divine origin. Just as the reflectierende Urteilskraft gathers the manifold into unity, so the supersensible substrate grounds that unity ontologically. It is the “gathering depth” of the Logos, the point at which all created teleology returns to its source and finds its coherence.
Objectiones
Ob. I. For the early Kant, the supersensible substrate is a Grenzbegriff, a boundary concept, introduced only to regulate thought. It carries no positive ontological content. To identify it with the Logos transgresses the limits of reason and collapses critique into dogmatism.
Ob. II. Naturalistic mechanism holds that teleology is a heuristic projection, and thus there is no need for a supersensible substrate. The unity of nature is explicable by physical law and probabilistic regularity, not by appeal to metaphysical grounds.
Ob. III. Atheistic existentialism supposes that Kant’s supersensible substrate is an empty abstraction masking human alienation. It does not unite nature and freedom but hides their disjunction under an illusion of harmony. To theologize it is to sanctify alienation.
Ob. IV. Dialectical theology declares that any “common ground” of nature and freedom undermines the radical distinction between Creator and creature. Revelation admits no shared substrate; God’s transcendence excludes ontological mediation.
Responsiones
Ad I. The limitation of reason to regulative use does not annul the ontological implication of its postulates. Kant’s Grenzbegriff marks the boundary not of being but of conceptual knowledge. The postulation of a unity beyond phenomena already implies its real possibility. Theology interprets this not as speculative knowledge but as metaphysical participation. It is the intellect’s recognition that its own act of synthesis is grounded in divine unity.
Ad II. Mechanism describes order but cannot account for its necessity. Physical law presupposes the very rationality it explains. The coherence of empirical causality and moral teleology cannot itself be causal; it requires a ground transcending both. The supersensible substrate expresses the logical necessity of an intelligible order that precedes empirical description.
Ad III. The accusation of abstraction misunderstands Kant’s intention. The supersensible substrate does not mask alienation but names the condition of possibility for overcoming it. It points to a unity that cannot yet be possessed but that nonetheless draws the finite toward reconciliation—a yearning that theology names participatio in Verbo.
Ad IV. The Creator–creature distinction remains intact. The supersensible substrate does not dissolve transcendence but affirms it as the ground of immanence. To say that nature and freedom share a common ground is not to identify them with God, but to confess that both proceed from and depend upon the divine act of creation, in which the Logos sustains their relation.
Nota
Kant’s übersinnliches Substrat is a pivotal moment in the history of reason: the first modern attempt to speak, within critical limits, of an ontological unity beyond empirical and moral dualism. In it, reason confesses— albeit unwittingly—its dependence upon what theology calls divine wisdom. The substratum gathers the scattered orders of necessity and freedom into a single purposive horizon. Accordingly, it is the silent counterpart to the Word through whom all things are made.
Theologically interpreted, this substrate is not a “thing” beyond experience but the presence of intelligibility itself—the immanent trace of God’s creative Logos within the fabric of reality. Where reason perceives an unknowable cause, faith perceives the infinite intelligibility of God acting within and through creation.
Determinatio
The übersinnliches Substrat signifies the transcendental unity grounding both the natural and moral orders;. tt is the necessary presupposition of any teleological relation between them.
Though Kant presents it as unknowable, its very necessity implies an ontological reality, a divine act of unity prior to all distinction.
This ground is best interpreted theologically as the Logos, the living rationality through which all being receives its order and purpose.
The supersensible substrate thus expresses in critical terms what theology confesses in creedal form, that all things subsist and cohere in ipso.
The human experience of purposiveness is therefore a finite reflection of the eternal finality of the Word, in whom creation and freedom converge.
Transitus ad Disputationem XLI: De Phenomenologia et Apparitione Entis
The supersensible substrate, in which Kant discerned the hidden unity of nature and freedom, marks the highest reach of transcendental reflection. Here, reason approaches its own boundary wherein the unconditioned ground of appearance must be thought, yet cannot itself appear. But what for critical philosophy remains a limit, for theology becomes a threshold: limen revelationis.
For the supersensible is not the negation of the sensible, but its depth. The Logos who grounds all purposiveness does not remain forever concealed behind phenomena. Rather, He gives Himself in appearance, not as an object among others, but as the manifesting of manifestation itself. What the übersinnliches Substrat named in abstraction, phenomenology will seek in concretion: the event of being as appearing.
Thus we pass from the critical postulate of unity to the phenomenological experience of presence. The next disputation therefore asks how being itself comes to light, and how this Erscheinung des Seins may be understood as the self-showing of divine intelligibility.
We proceed, then, to Disputationem XLI: De Phenomenologia et Apparitione Entis, in which it will be examined whether the appearing of being discloses not merely the conditions of experience but the act of the Logos through whom all things are made manifest.
