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and thus by means of the idea of a most primal Being, it proceeds to determine the possibility and therefore the actuality of all other things. ⁴⁸

The notion of God enables us to think of the world as if it were a systematic unity with a single intelligent and purposeful cause. This will motivate reason to continually try to make our picture of the world coherent.

We experience the self or the soul within us. We know that it exists within ourselves. This was why Descartes said that „‟I think therefore I exist‟‟.

With this existence of the soul, we believe in the existence of the immortality of the soul which means that our soul will never die. When our bodies die at death, our souls depart or leave the body and transist to heaven for the good souls while the bad souls go to hell, or wander in the evil forests, and not be re-incarnated according to Igbo metaphysics.

In addition, we have the knowledge of the world because we live in it. We interact and acquire knowledge in this our physical world through experience. We know what we have experienced.

Furthermore, we experience and know God because of our belief in the maker, author and finisher of our lives who is also the creator of the universe. We believe in God because of His awesomeness as we read in our Bible and believe according to our faith as Christians.

Lastly all these transcendental ideas were the goals or ideals of reason and not its objects.

These ideas are transcendent and beyond experience because they have no empirical value or use. This means that there is no physical entity or object that corresponds to these ideas but we believe that we have their experiences.

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This means that Kant attempts to show that reason falls into a tangle of inconsistencies when it goes beyond its proper limits. To demonstrate this he came out with four pairs of opposing viewpoints that he calls the antinomies of reasons.

Kant divided the antinomies into thesis and ant-thesis. The antithetic treats only of the doctrine of reason with one another and the causes of this conflict.

This transcendental antithetic is an enquiry into the antinomy of pure reason, its cause and outcome.

This antinomy according to Kant is not arbitrarily invented but founded in the nature of human reason. They are:-

1

Thesis: The world is, as to time and space, a beginning (limit).

Anti-thesis: Everything in the world is, as to time and space, infinite 2

Thesis: Everything in the world consists of (elements that are) simple.

Anti-thesis: There is nothing simple, but everything is composite.

3

Thesis: There are in the world causes through freedom.

Anti-thesis: There is no freedom but all is nature.

4

Thesis: In the series of the world-cause there is some necessary being.

Anti-thesis: There is nothing necessary in the world but in this series all is contingent.⁴⁹ There arises an unexpected conflict which can never be removed in the common dogmatic way because the thesis as well as the antithesis can be shown by equally clear, evident and irresistible proofs.

However, Kant divided the antinomies into mathematical and dynamical antinomies.

The first two antinomies are known as mathematical because they are concerned with the addition or division of the homogenous founded in such a contradictory concept. But the thesis and antithesis of two are false.

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Kant was of the view that when he speaks of objects in time and space, it is of experience as the way of knowing things.

He went further to say that what he thinks in time and space exists in time and space but in this case he contradicts himself because space and time together with the appearances in them are nothing existing in themselves and outside his representations but are only modes of representation. It is contradictory to say that a mere mode of representation exists without our representation.

The thesis and antithesis of these mathematical antinomies reflect reason‟s search for the unconditioned but in two different forms. In the thesis, reason postulates an ultimate termination of a series, and in the antithesis an unconditional extension of the series.

Kant argues that neither side is true in these mathematical antinomies because reason is attempting to apply its demand for something unconditioned to space and time which are always indefinite in extent because they are finite yet always extendible products of our cognitive activity.

Our sense-perceived spatio temporal world has no first beginning in time and no extreme limit in space.

But there may be non spatial world which absolutely simple beings exist a world of spiritual entities. It does not follow that because a limit is impossible in the one world, it is also impossible in the other.

For all we know, the true world may have had a beginning, have been located by God and be limited.

Still, we have no right to search for spiritual beings in space and for spatial things in the super sensible realm.

Moreover, in the dynamical antinomies, the theses again result from reason‟s desire for closure and the antithesis infinite extension.

The these here do not necessarily refer solely to spatio-temporal entities. The claims that there must be a non-natural causality of freedom and a necessary being can apply to

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in-themselves while the claims that are only contingent existents linked by laws of nature apply to appearances.

In this case both thesis and antithesis may be true.

That these antinomies may be true is crucial to Kant because it means that although theoretical reason cannot prove that neither freedom nor God exist, neither can it disprove them.

Existence of freedom and God can gain credibility in some other way.

Furthermore, in the mathematical class of antinomies, the false hood of the pre-suposition consists in representating in one concept something self-contradictory as if it were compatible (that is an appearance as a thing in-itself)

But to dynamical class of antinomies, the falsehood of the presupposition consists in representing as contradictory what is compatible so that while in the former case, the opposed assertions were both false. In this case on the hand where they are opposed to one another by mere understanding they may both be true.

Kant solved the difficulties involved in the antimonies by pointing out that the thesis holds for the noumenal world and characterizes the stance of dogmatic rationalism.

The antithesis on its own side holds for the phenomenal world and characterizes the stance of dogmatic empiricism.