Kant- The fourth antinomy

The fourth antinomy has to do with the existence of a first cause. Thesis: "In the series of world causes there is some necessary being". Antithesis: "There is nothing necessary in the world, but in this series all is contingent." Kant recognizes the objections raised by Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, where it is pointed out that we can not attribute qualities to the Supreme Being (such as understanding or will) because we can only do so by attributing anthropomorphic qualities to a being whom we cannot assume has them. Since we have our idea of will or of understanding only by reference to ourselves, we are not justified in assuming that God is like man. Kant says that we can refrain from doing this by using analogies. For example, although we cannot assume God to have rationality in the same way that we do, we can say that there is a rational structure to the world, and that

"reason is attributed to the supreme Being so far as it contains the ground of this rational form in the world, but according to analogy only, i.e., so far as this expression shows merely the relation which the Supreme Cause, unknown to us, has to the world in order to determine everything in it conformably to reason in the highest degree."

So although we may not be able to attribute properties directly to God (or a supreme being), we can attribute properties indirectly by way of analogy- by attributing properties to the relation which God bears to the world.