DESCARTES AND GOD'S EXISTENCE

Descartes and God's Existence

Descartes and God's Existence

Introduction

'Descartes' was a philosopher who wrote in his 3rd Meditation that ideas are of three types. The first one is the idea that is inbound or natural, and that is within us and has always been inside like this and is 'Innate'. The second one is the idea that comes from our thoughtfulness or our imaginations and is 'Invented'. The third one is the idea that comes from our knowledge and understandings that we have acquired in this world and is 'Adventitious'. He presents his argument that God is not adventitious or invented but is innate.

Discussion

Proceeding from the idea of existence of a being that is infinite in the mind of the human, we get presented with an alleged proof of God's existence from 'The Meditations on First Philosophy'. We can reasonably ask, from what cause, source or place it came to us, an idea of a reality that is objective and limitless and an idea of a being that is infinite. God, the infinite being, is the only cause of this idea possibly. It is essential in the proof that this idea occurs. According to Descartes, the cruciality of this idea helps maintain the proofs that are causal in the existence of God. A single proof can be reduced to, based on his effects, from all these evidences of the presence of God. He also says that if we do not sum up all these proofs, then the proofs are not complete.

First Proof

"An idea must be derived from a cause which has as much formal reality as there is an objective reality in the idea, for a given idea to have such and such objective reality. A cause must be present containing all the reality from the idea's objective. The reality, coming objectively, must be coming from something else if it is not coming from me. The attributes of God cannot come from me, so they are such that of God. Since they come from God, so God exists."

Second Proof

“To preserve my existence, do I have enough power? I would know it if I had that power, but I am a thinking thing simply. So the power must be outside me. What created me must be a thinking thing because I am a thinking thing. My creator must possess perfection in all the ideas. My creation and preservation cannot be the responsibility of my parents. The ideas of a perfect God got given to me by God, and my creator is also God.”

Comparison of the Two Proofs

The questioned idea of body and God was very cautiously embraced by Descartes. To prove the existence of God, he uses the affirm knowledge of his mental existence. He then uses the same proof of God's existence to prove the existence of body, a world that is physical.

In his first proof, he believes that a finite creation like himself cannot be the surety of his own existence. His existence needs something like a ...