He argues that if he does not solve God’s existence, he will not be certain about anything else. Thus, Descartes says that he has an idea of God and, therefore, God exists. However, in order to be certain of His existence, Descartes provides proofs that will illustrate his reasoning. The four proofs include formal reality vs. objective reality, something can’t arise from nothing, Descartes cannot be the cause of himself, and therefore, the bigger cause is God. Now that Descartes knows God is real, he must solve another aspect, which is if God can be a deceiver. Descartes believes “it is clear enough from this that he cannot be a deceiver, since it is manifest by the natural light that all fraud and deception depend on some defect” (89). In other words, God possesses all of the perfections that Descartes cannot have but those perfections that are in his thoughts, concluding that God has no defects whatsoever according to the natural
Descartes is interested in the certainty of his existence and the existence of other people and things. Descartes’ beliefs vary from those of Socrates. Descartes argues that knowledge is acquired through awareness and experience. Using this approach, Descartes moves through doubt to certainty of his existence. He asks himself various questions about the certainty of his existence and solves them through clear thought and logic. Using this method Descartes establishes doubts to be truths and by the end of the book, he has established that he does indeed exist.
Descartes began his argument in the First Meditation by questioning or calling into doubt everything that he knew. After examining all the things he thought he knew about himself and the world he concluded (the details of that argument are beyond the scope of this essay) that the only thing he knew with absolute certainty is that I am, I exist (Section 25). Having established the fact that he has a real existence of some kind he then said But I do not yet understand...
God plays a central role in both Descartes’ and Berkeley’s philosophies. In idealism, the theory is that there is no such thing as matter, and only ideas and the mind exist. Berkeley denies the existence of matter. In Berkeley’s philosophy, God’s central role is the perceiver of all things. God is the ultimate Mind that perceives everything all of the time. According to Berkeley, matter does not exist and the mind is the only reality. His argument states that ideas only exist in the mind and all things are ideas. These premises infer that all things only exist in the mind.
Descartes’ first foundational argument asserts that one can have knowledge of one’s own existence. The claim is essential to many arguments that follow because it survives his “Deceiver Hypothesis.” This hypothesis states that “there may be a powerful deceiver of supreme power who is deliberately and constantly deceiving me” (Med III, p. 17). This demonstrates that we cannot know, or be sure of, anything based on sensory experience alone. However, Descartes supports the idea that some things can be known entirely outside of sensory experience; through the use of logic and re...
Many readers follow Descartes with fascination and pleasure as he descends into the pit of skepticism in the first two Meditations, defeats the skeptics by finding the a version of the cogito, his nature, and that of bodies, only to find them selves baffled and repulsed when they come to his proof for the existence of God in Meditation III. In large measure this change of attitude results from a number of factors. One is that the proof is complicated in ways which the earlier discourse is not. Second is that the complications include the use of scholastic machinery for which the reader is generally quite unprepared -- including such doctrines as a Cartesian version of the Great Chain of Being, the Heirloom theory of causaltiy, and confusi ng terms such as "eminent," "objective" and "formal reality" used in technical ways which require explanation. Third, we live in an age which is largely skeptical of the whole enterprise of giving proofs for the existence of God. A puzzled student once remaked, "If it were possible to prove that God exists, what would one need faith for?" So, even those inclined to grant the truth of the conclusion of Descartes' proof are often skeptical about the process of reaching it.
Descartes presents three skeptical arguments in his meditations which shows he has reason to doubt all of his sensory beliefs. Descartes ultimately aims to free himself from all bad beliefs. His quest for certainty is driven from his belief that our belief system is built on a foundation of basic beliefs, that are not justified, in turn, causing him to believe that all his other beliefs are uncertain, as well. His method for achieving a system immune from errors is described in three steps from Meditation One. Descartes three skeptical arguments pose a few objections to the plausibility to each step.
In conclusion, Descartes described many theories as to why he believes that God exists. From creating rules to breaking down his thought process, you can see where he gets his reasoning’s and ideas behind Gods existence. Although he had many proofs to Gods existence, his reasoning’s appeared to be unclear in many circumstances resulting in the original question whether God exists or not.
Rene Descartes meditations on the existence of God are very profound, thought-provoking, and engaging. From the meditations focused specifically on the existence of God, Descartes uses the argument that based on his clear and distinct perception that cannot be treated with doubt, God does exist. In the beginning of the third meditation, Descartes proclaims that he is certain he is a thinking thing based on his clear and distinct perception, and he couldn’t be certain unless all clear and distinct perceptions are true. Before diving into the existence of God, Descartes introduces smaller arguments to prove the existence of God. For example, Descartes introduces in his argument that there are ideas in which he possess that exists outside of him. Utilizing the objective versus formal reality, Descartes states “If the objective reality of any of my ideas turns out to be so great that I am sure the same reality does not reside in me, either formally or eminently, and hence that I myself cannot be its cause, it will necessarily follow that I am not alone in the world, but that some other thing which is the cause of this idea exists” (29). In other words, the ideas of objective reality that resides in Descartes can potentially only come from a supreme being, which is God; God possess more objective reality than he does formal reality. We as humans, as Descartes states, are finite substance, and God is the only infinite substance. The only way for us as a finite substance to think of an infinite substance is possible if, and only if, there is an infinite substance that grants us the idea of substance in first place. After these smaller arguments, Descartes states that while we can doubt the existence of many things, due to the fact that ...
An Examination of the Second Meditation of Descartes
Baird and Kaufmann, the editors of our text, explain in their outline of Descartes' epistemology that the method by which the thinker carried out his philosophical work involved first discovering and being sure of a certainty, and then, from that certainty, reasoning what else it meant one could be sure of. He would admit nothing without being absolutely satisfied on his own (i.e., without being told so by others) that it was incontrovertible truth. This system was unique, according to the editors, in part because Descartes was not afraid to face doubt. Despite the fact that it was precisely doubt of which he was endeavoring to rid himself, he nonetheless allowed it the full reign it deserved and demanded over his intellectual labors. " Although uncertainty and doubt were the enemies," say Baird and Kaufmann (p.16), "Descartes hit upon the idea of using doubt as a tool or as a weapon. . . .