Descartes Third Meditation: Proof of Gods Existence

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Descartes' Third Meditation: Proof of God's Existence
In Rene Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes is seeking to find a system of stable, lasting and certain knowledge, which he can ultimately regard as the Truth. In his methodical quest to carry out his task, Descartes eventually arrives at the proverbial fork in the road: how to bridge the knowledge of self with that of the rest of the world. Descartes’ answer to this is to prove the existence of God. The purpose of this essay will be to state and explain Descartes' Third Meditation: Proof of God's Existence by identifying relevant concepts and terminology and their relationship to each other and examining each premise as well as the conclusion of the proof and finally to comment on the significance of the proof in the context of the Evil Genius assumption. In order to begin explaining the meaning and significance of Descartes' Third Meditation Proof of God's Existence, I feel that it is very important to define the terms and concepts that he uses in the meditation and the terms and concepts that I will be using throughout the paper.
The first of these concepts deals with kinds of reality. By this I am concerned with reality's relationship to the mind. The two kinds of reality introduced are subjective and formal. Subjective reality involves those things which are mind dependent, more commonly thought of as ideas. It is an object which possesses both discernible and tangible characteristics capable of being verified by all those who observe it, even without previous knowledge of such objects. It should also be noted that objects of formal reality are generally the cause of objects of subjective reality.
The second concept I will examine in order to fully appreciate Descartes' Third Meditation Proof of God's Existence concerns Degrees of Reality. By this I mean a ranking of the representative qualities of either kind of reality. The lowest degree of reality deals with accidents and modifications, things which are characteristics or expressions of objects with a higher degree of reality. An example of this would be the individual holes and marks on the classroom ceiling. These characteristics cannot exists by themselves and are thus subject to the existence of things in the next highest degree of reality, that of substances. Substances are finite objects or ideas with conceivable limits. I...

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...ere can only be room enough for one all powerful being and if in fact God is that being than that leaves no room for another. Furthermore, since God possesses infinite goodness it would seem contrary to his nature to engage us in a continual deception based on either our apriori or aposteriori beliefs.
In conclusion, Descartes' Third Meditation Proof of God's Existence represents a critical step in Descartes overall goal of obtaining a system of certain, lasting, and stable knowledge: that of using the existence of God to bridge the gap between knowledge of self and knowledge of the external world. In building this bridge I must first define the different kinds and degrees of reality and how they relate to one another. From this we are able to see the logic behind Descartes Causal Adequacy Principle, follow his second premise, and reach the same inevitable conclusion that Descartes does: that an infinite unbounded substance through which all conceivable qualities without end (i.e. God) must exists. For Descartes' this will lay the very foundation for him to expand beyond his limited thinking mind and begin to explore the very depths of the universe in his quest to find the Truth.

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