Analysis Of Rene Descartes: The Existence Of God

712 Words2 Pages

Rene Descartes was born in La Haye in France in March 31, 1596. He was a mathematician, an scientific thinker, and an meta-physician. Descartes was the first major philosopher in the modern era. His views about knowledge, certainty, and relationship between mind and body have been very influential. Being a devout Catholic, Descartes, undeniably believed in God. He believed that the existence of God could be proved via reason. In this paper I will discuss what Descartes provided as a proof for existence of God.
In 1640 Rene Descartes wrote collection of essays called: “Meditations on the First Philosophy: In Which the Existence of God and the Distinction Between Mind and Body are Demonstrated.” In the Third Meditation: “Of God: That He exists”, …show more content…

Descartes says that God being the most perfect being. He can prove Gods existence with the fact that God gave him the idea that he exists since there is no likely that he could have come up with this idea himself. As Descartes says, “Hence it is just as much of a contradiction to think of God (that is, a supremely perfect being) lacking existence (that is, lacking a perfection), as it is to think of a mountain without a valley” (Descartes 203). Rene Descartes compares God to a mountain and his existence to a valley. According to Descartes these two things, a mountain and a valley are indivisible, just as God and his existence are …show more content…

It is the fact that the God exists that determines his thinking. “It is not that my thought makes it so, or imposes any necessity on any thing; on the contrary, it is the necessity of the thing itself, namely the existence of God, which determines my thinking in this respect” (Descartes 203). Descartes has this idea that God exists because God has an existence and let him to have this idea of him existing. Therefore, it must be true that God exists. This “most perfect being” has given him the ability to make that thought.
In conclusion, Rene Descartes is successful in proving the existence of God. Over the centuries philosophers have tried to argue and prove the existence of God. Rene Descartes argued that the fact that we can talk about the supreme perfect being shows that he exists. Perfection and existence somehow go

Open Document