Descartes Meditation Three Analysis

The limits of an individual’s thoughts are typically signals of what is possible, and an individual’s thoughts do not usually create or influence existence, but rather divulge reality. In Meditation three, Descartes presents a seemingly sound argument over which the existence of God cannot be debated. He presents his argument through a multiple step proof where each step builds on the previous, and leads to the final conclusion of God’s existence. This cosmological argument subsequently provided a framework for many philosophers to build off of providing ancillary accompaniments of the proof, while simultaneously opening the door for many philosophers to provide objection of a variety of assumptions Descartes establishes. Within the proof

His proof begins with the understanding that in order for a thought to contain any amount of objective reality, it must be derived from a cause that contains at least as much formal reality as there is objective reality in the original thought. He continues on this with, the fact that there must be a cause that contains formally all the reality present objectively in the idea. Basically, for a thought, with any amount of representational reality, to exist within an individual, it must have been drawn from a source with at least as much representational reality as there is formal reality in that source. Next Descartes explains that if the representational reality of an idea cannot be derived internally, then it must come from something else. He goes on to explain that the thought of God having properties of being eternal, omnipotent, and infinite could not have been derived from within any individual for these are properties of an infinite substance and beyond our ability to postulate. Thus he states, that they must have come from God, and therefore, God exists. The last few steps of his proof can be drawn