Descartes Argument For God 's Existence Of God Essay

Descartes’s mission in the meditations was to doubt everything and that what remained from his doubting could be considered the truth. This lead Descartes to argue for the existence of God. For the purpose of this paper, I will first discuss Descartes’s argument for the existence of God. I will then take issue with Descartes’s argument first with his view on formal reality and varying levels of reality, then with his argument that only God can cause the idea of God. I will then conclude with

I have an idea of a perfect being; it must contain in reality all the

Secondly, to come up with the second proof of Gods existence, Descartes thought that the power and action that is needed to preserve something is capable of creating something new. He argued that there must be as much power in the cause just as it is in the effect. According to the philosophical writings of Descartes, upon knowing that he did not have power to preserve his own existence because he was just a thinking thing; Descartes concluded that the power must have come from outside him (Descartes, Cottingham and Murdoch 26) And since he is a thinking thing, he claims that the one who created him must also be a thinking thing, possessing all the ideas and attributes of god. In addition, he observed that his parents could not be responsible for creating and preserving his life. Descartes therefore concludes that the one who created him and gave him ideas of a perfect God must be God, therefore God exists.

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

My intent in this essay is to illustrate that the arguments regarding the existence of God and the fear of deception in Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy, are quite weak and do not justify his conclusions. To support these claims, I will begin by outlining two specific meditations and explain the proposed arguments. Later, I will critically analyze his arguments, revealing unjust conclusions. Doubts surrounding the text include the suggested characteristics of God, the condition of perfection, and the nature of deceit. A wrap up will include a discussion on whether or not Descartes (also referred to as Renatus) succeeded in his project.

After giving his first proof for the existence of God Descartes concludes by mentioning that this proof is not always self-evident. When he is absorbed in the world of sensory illusions it is not quite obvious to him that God’s existence can be derived from the idea of God. So to further cement God’s existence Descartes begins his second proof by posing the question of whether he could exist (a thinking thing that possesses the idea of an infinite and perfect god) if God itself did not exist.

Rene Descartes’ third meditation from his book Meditations on First Philosophy, examines Descartes’ arguments for the existence of God. The purpose of this essay will be to explore Descartes’ reasoning and proofs of God’s existence. In the third meditation, Descartes states two arguments attempting to prove God’s existence, the Trademark argument and the traditional Cosmological argument. Although his arguments are strong and relatively truthful, they do no prove the existence of God.

Descartes’ method offers definitive conclusions on certain topics, (his existence, the existence of God)but his reasoning is not without error. He uses three arguments to prove existence (His and God’s) that attempt to solidify his conclusions. For his method to function seamlessly, Descartes needs to be consistent in his use of the method, that is, he must continue to doubt and challenge thoughts that originate in his own mind. He is unable to achieve this ideal state of mind, however, and his proofs are shown to be faulty.

From this definite foundation Descartes tries to prove that there is something external to the mind. So he states the law of casualty. This basically says that nothing can be created from nothing, and that the less perfect can not create something more perfect or better than itself. Then if there is an idea in our minds that we didn’t create, something else created it. If God is more perfect than us, then we could not have created God but God created us. Descartes then wrote about the idea of God. He said that God is infinite and could not have been created by us because God is more perfect than us thus undoubtable and certain. The idea that God exists disproves the Evil Genius theory therefore proves the existence of an external world.

The existence of God has always been an arguable topic. Descartes’ however, believed that he had proof of God’s existence through an intense analysis of the mind. Throughout this paper I will discuss what he has provided as proof and some of the complications that arise throughout his argument.

If interested Descartes proof of gods existence is clearly stated in the third meditation. He begins to build most of the argument in

The concept of God is central to the development of Cartesian and Spinozan philosophy. Although both philosophers employ an ontological argument for the existence and necessity of God the specific nature of God differs greatly with each account. While Descartes suggests a Judeo-Christian concept of God, Spinoza argues a more monistic deity similar to that of the Hindu tradition. The most significant difference however, lies within the basis and structure of each argument itself. Considered from an analytical standpoint through the lens of Gotlobb Frege, Descartes' proof of God possesses both sense and reference and is therefore capable of expressing the

In the Third Meditation, Descartes forms a proof for the existence of God. He begins by laying down a foundation for what he claims to know and then offers an explanation for why he previously accepted various ideas but is no longer certain of them. Before he arrives at the concept of God, Descartes categorizes ideas and the possible sources that they originate from. He then distinguishes between the varying degrees of reality that an idea can possess, as well as the cause of an idea. Descartes proceeds to investigate the idea of an infinite being, or God, and how he came to acquire such an idea with more objective reality than he himself has. By ruling out the possibility of this idea being invented or adventitious, Descartes concludes

He reasons that, through these principals, his idea of God cannot have come from himself, as he is an imperfect being. He does not have the capability of thinking of an infinite substance or a perfect substance, such as God, because he has lesser reality than these ideas and cannot be the cause of them. The only way these ideas could exist is if they were created by something of equal (greater being impossible, as infinite perfection cannot have a superior) reality. Because God is the only infinite Descartes can recognize at this state, it must be God that planted the idea in his mind.

In A Discourse on the Method, Descartes attempted to prove the existence of God in a priori manner. He did not trust his own senses when trying to prove the existence of God and therefore he relied on the ontological argument. By making the same assumption made by Anselm, which was that an ontological argument assumes that existence is a predicate of God, Descartes is able to conclude that ‘God exists’ is true by definition because the subject ‘God’, who already contains all perfections, already contains the predicate – exists, which is a perfection. Although this may be perceived as a strong claim to believers, many such as Gaunilo would have disagreed. Descartes postulates his argument in the fourth part of his Discourse in order to try and prove the existence of God. One must discuss why one feels Descartes attempted to do so and exactly how convincing his claim is. However, before one can understand his claim, it is important to grasp an idea of the background that Descartes was writing from when he wrote the Discourse and the meaning of proof.