Descartes 's View Of God

Humans are finite substances so they cannot come up with the ideas of infinite substances unless it were given to them by an infinite substance. Descartes continues that while we advance gradually each day these attributes could never exist within us because we are only potentially perfect whereas God is actually perfect. Furthermore, Descartes argues that only God could be the author of his being because if it were he or his parent’s other finite substances that authored his being then he would not have wants or doubts because he would have bestowed upon himself every perfection imaginable to a finite being. Therefore, God exists because Descartes could not have thought of God because he is a finite substance thus the idea of God must have come from an infinite substance.

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

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.

Descartes’s attempt to prove the existence of God begins with the argument that he has the clear and distinct idea of God as the “most perfect being and that there must be at least as much reality in the efficient and total cause in the effect of that cause” (40). Therefore, this idea of God can’t be from himself, but its cause must be God. So God exists. In what follows I’ll explain these terms and why the premises seemed true to him.

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.

This then leads him to question the existence of God, and then whether he himself truly exists as well. Descartes concludes his claim in stating, “So after considering everything very thoroughly, I must finally conclude that this proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind,” (25). Therefore, in spite of everything he is skeptical of, Descartes manages to believe that his true existence is not something worthy of doubt.

To further validate his proof, he attempts to show God’s existence as an a posteriori claim. Descartes states that as humans we have the idea of God in our minds. We conceive God as a perfect being, that of perfect existence. As shown in the quote from page 37, this idea of God is beyond our reasoning to create, and must have come from God itself. Our idea of God certifies his existence. Descartes deviates from the method again, and his reasoning fails to provide an absolute proof.

You can find Descartes’ proof of the existence of God in the Third Meditation. Although to understand this argument you have to look at his previous meditation where he begins to build his argument with the notion that in order for him to think, he must exist. From this observation, Descartes’ sees that the idea of his existence is very clear and distinct in his mind. Based upon this clarity and the fact that he has just determined his own

Descartes’ second supposed proof for God’s existence also appears to be flawed, according to many of his contemporaries and later, Kant. Descartes likens the property of a triangle that stipulates that the sum of its angles must be 180 degrees to the supposed property of God that he must exist. This is not so according to Kant who remarks that existing is not a property in the real world so therefore for God to exist in the real world, the world must also exist, a certainty that Descartes dismisses. He is therefore contradicting himself.

The Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes is a thorough analysis about doubt. Descartes describes his method of doubt to determine whether he can truly know something. One of his major arguments is the proof of the existence of God. In this paper, I will attempt to unravel the flaws in Descartes proof that God exists.

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

Descartes provides an elaborate proof for the existence of God in his text. He does so through his concepts of Formal and Objective Reality. Formal Reality is the distinction of how more real something is than another. Modal, finite substances, and infinite substances are the three categories going from the least to greatest amount of reality. Modal things depend on finite things to exist but not vice versa. For example, judgements and ideas would be modal things because they depend on our minds to exist, but we can still exist without them. Finite things depend on other things for their existence. Things in the world would be finite things, like animals, trees, our human body. An infinite thing wouldn’t depend on anything else. God is infinite

Rene Descartes was a philosopher from France. Descartes is known as the “Father of Modern Day Philosophy”. One day, Descartes thought of everything he learned and knew about life and erased it from his mind. He wanted to understand through his own philosophies and beliefs, how we humans are beings, what we are, and how we came to be. He started by first proving himself and how he came to existence. Descartes thought to himself, “am I a thinking thing, or just an idea?” Through this knowledge the Descartes provided us with, we come to the conclusion to understand his quote, “I think, therefore I am (biography).” With this idea in mind, this is how Descartes proved to himself that God exists.