Sartre's Argument For The Existence Of God

Jean-Paul Sartre is a French philosopher who makes his claims based on a combination of two philosophical traditions – existentialism and phenomenology. Sartre himself is an atheistic existentialist. He summarizes his claims regarding existentialism with three words – anguish, abandonment, and despair (25). In this paper, I will talk about Sartre’s definition of existentialism, its relation to essence, Sartre’s views on the moral choices and how they relate to art.

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

Three Arguments for the Existence of God Many people debate about God’s existence. There are three arguments Christians use to prove God exists. These three arguments are the cause and effect, the design, and the moral arguments. Each argument shows a different piece of evidence for the existence of God. The Bible also gives evidence of God’s existence.

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

I agree with the Sartre “God does not exist, everything is permitted” because it means if there was no god then there won’t

As with almost all of Descartes inquiries the roots of his second argument for the existence of God begin with his desire to build a foundation of knowledge that he can clearly and distinctly perceive. At the beginning of the third meditation Descartes once again recollects the things that he knows with certainty. The problem arises when he attempts to clearly and distinctly understand truths of arithmetic and geometry. Descartes has enough evidence to believe these things, but one major doubt is still present; the possibility of God being a deceiver. Descartes worry is that all the knowledge that he possesses through intuition could potentially be false if God merely chooses to deceive him. So in order to have a clear and distinct perception of arithmetic truths (and other such intuitive truths) Descartes delves into the question of God’s existence (and whether this God could be a deceiver or not).

In this paper, I offer a reconstruction of Descartes argument for God’s existence in the Third Meditation. Descartes tries to prove the existence of God with an argument that proceeds from the clear and distinct idea of an infinite being to the existence of himself. He believes that his clear and distinct idea of an infinite being with infinite “objective reality” leads to the occurrence of the “Special Causal Principle”. I will start by discussing and analyzing Descartes clear and distinct idea of an infinite being and how it the classification of ideas and the difference between formal and objective reality Special Causal Principle. Finally, I will examine the reasons Descartes offers for his belief in Gods existence and I will indicate the drawbacks within the proof. It will be concluded that Descartes arguments are inadequate and don’t clearly prove the existence of God.

The belief in Gods has always existed throughout human’s recored history. Whether it be the Greek Gods: Apollo, and Zeus, or the Judeo-Christian God, believed by Christians in modern day society. The belief of God has always existed among humans, however, assuming God does not exist, what explains the cultural evolution of such a false belief, namely religion? I shall argue that the reason this false belief is successful is because it manipulates human nature better than any other belief by these three points: an avoidance of death (the soul), a sense of worth (knowledge), and a sense, or need of belief (faith).

The existence of God has been a question since the idea of God was conceived. Descartes tries to prove Gods existence, to disprove his Evil demon theory, and to show that there is without a doubt something external to ones own existence. He is looking for a definite certainty, a foundation for which he can base all of his beliefs and know for a fact that they are true.

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.

People believe that if evil exists then so does God, and vice versa. It is also a common belief that this perfect being is the creator of everything and everyone. From atom to atom and from molecule to molecule, he designed all of it. It is also believed that this God has no flaws and is indeed a perfect being. However, some people will tend to disagree. Ernest Nagel, an American philosopher, proposed a series of counterarguments to many classic arguments on behalf of God’s existence. He dismisses arguments such as the cosmological argument, the ontological argument, and the argument of design, by quickly pointing out their flaws. But just as there are people who discredit God’s existence, there are people who argue that he does exist. Richard Swinburne, a British philosopher, provides his own series of arguments on why God exists. Moreover, his arguments are centralized around the problem of evil. In “Why God Allows Evil”, Swinburne discusses rationale behind God allowing evil to exist. To keep it short and sweet, Swinburne believes that there are two types of evils, moral and natural, and that they exist for a reason.

“We are left alone, without excuse. This is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free” (Sartre 32). Radical freedom and responsibility is the central notion of Jean-Paul Sartre’s philosophy. However, Sartre himself raises objections about his philosophy, but he overcomes these obvious objections. In this paper I will argue that man creates their own essence through their choices and that our values and choices are important because they allow man to be free and create their own existence. I will first do this by explaining Jean-Paul Sartre’s quote, then by thoroughly stating Sartre’s theory, and then by opposing objections raised against Sartre’s theory.

For Sartre this attitude is not the truth about oneself. Intentional conciousness means that we are more than what we are aware of about us. Although it is there in our life but sometime we can’t make out this truth as an individual so we cannot, in this sense, be defined as our "intentional objects" of consciousness, including our restrictions imposed on us by (facticity) our personal history, character, bodies, or objective responsibility. Thus, as Sartre often repeated,

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.

Jean-Paul Sartre was an influential 20th century existentialist who mostly acquired information on the study of consciousness and the study of being. Sartre spent many years studying philosophy and the existence of God mostly studying the works of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. He became a Professor of Philosophy at Le Havre in 1931 and then began teaching at Lycée Pasteur in Paris from 1937 to 1939. During his career, Sartre wrote about many philosophical theories, some notable books include La nausée published in 1938, Being and Nothingness published in 1943, and many more lectures and literature for individuals to read for years to come. Sartre was an important figure of existentialism and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1964 but turned it down. Some of Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialist principles are the act of free will, forced to take responsibility for all actions, and the existence of God.