Descartes and God
Hana Al Jamal
Professor Ryan Middleton
PHIL 2202F
May 29 2012
Descartes and God
Throughout the course of his Meditations, Rene Descartes sets to prove the existence of God through his knowledge, in an effort to prove the skeptics of his century wrong. In order for Descartes to prove the existence of God, Descartes first determined that human knowledge is based wholly on unproved presuppositions. With the latter as his dilemma, Descartes further postulates that it is much too difficult to distinguish between what is true, and what is a form of error, since humans cannot realise what is true knowledge.
In his first Meditation, Descartes proposes that the quest for knowledge must ...
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Descartes proceeds to rebuild his former knowledge, replacing his old knowledge with that of the new, in order to determine the one unquestionable fact, "Cogito, ergo sum". From this absolute truth of his own existence, Descartes sets to deduce the existence of God through ontological arguments. In the thoughts of people, the idea of God is of an infinitely perfect being. Descartes argues that if such a being where not to exist, it would ultimately mean that it was not infinitely perfect being; therefore, God exists. In proving the existence of God, Descartes has set the basis for determining that God created man. He further hypothesized that God, a being that is infinitely perfect and not a deceiver, could not have given man with the illusory powers of knowledge, stating:
And I ought in no wise to doubt the truth of such matters, if, after having called up all my senses, my memory, and my understanding, to examine them, nothing is brought to evidence by any one ...
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he would have considered it false until it was proven otherwise.
It seems evident, through Descartes thought process that the idea of God is beginning to be doubtful; this is also true for honesty of a man's reasoning. In an attempt to prove the existence of God, Descartes uses a reasoning process and mathematical formulae. Descartes admits the honesty of his facilities, by demonstrating the existence and infinite perfection of God, and that it is illegitimate. However, Descartes argument for the existence of God is invalidated by a suspected reasoning process. Since Descartes demonstrates the reliability of his reasoning and thought process by means of God's genuineness, the ...
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