Descartes gave a few arguments that God exists and is real. Desocrates believed our idea of God is that God is a perfect being, he believed he is more perfect to exist than not to exist. Desocrates also believed that God is a infinite being. Descartes idea would be that God gave us this idea to type this paragraph about him so he must be real. When he thinks negative of an idea or thought he wonders if an evil demon plotted those thoughts. If demons exist, so must God. Descartes believed God will not allow any evil demons to deceive anybody. We can not be for certain if God had a reason to teach humanity a lesson or allow an evil demon to do that
God 's existence has been a continuous debate certainly for centuries. The issue of God 's existence is debatable because of the different kind of controversies that can be raised from an "Atheist as being the non-believer of God" and a "Theist who is the believer of God". An atheist can raise different objections on the order of the universe by claiming that the science is a reason behind the perfection of the universe. In Aquinas 's fifth argument, he claims that the order of the universe cannot be explained by chance, but only by design and purpose. To explain this order of the universe he concludes that, there is an intelligent being whom we call "God".
To some degree, I believe that Descartes did confirm God’s existence, when one takes into consideration of the arguments that were presented and the limitations that were placed on the Meditator. For instance, when the Meditator was attempting to prove God’s existence by demonstrating that God does not depend on the existence of a substance, considering that God holds perfection in sovereignty and knowledge, which the idea of God could not be invented by the imagination or brought from the material world. This type of analysis was centered on the Meditator’s intellectual judgement, so that the Meditator could attain a clear and distinct idea of God by relying on the mind alone, since the Meditator understands that adventitious and factitious
Descartes, in his Meditations on First Philosophy, used a method of doubt; he doubted everything in order to find something conclusive, which he thought, would be certain knowledge. He found that he could doubt everything, expect that he was thinking, as doubting is a type of thinking. Since thinking requires a thinker, he knew he must exist. According to Descartes if you are able to doubt your existence, then it must mean that you exist, hence his famous statement cogito ergo sum which is translated into ‘I think, therefore I am.’ Descartes said he was able to doubt the existence of his body and all physical things, but he could not doubt that his mind exists.
To say that it is possible for there to be an evil demon whose singular purpose is to deceive me, is a claim that requires robust support which Descartes fails to do. Although Descartes contemplates unlikely possibilities in his process of doubt, he only proposes that such a thing could exist. Descartes’ skepticism position weakens his evil demon argument because if I’m in doubt, I’ll also doubt the possibility that an evil demon exists. So, my skepticism regarding the possibility of an evil demon reduces the greater doubt that is expected to be created by the evil demon. The evil demon must exists to create so much doubt, but Descartes doesn’t provide enough backing for possibility of the evil demon’s existence.
The next step that Descartes uses in the second meditation is the existence of this Godly figure. He questions his own beliefs with that of the God, and argues that a mind should be capable of thinking for them to be of existence, “Is there not some God, or some other being by whatever name we call it, which puts these reflections into my mind? That is not necessary, for is it not possible that I am capable of producing them myself?” He then puts forward that for one to be deceived by this “evil demon” as he describes it, they have to exist to be deceived.
Descartes makes the Evil Demon argument to neither prove the existence of such a demon or construct a better understanding of this source of deceit. But rather to destroy the foundations in which he has built all his bias on and rebuild his knowledge from scratch. It works to make us speculate everything while doubting the beliefs and senses we hold so true. This never-ending doubt gives rise to a new question, how do I know that
I do not think Descartes would disagree with Anselm’s assertion, but he builds upon and strengthens the ontological proof with 1) asserting God’s perfection and 2) by applying his doctrine of clear and distinct ideas. Much like the idea of a triangle, the concept of God exists within Descartes “no less…than the idea of any figure or number”. (Med. V.65). Descartes possess an idea, a concept of a supremely perfect being, much like his idea of a triangle, with immutable mathematical characteristics.
Existence is something that can be imagined and therefore is false and a fallacy. How does Descartes really know he exists maybe he is just imaging it all and that his premises behind the existence of God are fake as well. If someone exist then they must have been born which would mean that Descartes parents where the ones who brought him into existence, and their parents brought them in to existence and so on and so on. This would mean that God did not create Descartes existence but that someone way far down the chain of human existence started it
He first goes on to note that the senses can deceive us, and that things are not always just as they seem at first glance to be. He claims our senses can deceive us and our very own perception of reality or what events are happening around us can be false. We may believe that what we are experiencing is true, but who’s to say that we are not actually living some other existence but our sense of reality is deceiving us. Descartes then goes on to mention the dream problem, where he goes on to say that we may dream of the physical world but who’s to say that we are not imagining our very existence. Can we truly distinguish everything we know or perceive to be true from our dreams and imagination, and possibly doubt that anything physical truly exists, that there is an external world at
However since we already have an idea of God as this perfect and infinite being, he must exist. Furthermore, since the natural light clears deception as an imperfection as well as not existing, God is a non-deceiver, he exist and is perfect. After the cogito argument and natural light examination of the deceptive God, Descartes discards the hypothesis that God is a deceiver. Since God is all-good, he would not deceive us. For that reason, Descartes introduces the evil demon/genius instead.
However, Descartes does not provide enough proof for his claim of its possibility. This shows that Descartes’ evil demon argument fails to prove absolute doubt, which he
In his analogy, God is the fire and heat source that radiates outward, and he is the subject that receives this warmth, and thus the idea of God cannot be “materially false” (31). If God has the power to bring Descartes into being, He could also bring in another man, or animal, or
For how he can be certain that 2+2= 4 and not 5, how can he know for sure that he is not being deceived into believing the answer to be 5 due to a demon. But even if an evil demon did indeed exist, in order to be misled, Descartes himself must exist. As there must be an “I”, that can be deceived. Conclusively, upon Descartes’ interpretations we can come to decipher that in order for someone to exist they must indeed be able to think, to exist as a thinking thing.
Descartes first proof of Gods existence is first introduced in his Third Meditation. This proof is based on his Causal Adequacy Principle regarding the causes of effects. According to this principle, no effect can exist without a cause, and this cause must possess at least as much reality as the effect (Skirry 1). Descartes applies this principle to track the causes of ideas. According to his philosophy, ideas are what connect the mind to the world because there are two types of reality contained in them.
In other words, Anselm stipulates that God must exist since we can’t think of something greater than God but Descartes says the main reason why God exists is because he is a perfect being. St. Anselm and Descartes arguments are without doubt the most important arguments to the existence of God. They formed the basis for further discussion both by those that agree to these schools of thought as well as those that saw the arguments as weak and decided to show why. Both philosophers agreed that the comprehension of the concept of God was sufficient for anyone to believe in the existence of God even though Anselm argument was skewed towards our inability to conceive a more powerful being while Descartes mainly concentrates on the perfect nature in