Descartes Proof For The Existence Of God Analysis

Since time immemorial, man has constantly tried to prove the existence of God, to no avail. From one philosopher to another, the proof for the existence of God has proven to be elusive and mythological. Rene Descartes was one such philosopher who was not satisfied with mere “faith.” In the Meditations, René Descartes discusses what he knows about the world, beginning with what he knows for certain, which leads to what can be doubted and also what causes the doubt. In order to prove these ideas he must establish a foundation for these ideas, which is the existence of God. In what follows, I will discuss Descartes proofs for the existence of God. Beginning with the first and second mediation, Descartes defeats the skeptics and proves his

The third meditation is known as his “ traditional proof ” and the fifth mediation is known as the “ ontological proof ”. In the third meditation Descartes says that since the idea of God is infinite, eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent then the idea of God must have more objective reality than he has formal reality. This means that since God is an infinite being and Descartes is only a finite being then he himself could not have created the idea of God. Therefore, God must have placed this idea within him, which proves that God exists. Descartes uses the example of a stone, he says “ not only can a stone which did not exist previously not now begin to exist unless it is produced by something in which there is, either formally or eminently, everything that is in the stone”. Descartes concludes that doubts and desires come from an understanding that we are not perfect and we would not be aware of that unless we had an idea of a more perfect being. If man were created by himself, then he would have endowed himself with perfection and without doubt, therefore God exists. To conclude his third meditation, Descartes says, “ The whole force of the argument rests on the fact that I recognize that it would be impossible for me to exist, being such a nature as I am, unless God did in fact

He is not the first person to argue this, beginning in the eleventh century with St. Anselm and then dying off due to saint Thomas Aquinas’s reports. Some of Descartes colleagues were surprised in his attempt to bring back this argument, but nonetheless he did. His argument differs from those previously mentioned in the fact that previous arguers debated the “definition” of God as being an inconceivable being, whereas Descartes argues the “idea” of God. He says not to rely on a definition of God but rather on an innate idea whose content is “given”. Descartes argument is known for being very plain in nature. Descartes says that the existence of God is as clear and distinct as our ideas of mathematics. He is returning to the rule of truth that he established in another meditation. He says, whatever he clearly and distinctly perceives about the idea of something is true of that thing. Thus, if he clearly and distinctly perceives that necessary existence pertains to the idea of a supremely perfect being, then such a being must exist. Just as the knowledge that two right angles equal the same degrees of that of a