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Did Rene Descartes God Exist

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René Descartes, a famed mathematician and philosopher, enacted a thought project where he applied radical doubt to everything in existence, including himself. He wrote a treatise about the experience, called “Meditations on First Philosophy”, of which there are six parts. After first establishing his own existence as a “thinking thing,” Descartes wonders about the existence of God (153). Descartes then follows to prove, through a series of arguments, that God exists, and that the existence of God merits the existence of a material world. Early in the Meditations, Descartes inquires as to whether God might be an ‘evil genius’ of sorts, manipulating his thoughts and perceptions, or even falsely planting them, and assumes that this is the case saying that God is …show more content…

The principle of sufficient reason, or the “natural light” as Descartes commonly calls it, states that, in terms of existence, causation is always superior or wholly equal to its effect (159). Or, in relation to Descartes and God, since Descartes considers himself to exist, then that which created him must be at least as real as he, if not more so. Descartes establishes the assumption that God created him, and by this principle God must exist. He also considers the existence of God to be necessary, as he would not have formed ideas of something infinite and omnipotent based upon knowing only himself, since, by nature, he is finite and limited in knowledge. Descartes employs an ontological argument to further prove that God exists. Ontological arguments are arguments where two things are necessarily connected to one another if the second cannot be thought of without the first also necessarily being thought of. In his argument, Descartes says that if there is a god, then he would have all possible perfections. If existence is a perfection, then God must exist, since existence is included as a perfection that he

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An Analysis Of René Descartes Mediations On First Philosophy

1654 Words | 7 Pages

However, Descartes is indeed certain of the fact that he is a thinking being, and that he exists. As a result of this argument, Descartes makes a conclusion that the things he perceives clearly and distinctly cannot be false, and are therefore true (Blanchette). This clear and distinct perception is an important component to the argument that Descartes makes in his fifth meditation for the existence of God. This paper explains Descartes ' proof of God 's existence from Descartes ' fifth meditation, Pierre Gassendi 's objection to this proof, and then offers the paper 's author 's opinion on both the proof and objection.

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Rene Descartes Cosmological Argument

588 Words | 3 Pages

Throughout the Meditations, Descartes tries to prove the existence of God while rebuilding the knowledge that he recently casted much doubt over. He uses the cosmological argument to provide the proof needed to show Gods existence through arguing his own imperfections and Gods perfections. The main concepts within this argument stem from his overall point that something can’t come from nothing, and that God is the perfect being. Descartes begins his cosmological argument by admitting he is an imperfect individual.

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How Did Descartes Confirm God's Existence

593 Words | 3 Pages

This is one of the reasons why the Meditator was successful at proving God’s existence, considering that the Meditator would forge the pillars by his intellectual examination, until the Meditator would attain a clear and distinct idea of God. Moreover, the Meditator concludes that God does exist, because the idea of a perfect God was already inside the Meditator’s mind, which confirmed the concept of a perfect God as an innate idea that was left by God, so that the Meditator may remember the idea that was left behind. That is why I believe that Descartes succeeded in proving that God exists, taking into consideration that Descartes would not stray of the path that was based on pure logic, which is no easy task for any human being. Not only that, Descartes could not rely on the senses, because the senses do not provide enough information of the topic that he was discussing about, and the imagination would not have a correlation of the idea itself. Therefore, one could obtain numerous answers from the material world and the imagination, however, the credibility of both sources do not match the mind, which endeavors to find the truth of things by one’s intellectual

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How Does Descartes Argument That God Exist

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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.

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Descartes Non Deceive God Analysis

726 Words | 3 Pages

We know clear and distinct perceptions independently by God, and his existence provides us with a certainty we might not possess otherwise. However, another possible strategy would be to change Gods role in Descartes philosophy. Instead of seeing God as the validation of clear and distinct perceptions, rather see him as a safeguard against doubt. This strategy, however, is a problem since it re-constructs the Meditations – Philosophical work of Descartes –.This is because it would not be God, who is the ultimate foundation of knowledge, but the clear and distinct

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Descartes's Argument On The Existence Of God

753 Words | 4 Pages

The argument for God’s existence is that God is a perfect being, he is infinite, independent, supremely intelligent, and supremely powerful. Descartes goes on to talk about how God exists because he can conceive of him as better than himself (AD 40). God is perfect and perfect at everything, and was the first thing that sent everything into motion (AD 45). God is the ultimate cause.

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Descartes defined God as a supremely perfect being, meaning that he contains all supreme perfections. Descartes argued that it is more perfect to exist than to not exist, therefore existence is one of God's supreme perfections and God must exist. ' God exists' must be true by definition because the subject (God) already contains the predicate (exists). Descartes also believed that God is a necessary being meaning that it is impossible to imagine him as not existing because it is part of his essence as a supremely perfect being, concluding therefore that God must exist.

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Descartes Argument From Senssibility Of A Deceitful God

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In Descartes’ First Meditation, Descartes is trying to establish firm foundations for knowledge; in doing so he adopts ‘The Method of Doubt’ where he tests knowledge by subjecting them to sceptical arguments. There are three main arguments considered by Descartes in the First Meditation, ‘The Argument from Sensory Error’, ‘The Argument from Dreaming’, and ‘The Argument from the Possibility of a Deceitful God’. In Descartes’ ‘Argument from Sensory Error’, he says “Whatever I have accepted until now as most true has come to me through my sense. But occasionally I have found that they have deceived me, and it is unwise to trust completely those who have deceived us even once”.

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Descartes Argument For The Existence Of God

962 Words | 4 Pages

In Second Meditation, Descartes claims, after radical doubt, that the only undeniable truth is his own existence because he must exist to think about his existence. His argument is compelling, but for one problem. In this paper, I shall argue that Descartes’ argument that his “thinking” (Descartes, 153) is proof of his existence is flawed because he establishes no premise to claim ownership of this thinking. I will also claim that even if Descartes is creating his own thoughts, albeit a lack of appropriate proof, his argument still does not prove a causal relationship between thinking and existing. In passage B, Descartes examines the properties of a piece of wax to confirm his existence.

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What Was Descartes Method Of Doubt?

1532 Words | 7 Pages

In the third meditation, Descartes argues “(1) I am certain that I am a thinking thing. (2) Do I not therefore also know what is required in order for me to be certain of anything, namely, that there is nothing in this first thought other than a certain clear and distinct perception of what I claim. (3) Evidently that would not be enough to make me certain about something if it could ever happen that what I perceived clearly and distinctly in this way could be false. (4) It seems, therefore, that I could establish as a general rule that everything that I perceive very clearly and distinctly is true.”

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Rene Descartes Why Does God Exist

681 Words | 3 Pages

Rene Descartes an academic, scientist, mathematician, and philosopher. Which landed him the title of the father of modern philosphy for defining doubt in everything us humans possibly take for granted, making us doubt in everything we may or may not know. I find this to be one of the biggest issues with one of Descartes main arugments is the fact he believes that the idea of God is impossible through anyone other cause than God, also that any being less than God is not worth of his divine nature, proving that the meditiator cannot be God since he is a thinking thing as my argument pertains aganist Descartes views of how God exists, because if we as humans are all thinking things, God is a nonbeing therefore he has no thoughts or causes to create such thoughts. Decartes reasoning being in this sense he is his god because saying I am gods creation and he gave me this idea because he is my maker, almost like God is creating a trade mark.

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295 Words | 2 Pages

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Rene Descartes Argument

1630 Words | 7 Pages

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945 Words | 4 Pages

St. Anselm and Descartes are known for presenting the first ontological arguments on the existence of God. The word ontological is a compound word derived from ‘ont’ which means exists or being and ‘–ology’ which means the study of. Even though Anselm and Descartes’ arguments differ slightly, they both stem from the same reasoning. Unlike the other two arguments on God’s existence (teleological and cosmological), the ontological argument does not seek to use any empirical evidence but rather concentrates on pure reason. The rationale behind this school of thought

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1324 Words | 6 Pages

“I think, Therefore I am” This quote by Descartes prove that the person exists by his ability of thinking.[2] Descartes prove the existing of human being through doubting and thinking and he explains his claim by stating that when the person doubt his existence or think about his existence then he exists. [3] Moreover, Descartes imposes an ontological argument to prove gods existence which states that: god is a perfect being and since it is more perfect to exist than not this implies that god exists. [3] He also introduce another more complex argument for god existence which differ between two types of reality.

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