René Descartes Argument Analysis

In Meditation Five of Meditations on First Philosophy, René Descartes makes his argument for a supreme being, which he refers to as “God.” Descartes creates his argument based on the two premises that 1) if a supreme being exists, then it must hold all perfections, and that 2) existence is a perfection. These two premises lead to the conclusion that a supreme being does indeed exist, and in response to this argument, I will provide a counterexample, as well as the response that Descartes would likely provide to this objection. To begin his argument, Descartes first leads readers into his line of thinking in order that they might understand the possibility of the existence of a supreme being. Throughout his argument, Descartes relies on

He says, “This necessity plainly suffices so that afterwards, when I realize that existence is a perfection, I rightly conclude that a first and supreme being exists” (45). He also later goes on to say that “I cannot think of anything aside from God alone to whose essence existence belongs” (45). Being that he clearly and distinctly perceives that existence could belong to nothing other than a supreme being, and this being achieves all perfections, Descartes reaches the conclusion of his argument that a supreme being indeed

I propose that existence does not fit this definition of a “perfection.” To provide an example, humans are beings who attain this supposed “perfection” of existence; however, for us, the idea of existing is not always positive. For humans, existence comes with various negative aspects such as sin, pain, suffering, sadness, and other unpleasant feelings or emotions that do not fit the term of “perfection.” Why, then, would a supposed “perfection” such as existence contain so many unpleasant and painful elements? Additionally, if, as Descartes claims, God also obtains this perfection of existence just like humans do, then is it possible that God can also experience pain and suffering? This contradicts Descartes’ argument that God is a supremely perfect