Famous French philosopher Rene Descartes wrote a 6 part book entitled “Meditations on First Philosophy,” in which he documents his thoughts as he attempts to discard all beliefs in all things physical by reason of doubt, and then later attempts to prove that things do indeed exist as simple “truths,” and eventually works his way back up to believing that the physical world exists. One of these “truths” was the idea that a supremely perfect being, like God, has to exist; the argument being that we would not be able to imagine something like him without having to find the base idea in an other existing being. Since God is supremely perfect, it would require an actual perfect being to exist for us to be able to imagine a God. Descartes also argues that God is an honest God because deceit is an “imperfection,” something of which a supremely perfect being simply cannot have. Another argument he has made to support his idea is that the idea of God must be an innate idea, meaning we were “born with” the knowledge of God’s existence, because the idea of a supremely perfect being cannot be adventitious or factitious; However, all of these are incorrect, and one can easily figure out why through simple reasoning and common sense. First, let us discuss his point regarding us imperfect mortals being unable to …show more content…
The question is who decided that deceitfulness was an imperfection? Humans? If so, who are we to judge what is and is not perfect when we are imperfect ourselves? Would it not be wise to leave such a thing up to God? And suppose we did and later somehow found out that God has been deceiving us, can he still be considered a supremely perfect being? Afterall, if God is so flawless, and yet he is deceitful, that would mean deceitfulness is a perfection, would it