Descartes’s mission in the meditations was to doubt everything and that what remained from his doubting could be considered the truth. This lead Descartes to argue for the existence of God. For the purpose of this paper, I will first discuss Descartes’s argument for the existence of God within the third and fifth meditations. I will then take issue with three of Descartes arguments. Descartes argues that some ideas are more real than others. These ideas are those that represent substances and contain more objective reality. These ideas are first modes or accidents, finite substance, and infinite substance. Descartes continues that through the natural light he cannot doubt that, “there must at least be as much reality in the efficient and total cause as in its effect.” (133) This follows that something has to create something, things do not arise from nothing, and something cannot create something else with more reality. This is true in both actual reality and formal reality. Formal reality is the gradation of ideas being accidents, finite, and infinite. An accident cannot cause a finite substance because that thing must have the same reality as that which it is causing. Further, Descartes argues that for an idea to have objective reality it derives it from some cause which has as much formal reality as the idea contains. Objective reality is something that represents something else therefore, finite substances have finite objective reality and God has infinite objective reality. Descartes concludes that while there is regress in ideas, it is not an infinite regress and we must reach the first idea, this idea exists within us through the natural light. This idea of a first perfect idea could not originate within man because man could not come up with the idea of God because God is an infinite substance. Only God could have caused the idea of God. All the properties that describe God i.e. all-knowing, infinite, and all-powerful are so great and excellent that these ideas do not owe their origin to humans alone. Humans are finite substances so they cannot come up with the ideas of infinite substances unless it were given to them by an infinite substance. Descartes continues that while we advance gradually each day these attributes could never exist within us because we are only potentially perfect whereas God is actually perfect. Furthermore, Descartes argues that only God could be the author of his being because if it were he or his parent’s other finite substances that authored his being then he would not have wants or doubts because he would have bestowed upon himself every perfection imaginable to a finite being. Therefore, God exists because Descartes could not have thought of God because he is a finite substance, thus the idea of God must have come from an infinite substance. Descartes continues in the
…show more content…
However, while Descartes thinks that humans do not have the ability to think of the qualities of God without having at some point experienced these qualities, there is a possible answer to this. When I think of something that is good can’t I simply accelerate that quality to its most perfect form in my mind? When I think of goodness all I have to do is think of something a little better than goodness and continue this trend until I reach the idea of absolute goodness. These qualities do not have to be caused by God. It is quite easy how I could come up with the existence of God without God actually having to exist. I simply have to think of my father for instance. I take all of his best qualities and I exceed them to their absolutes. This again leads back to Descartes argument of gradation of reality. He would argue that a finite thing like my father could not lead to an infinite idea because a finite thing cannot cause the idea of an infinite thing. However, as I attempted to argue earlier all things have the same reality and existence, things do not exist in degrees. Therefore, I could take a finite substance and accelerate its qualities to create an infinite substance within my mind. My main issue with this argument is Descartes dismissal that only an infinite thing could cause the idea of an infinite thing within a finite thing when in actuality it is quite easy to see how a person could come up with the idea of God when there are no gradations of
However, while Descartes thinks that humans do not have the ability to think of the qualities of God without having at some point experienced these qualities, there is a possible answer to this. When I think of something that is good can’t I simply accelerate that quality to its most perfect form in my mind? When I think of goodness all I have to do is think of something a little better than goodness and continue this trend until I reach the idea of absolute goodness. These qualities do not have to be caused by God. It is quite easy how I could come up with the existence of God without God actually having to exist. I simply have to think of my father for instance. I take all of his best qualities and I exceed them to their absolutes. This again leads back to Descartes argument of gradation of reality. He would argue that a finite thing like my father could not lead to an infinite idea because a finite thing cannot cause the idea of an infinite thing. However, as I attempted to argue earlier all things have the same reality and existence, things do not exist in degrees. Therefore, I could take a finite substance and accelerate its qualities to create an infinite substance within my mind. My main issue with this argument is Descartes dismissal that only an infinite thing could cause the idea of an infinite thing within a finite thing when in actuality it is quite easy to see how a person could come up with the idea of God when there are no gradations of