Decartes argument on the existence of God - Essay Example

Descartes thought the only way to attain true knowledge was to depend only on human reasoning while disregarding the role of the senses, if any. “His philosophy refused to accept the Aristotelian and Scholastic traditions that had dominated philosophical thought throughout the Medieval period; it attempted to fully integrate philosophy with the ‘new sciences’; and Descartes changed the relationship between philosophy and theology. Such new directions of philosophy made Descartes into a revolutionary figure” (Baillet 1693).

For this revelation, he is now universally celebrated as the father of modern philosophy. Through this works regarding the development in thought, he was also known as the founder of modern day mathematics and scientific method. In forming his ideas, Descartes wrote many books, including his most well-known, “Discourse on Method”, first published in 1637, concerning the nature of knowledge and human existence. “Discourse on Method” is divided into three sections Descartes described and named ‘meditations.

’ It is in the third of these meditations that Descartes reflected upon the true nature of God and determined that He is indeed real and exists more than just in people’s minds. . “In this item of first knowledge, there is simply a clear and distinct perception of what I am asserting; this would not be enough to make me certain of the truth of the matter if it could ever turn out that something which I perceived with such clarity and distinctness was false. So I now seem to be able to lay it down as a general rule that whatever I perceived very clearly and distinctly is true” (Descartes, 1637).

One of the first notions that he professed in this line of thinking was that he had a fundamental idea that God exists. Descartes’ reasoning that God did indeed exist outside just the mind of man he had to have had a causation of some type because he had previously proven that nothing comes from nothing. Descartes rationalized that this cause must be based at least as much in reality as the idea. However, since he did not think himself infinitely perfect, of course, Descartes rationalized he could not have thought of this idea all on his own therefore there must be an remote cause that is infinitely perfect.

Only God is infinitely perfect so God must indeed exist. “Descartes assumes that we have an idea of God as an actually infinite being, not just a being that is as great as we can imagine by extending the finite perfections of a human being. For this reason, it is impossible for us to have constructed our idea of God through an extension of the idea we have of ourselves or any other finite creature” (Rutherford, 2006). The second argument Descartes’ used to prove God’s existence emanates from his own ability to envision something perfect despite himself being imperfect.

This second argument starts with the understanding that he exists – again, “I