Descartes Argumentation of Gods Existence - Essay Example

Descartes and God 2007 This paper is dedicated to the Descartes’ argumentation of God’s existence. This French philosopher, physicist, physiologist and mathematician, known as the founder of modern philosophy, had an aim of restarting philosophy in a quite new direction. Refusing to accept the Aristotelian and Scholastic traditions, dominating philosophic thought throughout the Medieval period, René Descartes attempted to integrate philosophy with newly-established sciences and change the relationship between philosophy and theology. His method of hyperbolic doubt and the cogito argument provided him an opportunity to reconstruct knowledge anew, piece by piece. Relying on the principle of clarity and distinctness, he argued that there were two things he could be sure about: the existence of himself and God. Being a devout Catholic, he wanted to make a contribution to understanding of Christianity. So in the opening statement to Meditations, Descartes claimed that there were two driving issues behind this work: proving the existence of God and the immortality of the soul through natural reason (Burnham and Fieser 2006). In fact, the necessary existence of God was the absolute truth for Descartes, perceived by him at the intuition level. Yet, he realized that it was necessary to provide clear logical arguments of this existence. Descartes provided three principal arguments of the existence of God: the causal, cosmological and ontological ones. The causal argument is most fully represented in Meditation III, it can also be found in the Discourse (Part I) and in the Principles (Part I §§ 17-18). Descartes distinguishes between the formal reality of an idea (its actual existence and degree of perfection as a mode of mind) and its objective reality (the degree of perfection it has with consideration of its content). Further the philosopher recognizes three degrees of perfection based on the capacity of a thing for an independent existence. God, being an infinite substance depending on nothing, is viewed as the highest degree of perfection. An individual body or mind (finite substances depending on God alone) is given the next degree. A property of a substance, that is a mode depending on the substance for existence, is considered as being of the lowest degree. Descartes states that “it is manifest by the natural light that there must be at least as much reality in the efficient and total cause as in the effect of that cause”. Thus there should be as much formal reality in the cause of an idea as there is objective reality in the idea itself. This bridge principle allows concluding that the particular ideas in the minds have their causes and they are effects of some causes. Having discussed various classes of ideas, Descartes explains that as a finite substance he can be the cause of all the ideas in his mind except for one, which is the idea of God. Being the idea of something having infinite perfection, the idea of God can be caused only by a thing, which formally has the perfection that the idea has objectively. This thing is God himself (Garber 2003). For those reluctant to accept the bridge principle, Descartes proposes his cosmological argument, which can be found in Meditation III, Discourse Part IV and Principles Part I §§ 20-1). While Descartes doesn’t doubt his own existence as a thinking thing (Cogito, ergo sum), there should be someone, who created him. Obviously, he hasn’t existed always, while there is needed much power to sustain his existence from moment to moment or recreate him anew. He could not create himself, while in this case he would have been able to provide himself perfection he lacks. If he could create himself, he would be able to sustain himself. However, he, as a thinking thing, is not aware of having such power. His parents could not create him, while they could neither create a thinking thing nor sustain it once created. It is also unlikely that we are created by a creature of lesser perfection than God, while we have an idea of God, which could be acquired only from an infinite perfect substance. Thus Descartes summarizes: “the mere fact that I exist and have within me an idea of a most perfect being… provides a very clear proof that God indeed exists” (as we can see the second argument returns onto the grounds of the first one) (Garber 2003). While the first two arguments play the major role in the validation of reason on theological grounds, the ontological argument is based on the same grounds with mathematics and other exact sciences. Reasoning in mathematical terms Descartes wrote: “it is quite evident that existence can no more be separated from the essence of God than the fact that its three angles equal to two right angles can be separated from the essence of a triangle, or than the idea of a mountain can be separated from the idea of a valley” (In Garber 2003). The ontological argument can be summarized as the following: 1) Whatever I clearly and distinctly perceive to belong to the nature or essence of a thing can be truly affirmed of that thing; 2) I clearly and distinctly perceive that existence belongs to the nature or essence of a supremely perfect being. Thus: 3) Existence can be truly affirmed of a supremely perfect being; i.e., a supremely perfect being exists. There is a very short and simple version of this argument sounding like: 1) A supremely perfect being has all perfections; 2) Existence is perfection. Thus: 3) A supremely perfect being exists (In Dicker 1993, 155, 158). Most of philosophers agree that ontological argument is wrong. However, there are versions as to what exactly is wrong with it. The first classical objection to the ontological argument was made by Gaunilo against Anselm’s version of proof, offered in the eleventh century, as to the logical leap from the mental world of concepts to the real world of things. Gaunilo argued that the same reasoning could be put to the things that do not exist. Johannes Caterus explained the point as follows: “Even if it is granted that a supremely perfect being carries the implication of existence in virtue of its very title, it still does not follow that the existence in question is anything actual in the real world; all that follows is that the concept of existence is inseparably linked to the concept of a supreme being. So you cannot infer that the existence of God is anything actual unless you suppose that the supreme being actually exists; for then it will actually contain all perfections, including the perfection of real existence” (Nolah 2006). Dicker (1993) believes that it is a decisive objection to the Descartes’ ontological argument. The mistake of the argument is very simple – the existence of God is tried to be proved from the mere definition of the word “God” (p. 168). Another objection was formulated by Immanuel Kant, who attacked ‘the premiss that existence contributes to a things greatness, or that existence is a perfection’ (p.160). Kant argues that the existence is not a property or predicate, included into the idea of a supremely perfect being as one of the divine attributes. Kant’s objection to the Ontological Argument aroused complex and far-ranging issues, so that the objection has been very popular among philosophers (Dicker 1993; Nolah 2006). Moojan Momen (1999) mentions another objection, which comes from Christian fundamentalists themselves: people cannot prove the existence of God, ‘since human beings can only know what God chooses to reveal of itself’ (p.191). Nolah argues, however, that Descartes’ ontological argument is resilient on its own grounds. Moreover, being grounded on the theory of innate ideas and the principle of clarity and distinctness it can be called more resilient than that of Anselm. Notwithstanding the lack of resilience in Descartes arguments as to the existence of God, God plays a major role in his validation of reasoning, as well as in two other parts of Descartes system. Regarding physics, Descartes perceived God as the first cause of motion, the sustainer of motion in the world, constituting the very ground of the laws of motion, and as the creator of the eternal truths (Garber 2003). As we can see, the existence of God was the fundamental truth for Descartes, so that arguments were necessary only for the scholars. References: Burnham, Douglas and Frieser, James. Rene Descartes. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2006. Retrieved January 14, 2008 from www.iep.utm.edu/d/descarte.htm - 132k Dicker, Georges. Descartes: An Analytical and Historical Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press. 1993. Garber, Daniel. Descartes, René. In E. Craig (Ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. London: Routledge. 2003. Momen, Moojan. The Phenomenon Of Religion: A Thematic Approach. Published by Oneworld Publications, Oxford, UK. 1999. Nolah, Lawrence. Descartes’ Ontoligical Argument. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. First published Mon Jun 18, 2001; substantive revision Sun Oct 15, 2006. Retrieved January 14, 2008 from plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-ontological Read More