Proof of God's existence and Human error - Research Paper Example

It is a logical reality that in order for something to be created, someone must create it. According to Descartes, in order for an idea to contain objective reality, it must be derived from a cause that contains at least as much of a formal reality as there is objective reality in the idea. With this logic, Descartes explains that the objective reality of an idea cannot come from a man therefore it must be derived from something else. Only a perfect and infinite being could be capable of creating such an idea, and since man is not infinite, therefore such ideas can never be derived from man.

On the other hand, God is perfect and an infinite being with infinite formal reality, therefore such objective ideas must have come from God; therefore God exists. Second proof of the existence of God is that; the power and action needed to preserve something are the same as needed for creating something anew. Creation of something is an effect and each effect has a cause, therefore there must be as much reality in the cause as in the effect. According to Descartes, man cannot have power to preserve himself therefore the existence that caused the creation of man must be the one preserving the man himself.

Since man can think, the entity that created man must also have the ability to think. Man is not a perfect being and had man been able to create himself, he would have made the man perfect. Since man has ideas of perfection therefore the entity that created man must be perfect. Therefore, through this logical derivation, it can be inferred that God exists. Both these proofs are different from each other due to the perspective through which they are presented. The first proof is presented by using the logic of the infinity of an idea and the cause that created that idea.

On the other hand, the second proof is presented by the logic of the existence of man himself. The second proof is more convincing because it provides an easily understandable logic from the perspective of the existence of humans. Descartes needed two proofs to widen the scope of his philosophy. Proving the same fact using two different dimensions only adds to the depth of the argument. Two proofs are also important because different people with different perspectives may be able to understand them easily.

Two proves do not do different works for Descartes because these are only two ways of proving the same fact. After proving that God exists and he is perfect, there arises a question regarding the imperfection of man. If God is perfect, why is there room for error or imperfection? Descartes presents a convincing argument as a reply to this question which is; there is a scale having two extremes that are nothingness and perfection, and man exists somewhere between these two extremes. Man is less perfect than God but he is more than mere nothingness.

Therefore, error is not a positive reality according to Descartes but it just the absence of what is correct. Thus Descartes infers that man can err without God giving him any ability to do so but error happens only due to the mortality of the ability of the man to judge the truth. Descartes thus describes the existence of human error as the inability of the man to determine why God chose to create the man. It is due to the limited knowledge of the man which is not infinite as that of God. Therefore, it can be said that the arguments presented by Descartes are convincing because he explains the existence of