StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Free

How does Descartes Prove that God Exists - Essay Example

Cite this document
Summary
In the book Voices of Wisdom, Rene Descartes proves the existence of God using his philosophical aspects. This clearly shows his statements and questions. This paper aims at helping students examine the complex elements of Rene’s proof of God’s existence…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER98.1% of users find it useful
How does Descartes Prove that God Exists
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "How does Descartes Prove that God Exists"

How does Descartes Prove that God Exists? In the book Voices of Wisdom, Rene Descartes proves the existence of God using his philosophical aspects. This clearly shows his statements and questions. This paper aims at helping students examine the complex elements of Rene’s proof of God’s existence. This can make them understand and offer some explanation of how these philosophical aspects work. This plays a vital role in assisting students to understand if God exists. This also makes students be able to offer a reasonable evaluation of Descartes’ statement in the book.

If it is possible to prove the God’s existence, does one require faith? Philosophers need to evaluate their arguments carefully. This paper discusses how Rene proves that God exists in detail as seen hereunder (Kessler, 2000). To start with, Rene argues that in order to have the idea of something, then one need to understand it, then there may exist something, which is known. This implies that God exists as he knows that God is in existence and most people understand this. Rene goes ahead to prove that God exists when he says that all things that he has can have some clear idea.

However, he cannot produce these things for himself and have received from the entity, therefore, these things exist. This means that God exists. At the start of the meditation three, Descartes made some moves towards defeating his doubt. He uses his usual methods of doubt and analysis systematically to examine all of his beliefs. He leaves those that he would call into doubt till he arrived at one of the belief that he may no longer doubt. This explains that evil genius, which seek to cheat him and could not cheat him into thoughts, which he could not exist when indeed he existed.

After determining for certain that he is in existence, when applying the second method of doubt as well as analysis, he also determined that his essence was to be thinking a thing (Kessler, 2000). By use of the third application of the methods, Descartes sets himself to show God’s existence. He can prove some truth if he proves that God exists. He commences by the idea that God is powerful as well as all good. He goes ahead to argue that the idea could not originate from himself. Hence, the idea should have come from God.

From this essence of thinking, Descartes gets satisfied that God exists. However, this reasoning is insufficient to convince persons who have never had that idea about God. These people may argue that because they have no similar ideas, then God is not in existence. Indeed, how can the existence of God be for one person, but not the other? It then follows that God is in existence or not in existence. This argument is convincing to a person that already believes and has faith in God, however; it seems impossible of proving the existence of God to an atheist.

In addition, he says that he believes in God, however; he does not imagine that his being depends on his idea of God. Being that most people do not have believes of the existence of God, may not make Him not to be in existence. This logic seems to be true with the reasoning of Descartes. Just because some people such as Descartes believes that God exists does not imply that God must exist. I look at some concrete modes of prove such as the bible and Jesus Christ to believe that God exists. If God required this to be the guessing of his existence, he should not have presented Jesus as his living testimony.

I may say that philosophy is the worst avenue of establishing ones beliefs on God’s existence. The people’s limited knowledge always transcends by God even Rene Descartes concurs with this (Kessler, 2000). Before Descartes would speculate on the relationship between his body as well as his mind, he has to start by proving the existence of material things. His argument states that God can bring anything into existence. Since knows that God is in existence, it then follows that all the materials exist.

He goes ahead to argue that God is all good and powerful; therefore, he cannot make people’s judgment about this world to be faulty. In this case, Descartes appears to be in the world of evil. God has the power to make the world to be the way He wants, therefore, why should an all good God permit the evils to occur in the world (Kessler, 2000). In conclusion, it is clear from the Voice of Wisdom that God is in existence. This is vividly brought out by Descartes in his arguments. This is because there must be something that brought all the creatures into existence, and that is God.

Descartes may answer this by saying that the one’s idea of the mind may encompass a person’s soul. Rene uses all his philosophical aspects such as Cartesian version to ensure that people understand that God exists. Work Cited Kessler, Gary. Voices of Wisdom. Rutledge: Thomson Publishers. (2000). Print.

Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“How does Descartes Prove that God Exists Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words”, n.d.)
How does Descartes Prove that God Exists Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words. Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/philosophy/1464886-how-does-descartes-prove-that-god-exists
(How Does Descartes Prove That God Exists Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 Words)
How Does Descartes Prove That God Exists Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 Words. https://studentshare.org/philosophy/1464886-how-does-descartes-prove-that-god-exists.
“How Does Descartes Prove That God Exists Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 Words”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/philosophy/1464886-how-does-descartes-prove-that-god-exists.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF How does Descartes Prove that God Exists

Renee Descartes and his Substance Dualism

Secondly, the fact that two objects can be perceived as distinct from each other means that god can make them mutually exclusive, if the two things are capable of existing apart from each other, whether or not they do, then they must be distinct.... Therefore, the mind can be distinctly perceived as a whole autonomous entity that does not pertain to an extension, correspondingly, the body can also be thought of as an extension that pertains to no element of thought meaning that god could enable the two to exist distinctly from each other, ergo the mind and body are distinct from each other....
7 Pages (1750 words) Essay

Dependability of Science Based on Empiricism

To prove his point, Descartes underwent what is commonly referred to as an intellectual rebirth and to achieve this he had to deconstruct everything he had learnt from birth since he had leant it through his senses and he wanted to prove that they could deceive.... Similarly, he makes an argument about whether God actually exists or whether a deceiving demon or evil genius manipulates humans.... The focus of the paper "Modern Philosophy" is on descartes's argument, mind and body to bond, descartes Cartesian dualism, assumption, instructor Date From antiquity to contemporary times, Rene descartes, a critical factor that emerges, from antiquity to contemporary times....
5 Pages (1250 words) Essay

Descartes Third Meditation: Proving the Existence of God

This allows him to analyze with absolute confidence that god made him, and hence that all he knows 'clearly' and 'distinctly' to be factual, is factual.... hellip; The premise of Descartes in the Third Meditation on the existence of God is a form of a cosmological premise, progressing from a conditional basis about what exists to the final assumption that this is not likely to exist if not were 'caused to exist by God'.... The focus of the paper "Descartes' Third Meditation: Proving the Existence of god" is on the Third Meditation, god's existence, method of doubt, the arguments of Descartes, his evidence or 'proof', several central realities about the universe, the dilemmas simultaneously....
6 Pages (1500 words) Essay

Descartess Arguments Regarding the Existence of God

By arguing that god exists because the idea of God is too difficult to conceive of unless God actually exists, Descartes seems to suggest that it is impossible to imagine connections between ideas such as metaphor or hyperbole.... By arguing the god exists, he believes he has saved knowledge from radical skepticism, and therefore such things as the cogito and simple mathematics can therefore begin to be extended to the material world.... What things remain… Do you agree that he salvages the foundations of knowledge that he undercut using Method of Doubt? Descartes's argument regarding the existence of God in the Meditations comes in the framework of his larger philosophical project in which he attempts to establish a Adrian Musiuk Josh Keton CORC 1210/ MW8 Topic Descartes eventually proposes that god's necessary existence allows him to be free of doubt with respect to many things....
3 Pages (750 words) Essay

Rene Descartes Philosophy

In fuller conclusion the issues of doubt are brought up, he says, “underthought, I embrace all that which is in us so that we are immediately aware of it, a thing which exists thinks is a thing which doubts, understands….... hus, anything that exists has properties but must be subject to some skeptic before making an informed judgment and acknowledging its, existence.... Since this person has the premise that what his eyes sees is in fact real (or existing) it means that he knows that the bottle exists....
4 Pages (1000 words) Essay

Arguments for the Existence of God from a Philosophical Context

This implies that in Anselms views, a wise and a good person will be one who can go into himself, evaluate things and see and accept that god exists and have a feeling of his attributes and features which are not so obvious or clear to the average mortal.... Finally, Anselm argues that there must exist one thing that every existing things exists through.... The existence of god is a question that has been proposed for thousands of years and continuing debate with huge number of people from both sides of dispute....
6 Pages (1500 words) Essay

Does God Exist

These two argue that god exists.... Apathies' concerns are those ones which believe regarding practical importance on whether god exists.... Immanuel Kant argued also for the existence of God, he deduced his support from the fact that the existence of good implies god exists.... It says that god's existence is presented with a fairly large probability though not with absolute certainty (Foundations of beef, 1895).... This essay "Does god Exist" focuses on arguments for and against god's existence that can be categorized as metaphysical, logical, empirical or subjective....
7 Pages (1750 words) Essay

Philosophy by Nietzsche and Kant

His main focus is to prove that god exists.... In the Third Meditation, Descartes endeavors to demonstrate that god (i) exists, (ii) is the reason for the force of the mediator by the creator of his inclination as a reasoning thing and the reason for the meditators presence both as inventor and conserver.... Discard shows that god is present in our minds always.... In this chapter, he ends by proofing that god is not a deceiver....
8 Pages (2000 words) Assignment
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us