Descartes's firmly believed in God's existence and perfection. He thought that since God is perfect in his mind, God has to exist. How could a perfect idea exist in the mind of an imperfect being (Descarte's believed only God to be perfect and everything else imperfect)? The only way "an imperfect being" could think of the idea of a "perfect being" would be if a perfect being existed and enabled our minds to think of perfection. Thus, Descartes reasoned God must exist. Descartes's says in the middle of paragraph 4, "To this I added that, since I knew of some perfections that I did not posess, I was not the only being that existed, but that of necessity there must be something else more perfect, upon which I depended, and from which I had acquired all that I had." This brings up the topic of how Descartes believed every existence is dependent on God. At the end of Paragraph 4 Descartes says, "....if there are bodies in the world, or even intelligences or other natures that were not at all entirely perfect, their being had to depend on God's power in such wise that they could not subsist without God for a single moment." One can definately see how important the truth that God exists was to Descartes's method. His philosophy was dependent on God's existence.
-Lindsay
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4 comments:
I also saw how Gods existence really made all of Descartes arguments. Also how he has based every aspect in his studies on how God is perfect.
To Kate: yes, Descartes bases all his arguments on God's existence. Without God's existence, he would have nothing to reason. That is probably why he wrote a whole book, Meditations, trying to prove God's existence.
okay, so what's the hard question to ask D? how is God at the basis of a theory of knowledge? isn't that strange?
yeah, that is exactly the question we have to ask Descartes. I am sure he would have an explanation too. I wonder if he was writing this book in this time period if he would have written the book differently. Maybe like you mentioned in class God is a representation for something else. Maybe he would explain "God" to us in a way that his book would make sense to those who doubt the religious "God".
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