Descartes Proof of God

6 Pages 1512 Words

Truth is the goal of philosophy. Some philosophers, like David Hume, struggle with eliminating falsity, while others, like Rene Descartes, look for causes to explain effects. A cause and effect argument is called a causal argument. Descartes is interested in logic, one truth progressing to the next.

Descartes gives a causal argument for the existence of God in Meditation III. He deals with the effect of the idea of absolute perfection in our minds and rationalizes that the cause is God, therefore proving the existence of God.

Descartes believes there are two types of reality: objective and formal.. The degree of reality depends on the degree of independence. The more independent, the higher the degree of reality. For example, consider a car and a dent in the car. You could take the dent away from the car and still have the essence of the car, but you cannot take the car away from the dent and still have the essence of the dent. The dent is dependent upon the car for its existence. Therefore, the car is more formally real because it is more independent.

Now consider the is an idea of absolute perfection. This idea is too great for one’s mind to create or even conceive. Therefore the idea must have come from somewhere. It must have been placed there by an absolutely perfect being before our being, our existence. You could think of this like how a potter puts his tumbprint in a pot as an indicator of who made it. This absolutely perfect being has absolute knowledge. He puts this idea of absolute perfection into our minds.

Descartes starts with the effect of the idea of absolute perfection in our minds and tries to discover the cause of it. He believes in cause and effect, and therefore the idea must be explained. Through this type of logic, he deduces that since the concept of absolute perfection is so great, only an absolutely perfect being could fully grasp it. Following in this line of reasoning, only one who understands t...