The first step Descartes takes to proving God is to classify his thoughts. He defines the term “idea” as not only an image of something, but usually as a combined image and emotion or judgement. A lion for example would conjure up the image of a lion, and possibly a fear of the lion chasing and attacking you. He decides ideas themselves cannot be false. The idea of a donkey has as much truth as that of a unicorn. The falsity is in the judging of ideas and their likeness to the what is really 'out there'. This is where he is likely to go wrong. Descartes also classifies ideas into categories: innate, adventitious and fictitious. Innate ideas are those present in us from birth. Adventitious ideas are those that originate from outside us, such as the heat we feel from fire. Fictitious ideas are those made up, like unicorns. The ideas he gets from outside are questionable however, and he takes note of this. The only way he can be sure that what he perceives representing what is really there is by the “natural light of reason”. When something is revealed through this a shadow of doubt cannot be cast. He is saying that the adventitious ideas do not just depend on what is outside him, but also they depend on his will, or judgement. Our ideas depend upon both, for us to be able to form an idea with any truth behind it. The example Descartes gives is the sun. When I view the sun, it appears very small. But from “astronomical reasoning”, the fact I know the sun is very far from earth and therefore much larger than I can comprehend. The idea of the sun with the most truth behind it is of course the latter, as it has reason behind it.
The next step Descartes takes is to divide reality into categories: objective and formal. Objective reality is the reality of ideas, and formal reality is that of what is outside our mind. There is also eminent reality, and this is the reality of God. For example, if you had a dream about the film Pocahontas, which was based on a real person. The film could be said to hold more reality than this dream, and the person Pocahontas herself would hold more reality than the film – if she never existed then nor would the film or the dream. Descartes similarly believed that God holds most reality, without that we would not have the real and physical world, and in turn without this we would not have ideas about this world. These realities clearly have an one-directional effect on one another, and Descartes can conclude that the cause of an idea must have as much reality, if not more, than the idea. He puts this theory to the test, asking whether he could have come to exist without God.
Descartes writes this off as impossible. If he was the cause of his own existence, then he wouldn't want or lack anything, and this perfection would in turn make him God. Nor was he created by his parents, as they too have an original source and this source is God. He concludes that his ideas of what defines God; unity, perfection, omnipotence and so on all must have a cause in something with as much reality as Descartes idea of God. The source of this idea can only be God, therefore Descartes has proved his existence. In creating Descartes, God put the idea of Himself into Descartes, comparable to a craftsman putting a trademark onto his work.
A key issue with Descartes theory is that his argument could be called circular. The 'Cartesian circle' problem is as follows: Descartes claims we can only be sure of our clear and distinct perceptions if God exists and we can only know that God exists because we clearly and distinctly perceive the idea of God. If both statements are true, Descartes is guilty of circular reasoning. Descartes could reply with the 'Cartesian spiral' argument. This suggests that the clear and distinct perceptions that we perceive, such as 2+3=5, differ from our clear and distinct idea of God. The former could be disproved if God was to make 2+3=6 somehow, but the idea of God exists as an idea in itself, and cannot be made false.
Another assumption Descartes makes is the idea of God. The characteristic of perfection that he associates with God is not likely to be innate, surely perfection can only be understood when imperfection is comprehended. As an imperfect being, experience and acquisition of knowledge are required to understand perfection. Descartes’ image of a perfect being is still imperfect, due to his mortality. There is no possible way for a finite being to grasp the notion of an imperfect being, as he claims in contradiction “…it is in the nature of the infinite not to be grasped by a finite being like myself.” Also, the idea of a perfect being would vary from person to person, as it can only be grasped at through our own knowledge. Finally, if God placed the idea of a perfect being in us then the idea would be so perfect that we would not question it.
Hobbes made the objection that there Descartes assumes the link between his idea of God and the real source of the world, or at least his ideas. If you take a blind man, for example, who can feel heat from a fire. He has never seen a fire but he can conclude it exists and puts a name to it. Descartes does something similar, he has the idea of God and assumes that a real God is the source. If the blind man felt heat from another source, he may assume it was a fire, but it could in fact be a radiator that is its source.
“By the word “God” I understand a substance that is infinite, independent, supremely intelligent, supremely powerful, the creator of myself and of anything else that may exist. The more carefully I concentrate on these attributes, the less possible it seems that any of them could have originated from me alone. So this whole discussion implies that God necessarily exists.” Hobbes again points out problems in Descartes terminology. All these attributes can be explained by our own experience and reason. For example, there is nothing innate about 'infinite' if I cannot imagine the boundaries of something without something beyond it. This does not necessarily conjure up the idea of God, it comes merely from the awareness have of boundaries. Descartes replies that his idea of God is such that if he did exist, there would be nothing that existed that he did not create. So none of the attributes that Hobbes claims could be from his own experience could exist without God. Again Descartes is letting himself in for another circular argument.
Descartes argument, on the surface seems infallible, due to his reasoning and getting from proposition to conclusion. However, due to the nature of the argument, it contains vague concepts that are difficult to prove true or false. It is difficult to argue with 'the natural light of reason'. Descartes is using this, as well as 'clear and distinct' ideas as a float on his sea of doubt that he has cast on everything. It is fair to say that our ideas must have a formal reality behind them, but the idea of God – which comes down to some vague adjectives – does not necessarily come from the original source of the universe.
Works cited:
Biffle, Christopher, A Guided Tour of Rene Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy, Mayfield Publishing, 2000
Cottingham, John, Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy, Cambridge, 2002
Cottingham, John, Objections to Descartes’s Meditations, and his Replies, p.38-50
www.jstor.org
www.sparknotes.com/
www.scribd.com/
www.articles.directorym.com
www.philosophypages.com
Cottingham, John, Objections to Descartes’s Meditations, and his Replies, p.38-50
www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/meditations/
Cottingham, John, Objections to Descartes’s Meditations, and his Replies, p.38-50
