Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Philosophy Descartes Meditation Three Descartes Meditation Three This paper is intended to explain and evaluate Descartes’ proof for the existence of god in Meditation Three. It shall show the weaknesses in the proof, but also give credit to the strengths in his proof. It will give a background of what Descartes has already accepted as what he truly knows. The paper will also state Descartes two major points for the existence of God and why the points can easily be proven false. The paper will also show that if a God does exist that God can in fact be an evil deceiver. The paper will also show that the idea of a perfect being cannot be conceived by an imperfect being. Descartes starts the meditation by saying what he has already learned in the first two meditations. He states all that he affirms as what he truly knows, “I am a thinking thing, that is to say, which doubts which affirms, which denies, which knows a few things, which is ignorant of many, which loves which hates, which wills, which rejects, which imagines also, and which senses” (33 lines19-22 Descartes, Lafleur) Descartes then states that he wishes to extend his knowledge through knowledge in his own self. He judges things that he once knew as fact to possibly now be doubtful and uncertain and that all his prior knowledge could have just been a work from a deceitful God. If then he wishes to learn from within himself and a deceitful God does in fact exist how can he affirm any knowledge within himself or even any knowledge he has affirmed through his meditations? If ideas that he once had now seemed uncertain then does that not mean all he knows can just be a work of a deceitful God, if of course a God does exist. Descartes after saying he wishes to learn more within him and wants to prove to a level of certainty that God does in fact exist. His first major point is a valid one in that something cannot proceed from nothing. Considering this statement a God could very well exist as a creator, but Descartes states that God is a perfect being and further describes God as follows, “I conceive a supreme God, eternal, infinite, immutable, omnipotent, an the universal creator of all things that exist outside of himself.” (39 lines 8-11 Descartes, Lafleur) Although this statement does reflect that God is a creator, it also states that God is eternal, infinite, immutable, and omnipotent. Someone can’t assume that because you are a creator you are also eternal, infinite, immutable, and omnipotent. Is that to say if you can create life you are also eternal, infinite, immutable, and omnipotent. Furthermore an argument can be made that if something cannot come from nothing, then what or who made God? Descartes tries to answer this question by saying that God created himself, but wouldn’t this in fact prove that spontaneous generation can happen leading to the fact that something can come from nothing thus negating the existence of God. Descartes claims that God is all-powerful and completely good, yet gives no proof that God is good. If of course Descartes’ belief is accepted. You assume that God does exist and that he is all powerful and that the idea of a perfect being does exist only because God put that idea there, then what is to say God is not an evil deceiver who can put any thought that God wishes you to think inside your head. What is to stop an all-powerful being, such as God, from doing as he wishes to you? Throughout human history it has been proven all to many times that everyone who has ever had power, has in one way or another, used that power to hurt someone else. What is to say that God would not do the same thing? If God created man, then wouldn’t all likenesses of man be derived directly from God? If all ideas come from the mind, and the idea of a perfect being was put there by God then what is to say that God would not put any ideas that he wishes just to deceive you. If Descartes had focused more on why God isn’t an evil deceiver then the proof of a God as Descartes explains would be a lot more acceptable Descartes second argument that God exists is that since he exists God must exist. He starts this argument out with a question, “From who do I derive my existence? There are four possible answers: from myself, or from my parents, or from some source less perfect from God, or from God.”(135 lines 11-14 Pearl) Descartes believes if he can demonstrate that he could not have been derived from the first three sources, he will have, given the truth of the casual principle proved God’s existence. (135 lines 15-18 Pearl) He admits that his parents were at least part of the cause, but then says he can continue to live without them. He goes on to say that the same power is required to keep someone in existence as to create him for the first time. This is a very valid point but the idea that your parents create you can be combined with Descartes’ idea that he is his own creator. He admits that he could not possibly be his own creator because he would had made himself in the likeness of a perfect being, in so making himself God. But, if you say that Descartes was created by his parents and sustained by his self, it eliminates the idea of needing God to exist or to be created. Descartes goes on to explain his third conceivable idea that some being other than himself is conserving his existence. He says that the being would have to be not self-existent or self-created otherwise why not make yourself a perfect being such as god. For that reason God, a self-existent, self-created being, must have created the being. Because God would have been self created it brings up the possibility of spontaneous generation and evolution. An idea that has already been brought up within this paper. Descartes states that he has an idea of a perfect being, an idea that has been placed in him by an infinite being, even if you have been given an idea of a perfect being from God it would be impossible for an imperfect being to know what a perfect being actually is. It is impossible for an imperfect being to have an idea of a perfect being because only a perfect being knows exactly what to envision as a perfect being. “Descartes claims to find in himself, among his other ideas, the idea of an infinitely perfect being. As a mode of a finite mind, this idea can have only finite ‘formal’ reality, or reality as what it is. However, as the idea of an infinitely perfect being, it has infinite objective reality: that is, its object is infinitely real. For Descartes seems to have no plausible way of defending the crucial principle that the cause of an idea must have as much formal reality as the idea has objective reality. There is of course the problem of what exactly determines the degree of objective reality an idea possesses.” (137 lines 1-7, 16-20 Wilson) “Descartes states at the end of meditation three that God cannot be a deceiver because he is a perfect being, but to remove the deceiver hypothesis we must rely on something the hypothesis says we cannot rely on. Thus, if the idea of God’s omnipotence provides us with reason for doubting our mathematical intuitions, it seems to provide us with exactly the same reason for doubting any other intuition, including further intuitions about God himself.” (131-132 lines 37-40, 1-2 Wilson) In conclusion Descartes, who may have been highly educated in his time, cannot compete with what modern science has shown for proof of evolution and the idea of spontaneous generation. Descartes perception and proof falls well short of bringing concrete evidence that God does indeed exist in the way as Descartes describes. Perhaps if Descartes wouldn’t have so quickly jumped to the conclusion that God exists and accepted through the rest of his writings then he may have been able to find more solid proof that God indeed exists in one form or another. Although it is very easy to dismiss the existence of God there is truly only one way to know for sure, and I’m positive that by now Descartes knows for sure whether or not God exists. Bibliography: Word Count: 1435
Copyright © 2005 College Term Papers, INC All Rights Reserved.