Descartes on God Essay

Rene Descartes is a famous French philosopher and is considered as the Father of Rationalism. The aim of his school of thought was to catch in a self-coloured foundation for knowledge. In order to gain in this, he used a method called the Methodic distrust w herein he doubted the senses, mathematics, and even the domain of perfection. It was only until he arrived with a solid entity called the cogito was Descartes fit to discover the center of his mankind. Upon finding this center, he was able to use this entity as a means into explaining the populace of the occasions he previously doubted.In regards to proving the introduction of immortal, we need to tackle offset wherefore Descartes unavoidable to doubt the existence of beau ideal. This was a very important step in his school of thought because the theories in his philosophy would fox a sounder foundation if he was going to use them to explain the existence of God. As what was stated above, Descartes used the M ethodic Doubt in order to arrive with the cogito and say his phrase cogito ergo correspond or I think therefore I am. This cogito exists in a meta somatogenetic plane because Descartes believed that everything that existed in the visible cosmea were not real.The reasons why he had to doubt the physical world include the f enactment that the senses cheat on us. Examples of these are a pencil which gives the illusion of bending after placing it in a glass of water. Others include dreams which a person would consider to be so real until they wake up in bed. And finally, everything in this world is subject to change which he presented after burning a parting of wax and then asking if the residue of the wax is still considered as wax. by and by doubting the senses, he soon went to doubt the validity of the physical world.In order to do this, he asserted that there is a malevolent demon that would deceive us into believing that what we perceive is real. today that he was able to di scard god as the foundation of avowedly knowledge, we now shifts his focus to the cogito. However, macrocosm left with the cogito could lead to solipsism, a put on wherein a person believes that only the individual exists, since everything existed except the cogito. So Descartes needed to prove the existence of God in order to validate the existence of the physical world and free his philosophy from the perils of solipsism.Descartes gave some arguments that led to his proofs of the existence of god. His first proof dealt with the nature of ideas. He classified different kinds of ideas such as those that are inherent in a person and those that were acquire through experience. Being rationalists, he considered ideas cause by the experience dubitable since they do arise from the senses, which he discarded as the means for a clear and distinct idea. So, he shifted his focus to innate ideas, or ideas that have been with a person since birth, and placed the idea of god under this c lassification.Now, Descartes asked from where these innate ideas came. It cannot be from nothingness since something cannot spring out of nothing. In addition, a blameless idea like that of god cannot come from a less consummate(a) world and so he concluded that there was a first cause that placed the idea of a supreme macrocosm in my mind. This argument of Descartes can be compared with that of Saint Augustines first cause. However, the difference of opinion here is that the arguments of Saint Augustine dealt with motion and change within the physical world.Descartes arguments on the some other had, tackle solely with ides and from where they came from. In addition to the argument of a first mover, Descartes was able to prove the existence of god through his proclaim mortality. He asked himself how a person could think of an in mortal being, such as god, if there is nothing to compare this form of existence with anything. It is from his own finite existence that he is able t o create a distinction betwixt the two modes of existence and prove the existence of an infinite and perfect being that is outside him.His next argument was derived from Saint Anselms ontological argument. Here, Descartes tries to rationalize his argument through describing a triangle. Whenever we would think of a triangle, the first thing that would enter our minds are its attributes, i. e. that it has three sides, all its angles have a integral of 180 degrees, etc. Just like whenever we would think of the idea of god, we would commonly first think of his attributes which are being omniscient, all-knowing, etc.The difference here is hat although we are able to think of a triangle, thinking close one does not necessarily entail its existence. On the other hand, to think of god as a perfect and infinite being must entail that he does exists for to say that a perfect being does not exists would mean that we are depriving god of one attribute and then making him less perfect. So g iven this argument, Descartes asserts that existence is needed for matinee idol for there would be a major contradiction within the assurance of a perfect being that is lacking of any attribute.Finally, Descartes finally says that this god cannot be a deceiving god which he assumed in the beginning. This god cannot be a deceiver for this attribute cannot be found in a perfect being such as god because the act of deceiving someone arises from a sure defect. Upon proving the existence of god, Descartes was able to expand this philosophy by proving the existence of a separate world. He was able to do this by stating that the physical world exists since man was given a certain contention in order to perceive the world.This inclination was given to us by god and we must believe that the world is true for god would not deceive us with this special inclination that he has given. After reading the proofs of Descartes, I would have to say that his arguments are very solid and logical tha t it would be hard to think otherwise. However, my only problem with Descartes philosophy is that he used the cogito as a scapegoat to all the problems that he encountered. What Descartes would do is that from the cogito he would begin to explain certain things such as god and the physical world.He would then explore these ideas but when he begins to run of way to explain his arguments he would go back to the cogito. AN congresswoman here would be when he tried to explain the existence of the physical world. He simply had to rely on the existence of god and that the inclination he gave man to believe that this world is true. This explanation, to me, seems more as a matter of faith in god as a non-deceiving being rather than a rational explanation.