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René Descartes: Third Meditation

Contra Argument to the Existence of God

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René Descartes: Third Meditation
René Descartes’ third meditation on the existence of God is an ironclad structure of rational ideas that almost seems impossible to infiltrate. The seventeenth-century philosopher’s method of proof leaves little room for argument; after meticulously studying all plausible causes for his idea of God he concludes that God could have been the only source of his idea, therefore God exists. The deductive reasoning Descartes follows stems from his ambition of wanting to prove everything solely by reason; rationalist philosophers such as Descartes completely discredited anything that stemmed from the senses. After having discarded all information given to him through the senses as untrustworthy, Descartes found that he knew nothing. The mere fact that he doubted himself led him to conclude that there at least existed a being that doubted, thus as a being he existed (hence, the infamous saying “Cogito ergo, sum,” “I think, therefore I am.”). The methodology Descartes follows throughout his meditation may be simplified in the following manner:

1. I think, therefore I am.
2. The notion of a perfect being exists in me.
3. It is not plausible for an imperfect being, to have invented the notion of a perfect being.
4. The notion of a perfect being must have originated from the perfect being itself.
5. A perfect being must exist in order to be perfect.
6. Therefore, a perfect being exists.

Descartes’ third meditation fails to prove the existence of God because his axioms are dubious. The purpose of this essay is to consider these doubts; it is not to discount the methodology used. Descartes’ methodology is solid and has been intentionally formulated in a manner that limits disagreement, but only at first; the foundations upon which the argument is based are fallible. Through the scientific method and rational reasoning (all while discarding information available from the senses) we will attempt to raze the foundations upon which his argument is supported thus proving that his claim of God’s existence is incomplete and by all means imperfect. To do so, we will look prior to the following assertions which for all means of clarity we consider concrete:

1. The distinction between innate, adventitious and invented ideas
2. Objective reality in contrast to formal reality
3. Substance, mode and accident
4. Infinite and finite substances
5. Causation

Prior to our investigation of countering the foundation of Descartes’ argument we must initially input the doubts his truths give rise to. In terms of his first axiom we can agree that we exist because we are thinking beings, however his second postulation inaugurates numerous doubtful thoughts. The idea that a perfect being is innate in all of our minds is a supposition; what if we presume that God failed to implement his image into the minds’ of some of us? We cannot possibly assume that from birth and on all of us innately carry the representation of a perfect being, because perfection can only be anticipated by the reality of imperfection. In context with his third proposition, we would have to claim that the only way in which an imperfect being can carry the notion of a perfect being is only through experience and knowledge acquisition (this notion would always be close to perfection, but never utterly perfect). Descartes would argue that as finite substances, we would not be able to be the cause of an idea that contains infinite objective reality. This is true in its context, but Descartes fails to question his own subjectivity; he evades the element of doubt that he states as the institution of his existence. Descartes’ image of a perfect being is still in fact imperfect; he fails to realize that his notion of a perfect being is only an imperfect notion 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.” (Descartes 94). The image of a perfect being has been invented by him due to the imperfectness he has discovered within his own being. In addition, it becomes evident that the notion of a perfect being is susceptible to all of our finite ideas. The ‘perfect being’ cannot possibly be a notion that constitutes the same attributes from person to person (thus it could have not been registered into our minds by God) because if it was, no entity would ever question the existence or elements of a perfect being; rather we would just accept its existence. Therefore, since the notion of a perfect being is not an objective idea and since it varies from entity to entity, this implies that the perfect being that Descartes proves to exist in his theorem is in fact not perfect. The fact that there are multiple versions of the perfect being amongst all of us, suggests that our ideas are in fact imperfect; for a truly perfect and infinite notion could only exist in one pure form. The fourth axiom that Descartes proposes is valid in its reasoning, however it is based on former axioms that have been discredited. Descartes’ perfect being through his methodology is truly not perfect in form. He weighs his argument to his advantage by implementing ‘boundaries’ throughout his meditation indicated as 1) the distinction amid ideas, 2) objective reality and formal reality, 3) substance, mode and accident, 4) and the law of causation. The causal principle (which implies that someone cannot get something from nothing) is central to his proof of God’s existence and is in fact also void; for a perfect being should not be limited by boundaries such as space, matter, or time. The elements of an infinite entity and its perfection imply that nothing is represented as finite towards its being.

Furthermore, prior to Descartes’ assertions that helped develop his methodology he claims that “…I now seem to be able to lay it down as a general rule that whatever I perceive very clearly and distinctly is true.” (Descartes 87) Descartes lays the foundation of his theory by declaring the following.

“…when I turn to the things themselves which I think I perceive very clearly, I am so convinced by them that I spontaneously declare: let whoever can do so deceive me, he will never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I continue to think I am something; or make it true at some future time that I have never existed, since it is now true that I exist; or bring it about that two and three added together are more or less than five, or anything of this kind in which I see manifest contradiction.” (Descartes 88)

In response to his declaration it is our duty to suggest that although two and three will always equal five, there are numerous ways in order to get to five without using two and three as factors in the equation. The problem that exists within Descartes’ theorem is not necessarily evident by the equation or methodology used to prove his hypothesis, but rather that he neglects the fact that there may be more than one route to verify his hypothesis. The scientific method, which is the best way yet to discover the truth from lies and delusions, implies that in order to formulate a hypothesis into a theorem, the hypothesis must be tested until there are no discrepancies between the theory and the observation. In note of this, we do not necessarily have to use two and three to get to five because we may also attempt to take away one from six, or add four to one, or to take the square root of twenty-five; there are an infinite number of ways to get to a certain answer, not only one. This in turn implies that some routes to five are less arduous than others; the answer may not always be as ‘clear and distinct’ as one would have hoped it would be.

Looking back at the claim we made that the square root of twenty-five equals five, we are astonished by another finding. The answer to any square root does not only expose one answer, but two; a negative and a positive number. Therefore the square root of twenty-five equals both a positive and a negative five. If we were to apply this concept via the use of reason to prove the existence of God, we would now conclude that God is as probable to exist as He is improbable. Therefore the hypothesis that Descartes suggests of the existence of God rumbles within its own foundations. The possibility of two different and completely opposite solutions for a problem ultimately implies that through deductive reasoning and mathematical consistency, the hypothesis that God exists could never be undisputedly proven. Moreover, it seems that no hypothesis can be undisputedly proven without the consideration of other ways of knowing; when reason and logic fail it perhaps may be our senses that operate as tools helping us perceive and choose what is true from what is false. Ultimately it seems evermore certain that any truth is somehow metaphysical in nature; as finite beings we are limited to our perception of the metaphysical and thus no matter how hard we look for the truth, we can never be certain that we have found it.

Works Cited

Cottingham, John, Robert Stoothoff and Dugald Murdoch. Descartes. Selected Philosophical Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Crabtree, Vexen. Confused Religious Ethics. 5 May. 1999. 28 Nov. 2004 http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/ethics.html

Gijsbers, Victor. Theistic Arguments: Descartes’ God-Claim. 27 Nov. 2004 http://www.positiveatheism.org/faq/descartes.htm

Newman, Lex. Descartes’ Epistemology. 1999. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 28 Nov. 2004 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-epistemology/

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