Introduction
Rene Descartes is known for his ontological argumentation in support of the existence of God. However, there are several issues with the view of the omnipotent and perfect God. For example, atheists appeal to the idea that if God existed, he would strive to prevent human suffering and catastrophes that cause people’s deaths. This essay will argue against Descartes’ view and discuss the Evil Demon and Cartesian Circle.
Main body
The weakest argument of Descartes regarding theism is from premise one to premise two because, in these arguments, he argues that God is a perfect being, and this perfection makes it impossible for him to not exist. Generally, Descartes’s philosophy is based on the approach of doubt. He doubted everything, and things or ideas that he could not subject to doubt were considered certain knowledge. However, atheists and critical thinkers have subjected Descartes’ reasoning to doubt as to the omnipotence of God, and his goodness does not reflect in the suffering that humans experience.
In Descartes’ view, God’s existence is linked to the view of God as a perfect and omnipotent being. Due to God being such a perfect being, he must exist rather than not be true. Additionally, Descartes reviews the existence of God from the viewpoint of formal and subjective reality. In essence, because Descartes has had an idea of God, this means that God is an Infinite Substance because the idea of an omnipotent being could not have emerged in his mind on its own. However, the causal properties effect, or the idea that one thing that has a certain property can create or impose the same properties on another thing.
Under Descartes’ view, properties cannot emerge on their own. An example of this is something that is hot, which must have been heated by an object that possesses the same property or heat. However, in the real world, this is not always the case, as some objects have different properties from the ones that the object made to create them possesses. Hence, Descartes’ idea of an omnipotent being that planted the idea of God’s existence into the philosopher’s mind is also not true. This idea of God’s existence is a property, and it might have emerged on itself or as a cause of other processes, such as an attempt to reason about human existence or some events.
However, if God did exist and was omnipotent, as Descartes describes, some major catastrophes would not happen, and humans would not suffer. However, Stich and Donaldson provide some examples of how this approach can be refuted, for example, by presenting the theists’ argument that humans cannot understand God’s reasoning and why certain things happen (71). While this argument has some valid ground, it is still based more on a belief rather than logical reasoning. An argument against Descartes’ approach to theism, therefore, is the inability to reason the existence of human suffering, deaths, and catastrophes with the image of a good and omnipotent being.
The Evil Demon story is about a supernatural evil being that has the power to deceive and mislead people. Hence, a person may be deceived by this creature into thinking or doing something that, if the fact, does not exist in reality. This example was used by Descartes to argue that one cannot truly possess knowledge as one cannot be sure that their reality and understanding are not subjected to the Evil Demon’s influence. The Evil Demon is first mentioned in Descartes’s “Meditations of First Philosophy,” published in 1641. The Evil Demon is also sometimes referred to as the Cartesian Demon, and Descartes used this character to illustrate his method of subjecting everything to doubts.
The Cartesian Circle is a reasoning approach that Descartes uses to prove the existence of God.
Hence, Descartes’ approach to reasoning about God’s existence is linked to an innate idea about the latter’s existence. However, this argument is not correct, as there are other explanations that can help understand why the idea of God exists. This reasoning is based on the idea of two finite substances, which are one’s mind and matter. However, Descartes makes a fallacy assuming that God exists because this idea is present in the philosopher’s mind as he has never encountered or could experience the presence of this divine being. This is because some things may exist only in a person’s mind or imagination while not being true in reality. Hence, although convincing at first glance, Descartes’ ideas and reasoning about God can be refuted.
Summary
In summary, this paper examines Descartes’s arguments regarding God. In the philosopher’s view, an idea of God as property has to be derived from something. Therefore, only the existence of God as an omnipotent being explains why humans believe in the existence of God. However, Descartes’ approach can be critiqued, for example, by arguing against God’s omnipotence or his good intentions towards humanity, which can be proven through the existence of catastrophes and other tragedies.
Work Cited
Stich, Steven and Tom Donaldson. Philosophy: Asking Questions–Seeking Answers. 2018.