Sunday, October 14, 2012
The Role of God
Descartes attempts to prove God's existence in Meditation III in order to rule out the possibility of an evil genius and to ensure that everything he clearly and distinctly perceives to be true is in fact true. Without discussing the merits of the argument (which we only summarized in class), discuss the role of the existence of God in Descartes' project. Assuming he can prove God's existence, can God guarantee the truth of clear and distinct ideas? Can God guarantee sense perception? Is it wise that God plays such a prominent role in his project?
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In his attempt to prove God’s existence, Descartes seeks to legitimize what he clearly and distinctly perceives to be true. Without accomplishing this task Descartes questions whether he “can ever be certain of anything”. Assuming Descartes was successful in dispelling any ideas of God as a deceiver; Descartes can guarantee what he clearly and distinctly perceives to be the absolute truth because he believes that God is the creator of such beliefs. If God, as described by Descartes, existed in all of his goodness he could not possibly put false beliefs into our minds because such fallacies could not stem from God’s perfection. Rather these false beliefs must be derived from a different source, such as our senses. Descartes describes the difference between how we see the sun and how we perceive it in our mind; which are two very different views. God’s nature is good; therefore he must only create truth and thus the true representation of the sun in our mind. On the other hand, our eyes deceive us into thinking the sun is much smaller than it actually is, an idea that we know cannot possibly be true. Descartes claims that the idea of his God “is innate, in the same way as is the idea of myself”. While he cannot be positive of why God exists, he knows God is a more reliable source of truth than his own senses.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like when Descartes reaches the point that he can no longer explain the unexplainable, he points to God as his evidence; which I believe is risky. I do not think that it is wise for Descartes to rely so heavily on God to affirm what he clearly and distinctly perceives to be true. Descartes claims that God legitimizes these true beliefs while his senses can deceive him and create illusions. However in order to prove God’s existence Descartes claims that he simply knows of his existence like he knows of his own existence; he clearly and distinctly perceives God to exist. This creates the main problem with Descartes’s reliance on God, the Cartesian Circle. By creating the Cartesian Circle, Descartes’s argument becomes circular and thus never concretely proving his God or what he perceives to be true.
According to Descartes project, proof of God is necessary in order for us to posses any knowledge. In Descartes model, we only know things if we can clearly and distinctly perceive them. However, in order to know that what we clearly and distinctly perceive is accurate, we must be sure that we are not being deceived by some all-powerful deceiver, meaning we must prove that the traditional, almighty, supremely good God exists.
ReplyDeleteIf Descartes is able to prove God’s existence, he is able to prove that there is truth behind his clear and distinct ideas. Descartes makes the claim that all of our ideas come from God. Furthermore, God is a supremely good being, and therefore he must only create the truth. Therefore, all of our ideas must be true because God would not let us believe things that are false.
However, It does not follow from this that everything we perceive is true. When we perceive things, we have the option of whether or not we would like to believe in these perceptions, knowing that they are not guaranteed truths from God. Additionally, it is very possible that our perceptions themselves deceive us, because they have done so before. For example, when we are in a dream our senses make it seem like we are not sleeping. Ultimately, God cannot prevent our senses from deceiving us because he also presents us with the truth and we have the choice as to which we will base our beliefs upon.
I personally believe that it is not very wise that God plays such a prominent role in Descartes’ project. In Descartes’ model, it is necessary to prove the existence of God in order to prove that we know anything, other than our own existence. First, this is risky because Descartes really does not have a way to prove the existence of God because he is trapped in his circle of reasoning and it seems improbable that he will be able to escape the circle and firmly prove God’s existence. Additionally, even if Descartes were to somehow reason out the existence of God through establishing that everything he perceives is accurate, I personally believe that there is no way for us to firmly establish the existence of God. God is not a tangible being, and we will never be able to acquire more proof as to whether or not he exists. Ultimately, I do not find it very wise of Descartes to base his beliefs upon the existence of a being that is not tangible, and who’s existence we will never truly be able to prove.
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ReplyDeleteOnce (/if) Descartes proves God's existence as the omniscient, omnipresent, completely infallible God that he religiously is accustomed to, Descartes is able to pin down the answer to the question of why he perceives things (perceives, but not necessarily clearly and distinctly) that are incorrect. These incorrect beliefs must stem from another, more fallible source, such as the senses, which only come indirectly from God (God created us and created our faculties of senses, but he did not guarantee that we would use these senses without error. Of course, this brings up the logical next question of "if God created human beings and God is perfect, why aren't human beings perfect?"
ReplyDeleteAs for whether or not it is wise for Descartes to place so much emphasis in this argument onto the existence of God, I believe that this is a moot point, as there seems to be no other possible way of justifying his arguments and taking the next step in te process without this intermediate step of the existence of God. Perhaps it is possible to poke holes in Descartes's proof of God's existence, and say that it is possible that God does not exist at all or does not exist in the state that Descartes describes. But if this is the case, then Descartes's has indeed failed and there's no reason to bother reading or discussing it any further. In other words, Descartes makes this step because he has to and there are no other ways around it. Either we can take him at face value and assume for the sake of argument that he is correct, or we can throw out the entire process altogether.
The role of God in Descartes' project is that almost all of his beliefs are based on the existence of God. If we assume that Descartes can prove the existence of God, then basically all of his arguments stand. There is a catch though; while he must prove that God exists, he must also prove that God is intrinsically good, and not the evil deceiver who has been brought up many times. In meditation one, as an argument for skepticism, Descartes states that since knowledge comes from our senses and our senses have deceived us, we cannot trust them, therefore we have no knowledge. This idea that we cannot trust our senses is predicated on the fact that God is trying to deceive us. After Descartes comes up with the Cogito argument, where he proves he exists, he follows it up with a general rule for knowledge: "everything that I clearly and distinctly perceive is true". If Descartes can prove that there is a God and that he is not a deceiver, his claim that "everything that everything I clearly and distinctly perceive is true" and also his sensory perceptions are affirmed.
ReplyDeleteI don't like that God plays a main role in Descartes' project for 2 reasons. First, I totally agree with Catherine that he uses God to explain things that he can't explain himself, and this really weakens his arguments. By using to religion and God to extricate himself from the intricacies of his own arguments basically serves as an escape route to which he can turn to whenever he is questioned. This diminishes his arguments in themselves, as he seems to have no finite proof of anything. Secondly, Descartes really seems to struggle to prove that God actually exists. As Catherine briefly touched upon, Descartes puts himself in the bind of the Cartesian Circle when trying to explain why "everything I clearly and distinctly perceive is true". His conclusion, that he can only clearly and distinctly perceive if God exists, is also a premise, thereby rendering it a circular argument and giving it no strength. In order to defend his claim about the existence of God and his circular argument to something such as that we exist, Descartes states that we do not need God to explain the most basic things, such as that we exist. But he gives no reason for why this is self-evident, other than saying it is very basic and we don't need God. In another effort to refute an objection to an argument, Descartes claims that God is "incapable of imperfection" (30). By saying that God's judgment is always correct, and never deceives, he is indirectly stating that a human's judgment is also always correct, which is also blatantly not true. It seems that in his proof of God is just getting more and more tangled, which is why I don't think it is a good idea for Descartes to base so many of his ideas around the existence of God.