Thursday, October 3, 2013
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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Essentially, Descartes used the basis for God’s existence to outline why his beliefs must be true. If he can establish God’s existence based on the conception of God in our minds, Descartes can state that God would not deceive, therefore making all of his perceptions true. In my opinion, Descartes cannot definitively prove that God exists, but hypothetically even if he could prove God’s existence, it would not be enough to prove the truth of clear and distinct ideas.
ReplyDeleteDescartes proceeds to conclude that God exists, because the idea of God as infinite, supremely intelligent, and supremely powerful could not have originated in his mind alone. Then he automatically concludes that god exists. The first question that arises is whether Descartes can truly understand what a supremely intelligent and infinite being. We talked about this in class whether a human can really understand whether something is perfect. I don’t think that the human mind is capable of conceptualizing things not inherent in us as a species.
On the other hand, if we consider Gods existence based on our finite understanding of perfection, it is very possible that his idea of God came from his parents. In today’s world, children don’t know about God without their parents or society planting the idea within them. Descartes behaves as if the idea of God is as intrinsic as the idea of yourself or “I think therefore I am” which is something that can be put into someone’s mind without any outside influences. The only part of his argument that is reasonable is the fact that the idea of having your own substance must come from somewhere. It could be possible that ones mind creates itself and that you are the only person on this earth that is real. Then the idea of God would come from yourself, but it still doesn’t mean that it has to exist, because everything in your mind doesn’t necessarily have to exist. Simply because one can recognize something more perfect in their mind doesn’t mean that it actually exists either. Therefore, by questioning the pure existence of God, God can have no affiliation to whether someone perceives something by senses or naturally through intellect.
Descartes makes a very poor decision by making God’s existence an essential part of his argument. As long as someone can find a flaw in his argument for God’s existence, the rest of his argument for human knowledge cannot be considered. Descartes should have taken multiple routes to determine the extent of human knowledge. I do not believe that Descartes will ever reach a stopping point.
If we ignore the circularity of Descartes’ argument for God’s existence, we can conclude that God’s existence is what creates a class of ideas that are distinct and unchanging, meaning that God creates the only objective and true reality. Descartes’ argument is that God’s existence is what gives humans the ability to perceive true things. God’s existence is also unchanging just like the laws of mathematics, so what humans perceive through divine will is not only true right now but will be true forever. This means that God does define how humans perceive the world and whether or not human perceptions are “correct.”
ReplyDeleteThe flaw in Descartes argument is when he says that God gives humans the ability to perceive “true” things. This is assuming that God is the only god and the most perfect supreme-being to ever exist because Descartes assumes that God defines exactly what is true. He assumes that God determines the “objective reality” and that God is never wrong in his definition of this reality. This is a very monotheistic approach because it could be that God believes he is right about the objective reality but in fact there is an even more perfect and supreme being that knows more than God and defines the objective reality. In this case God would still give humans the ability to perceive what is “true,” except that this truth would not be the same as the one objective reality. Therefore, assuming that God exists, Descartes does show that God guarantees the truth of a human’s ideas and perceptions, however Descartes argument fails because he does not prove that God is the most knowledgeable being in the universe.
I understand why God plays such an important role in Descartes project because in Descartes time many theologians and philosophers were trying to prove things based on the “foundational belief” of God. However, I think that Descartes goes too far in his claims that follow from this belief. I think that it is appropriate to try to prove that humans exist or that the universe exists based on God because this claim is an important part of many religions; however, Descartes mostly focuses on how God influences the way humans act and think. Attributing human characteristics to God is quite a stretch especially because Descartes fails to prove that God even has this power. He simply assumes that God “exists,” is “perfect,” and is “supreme” without providing logical arguments for any of these claims. I think that Descartes should have started from square one and written a whole book on God’s existence before he tried to make claims about how God interacts with humans.
God's role is more complex than the simple argument that if God exists than reality is true. Firstly we have to turn to what attributes this God has outside the generic perfection of God that is commonly brought up. God is the cause of creation and by extension dictates reality and by extension the nature of that reality. God is the omnipotent focus that Descartes uses in an attempt to conclude that his perception of reality is meaningful and true but whether or not his arguments hold is another story.
ReplyDeleteEven if we assume that God himself is real, that does not guarantee that our perception of reality is true. Elaborating more from my earlier point is that God is simply used as medium through which reality is produced which doesn't say anything about the nature of God. The fact that God is merely used to argue that there is an actual reality and no more is why Descartes moves to the argument that God must be benevolent. Therefore we can conclude because Descartes needs to make this clear distinction that the existence of God alone is necessary but insufficient. If God exists there is a reality but there is no guarantee our perception of that reality is true.
Clearly as a follow up, we can conclude that while a God from Descartes' point of view does dictate reality and our perception of it, God cannot guarantee the truth of those ideas we perceive to be clear and distinct and that God also fails to guarantee our senses of perception are correct. According to Descartes, only a benevolent deity grants such privileges.
A major issue with having arguments start with the existence of God is the nature of what is beneficial to the God. A benevolent God could possibly have priorities that supersede what we would desire from God. I will first argue this with an analogy. Imagine a country ruled by a benevolent leader who seeks to optimize the overall happiness of his population. However the country he rules is surrounded by hostiles on all sides that cause an atmosphere of tension and by extension, unhappy citizens. To remedy this issue, the benevolent leader who abhors destruction, annihilates the surrounding countries in order to preserve peace in his country. The analogy here is that the ruler is symbolic of God, while the country represents reality and the surrounding hostiles act as figures that work against the comfort of reality It could be possible that in order to preserve reality a God, even a benevolent one, must deceive the human race. Because Descartes cannot see from the viewpoint of God, it is therefore impossible to conclude what a benevolent deity would do.
The obvious counterargument is that God is perfect and would therefore be able to remedy the situation without doing anything drastic to which I argue that even with a perfect being there can be imperfection that works against the perfect being. Firstly Descartes himself must concede that there is a perfectly imperfect nothingness that exists which is to say there is a polar opposite of God. He concedes this argument in the meditation on the senses where he blames fallibility on the imperfect nothingness that we fill the gap between. I will argue that nothing imperfect can be derived from perfection and therefore there must be something imperfect out there that affects reality. Because we must stem from this imperfection to explain the fallibility of our sense, it is reasonable to conclude there is a possibility we are sufficiently imperfect for God to warp our perceptions to better reality.
Because Descartes has no possible way of proving that in every possible scenario a benevolent deity would grant us true perception, it is by extension arguable that it was a mistake to use God as the focus of one's arguments because it is impossible to fully comprehend the situation from God's perspective.
For Descartes, God seems to be a beacon of light that shines at the end of the long dark hallway that is life. Descartes uses God as an example of what is real and what isn't real. God seems to be used as an example quite often if one was to look at Descartes' arguments. In a lot of them God will be described as a perfect being that is the reasoning of our existence and a being that will never deceive. When Descartes uses these examples of what God is like, he then believes that anything that he perceives as real, exists because God created us and since he would not deceive us then this must mean anything we think is real.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that is a very logical argument. If that was the case, then the most creative and imaginative things that a person could think of would be walking around everyday living life with us. So even if Descartes could prove that God exists, he would have a much more difficult time proving that he does not deceive us beings. I believe that God, in some ways, holds the truth about our lives and the world we really live in and if we really exist. This could go as far as just God being an all knowing deity, who would have the answer to all our questions. Yet, even that could be a little untrue if God has the ability to deceive. He could make us think that we are living in a simulation when we are actually in a dream world. It seems to all link back to Descartes' argument about deception. If we are constantly living a lie, how will we know the truth?
In conclusion, God is a tool for Descartes' arguments in that he can show us a path of possible truth, but we may never know if it is really real because humans are easily deceived.
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ReplyDeleteDescartes argues the existence of God but his argument would fall apart if in fact God did not exist. The premises of his argument are completely reliant on God’s existence. If Descartes can prove God’s existence his argument would be correct. God’s existence would be able to justify Descartes point of clear and distinct ideas. According to Descartes as well as the movie The Matrix, we know nothing. With God’s existence however all theories that we had doubted (which is all theories) would become clear.
DeleteThe role of God’s existence would be vital to Descartes project. This is because things that are unclear in terms of Descartes’s theories would become true. God’s existence could guarantee truth of clear and distinct ideas but it could not guarantee sense perception. This is because the senses cannot solely prove truth because intellect is always going to be relied upon to discover truths.
It is not wise for Descartes to have God have such a prominent role in his project because God’s existence will probably never be discovered therefore making it impossible to tell whether his arguments are true. If God was proven to not exist then Descartes’s argument would no longer be valid and none of his points would make sense. Therefore it is not wise for God to have such a large role in Descartes project because he makes it likely for there to be many skeptics and also will be unable to have concrete evidence defending his point.
In Meditation 3, Descartes thoroughly discusses the possibility of god. According to his reasoning, there are several reasons why god must exist. First, the fact that he has the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent god must mean that god exists. He concludes this from the fact that only an omnipotent figure could implant these ideas in his mind. Without an omnipotent creator, the meditator could not conceive of one. Essentially, at the very least there is an omnipotent god. The second reason why god must exist is the argument of perfection. Humans inherently feel imperfect, but the only way to feel this is from having a concept of what perfection is. Since no human has ever achieved perfection, only a supreme being could be a beacon of what flawlessness is. Based on these two arguments, Descartes concludes there is a god, a concept crucial to his later assertions.
ReplyDeleteKeeping this idea in mind, Descartes makes the claim that through god, knowledge can be achieved. Since god gives the power to perceive, it is then possible to attain true wisdom. However, this logic is not sound. God cannot guarantee the truth of clear and distinct ideas necessarily because god is not necessarily the be-all end-all of knowledge. For example, the classical objection to Descartes’s view of god is the one regarding a boulder. If god is omniscient, then god knows how to make a boulder that is impossible to move. However, if god is omnipotent then god can move any boulder. Thus, if god cannot move the boulder it implies he is not omnipotent, and if god can move the boulder than it suggests that god is not omniscient. Thus god cannot be both. Therefore, even if humans can perceive the world through our senses, as relayed by god, then it cannot be necessarily truthful. Applying the analogy of the boulder, either the reality we see is not true because god cannot give us the ability to perceive truth, or god does not know what truth is, so we see the masque over reality just as god sees it. Meaning, god cannot guarantee sense perception. Ultimately, it is not a wise decision for Descartes to use god as such a pivotal role in his argumentation. Not only is it circular, but it also logically cannot work.