Hobbes vs. Descartes
Two particular philosophers have debated the idea of God and one of the philosophers has advanced the argument more than the other. In Rene Descartes book of meditations, Thomas Hobbes had a chance to object to various points of the meditations concentrated on specific thoughts. Hobbes writes Objection Three confronting Descartes’ Meditation Three, and this is the objection and reply that I will be directing my attention toward. This particular objection will question the idea of God and whether or not a human can have any idea of God. In the third objection to Meditation Three, Hobbes challenges Descartes’ view of the idea of God. The main point of the objection is Hobbes’ view of the imaginary image given to God. He starts by explaining that when he thinks of a man a visual image appears to him, “one of shape and colour” (Obj. 3, sect. 180). He goes on to examine the image of the sky as well as an angel with similar results. Hobbes explains that an angel is not seen, but the ideas of visual things help make the angel visible in his imagination. Therefore one cannot be sure as to what an a
ngel, or more importantly, God looks like. As a result, he explains that this is the reason why people cannot worship material things as a replacement for God. He also explains that people cannot worship an image, although they believe it to be God, when they do not know the actual image of God. As a result, people give “the name of ‘God’ to the thing that [they] believe in, or acknowledge to exist” (pg.80, sect.180). Here, God does not have to be seen in order to have faith and belief in him. This reply by Descartes gives Hobbes enough, if not more than enough, information to outweigh Hobbes’ opinion of God. I would personally favor Descartes’ argument for the idea of God. I know that I have no physical perception of God, and I never will as long as I am a corporeal being. However, the “idea” of God is not supposed to be taken literally and I am not trying to perceive an actual physical idea of God. After previously proving that the body has a mind, I can now safely agree with Descartes and say that my mind has a view of God, but my view of God is by no means correct because no one can prove their own view
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Approximate Word count = 765
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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