critically examine descartes o

In this essay I am going to attempt to critically examine Descartes argument as to the existence of God, as set out in the Third Meditation, in Descartes “Meditations on First Philosophy”. Descartes definition of God is a being that is infinite and perfect, “the possessor of all the perfections which I cannot grasp, but can somehow reach in my thought”. To do this I must set out his premises and look at them individually to see if they are sound and valid.

Descartes premises put simply are as follows:

IV. The cause of an idea must contain as much formal reality as the idea has objective reality,

V. My idea of God has infinite objective reality,

VI. But the only being who has infinite formal reality is God,

Descartes says that he has an idea of God as “eternal, infinite, omniscient, omnipotent and the creator of all things that exist apart from him”. Descartes reasons that as “there must be at least as much in the efficient and total cause as in the effect of that ca

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