DESCARTES’ MEDITATION ON EXISTENCE OF GOD 1

Descartes' Third meditation theory: Existence of God

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 DESCARTES’ MEDITATION ON EXISTENCE OF GOD 2

Descartes's idea to prove the existence of God and its importance is expressed in the

Meditations on First philosophies, where Descartes explains his pursuit philosophically to find

and find specific knowledge. He claims that the first step to take in finding all these answers is

first to understand all the underlying basic truths, work them out step by step, and try to doubt it

and every idea presented by them (Agostini, 2019). His main idea to create doubts or disapproval

in every idea as much as he can because once anything has got possibilities of being doubted,

according to him, it must be eliminated from the quest. An evil genius hypothesis is what he

comes up with to help him create as much doubt as possible. In his hypothesis, he includes a

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higher supernatural being known to exist and which is deceiving everything Descartes knows or

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is thinking of.

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Throughout the research, he comes out with a resolution that this supernatural being is
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certain that it exists. However, it's a thinking thing because he is unable to prove its existence.
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This is where he develops a general truth rule which states that everything he is clearly and
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distinctly perceives it's a must it be true (McBrayer, 2018). For him to be able to that he is only a

thinking thing and nothing beyond that, he must first be able to disapprove of the idea that there
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exist evil geniuses, and this can only be done if he proves that God truly exists. For him, the idea
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of proving that God exists is very important because if he fails, he would therefore not be able to
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go on with his search for knowledge. He proves his existence in meditation 3.

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However, before he could prove his existence, he claims that the effects of situations do

not have many realities than their course. This means that everything existing must be created or
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brought by something which must have equal or most probably greater reality than the existing

thing (Agostini, 2019). He continues claiming that for an idea to be developed, the idea must

have a more formative reality than the underlying reality. In his findings, he claims that if he can

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 DESCARTES’ MEDITATION ON EXISTENCE OF GOD 3

develop the idea that has got a reality that seems to be more objective than he formally could be

unable to possess, then there is something different that is beyond his capabilities that caused the

idea. That is indeed existing, but he does not know where, but he says that it is true it is there.

This is the argument which he used to prove that it is true God exists.

The proof about the existence of God contains several arguments. He said the heating the

Word God, he thinks of an infinite and independent substance, supremely intelligent and

powerful, responsible for the creation of the universe and everything in it, including him. On the

idea of infinite being, he explains that he is not enough to judge if God is infinite or not because

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he is a finite being hence cannot know beyond that (McBrayer, 2018). Therefore only an infinite

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substance can describe another infinite being, and because he could not explain that, he

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concluded that God is an infinite being. This makes the real difference, as he claimed that as
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much as he tends to doubt everything, God's presence could not be doubted since there are many
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things he cannot explain, but they are clear and distinctly present.
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In this theory, he is seen to admit that he is not superior and gives God the possession of

all the perfections and potentialities. He also says that God is punctual and actual because he is
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always increasing his knowledge. It is true to go by his finding because even other scholars and

philosophers have been unable to conclude God's nature. His actions and identity will always be
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mysterious because he is known to do things beyond the capabilities of anyone in the world.
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Some of his deeds, even those people considered as geniuses, cannot be able to explain their

occurrences.
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 DESCARTES’ MEDITATION ON EXISTENCE OF GOD 4

References

Agostini, I. (2019). Descartes’s Philosophical Theology. In The Oxford Handbook of Descartes

and Cartesianism.

McBrayer, L. (2018). Cartesian aseity in the Third Meditation. Journal of Analytic

Theology, 6(1), 217-233.

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