In part four of his Discourse on Method, Descartes presents his argument for the existence of God by implementing basic geometry. He recognizes perfection in such principles as the angles of a triangle and the equidistance of the points on a sphere from the center. However, he realizes there are no such cases in the natural world of this perfection. Descartes reasons that the imperfect physical manifestations of these perfect shapes must come from a perfect being, God (36).
This (seemingly) simple explanation for the existence of God isn't quite enough for him to convince me. Could it not be possible that the these perfect shapes are discovered by man, through geometry, after man has observed the imperfect examples of nature? The perfection of these simple geometrical shapes do not seem enough to explain Descartes' conception of God: "infinite, eternal, immutable, all-knowing, all-powerful" (35). I fail to see how Descartes derive such a complex and powerful God out of this observation.
It may be the case that Descartes cannot form such a conception of God from his method. Descartes realizes the consequences of contradicting the church, so after demonstrating that God can and does exist, he simply defers to the Schoolmen's theology regarding the nature of God. It is a necessary move to guarantee his own safety, but it is certainly not consistent with his method.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Descartes speaks of God in this way out fear, nor do I think it is inconsistent with his method (not to say that you may not be able to find grounds on which to disagree with his method). Descartes believes that insight into God's nature is found in his own nature. He recognizes that he is full of imperfections, yet he has a perfect idea: I think, therefore I am. Believing that the source of this idea (God) is perfect, he recognizes that such a thing would not possess any of the imperfections that he himself possesses: mortality, doubt, change, etc. If perfection is contrary to imperfection, than the attributes of a perfect being would be those that Descartes attributes to God:immortality, immutability, omniscient, omnipresent, etc.
ReplyDeleteI don't this is Descartes' argument. Descartes was arguing that the "three-sidedness" of a triangle was bound up in the definition of a triangle, and that the clear and distinct apprehension of the concept of a triangle compelled him to also say that a triangle had three sides. He points out in passing that he has no guarantee that actual triangles exist in actuality.
ReplyDeleteThis is not the case with God. God is a perfect being, and as such existence is contained within the concept of God. ("I found that the existence of the Being was comprised in the idea in the same way that the equality of its three angles to two right
angles is comprised in the idea of a triangle...") The clear and distinct apprehension of the idea of God compels Descartes to realize that God exists.
This, like any version of the ontological argument, has its own problems--Kant will claim later this semester that existence is not a predicate that can be contained in a concept. If Kant is right, then even this form of Descartes' argument fails. But Descartes examples of perfect geometric figures were examples to help us understand his thinking, not essential premises in his argument.