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How Does Descartes Prove God's Existence

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In Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes introduces us to his philosophies by taking everything he thinks he knows, and destroying it. He decides to rebuild his knowledge of the absolute truth by tearing down all of his prior knowledge of the mind and soul, God, and the senses. Throughout this essay, I will discuss Descartes’s two arguments that prove God’s existence, and then I will analyze them. And finally, I will bring up a criticism from Kant, as well as exploring some criticisms of my own. In “Meditation 3”, Descartes introduces the reader to his ideas of God. He wants to know whether God is a deceiver, or better yet, if there is even a God to begin with. He muses with the idea that exploring God’s deceptive nature is necessary to his search for the truth. If there is a God, and he is a deceiver, then how could Descartes know anything with complete certainty? Using a deductive argument, Descartes explains that since God is perfect and has no imperfections, and deception is seen as an imperfection, therefore God cannot be a deceiver. These thoughts are somewhat echoed in …show more content…
He turns the reader’s attention to the idea of material things and their properties. He starts by introducing different properties of material objects such as size, shape, position etc. However he also considers the fact that geometrical objects do not exist in the material world, yet they have properties. For example, triangles have distinct properties that make it a triangle. Triangles have an essence that doesn’t depend on Descartes’ own mind. He also denies that he was introduced to triangles by the senses, because he can think of other shapes that he has never seen and identify their properties as clearly as he can with those of triangles. The triangle exists as an idea in Descartes’ mind because it has a set of properties that he can clearly and distinctly

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