Many people today try and find ways to explain how God exists, and that is no different from when Rene Descartes was alive. Rene Descartes was born in France but later moved to Holland where free thought was tolerated. One night, to avoid the cold, Descartes locked himself in an oven where he had a series of revelations which he claimed came from God. In this paper, I will discuss Descartes argument for Gods existence.
In argument one of his meditation of proving God’s existence, Descartes says he is going to doubt everything. He says anything that he cannot doubt would be certain knowledge. There ended up being three things left that he could not prove, each one was either less real or more real than the one that came before it. First, there …show more content…
He then describes the only five possible ways that he could exist. First he says that he caused himself, which he says is false because if he would have created himself, he would have made himself perfect. Then he says “my always having existed” which he states does not solve the problem because if he is a dependent being, he needs to be continually sustained by another. Third he says his parents, but this ultimately causes infinite regress. Fourth he states that something less perfect than God created him, but he says that the idea of perfection that he has, could not come from a non-perfect being. So then lastly, he comes to the conclusion that because of the reasons above, God must exist. These two arguments of God’s existence fit into Descartes’s theory of knowledge in a couple different ways. First, foundationalism. Foundationalism is the theory that there are certain truths which no one can doubt. And by having these truths, we can figure out a correct basis of knowledge about the rest of reality. This applies to the arguments for God’s existence because there are the certain truths that Descartes says you cannot doubt because they are certain knowledge. And by having these arguments of how God exists, we then find out how everything else is
In argument one of his meditation of proving God’s existence, Descartes says he is going to doubt everything. He says anything that he cannot doubt would be certain knowledge. There ended up being three things left that he could not prove, each one was either less real or more real than the one that came before it. First, there …show more content…
He then describes the only five possible ways that he could exist. First he says that he caused himself, which he says is false because if he would have created himself, he would have made himself perfect. Then he says “my always having existed” which he states does not solve the problem because if he is a dependent being, he needs to be continually sustained by another. Third he says his parents, but this ultimately causes infinite regress. Fourth he states that something less perfect than God created him, but he says that the idea of perfection that he has, could not come from a non-perfect being. So then lastly, he comes to the conclusion that because of the reasons above, God must exist. These two arguments of God’s existence fit into Descartes’s theory of knowledge in a couple different ways. First, foundationalism. Foundationalism is the theory that there are certain truths which no one can doubt. And by having these truths, we can figure out a correct basis of knowledge about the rest of reality. This applies to the arguments for God’s existence because there are the certain truths that Descartes says you cannot doubt because they are certain knowledge. And by having these arguments of how God exists, we then find out how everything else is