Descartes believes that his having an idea of a perfect being named God proves that God exists. This belief is proven to be true because firstly, the idea must have a cause because an idea of something cannot come from nothing. (12) The …show more content…
The cause of the idea can be external, innate or invented. (10) Innate ideas are derived purely from one’s own nature while hearing a noise or feeling the warmth of a fire comes from things external idea and ideas like hippogriffs are ideas that are invented. (10) The idea of God cannot be external because that would mean that Descartes received the idea from his senses. Since the idea never came unexpectedly, which happens when he hears or sees things that derive from external ideas, this cancels out the idea of God is caused externally. (16) The idea of God also cannot be invented by Descartes himself because if he was the inventor, he would have the ability to add or take away anything to the idea but this idea doesn’t permit interference. (17) So the only cause of the idea remaining is that it is innate, having to come within Descartes’s own self. Descartes then uses the causal adequacy principle which claims that any idea that has representative reality must come from a cause that contains at least as much intrinsic reality as there is representative reality in the idea. (12) Since