He claims that if I have the idea of a stone, then the idea has a certain amount of objective reality. Therefore whatever caused that idea to come into existence must have at least as much reality as I perceived being in the stone. In other words, if I perceived the stone as having an X amount of formal reality, then the idea must be caused by something having the same amount of formal reality or more. Even though this claim is a little bit confusing, I find it to be reasonable. If a have an idea Y that has objective reality P, and I have a smaller amount of objective reality or formal reality required to cause Z, then I know I am alone in the …show more content…
Therefore, Descartes claims that it could be the case that I created the ideas of things and animals since I have as much formal reality as they do. However, it might not be the same case with angels. But I do have an idea of God, and it has more reality than the idea of angles. The idea of God is of a substance that is infinite, intelligent and powerful. And just like him, I am a substance. But I am a finite substance and God is an infinite substance. Consequently, I can’t get my idea of infinite substance from my idea of finite substance, since it has less objective reality than the idea of infinite reality. Therefore my idea of God is of something that has an infinite amount of formal reality. As a result, there must be a being outside of me that exists and has that much formal reality. But the only being that could fit to that description is God. Therefore, God