Rene Descartes Meditation 3 Analysis

In this essay, I will be explaining a meditation in Rene Descartes’ book, Meditations on First Philosophy. First I will summarize how he got to his point in meditation three, and then I will give my opinion on whether or not his claims are successful or unsuccessful. In meditation three Rene Descartes tries convincing the reader that God actually does exist. He starts off by briefly explaining the first two meditations. He says in the first meditation he is doubtful about all the things he thinks he knows, and in the second meditation he states that he believes he exists when he thinks he exists. Descartes concluded that whatever he truly believes in clearly and distinctly therefore then must be …show more content…
They are all equal, they have the same form of reality but they each have their own objective for reality. In other words, the idea of God has more objective than the idea of a dog, the idea of a dog has more objective than the idea of a color but they are all ideas and are all equal in forms of reality.
Every idea he chooses has a formal reality. Every idea except God. “A substance that is infinite, eternal, immutable, independent, supremely intelligent, supremely powerful” (30). This is his idea of what “God” means to him. But if every idea has a formal reality, where did he get this idea from? God must be the cause of this idea therefore God does exist.
He says if God didn’t exist we would all be perfect. We wouldn’t have any doubts or desires. You can’t doubt the existence of God since the idea of god has infinite objective reality and is more likely to be true. The idea of God could have come from your parents, and they got it from your grandparents. It’s a never ending cycle that could only conclude the idea of God originating from God. Therefore, God does exist. God created humans with the idea of God. He is no deceiver since deception has defections, God is a God, therefore he is