Descartes Proof of God

Many of Descartes’s main philosophies revolved around the existence of God. He first discussed the concept of God in Meditation III however went more in-depth in Meditation V. Most philosophers of his time spent the majority of their time arguing against the existence of god which is what makes Descartes’s philosophical beliefs stand out.

To prove the existence of God Descartes used justifiable information at his disposal. Unlike philosophers like Nietzche, he did not rely on his personal experiences to come up with philosophies. He only used the factual information he knew was true. This is another thing that set him apart from many other philosophers.

Doubts and Truths

The first way Descartes proved the existence of God was by doubting everything around him. This included the existence of his own body, the external world, and even to begin with the existence of God. Everything he couldn’t doubt was portrayed as certain knowledge. This is how he created the divide between formal reality and representational reality. He separated reality into three categories of scale. These were properties, finite substances, and infinite substances. These range from least real to most real respectively. At the bottom of the scale are properties. The existence of properties depends on finite substances. Infinite substances are god. Descartes believed that if something has a property the thing that made that has the same property. Otherwise, properties are created from nothing which doesn’t make any sense. This is true for both formal and representational reality. If properties are caused by finite substances, finite substances have to be caused by infinite substances.

Analysis

I feel that this objective analysis was the only way Descartes was able to come to this conclusion. If he didn’t separate formal reality and representational reality he wouldn’t have been able to come up with a universally applicable piece of logic. With Descartes’s method no matter what you analyze you come back to the same conclusion. No matter whether you analyze a simple object or something as big as the Big Bang you get the same idea.

How We Can Use This Method Of Analysis

Descartes’s method of root analysis was very important in finding out the truth around creation. He used a tactic very similar to First Principles Thinking. However, he made sure that he only used factual information and not assumptions. Many people rely on assumptions in their arguments which allows people to poke holes in them. If you just rely on facts it’s much harder to find a hole in an argument. Another thing is that he was not afraid to challenge beliefs during the time. Philosophers before and after Descartes’s doubted his philosophies around God. However, since Descartes’s argued against the common belief he gained new insight. Finally, Descartes used common principles. Unlike other philosophers, he made it easy to relate to his logic. This made it much more applicable.

Descartes’s simple methods of finding out the truth behind common paradigms are what set him apart from all other philosophers from his day. It made him one of the most respected philosophers of his time