Reading one opinion on an idea can give one a single-faceted understanding of the subject. One person can give a good introduction or grounding for the greater context of something. To know something deeply though, it must be seen in its entirety. It needs to be observed as it changes through time and cultures. People grow, mature, and change and their ideas change along with them. Philosophy is one of these ideas. The conversation was started with the likes of Job and Solomon, continuing through Plato and Aristotle, made a sidestep with Augustine, and is on the springboard with Descartes, who put it in a place to completely make itself over. Augustine was the first one who majorly changed the game when he took Neoplatonism and placed it under the authority of the Bible. It stayed under the authority of the church for the most part through the medieval period without any huge paradigm shifts. Descartes is the one who started to rattle the cages, albeit unintentionally. Descartes has two great loves in him life: mathematics and philosophy. He saw them heavily related as he delved into the worlds of physics and metaphysics. Creation had a pattern and a beauty to it that he loved and saw through mathematics. All of his studies led him to see the Creator in it all and get to know him better. Science, mathematics, and philosophy all helped him to know God better. Through all this, he wanted to share it to those who did not have his faith. Being a man of reason, he set out to write an apology for the Christian faith based upon his own reason in the hopes of leading others to saving faith. How he did this through Meditations of First Philosophywill be the direction of this paper.
An important place to start would be to look at his own reason for writing the book. In the second paragraph of this work, he shows what he is trying to accomplish with this work.
I have always considered that the two questions respecting God and the Soul were the chief of those that ought to be demonstrated by philosophical rather than theological argument. For although it is quite enough for us faithful ones to accept by means of faith the fact that the human soul does not perish with the body, and that God exists, it certainly does not seem possible ever to persuade infidels of any religion, indeed, we may almost say, of any moral virtue, unless, to begin with, we prove these two facts by means of the natural reason. And inasmuch as often in this life greater rewards are offered for vice than for virtue, few people would prefer the right to the useful, were they restrained neither by the fear of God nor the expectation of another life; and although it is absolutely true that we must believe that there is a God, because we are so taught in the Holy Scriptures, and, on the other hand, that we must believe the Holy Scriptures because they come from God (the reason of this is, that, faith being a gift of God, He who gives the grace to cause us to believe other things can likewise give it to cause us to believe that He exists), we nevertheless could not place this argument before infidels, who might accuse us of reasoning in a circle. And, in truth, I have noticed that you, along with all the theologians, did not only affirm that the existence of God may be proved by the natural reason, but also that it may be inferred from the Holy Scriptures, that knowledge about Him is much clearer than that which we have of many created things, and, as a matter of fact, is so easy to acquire, that those who have it not are culpable in their ignorance. This indeed appears from the Wisdom of Solomon, chapter 13, where it is said “Howbeit they are not to be excused; for if their understanding was so great that they could discern the world and the creatures, why did they not rather find out the Lord thereof?” and in Romans, chapter i., it is said that they are “without excuse”; and again in the same place, by these words “that which may be known of God is manifest in them,” it seems as though we were shown that all that which can be known of God may be made manifest by means which are not derived from anywhere but from ourselves, and from the simple consideration of the nature of our minds. Hence I thought it not beside my purpose to inquire how this is so, and how God may be more easily and certainly known than the things of the world. 295
He begins with a new argument for the day of removing faith from the equation by saying that questions about God and the soul should not be answered using scripture but rather reason. This is very unique because he is stepping out from under the protection of the church by setting up a pillar of thought that is not based upon sacred text. He does this for great reasons. He is trying to place a steppingstone for those outside the faith to be able to jump from their ideologies into his. He is doing this for the sake of evangelism, in order to reach the infidels. The task ahead of him is noble as it is part of the Great Commission that all believers should be trying to fulfill with their lives. This is him doing his portion of it. He sees the need for this because of the apparent circular reasoning that is common in normal outreach with the relationship between belief in God and belief in the Bible. He is setting out to prove God and the soul using reason because he believes in the Bible. He believes that people know that there is a God because the Bible says so. He wants to use the natural revelation that is in each man and creation in order to call them to God. This is what he is setting out to do, and he does so by delving into the existence of the soul and God.
While at the beginning, he says that questions of the soul are chief, it is interesting that he immediately switches to talking about the mind and thought without any explanation or connection to the soul. This seems to be on purpose because he is connecting mind and soul together as the place where reason and thought dwell within a person. In the first meditation, he is seeking to level the playing field and doubt everything that he has come to know as truth,
It is now some years since I detected how many were the false beliefs that I had from my earliest youth admitted as true, and how doubtful was everything I had since constructed on this basis; and from that time I was convinced that I must once for all seriously undertake to rid myself of all the opinions which I had formerly accepted, and commence to build anew from the foundation, if I wanted to establish any firm and permanent structure in the sciences. 301
If one has found what they see as the ultimate truth, and they want to build a system next to it in order to prove it, things must be torn down. One cannot start within their system in order to bring an outsider into it. This is what Descartes is trying to do here. He has to start first with his senses, “it is sometimes proved to me that these senses are deceptive, and it is wiser not to trust entirely to any thing by which we have once been deceived.” (301). He strips away everything he knows and ends up with the idea that everything that he can think of must be from a deceptive spirit that is plaguing him. This leads into the second meditation. If everything that he can now think is a lie, the only thing that he has left is that he can think. If he could not think, he could not be deceived. He says of himself, “I am, however, a real thing and really exist; but what thing? I have answered: a thing which thinks” (305). He has his thoughts and thus his exists. He has his mind and soul if he has nothing else. While simplistic, is it deep and profoundly grounding.
From the viewpoint that he has his thoughts, he pushes into the dark in order to establish God. Within the third meditation, he reasons that there are few things in the corporeal world that he can put his faith. Everything can change. His senses have not become suddenly more reliable since he started to doubt them. Even though he believes he now exists because he can think, he is still being deceived. There is only one thing that remains for him:
Hence there remains only the idea of God, concerning which we must consider whether it is something which cannot have proceeded from me myself. By the name God I understand a substance that is infinite [eternal, immutable], independent, all-knowing, all-powerful, and by which I myself and everything else, if anything else does exist, have been created. Now all these characteristics are such that the more diligently I attend to them, the less do they appear capable of proceeding from me alone; hence, from what has been already said, we must conclude that God necessarily exists. 312
All that he has left in his mind is that there must be something that is outside of him that is beyond. Whatever is in front of him, there must be something beyond it all. The concept of infinity haunts him through it all. This is the same kind of thing that Plato and Aristotle had in their system that they had no name. This is the One, the Unmoved Mover. He did not know much about it, but he knew that something bigger had to exist. This was enough to prove to him that there had to be a God. He culminates his thoughts beautifully later in the work:
And one certainly ought not to find it strange that God, in creating me, placed this idea within me to be like the mark of the workman imprinted on his work; and it is likewise not essential that the mark shall be something different from the work itself. For from the sole fact that God created me it is most probable that in some way he has placed his image and similitude upon me, and that I perceive this similitude (in which the idea of God is contained) by means of the same faculty by which I perceive myself—that is to say, when I reflect on myself I not only know that I am something [imperfect], incomplete and dependent on another, which incessantly aspires after something which is better and greater than myself, but I also know that He on whom I depend possesses in Himself all the great things towards which I aspire [and the ideas of which I find within myself], and that not indefinitely or potentially alone, but really, actually and infinitely; and that thus He is God. And the whole strength of the argument which I have here made use of to prove the existence of God consists in this, that I recognise that it is not possible that my nature should be what it is, and indeed that I should have in myself the idea of a God, if God did not veritably exist—a God, I say, whose idea is in me, i.e. who possesses all those supreme perfections of which our mind may indeed have some idea but without understanding them all, who is liable to no errors or defect [and who has none of all those marks which denote imperfection]. From this it is manifest that He cannot be a deceiver, since the light of nature teaches us that fraud and deception necessarily proceed from some defect. 314
The only reason for a thinking thing to have thoughts about an infinite thing that is beyond everything is if the infinite thing that created the thinking thing put those thoughts there. Seeing the connection between this and the nature that is instill within himself as also coming from God is also beautiful. It brings the whole subject full circle. Descartes sees himself as imperfect and longing for something to complete him in such a way that only the Creator of the universe can fulfill. This, that God is the one who put all these things into place for him, is the epitome of his argument.
There is an instinct here that just leaves one feeling uneasy that is gone after in the third set of objections, particularly objection 7. The objection is that if there is no idea of God upon a person, then this whole argument falls down flat. If I doubt everything within myself and I do not have a thought of the infinite, then one could not tell that there is an infinite who had not put anything there. There would be no God, as far as one could tell. This is the objection. Descartes has a very interesting response to it though. He does not give lengthy arguments but only states, “If there is an idea of God (as it is manifest there is), the whole of this objection collapses” (364). He throws it back onto each man. This is a challenge to all men to look inside themselves and to see that there is some feeling within each person that there has to be something more that is out there. There has to be a beyond. This is the natural feeling that is God that is in the universe. This is what Descartes is going after in order to prove that there is a God.
An objection that is not covered in the book that should have been covered is that of placing reason in the place of faith. In the opening statement of the book that was covered at the beginning of this paper, Descartes says that, “I have always considered that the two questions respecting God and the Soul were the chief of those that ought to be demonstrated by philosophical rather than theological argument” (295). He says this because he wants to be able to lead an unbeliever to God by use of reason instead of having to depend upon faith. His goal here is noble. It is also arrogant. He has the gift of salvation within him that he received by faith, yet he knows that he would not receive any other knowledge, like a mathematical or scientific fact, into his life through faith alone. He is trying to remove this obstacle from other people. The very obstacle that he is trying to remove actually stripes God and the Gospel of its saving power. Faith is actually the key to salvation, not knowledge or reason.
Furthermore, in his trying to make God accessible by faith, he leaves the majority of the characteristics of God and the Gospel out of his arguments. If his goal is to reason others to God, he does need to tell them who God is in the end. He does cover the base characteristics of God, the same characteristics that Plato and Aristotle knew about God. Descartes comes at a time that is after the cross though. He had so much more knowledge to call upon and he leaves it all at the door in order to use his reason to try and save souls. This is very problematic. This is man trying to save man when in reality, it is God who saves man.
It is strange that none of the pastors and theologians that had problems with this work brought up these points to him. This objection is missing, and it is perhaps the most important objection that one could have to this work. To write a hypothetical response and give a reason for this could be that because at this point in history, church was an important part of everyone’s life, even if they did not believe. One had to be associated with a church and could hear the gospel there. If this is true, then he is merely trying to get a person to accept that there is a God. Once they believe that there is one, they could then go and find the true one from any of the churches that were around them.
In spite of this last objection, Descartes’ work to show man that there is something more out there besides himself did move philosophy into an interesting direction. In his trying to write something to witness to those of other religions, Descartes did something entirely different. He was trying to build a steppingstone from outside religions into Christianity when in reality, he built a way out. He proved himself to be a thinking person and that he had an idea of the infinite within himself. The objection that if there is not thought of God or the infinite within a person is what was then used to exit his system. Soon after Descartes, man started to deny his internal thoughts of the infinite and Descartes’ fears were realized, that man denied it all and took up reason as the only cause. This is how philosophy made itself over.
Works Cited
Descartes, René. Meditations on First Philosophy. Great Books of the Western World. Ed. Mortimer J. Adler, Philip W. Goetz, and A. H. Stirling. Trans. David Eugene Smith, Marica L. Latham, and W. H. White. Second Edition. Vol. 28. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., Robert P. Gwinn; 1990. Print.