PRINCIPLES OF
PHILOSOPHY
The Nature of God and
the Validation of Clear and Distinct Perceptions
Now that Descartes has shown that God exists,
he has only to show that God is the cause of our clear and distinct perceptions
and that God is not a deceiver, and we will be able to use our clear and
distinct perceptions in order to build up a systematic body of certain
knowledge. This is precisely what Descartes does in principles 19–30. In the
process of establishing these claims, however, Descartes also draws many other
conclusions regarding the nature of God and our relation to him.
Descartes gives several proofs for the claim
that we (and thus our faculty of reason, responsible for these clear and
distinct perceptions) were created by God. The first of these comes in
principle I.20. Like the causal argument for existence, this proof rests on the
fact that we have an idea of a supremely perfect being. Since we have this
idea, Descartes claims, it is clear that we cannot be the authors of our own
being. If we were the authors of our own being, we would have given ourselves
all of the perfections of which we can conceive. Clearly, though, we do not
have all of these perfections. The next argument comes in principle I.21. Not
only do we need some explanation for our initial entrance into existence, he
tells us, but we also need to find some cause that explains why we continue to
exist from moment to moment. There is nothing in the idea of existing at one
time to imply existence at a later time. Certainly, if we ourselves were
causally responsible for this feat we would be aware of that fact.
Next, he moves on to elaborate on the nature
of God. Though we cannot know the full nature of God, we do know that God is
absolutely perfect—this property is contained in our very idea of him. Using
only this piece of knowledge regarding God's nature, Descartes is now in a
position to dispel all doubts concerning clear and distinct perception, which
he does in principle I.30: if God gave us a faculty which presented certain propositions
as indubitably true, when in fact they were not, then God would be a deceiver.
However, to be a deceiver implies being malicious, which is a defect, and God,
being perfect, does not possess any defects. Therefore, Descartes can conclude,
we can trust our clear and distinct perceptions to tell the truth.
Before drawing this important conclusion,
however, Descartes takes the time to establish some other facts about God.
First, Descartes points out, he is not corporeal, but mental, because
corporeality involves imperfection. Next, he is careful to mention that we must
believe everything that God has revealed to us (such as the Trinity) even if we
do not understand it. Finally, he discusses the difference between the property
of infiniteness, which is a positive conception, and indefiniteness, which is a
negative conception. Among our ideas, only our idea of God includes the notion
of the infinite. Only with God do we positively know that there is no limit to
him. All of our other ideas, which include the property of limitlessness (e.g.
our idea of the number of grains of sand in the world), are merely representing
the indefinite. That is to say, in these cases, all that we perceive is that we
cannot perceive a limit; we do not perceive that there is no limit.
Analysis
The argument that Descartes gives in Principle
I.19—for the claim that we (and thus our faculty of reason) are created by
God—is surprisingly skimpy. In theMeditations he gives a much more
robust version of the same argument. He sets the argument up by considering all
the plausible candidates for the position of author of his existence. He comes
up with three: God, himself, or some other being less perfect than God, such as
his parents.
He rules himself out in much the same way as
he rules himself out in the Principles.If he were the author of his
own existence, he would have made himself far more perfect. In addition, he
adds another count against himself: if he were the author of his own existence
he would certainly have given himself this knowledge. In other words, if he
were the author of his own existence, he would know that he was the author of
his own existence. Finally, what is even more certain is that if he were
responsible for keeping himself in existence from moment to moment, he would
know about this feat.
Next Descartes turns to the possibility that
the author of his existence is some being lesser than God, such as his parents.
This, however, he rules out on the grounds that no being lesser than God could
have created the idea of God that is in him. Since he has this idea, some being
of infinite reality must have put it inside of him, and this being of infinite
reality must thus be his creator. Descartes, in fact, argues that our idea of
God, which is an innate idea, was placed in us by God as the artist's signature
on his handiwork.
Before concluding that God is the author of
his being, though, he considers one last possibility. Perhaps what caused this
idea of infinite perfection in us is not a single being, but a whole collection
of causes. In other words, perhaps we got the ideas of different perfections
(e.g goodness, truth, eternality) from different sources. Descartes rules out
this possibility on the grounds that unity, or the "inseparability of all
the attributes of God," is one of the key components of our idea of God.
Descartes is eager to point out that this extended argument for God as our
creator, can double as yet a third argument for God's existence. If God must be
posited in order to account for our existence, then God himself must exist.
One last issue that deserves attention from
this section of the Principles is Descartes' discussion of the
difference between the infinite and the indefinite. This conceptual analysis,
which takes place at I.27, might sound like it is beside the point of the
project at hand, but it is actually extremely important. It is intended as
further proof that our idea of God can only be caused by God himself. As far as
Descartes is concerned, there are only three possible ways that we could have arrived
at the notion of the infinite. The first possibility is that we might have
taken the idea of finitude and negated it in order to obtain the idea of the
infinite. However, this would give us a negative idea of infinity, not a
positive idea; we would think of infinity as a lack of finitude, when, really,
it is the other way around. Alternatively, we might have started with our idea
of the finite and extrapolated, continually adding more and more, until we
recognized that we could potentially add on like this forever. This, Descartes,
claims, is how we get to the idea of the indefinite. This method of
extrapolation lands us with a vague sense that addition need never end, but it
does not afford us with a positive conception of unendingness. Finally, there
is the third possibility: God placed this idea in us. Given that there seems to
be no other way that we could have arrived at this notion, Descartes concludes
that this last scenario is the correct one.
REFERENCE
Descartes, Rene. Principles
of Philosophy. Trans. Valentine Rodger Miller and Reese P. Miller.
Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991.
Descartes, Rene. The
Philosophical Writings of Descartes. Trans. John Cottingham, Robert
Stoothoff, Dugold Murdoch. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Cottingham, John, ed. The
Cambridge Companion to Descartes. New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1992.
Des Chene, Dennis. Spitis
and Clocks: Machine and Organism in Descartes New York: Cornell
University Press, 2001.
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