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Descartes: A Believer by Faith Only

Descartes: A Believer by Faith only

 

The choice of René Descartes (1596-1660)

 

God and the Soul

Descartes announces his belief in the existence of God through ‘faith', by considering the two questions of God and the soul to belong to philosophy:

‘I have always estimated that these two questions, that of God and that of the soul, were the principle two questions that should be demonstrated by the reason of philosophy more than by theology: for it is sufficient for us, who are faithful, to believe by faith that there is a God and that the human soul does not perish with the body.' (1)

 

Impossibility of Proof

Descartes considers the impossibility to prove to the faithful the existence of God, as well as the immortality of the soul except by natural reason:

‘It certainly does not seem to be possible to be able to ever persuade the faithful of any religion, nor even of any moral virtue, if we do not first prove to them these two things by natural reason.' (2)

 

Reference to the Sciptures

He explains his belief and invites others to believe for the following reasons:

‘And though it is absolutely true, that we must believe that there is a God, because it is written in the Holy Scriptures, and, moreover, we must believe in the Holy Scriptures, because it comes from God; and this is because faith is a gift from God; He is the same who gives grace to grant belief in other things, can make us also believe that he exists.' (3)

 

This argument is founded entirely on faith. It pleads the authenticity of its own premises by begging the question and by asserting belief because there must be belief. The argument specifies that in the religious texts it is said that we ought to believe in God and so we ought to believe. It is founded on the assumption that religious texts come from God and God grants belief as a gift. The logic used by Descartes is ‘an

argument in a circle' namely we ought to believe because we believe in the Scriptures and that we ought to believe because God said so.

 

Argument in a Circle

Descartes admits arguing in a circle in his argument:

‘Nevertheless, we cannot propose this to the unbelievers, who can image that if we commit them to this it would be the fault of what the logicians call a Circle.' (4)

 

But Descartes reaffirms by his propositions that he can prove the existence of God by:

a. natural reason, and

b. the Scriptures

He informs us:

‘And in reality, I am aware that you too, gentlemen, including all the theologians, do not only maintain that the existence of God can be proven by natural reason, but also that we can infer it from the Holy Scriptures, and that its acquaintance is a lot more clearer than having many things as being created,

and it is in fact plain and easy, than what the guilty ones (disbelievers) think.' (5)

His reference to the Scriptures is indicated in his speech:

‘As it is clear in these words of the Gospel in chapter 13, where it is said that : their ignorance is never forgiven : for if their minds have penetrated so much ahead in the knowledge of the things of the world, how is it possible they did not find more easily the Sovereign Lord ? And in the Romans, the first

chapter, it is said that they are inexcusable. Even more, and in the same place, by these words: What is known of God is manifest in themselves.' (6)

 

Confrontation with the World

Descartes makes direct relation between the soul and the existence of God through confrontation with the world. He considers that the reasons of the existence of God are to be found in ourselves:

 

 ‘It seems to be that we are warned, that what can be known of God can be shown by reasons that are not needed to be sought elsewhere than in ourselves, and that our soul is capable of providing it for ourselves.' (7)

 

He assumes the task of demonstrating the means to prove, in a certain manner, the existence of God starting from the world :

 

‘This is why I think it will be not irrelevant, that I can

demonstrate here the means of which this can be done, and which way to take, in order to get to the knowledge of God with more ease and certainty than that of what we know of things of this world.' (8)

 

Immortality of the Soul

The Three Proofs

Descartes assumes the task of demonstrating that the soul does not die with the body. (9)

In order to prove the existence of God Descartes examines natural phenomena and establishes three proofs:

 

Proof of Perfection

The first proof is the proof by the idea of perfection:

‘There cannot be more reality in the effect than in its cause. Now, I find in myself the idea of perfection while experiencing that I am not perfect. There must therefore be a perfect cause, exterior to me, of the presence of this idea of

perfection.' (10)

 

 

Proof of All-Powerful God

The second proof is the proof by the author of one's being:

‘If I had such a power, I should have that which makes me perfect- and I shall not deprive myself from it, then there ought to be, fundamentally, a being who has created me and disposes of this power (which is not the case of my parents, who are only the occasion of my existence).' (11)

 

The Ontological Proof:

The Third Proof

‘If there is something lacking in perfection, it will be not perfection. The existence then will not be lacking of Him. The idea of perfection which is within me is then the idea of an

existent being.' (12)

 

These are presumed ‘proofs' only and do not prove in any way the existence of a God. They are claimed by ‘faith' and ‘belief'.

 

To these presumptions others were added, namely the ‘cosmological' proof which proclaims an admiration for the arrangement of the universe which indicates a complex and succinct order: a watchmaker's handiwork cannot result in a

hazard necessity of a great watchmaker. This is the Proof by Design.

The proof of the ‘strong anthropological principle', indicates a detailed and precise program for life with exact finality serving a precise end, in which the first carbon molecule was formed four billion and three hundred million years ago, leading to a deliberate evolution producing of: Such a program indicates a programmer. (13)

There is also another proof, proposed in the singularity of the Big-bang, some 13.3-20 billion years ago, which proclaims the existence of a God in opposition to the eternity of the world which does not necessitate a God, according to certain presumption. (14)

 

Descartes, in his first three proofs, confronts the universe and this confrontation instigates fundamental questions in his thinking. He concludes his own choice of belief in the existence of a God—cause-creator.

 

The Choice of Descartes

Descartes makes a choice to believe in God.

His choice is defined by him as an opinion:

‘However, there has been a long time that I had a certain opinion in my mind, that there is a God that can do everything, and by whom I was created and produced as I am. Now then, who can assure me that this God did not make no earth, no sky, no body width, no shape, no size, no place and that yet I have feelings of all these things, and that all these do

not seem to me to exist otherwise than that what I see ?' (15)

 

Descartes' Concept of God

The concept of God depicted by Descartes is as follows, ‘ In addition, that by which I conceive a God, sovereign, eternal, infinite, immutable, all-knowing, all-mighty, and a universal creator of all things that are outside him ; these are, I say, are certainly within him more than objective reality, that these by which the finite substances are represented within me.' (16)

In conclusion, Descartes reflects the criteria of a personal choice very well thought out and minutely deliberated. He is a thinker who has made use of reason in the Epoch of Light, marking departure from and the reign of. He was one of the pioneers in setting out rigorous scientific methods for rational reasoning known as the Cartesian thought.

Descartes has prescribed the laws of science and scientific thinking contributing to the end of metaphysics, and to the weakening of religious belief.

He is an example of the scientist who chose to believe.

 

 His well known dictum, ‘cogito ergo sum' (I think therefore I am) is the corner-stone of Cartesian thought. Descartes considered such assertion to be the fundament of the existence of God, and it is indispensable for the existence of the soul.

Ironically, this dictum is also the corner-stone for Sarterian thought of ‘Existentialism'. Sartre mentions in « L'Existentialisme est un humanisme » that, ‘there cannot be another truth, from the beginning, than the following: ‘I think therefore I am', this is the absolute truth of the conscience attaining itself.' (17)

Sartre, on the other hand, taking the opposite position, considered that the fundament of ‘existence' precedes the Méditations métaphysiques

 ‘essence' and used this principle in his argument to deny the existence of God.

_____

1. René Descartes, , Flammarion,

Paris, 1992. p.35.

2. Ibid., p. 35.

3. Ibid., p. 36-37.

4. Ibid., p. 36.

5. Ibid., p. 36.

6. Ibid., p. 36.

7. Ibid., p. 36.

8. Ibid., p. 36.

9. Ibid., p. 36-37.

10. Ibid., p. 117.

11. Ibid., p. 119.

12. Ibid., p. 127.

13. John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler, The Anthropic

Cosmological Principle, Oxford University Press, Reading,

1986. P. 27-31.

14.Stephen Hawkins, A Brief History of Time, From the Big

Bang to Black Holes, Bentham Books, Reading, 1988. p.10.

15. Ibid., p. 65.

16. Ibid., p. 105.

17. Jean-Paul Sartre, L'Existentialisme est un humanisme, Les

Editions Nagel, Paris, 1954. p. 64.

 

 

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