Wednesday, October 28, 2009
The Existence and/or Role of God
Descartes attempts to prove the existence of God not only for its own sake but also to further the goals of his foundational project. Is either argument successful? Does God actually do the metaphysical work that Descartes wants? Should an epistemological project have God play such a prominent role?
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Descartes attempts to prove the existence of God by arguing the relationship between formal and objective reality, concluding that the idea of an infinite being must have infinite reality, and since he (I) does not have infinite reality, an infinitely perfect being must exist. I see this argument, however, to be contradicted by his very argument "I think, therefore I am." He determines that an individual can think, and therefore an individual can conclude that he or she exists, but that is the extent of their knowledge. Claiming an infinitely perfect being exists is also claiming that another being besides oneself exists, which contradicts his main argument. He creates the argument that perfection is a "special," fundamental idea, but this is hardly proven. The idea of a God may have been a widely accepted belief and evidently not potentially false in Descartes eyes, but to modern day people God is not generally accepted, so the counterargument against "I think, therefore I am," that an infinitely perfect being is a "special" idea, unlike other beings, is invalid.
ReplyDeleteTake a look at my post on "Is God chasing his tail" if interested. I believe many of my comments can be cross applied to this question.
ReplyDeleteIt feels as though Descartes seeks to justify his initial belief in God through logical reasoning, where it should be the other way around. If you know exactly where you want to go, all you need to do is find a valid way of getting there. To me, this is a poor way to undertake an argument because your points should build off the former ones, and not stem from the ones ahead of them as Descartes does.
ReplyDeleteHis argument that "whatever I distinctly and clearly prove to be true" and " I distinctly perceive God" therefore God exists, is not valid in the slightest. It relies on our faith in Descartes conviction that he perceives God. We would just have to trust him. Any argument at all that even remotely involves taking a leap of faith is doomed to failure, because proofs rely upon objective logic and not our trust in the creator of the argument.
As to should epistemology contain God, I am still uncertain because I can't be sure that God does or does not exist. For this reason, I cannot say for certain that he has any role in our knowing knowledge, and therefore we can't conclude if he should or should not be included in the argument.
I think this post counts for two.
ReplyDeleteDescartes does not prove the existence of god. The ontological argument has several obvious flaws. One of my favorites is an argument that was presented by my hero, Richard Dawkins, in a book I read over the summer. He argues, in a way similar to Kant, that the ontological argument is not valid because it assumes existence is more perfect than nonexistence. There is no basis on which to make this assumption. Kant further argues that existence is not something that an object can or cannot have. (i.e. Existence is not a property of an object.) Therefore a god that is perfect in all respects and exists is no different from a god that is perfect in all respects and does not exist. The existent and nonexistent gods are equivalently perfect and so the ontological argument does not work.
Another problem that I have is with the idea of perfection. I am not sure on this on this one, but I feel that it is possible that there is no absolute definition of perfection. People might have their own ideas of perfection. If the ontological argument were valid than it would mean that there were a god for every person because something would have to exist to fit their definition of perfection. I think that Descartes arguments might break down, or at least run into significant problems with this possibility. Everyone’s perception of a perfect god would conflict with each other because many ideas of a perfect god would include omnipotence (i.e. he would have to control the other gods)
I am also uncomfortable with the argument that god cannot be a deceiver. It is possible that god is deceiving for the greater good. Descartes argues that deception would indicate the possession of some baser qualities in god and that would indicate that he is not perfect. I would return to one of Descartes’ own arguments, namely that we cannot understand god because he is so far above us. There is no way to definitively say that god is not a deceiver.
The fourth problem I have is that I doubt we can even conceive of a perfect being. We might think that we have a perception of a perfect god but there is no way of truly knowing or confirming that we have an idea of an infinitely perfect god. It may be different from saying that I have a conception of a shape with 1000 sides. A shape with 1000 sides has a definite physical representation. The idea of infinity or perfection cannot be represented. I argue that you cannot understand the idea of infinity and that the idea of perfection is farther away from being possible to understand.
Another problem (one I have to give credit for to something I read a while ago) is the ontological argument in reverse. This objection is very similar to Kant and Dawkins. The argument is that nothing can be so great as when it is conceived by the mind. That is, the mind is the only place where the idea of perfection can exist. (I don’t know if I agree with this but I am just putting it out there)
Another problem I see is that if no being existed to have the idea of perfection why would god still exist. Imagine that man vanished from the earth. Would god vanish as well? Descartes must be able to prove that god exists independent of whether or not man is present to have the idea of perfection. Something this fundamental must not depend on something as trivial as man for its proof.
I believe that the weakest link in Descartes' various lines of reasoning is his "proof" for the existence of God. If we merely accept God's existence, then the rest of his arguments seem to fall in place. I would find this to be perfectly acceptable in most cases, but in Descartes' case, he is attempting to start from nothing and build up a case for what we can acknowledge as true and real. Because his aim is to deconstruct knowledge and restart from a basis of no knowledge, it is quite questionable that the entirety of his argument depends upon God's existence, an argument that fails to adequately justify his beliefs. I think that because of this major flaw, epistemological arguments should NOT contain arguments such as this for God’s existence. If the entire argument is built on a foundation that is not soundly built, it can be collapsed all too easily by a critic of Descartes’ circular logic.
ReplyDeleteFor any and all of Descartes arguments after "I think therefore I am" to work, he banks on the fact that god exists. He focuses all of his attention on uncovering some kind of clear and distinct knowledge that god exists that it becomes THE foundation of his arguments. This would be a great method if he provided evidence that god existed, but instead he proposed this circle in which god's existence depended on us assuming he existed in the first place. Then because everything depends on this fact, when he tries to pull himself out of the circle he just digs himself into a bigger hole because his arguments start to contradict each other. The task of proving that god exists is just too difficult if not impossible. I believe a smarter route in an epistemological argument would have been proving that the existence of a god is unimportant. Then base all of your future arguments on that knowledge. That way you could avoid the near impossible task that is proving a god, and move on to your further arguments.
ReplyDeleteI think we can attribute a big part of descartes "God proof" to the time he lived in. The 16th and 17th century, while known for great technological advances, hadn't acquired the same hoard of knowledge that leads many people to be skeptics nowadays. In his day believing in god was as logical as eating to keep ones health up or sleeping at night. Certainly there were naysayers, but the idea that god was essential was far more popular, even to the degree that if you didn't believe in god you were an outsider. As such, his proof can be considered a success if (and only if) you consider the time period it was created in. The same proof supplanted into this era doesn't work, mostly because not everyone considers god to be an intrinsic part of life anymore. When examined in retrospect, then, God's proof is a work using outdated methods for this century. Perhaps a modern day Descartes will find an easier way to prove God's Existence.
ReplyDelete