The Existence of God in Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy I-III

In the third meditation of Rene Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy, he comes to the conclusion that there does exist a God. His arrival at this conclusion comes as the result of a self-centered discourse throughout the three meditations during which he metaphorically removes all sense of knowing and rebuilds his beliefs upon what he can ascertain to be true in spite of the possibility of deception. In the first meditation, Descartes attempts to wipe the slate clean, so to speak, arguing that he is now at the stage in his life when he can use his uninhibited mind to determine what is true and false about his own existence, including his creation by God. In the second mediation, Descartes builds upon his notion of himself as a thinking being to conclude that the mind is more discernable than the body or any physical object. The first two meditations allow Descartes to arrive at a confirmation of the existence of a benevolent God through what he perceives as a logical thought progression; however, in doing so Descartes undermines his initial arguments about existence and truth, presupposing that his arguments cannot exist without the existence of God, which certainly they can.

To show that Descartes’ other arguments are still valid without his conclusion about the existence of a benevolent God, it is helpful to work backwards through the frame upon which he rests his conclusion in the third meditation: “And thus it is absolutely necessary to conclude, from all that I have before said, that God exists…”(Descartes, III, 22). Ironically, it is by his very conclusion of the existence of God that the frame upon which he bases his argument becomes unsteady. In other words, without the leap to the assumption that a benevolent God exists, Descartes’ prior arguments seem more universally valid. It is in the third meditation that his “innate” assumptions, rather than basic, logical arguments return to the discourse of Descartes’ argument. He claims that the notion of God is innate in man; however, what he really means is that it seems as such for him. There is no instance where Descartes proves the objectivity of this reality; God may not exist in the minds of others. Furthermore, Descartes never proves that other minds besides his own exist and yet here we are evaluating his philosophy. In the third meditation Descartes does not successfully prove that God exists, he proves that God exists in his own mind.

Without the modification of the existence of God as only true pertaining to Descartes himself, his prior arguments in the first two meditations, which are much more objective, become destabilized. Therefore, if we accept the subjectivity that God exists for Descartes as such (as opposed to an objective truth), the frame upon which his arguments stand does not falter. It seems as though, as hard as he tried, Descartes was not entirely successful in “rid[ing] myself of all the opinions I had adopted, and of commencing anew the work of building from the foundation, if I desired to establish a firm and abiding superstructure in the sciences” (Descartes, I, 1). Where Descartes falters in his superstructure is not the idea of innate knowledge, but in the language he uses to describe it. Even if we could apprehend the notion of a higher power is innate in all humans based on his argument, this is certainly not to say that our image of such a being--for Descartes a benevolent, perfect God-- is universal or objective.

Keeping Descartes’ structure in mind, if we move back from the argument of the existence of God to the second mediation upon which it rests: “Of the nature of the human mind; and that it is more easily known than the body,” we can see that the points he makes here are not reliant on the God conclusion. Rather, these points may prove much more universal and relevant to the notion of existence beyond the idea of who or what created us. Descartes’ declaration in the second meditation comes as a relief from the postmodern nightmare in which everything in reality becomes subjective. By establishing that the mind is discernable by the act of thinking, Descartes eliminates his skepticism of his own existence based on a purely physical body; he draws attention to both the mind and the soul, which for him seem at times interchangeable. Regardless of whether the mind can be deceived it must exist; it suffices to say “I am.” Where Descartes begins to go off track is when he tries to establish what exactly he is based on notions of where he came from, i.e. a higher power. He asks rhetorically in the second meditation, “Is there nothing of this as true as that I am, even although I should always be dreaming…” at which point he pushes the point over the edge by continuing to ask, “…and although he who gave me being employed all his ingenuity to deceive me?” in an attempt to convince himself that, for him, God could not be an evil demon; He must be benevolent, not because it is logical, but because for Descartes, his existential knowledge depends upon it.

Earlier, in the first meditation, Descartes is more skeptical of the benevolence of God, which clearly causes him distress and anxiety by the time he gets to the second meditation, claiming “the meditation of yesterday has filled my mind with so many doubts, that it is no longer in my power to forget them” (Descartes, II, 1). Rather than claiming Descartes is grappling, even early on in the Meditations, with his own existence, a retrospective look shows that he is even more concerned with the existence of a benevolent God. In the first meditation Descartes questions, “perhaps Deity has not been willing that I should be thus deceived, for he said to be supremely good. If, however, it were repugnant to the goodness of Deity to have created me subject to constant deception, it would seem likewise to the contrary to his goodness to allow me to be occasionally deceived; and yet it is clear that this is permitted” (Descartes, I, 9). This passage gives one the feeling that Descartes is panicking over the prospect of a deceptive God, as He gave us our senses--the ways in which we perceive and understand the world--and we know, Descartes argues, that our senses at times deceive us. But wasn’t the point of these meditations to “rid the opinions [Descartes] had adopted” (I, 1)? Descartes deceives himself and his readers when he claims, “I will at length apply myself earnestly and freely to the general overthrow of all my former opinions” (I, 1). The one opinion that Descartes cannot successfully free himself from is the belief in God.

Although, in retrospect, Descartes ideas are interwoven with his bias about the existence of a benevolent God, this does not discredit his other revelatory arguments about the nature of our existence and knowing. Descartes is among the first philosophers to draw our attention to our consciousness and how it dictates reality for us. His theories become the basis for many modern philosophers who struggle with the same preoccupations that caused Descartes to sit down in front of the fire and write down his meditations. Whether or not God exists for Descartes does not affect his legacy or the notion that the mind exists independently of the tangible world in which the body is imagined to exist in. It does make logical sense that Descartes would believe in God for exactly this ability to adamantly believe in the existence of something the body cannot sense, like the mind, and like God.

Once again there is a sense of irony in the fact that Descartes, it seems, was deceived by his own logic. In the third meditation Descartes writes, “although an idea may give rise to another idea, this regress cannot, nevertheless, be infinite; we must in the end reach a first idea, the cause of which is, as it were, the archetype in which all the reality [or perfection] that is found objectively [or by representation] in these ideas is contained formally” (111, 22). But the truth is that without the conclusion of the existence of a benevolent God, which was forced by the deceptive bias of Descartes’ own reality, the regress can in fact be infinite and lead us back into the scary place in front of the fire, vainly attempting to prove our existence and overcome the skepticism of God that our religious upbringings may demand.

The question of whether Descartes’ ideas can exist without his claim that there is a God is answered not just by his lasting legacy, but also by careful consideration of the philosophical claims he makes before he embarks on the proof of God in the third meditation. The ideas of consciousness and of the mind/body dualism that has preoccupied philosophers for years hence, prove the importance and validity of the meditations. Descartes’ first three meditations are invaluable for their inquiry into existence and the nature of reality, both objectively and subjectively speaking. Existence exists on multiple levels that continue to make the Meditations fascinating to study. First, there is the ability to read through Descartes and wholeheartedly declare along with him, “I am,” without any further justification than your ability to think it (and articulate it if you so wish to). Secondly, the existence of the mind as separate and more discernable than the body alleviates further skepticism raised by differing perceptions of reality. And, finally, perhaps the most important note on existence that comes from Descartes work is that it is valid and existential regardless of his belief in God, which he states in the third meditation. Whether one is religious or faithful and agrees with Descartes’ insistence on an all-knowing, benevolent God, or if the reader is agnostic, or even atheist does not alter the validity of his ideas; they still work, they still exist both in print in Meditations on First Philosophy and in all the minds the text has influenced.

Work Cited

Descartes, Rene. Meditations on First Philosophy.