Selena Amya

Professor Asil Mousa

SYSEM 1

The existence of God October 20, 2016

As long as one has a method to pursue his/her aim in life then the chance for these goals

to be achieved will increase. Throughout “a discourse on the method”, Descartes gradually and

progressively describes the method he chooses, which is to doubt everything in order to

eliminate skepticism and to reach the ultimate truth. He decides to doubt everything in his life,

starting with his own existence in which he proves with the first principle “I think, therefore I

exist”, then he proves the soul of the human being and finally proves the existence of God.

Descartes is known for the way he proves the existence of God, in which he believes he is an

imperfect being while God is perfect. However, how can an imperfect mind come up with the

idea of a perfect God if one is not perfect himself/herself?

In “a discourse on the method”, Descartes argues that God’s existence was based on two

proofs; first, Descartes’ method of seeking the ultimate truth is to doubt everything; doubting is

imperfect therefore he is an imperfect being, which means the nature of the creator of an

imperfect being should be perfect and that’s what he called God. Second, Descartes relies on

geometry in which he proves that since a triangle’s angles add up to 180° then that’s an essential

property of triangles and therefore the existence of God is an essential property of God. Although

Descartes attempted to prove the existence of god, his arguments are weak because the senses are

unaware of god’s existence.

 This paper matters because it answers the question that is world widely asked, ‘does God

really exist based on Descartes proofs or is it just another bed time story taught to everyone?’

This paper is divided into three arguments that exposes Descartes’ weaknesses when he attempts

to prove the existence of God. First argument is that human senses aren’t aware of God or

anything related to him, then the second argument follows in which it argues that Descartes

didn’t use his own method of doubting in which weakened his validity and finally how no one

can prove the existence of God since it’s a matter of faith.

The human senses are unaware of God’s existence. Descartes argues that in order to

prove the existence of God he needs to prove his own existence first, and that’s how he came up

with the first principle of philosophy which is “I think, therefore I exist” in which the ‘I’ refers to

the soul of the human being; However, he argues that the body is different from the soul and is

easier to distinguish (Descartes, 29). How can the body that can be felt, seen, heard, smelled be

non-existent while the soul that the senses are unaware of be existent? The same argument

applies to the perfect idea of God as well; How can God be existent when the human senses are

not unware of him or at least a body that he occupies?

Throughout “a discourse on the method” Descartes focuses on the mathematical

perspective to follow his method and prove most of his theories “because of its certainty and the

incontrovertibility of its proof,” (Descartes, 9) however he fails to add the element of science

within his method because he believed he didn’t have enough knowledge and time to prove

scientific theories (Descartes, 10). Descartes contradicts himself here because he “discovered the

stimulus-reflex response and formulated a thoroughly mechanistic physiological theory that led

to a school of thought called iatromechanism,” (World of Anatomy and Physiology, 2007) His

discovery proves that he does believe that the body exists since he was able to explore some of
the parts located inside of a human body. Therefore, in order to exist, one must have a body that

is felt, seen, heard and smelled. The same holds good for the existence of God because if God

does not have a body that the human senses are aware of then one can’t prove his existence.

Descartes didn't pursue his own method of doubting to prove the existence of God.

Throughout "on discourse of the method" Descartes follows his method of doubting to seek the

ultimate truth, he wanted “to reject as completely false everything in which [he] could detect the

least doubt, in order to see if anything thereafter remained in [his] belief that was completely

indubitable.” (Descartes, 28) He wanted to make sure that when he reaches the truth he will

never doubt it again, however when the idea of a being more perfect than Descartes came to his

imperfect mind, he decided to sustain from using his own method because he believed that the

ultimate truth is perfect and so is the idea of God; And since doubting is imperfect then that

makes God equal to the truth which is perfect, and should not be doubted. He believed that if

anyone had doubts about the existence of god after his explanation then these doubts can only be

removed by the recognition that god is the ultimate truth and that he exists. (Descartes, 33) How

would one know when to stop doubting? How did Descartes know that the idea of God is where

he should stop doubting and take it as the truth?

One should never doubt anything just for the sake of doubting, it should have a solid

foundation in order to answer both questions, ‘what is the purpose of doubting a particular

object’ and ‘when to stop doubting’. Descartes chose not to doubt the existence of God at all

because he believed that God is the truth he has been seeking for, however Descartes once stated,

“I resolved to pretend that everything that had ever entered my head was no more true than the

illusions of my dreams,” (Descartes, 28) he believes that sometimes one can’t distinguish

between reality and dream, therefore what if this perfect idea of God was formulated within his
sleep as a dream? This question alone proves that the existence of God can be doubted, therefore

it’s neither perfect nor the truth.

The existence of God cannot be proven since it’s a matter of faith. Descartes attempted to

prove the existence of God without strong proofs that can convince people and make them

believe in his idea. Descartes thinks that those who don’t believe in his idea are people who only

rely on their senses and imaginations rather than reasoning in which he strongly believed in,

therefore it did not matter to him whether they believe him or not. (Descartes, 32) Two very

effective factors that touch people on a daily basis when it is related to the existence of God are

religion and faith. The idea of God’s existence has been a perfect tale written and spoken in the

name of religion for over centuries to seduce the mind that is tolerant to perfect ideas that would

supposedly create a perfect world. Religion uses the Bible, Quran and Torah as solid proofs to

seduce the minds of people in order to believe in the existence of God, however there are no

proofs to where these holy books came from which makes proving the existence of God less

likely to happen.

Another affective factor to why one can’t prove the existence of God is Faith. Faith has

played a major role in people’s lives when it comes to the existence of God. At a time of need,

people tend to search for something or someone they can look up to in order to feel safe and

comfort. It doesn’t matter whether this person or this object exists, it’s a matter of the faith one

holds when it comes to that person or object. For example, almost every toddler in the world has

an object or someone that makes them feel comfort at a time of need such as a blanket or an

imaginary friend that they hold on to everywhere they go. No one sees the imaginary friend;

however, the toddler believes in his/her existence because the toddler’s faith took over his senses

and made him strongly believe in the friend’s existence. Same applies to the existence of God
because every day people’s faith takes over their senses and makes them believe that God truly

exists within them without the need of any proof.

Descartes’ proofs of the existence of God are weak as arguments because not only would

a nonbeliever not be convinced with his arguments but so wouldn’t a believer. The existence of

God cannot be proven because of three different arguments. First, the human senses are not

aware of his existence; second, Descartes fails to pursue his own method of doubting in which

made the method unreliable; and third, it’s a matter of faith not something to be proven. A

criticism of this paper could be that if the existence of God can’t be proven then it means that no

one can disapprove it either.

 Works cited

Descartes, René, and Donald A. Cress. Discourse on the Method for Rightly Conducting

One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co, 1980.

"History of anatomy and physiology: The Renaissance and Age of

Enlightenment." World of Anatomy and Physiology. Gale, 2007. Science in Context. Web. 20

Oct. 2016.