Descartes and the ontological Argument Restated
Dom Santomieri
Philosophy 22
12/12/13
Ciraulo
Descartes and The Ontological Argument Restated
In “The Ontological Argument Restated”, Rene Descartes attempts to prove the existence of God from a deductive argument. This means that the argument is based on premises that once they are accepted, force the reader to accept the conclusion. The Ontological argument had been put forth by Anselm a few centuries before, but it was subsequently discredited by St. Thomas Aquinas. When Descartes revived the argument in the 14th century, he made it as part of his bigger works on finding truths and other philosophical ideas, also known as The Meditations. His revisitation of the Ontological Argument appears twice in these works, once in Meditation III and again in Meditation V.
Descartes’ restated and simplified version of the Ontological argument for the existence of God is found in the Fifth Meditation. He explains that to him God, is the supreme being, meaning that He is supremely perfect, or lacking in any perfection. Descartes elaborates that any quality that he can conceive of in his mind, God is perfect in that respect. That constitutes the first premise of his a priori argument, that God is in every way perfect. Descartes then gives the second premise, or necessary assumption, is that existence is a form of perfection, and therefore God must possess it. To say God is a perfect supreme being, but that he does not exist, would be self negating because existence is part of that perfection. One of the most extraordinary parts of the argument is its simplicity. Descartes underscores the simplicity of his demonstration by comparing it to the way we ordinarily establish very basic truths in arithmetic and geometry, such as that the number two is even or that the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to the sum of two right angles. We intuit such truths directly by inspecting our clear and distinct ideas of the number two and of a triangle. Descartes expounds on two analogies about the necessary existence of God, based on the idea that for God alone, is his essence inseparable from His existence. Descartes used the example of a triangle to emphasise that A Supremely perfect Being and existence were inseparable. When we think of a triangle, even if we have never seen one, we know that it must possess three sides and three angles which total 180 degrees. If either of these properties is removed, then it is no longer a triangle. Similarly, we cannot have mountains without the necessity of having valleys as well. Therefore, if we accept that God is a Supremely Perfect Being, then we cannot deny that he possesses existence as a necessary quality part of His essence. Existence is as fundamental to the nature of what God is as 3 sides are fundamental