In the Third Meditation, Descartes proves that God exists and that God can’t be a malicious being who deceives him, which allows him to perceive things clearly and distinctly. However, I do not believe he had adequately established that his idea of God, the Catholic God, is the God that exists. I will do this by first explaining how Descartes came to his conclusions. Then I will propose the problem that Descartes doesn’t explain why his idea of God is the only one that can exist. Afterwards, I will explain how Descartes’s proof of God’s existence can give rise to many Gods. Lastly, I will explain why God’s existence can’t be proved.
To understand Descartes motivation for proving God’s existence, we must understand the background. Descartes starts the Third Meditation with the assumption from the First Meditation that nothing, including what he perceives, remembers, senses, etc., is absolutely certain because evil being, who could be God, is deceiving him. The only thing Descartes can be certain of is that he exists because the deceiver needs someone to deceive and that someone is the one being deceived. Even if he is not being deceived, he still can be certain of his existence because he is still thinking about whether or not he…show more content… But, it can be argued that Descartes’s God does not actually possess perfect attributes either and has done things perceived as imperfect or wrong. For the sake of space, I will not discuss these attributes or actions. The important thing to know is that the arguments used against another religion or used to defend one’s religion can be used for any religion as what we perceive as wrong and imperfect is relative. Besides, we, a finite substance, can’t comprehend the reasons behind the actions of a Supreme Being, an infinite substance, of any