Descartes - Due 11/13

Descartes presents an argument in the beginning of his writing trying to argue the fact that God exists. Once he decides that if something can be doubted, it should be assumed, for working purposes, to be false. For example, our senses are sometimes deceiving to us, so they can be assumed as unreliable sources. After he went on and on disproving every "truth" in his life to be false, he assumed that the one thing that could not be disproven was the fact that he exists. "I think, therefore I am." Descartes argues that since he is an imperfect being, he must therefore doubt himself. He believes that the existence of God is self-evident in that He decides that since he himself is not a perfect being, there must be some kind of standard out there to hold himself up against, a person who is perfect, God. In an article from New Advent, a few key questions arise speaking to whether or not God exists, whether His existence is self-evident, and is it able to be demonstrated. One thing that was interesting about this article, stemming from the idea of a perfect being, was an objection made against the existence of God, where Augustine is quoted as saying, "Since God is the highest good, He would not allow any evil to exist in His works, unless His omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil." It is contradictory that someone would allow evil to exist, or to say that this evil could somehow produce good.


http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1002.htm