Topic > Meditations on First Philosophy - 984

Descartes' fourth Meditations show that God cannot be a deceiver at all, since God is infinitely good. To judge something it is necessary to have intellect and will and we should know that the intellect is infinite or in other words it is the faculty that brings us very close to God. Errors occur when the will consents even though it does not understand or perceive distinctly. So from this fact we can understand that the mistake is ours and is not committed by God. He also cannot be blamed for giving us infinite will, since will is nothing more than a simple infinite entity. How can we perceive something distinctly and clearly? According to Descartes it was possible that God created him with an insurmountable inclination to assent only to those things, which were perceived by him distinctly and clearly, but God is infinite and His ways are inscrutable. Descartes writes in Meditation IV that when he tries to know God, he feels that in reality a positive idea of ​​God is already present in his mind and that he is a supremely perfect being. But at the same time he comes across a negative idea that gives him a sense of nothingness. This image is infinitely far from perfection of any kind. Then Descartes revealed his feelings and said that, thanks to his experience, he knew that he had a certain ability to judge and that this ability came from God. There is no doubt that all qualities come from God and this quality also came from God He was sure that God would never deceive him and therefore he was not given any ability that could lead him in the wrong direction. So after all these experiences he evidently concluded that there was a God and that his existence depended entirely on Him. In fact every moment of his life...... middle of paper......r. He is benevolent and omnipotent with the power to prevent all mistakes. If so, why are we incapable of doing harm? Descartes blames us and says it is our mistakes and God did not give us defective faculties. It is the abuse of our free will to assent to things we do not perceive clearly or distinctly. In fact, the lack or imperfection lies in the operation of the will and is not due to the faculties we have received from God. Descartes demonstrated the existence of God by saying that since existence is inseparable from God, he really exists and God does not can never deceive. Works Cited Descartes, René. Meditations on First Philosophy: With Excerpts from the Objections and Replies. Translated by John Cottingham. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. 1996.http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-modal/