Essay/Term paper: The existence of god

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Philosophy Essays

The Existence of God


For centuries, the idea of God has been a part of man's history. Past and
present, there has always been a different integration consisting of the
believers and the non-believers of God. The group of those who have "faith" in
God tend to be related to one religion or another. On the other hand, the
skeptics find the existence of God somewhat puzzling and try to seek the answers
through scientific methods. Even as of today with all the modern technologies
and the development of sciences, we still do not have a definitive answer to the
question "does God exist?"
Among many philosophers and scholars who have tried to answer this question,
we shall look upon Rene Descartes' theory on the existence of God. In terms of
believers and non-believers, Descartes would be one of the believers. Before we
go any further, we must ponder upon several questions. What is God? Does God
exist? If such God does exist, then where does this being come from? Why do
believers and non-believers hold on to their beliefs as they do? What
significance does the existence of God have upon mankind? These are only the
tip of the iceberg amongst the vast array of unanswered questions related to God.
Though there are so many uncertainties as we have just mentioned, the
existence of all other uncertainties in our world may explain why the existence
of God is so real to many people. For the believers, God provides a convenient
answer to all these questions except for the answers regarding God itself. The
following are some of the general arguments for the existence of God.
The first argument comes from the theory of design; there are orders in the
universe which can't be occurring by mere chance. Secondly, the existence of
God explains the arguments regarding the efficient causality; as the world
exhibits orderly causal sequences, something had to start it all up. Thirdly
but not the least, God provides an answer to the question of the origin of life
and its destination after death. ( For the sake of convenience, we shall borrow
some theological ideas from Christianity, the Christian God, to exemplify our
comparisons.) As an example, God is the creator of all, and there is a place in
heaven, a kingdom of God, for those who have faith in God. This helps believers
understand their identity and alleviate the fear of death.
Now then, let us look upon how Descartes responds to the question of what
God is? Descartes' hypothesis on his theory starts with the idea of a God who
is eternal, infinite, omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent, and perfect. In his
earlier Meditations, he claims that God may be a deceiver; he, however,
concludes later that God is a non-deceiver because an act of deceit would be an
attribute of moral imperfection. According to Descartes, this idea of a
supremely intelligent and supremely powerful being, who created everything that
exists, can not and does not come from within him who is imperfect. Moreover,
this perception did not originate from the experiences of the world, nor was
this drawn from the senses. Rather, he believes that this perception of God is
prior to his own perception, and it could only actually arise from a perfect
being. Thus Descartes concludes the only remaining option to be that this
perception was innate in him.
If we assume that God is perfect, then we may wonder why human beings, a
creation of God, are created imperfect and liable to make mistakes? Since an
imperfect creation was made by God, doesn't this mean that he is imperfect? Yet,
Descartes claims that God gave humans no faculty for making mistakes, and we are
constituted as a mediator between God and nothingness. The reasoning behind the
justifications made by Descartes is related to "free will." Descartes states
that the faculty of judgement is not infinite in human beings; human error is
not dependent upon God but is rather a mere defect. On the other hand, free
will is a freedom to choose which is infinite. Furthermore, he implies that the
fact that the boundaries of will extending further than the finite intellect is
the very source of human error.
From this discussion, it is clear that humans do have the capacity to err.
Even if we considered that the above statements were true, couldn't we make an
argument about why God has created such imbalance between the magnitudes of the
will and the intellect? Then this imbalance can be accounted as a defect no
matter what the justification may be; moreover, this implies that God did indeed
make a mistake by creating a being that has faculties that lack perfection.
From this we can derive at the possibility that God may be imperfect, and this
is a contradiction to Descartes' argument of God as a perfect being.
In the " Meditation Five," Descartes attempts to prove his hypothesis of
the existence of God based on the theory of clarity and distinctness of
perception. He begins this theory by mentioning that ideas of certain things
which are outside of him have their own truth and natures. These ideas were not
fabricated by him, and they have not entered him through the sense experience.
Since he knows these ideas clearly, he claims that they are something and are
true. Descartes states that those that he can clearly and distinctly perceive
are the only things that fully convince him as being true. From this concept,
he constructs a logic which supposedly proves his hypothesis; the clear and
distinct perception of the undoubted existence of God means that existence is
inseparable from God.
From this assumption, Descartes jumps to the conclusion that God does
indeed exist; however, can this be considered as a legitimate reasoning and be
accepted as a proof beyond reasonable doubt? Must everything that Descartes
perceives be true as long as it is clear and distinct? Isn't he revolving in a
loop of circular reasoning by assuming as true the very point that he is trying
to prove? Let us ponder upon what Descartes has said before for the sake of
argument. In "Meditation Four," he clearly states that " the will extends
further than the intellect " (p85.) He also stated that the faculty of choosing,
his will, is finite. If this is so, then the faculty of knowing the truth, his
intellect, must be also be finite. Furthermore, Descartes himself acknowledges
the fact that he is not perfect. From these premises, I believe that we have
the grounds to speculate that the perceptions based on his finite faculties of
knowledge hold the potential of having mistakes.
In the above discussion, I was trying neither to prove nor disprove the
existence of God; I was, however, trying to offer some skepticism upon
statements which many people have claimed about the existence of God. Although
Descartes embraces quite a grand statement on the issues of God, I felt that his
beliefs were biased towards his own perception and lacked evidence in proving
that God exists to the point beyond reasonable doubt.
I believe that neither Descartes nor modern science have been able to
successfully prove whether God exists or not.
What's really important, no matter whether such a being exists or not, is
that the ideology of God has certainly existed throughout the history of man.
Moreover, the power of this ideology of God has proven to be overwhelming among
the believers who have faith in its religion. Even for the non-believers or so
called atheists, the ideology of God has an affect and/or an influence on them
in one way or another. On a larger scale, it is not an exaggeration to say that
our society is built on the ideology of God. What is your opinion? "In God we
trust?"