Meditation 3: Concerning God, That He Exists
In Mediation 3 there are a few things of which Descartes can be certain. His goal in this Meditation is to give himself classification of mental activity. The item for which he finds the criteria clear and distinct is that his mind exists and his body exists through extension. With this problem of the mind comes the question, what causes ideas to come into his head? Through this he classifies his mental activities, argues the existence of God and then reconsiders himself.
Now through this vague and frankly confusing argument that he now knows that God exists. We can be certain that perception and imagination exists.Through his classification of thoughts he examines that we have volition, modes of willing i.e. desires, fears, Judgments and Ideas. With our judgments he concludes that if we want it we necessarily want it. That through our judgments we find error because of what and how we use our senses to come to such judgments which are different from ideas and volition. We then have our Ideas, which are images of objects, which he uses to see if in his own mind he can find a reason for God not to exist. He classifies them into 3 parts: Innate ideas which are the “light of nature”, ideas given to us by God. Adventitious ideas or alien ideas, these are given to us by an outside source such as nature. We then come to our Invented ideas. He finds that most ideas are given to us by the external world and we are taught by nature and not the light of nature because all of these ideas are certainly true. In the last part of the mediation Descartes argues again for the existence of God who is a perfect and infinite being. Which I have come to understand his writing to say that he now knows that working through all his methods God exists because all ideas are effects of prior causes and they must come from a source with a greater sense of reality than the one he is capable of understanding.
I must say…I read the material and then I re-read the material again and most times I have a hard time following his work. Some of the conclusions he draws although I know he does not really believe all that he is saying just don’t make sense to me. I can’t decide if he is only saying God exists in this writing so that he may be able continue his work?
