Meditation III: Concerning God, That He Exists#
Meditations on First Philosophy in Which the Existence of God and the Distinction between the Soul and the Body Are Demonstrated
Ariew, Roger & Eric Watkins (eds). (2019). Modern Philosophy: An Anthology of Primary Sources. 3rd Ed. Hackett.
[P]
I will now shut my eyes, stop up my ears, and withdraw all my senses.
I will also blot out from my thoughts all images of corporeal things, or rather, since the latter is hardly possible, I will regard these images as empty, false, and worthless.
method of meditation, ignore sensation and imagination, get back to mind and understanding
And as I converse with myself alone and look more deeply into myself, I will attempt to render myself gradually better known and more familiar to myself.
I am a thing that thinks, that is to say, a thing that doubts, affirms, denies, understands a few things, is ignorant of many things, wills, refrains from willing, and also imagines and senses.
For as I observed earlier, even though these things that I sense or imagine may perhaps be nothing at all outside me, nevertheless I am certain that these modes of thinking, which are cases of what I call sensing and imagining, insofar as they are merely modes of thinking, do exist within me.
[P]
In these few words, I have reviewed everything I truly know, or at least what so far I have noticed that I know.
Now I will ponder more carefully to see whether perhaps there may be other things belonging to me that up until now I have failed to notice.
I am certain that I am a thinking thing.
But do I not therefore also know what is required for me to be certain of anything?
What is it that allows me to be certain of anything?
Surely in this first instance of knowledge, there is nothing but a certain clear and distinct perception of what I affirm.
A clear and distinct perception of what I affirm.
Yet this would hardly be enough to render me certain of the truth of a thing, if it could ever happen that something that I perceived so clearly and distinctly were false.
And thus I now seem able to posit as a general rule that everything I very clearly and distinctly perceive is true.
C&D perception, that which is true
[P]
Be that as it may, I have previously admitted many things as wholly certain and evident that nevertheless I later discovered to be doubtful.
Can C&D perception hold up as the criterion of truth if it admits of falsity?
What sorts of things were these?
Why, the earth, the sky, the stars, and all the other things I perceived by means of the senses.
But what was it about these things that I clearly perceived?
Surely the fact that the ideas or thoughts of these things were hovering before my mind.
But even now I do not deny that these ideas are in me.
Yet there was something else I used to affirm, which, owing to my habitual tendency to believe it, I used to think was something I clearly perceived, even though I actually did not perceive it all: namely, that certain things existed outside me, things from which those ideas proceeded and which those ideas completely resembled.
I C&D perceived (and judged to be true) that my ideas proceeded from the existence of external objects which my ideas of them not only represented but resembled.
But on this point I was mistaken; or, rather if my judgment was a true one, it was not the result of the force of my perception.
[P]
But what about when I considered something very simple and easy in the areas of arithmetic or geometry, for example that two plus three makes five, and the like?
Did I not intuit them at least clearly enough so as to affirm them as true?
To be sure, I did decide later on that I must doubt these things, but that was only because it occurred to me that some God could perhaps have given me a nature such that I might be deceived even about matters that seemed most evident.
But whenever this preconceived opinion about the supreme power of God occurs to me, I cannot help admitting that, were he to wish it, it would be easy for him to cause me to err even in those matters that I think I intuit as clearly as possible with the eyes of the mind.
On the other hand, whenever I turn my attention to those very things that I think I perceive with such great clarity, I am so completely persuaded by them that I spontaneously blurt out these words: “let him who can deceive me; so long as I think that I am something, he will never bring it about that I am nothing.
Nor will he one day make it true that I never existed, for it is true now that I do exist.
Nor will he even bring it about that perhaps two plus three might equal more or less than five, or similar items in which I recognize an obvious contradiction.”
And certainly, because I have no reason for thinking that there is a God who is a deceiver (and of course I do not yet sufficiently know whether there even is a God), the basis for doubting, depending as it does merely on the above hypothesis, is very tenuous and, so to speak, metaphysical.
But in order to remove even this basis for doubt, I should at the first opportunity inquire whether there is a God, and, if there is, whether or not he can be a deceiver.
For if I am ignorant of this, it appears I am never capable of being completely certain about anything else.
[P]
However, at this stage good order seems to demand that I first group all my thoughts into certain classes, and ask in which of them truth or falsity properly resides.
Some of these thoughts are like images of things; to these alone does the word “idea” properly apply, as when I think of a man, or a chimera, or the sky, or an angel, or God.
Again there are other thoughts that take different forms, for example, when I will, or fear, or affirm, or deny, there is always some thing that I grasp as the subject of my thought, yet I embrace in my thought something more than the likeness of that thing.
Some of these thoughts are called volitions or affects, while others are called judgments.
[P]
Now as far as ideas are concerned, if they are considered alone and in their own right, without being referred to something else, they cannot, properly speaking, be false.
For whether it is a she-goat or a chimera that I am imagining, it is no less true that I imagine the one than the other.
Moreover, we need not fear that there is falsity in the will itself or in the affects, for although I can choose evil things or even things that are utterly nonexistent, I cannot conclude from this that it is untrue that I do choose these things.
Thus there remain only judgments in which I must take care not to be mistaken.
Now the principal and most frequent error to be found in judgments consists in the fact that I judge that the ideas which are in me are similar to or in conformity with certain things outside me.
Obviously, if I were to consider these ideas merely as certain modes of my thought, and were not to refer them to anything else, they could hardly give me any subject matter for error.
[P]
Among these ideas, some appear to me to be innate, some adventitious, and some produced by me.
For I understand what a thing is, what truth is, what thought is, and I appear to have derived this exclusively from my very own nature.
But say I am now hearing a noise, or looking at the sun, or feeling the fire; up until now I judged that these things proceeded from certain things outside me, and finally, that sirens, hippogriffs, and the like are made by me.
Or perhaps I can even think of all these ideas as being adventitious, or as being innate, or as fabrications, for I have not yet clearly ascertained their true origins.
[P]
But here I must inquire particularly into those ideas that I believe to be derived from things existing outside me.
Just what reason do I have for believing that these ideas resemble those things?
Well, I do seem to have been so taught by nature.
Moreover, I do know from experience that these ideas do not depend upon my will, nor consequently upon myself, for I often notice them even against my will.
Now, for example, whether or not I will it, I feel heat.
It is for this reason that I believe this feeling or idea of heat comes to me from something other than myself, namely from heat of the fire by which I am sitting.
Nothing is more obvioous than the judgment that this thing is sending its likeness rather than something else into me.
[P]
I will now see whether these reasons are powerful enough.
When I say here “I have been so taught by nature,” all I have in mind is that I am driven by a spontaneous impulse to believe this, and not that some light of nature is showing me that it is true.
"to be taught by nature", to be driven by a spontaneous impulse; INTUITION?
These are two very different things.
For whatever is shown me by this light of nature, for example, that from the fact that I doubt, it follows that I am, and the like, cannot in any way be doubtful.
"to be shown by the light of nature", to be self-evident; to be certain and indubitable
This is owing to the fact that there can be no other faculty that I can trust as much as this light and which could teach that these things are not true.
trust in (the faculty of) the light of nature
But as far as natural impulses are concerned, in the past I have often judged myself to have been driven by them to make the poorer choice when it was a question of choosing a good; and I fail to see why I should place any greater faith in them in other matters.
[P]
Again, although these ideas do not depend upon my will, it does not follow that they necessarily proceed from things existing outside me.
For just as these impulses about which I spoke just now seem to be different from my will, even though they are in me, so too perhaps there is also in me some other faculty, one not yet sufficiently known to me, which produces these ideas, just as it has always seemed up to now that ideas are formed in me without any help from external things when I am asleep.
What is the source of my ideas?
My ideas do not depend on my will.
But this doesn't mean they come from outside me.
[P]
And finally, even if these ideas did proceed from things other than myself, it does not therefore follow that they must resemble those things.
Even if my ideas came from outside me how do I know that my ideas resemble those things?
Indeed it seems I have frequently noticed a vast difference in many respects.
For example, I find within myself two distinct ideas of the sun.
One idea is drawn, as it were, from the senses.
Now it is this idea which, of all those that I take to be derived from outside me, is most in need of examination.
By means of this idea the sun appears to me to be quite small.
But there is another idea, one derived from astronomical reasoning, that is, it is elicited from certain notions that are innate in me, or else is fashioned by me in some other way.
Through this idea the sun is shown to be several times larger than the earth.
Both ideas surely cannot resemble the same sun existing outside me; and reason convinces me that the idea that seems to have emanated from the sun itself from so close is the very one that least resembles the sun.
[P]
All these points demonstrate sufficiently that up to this point it was not a well-defined judgment, but only a blind impulse that formed the basis of my belief that things existing outside me send ideas or images of themselves to me through the sense organs or by some other means.
I should withhold judgment about whether the source of my ideas whether within me or without.
It was by nature and by a poor judgment that I believed as much.
[P]
But still another way occurs to me for inquiring whether some of the things of which there are ideas in me do exist outside me: insofar as these ideas are merely modes of my thought, I see no inequality among them; they all seem to proceed from me in the same manner.
But insofar as one idea represents one thing and another idea another thing, it is obvious that they do differ very greatly from one another.
Unquestionably, those ideas that display substances to me are something more and, if I may say so, contain within themselves more objective reality than those which represent only modes or accidents.
Again, the idea that enables me to understand a supreme deity, eternal, infinite, omniscient, omnipotent, and creator of all things other than himself, clearly has more objective reality within it than do those ideas through which finite substances are displayed.
All ideas as ideas are equal as modes of thought.
However, the representational content or object of an idea varies.
The objective reality of an idea depends on the nature of its representational content.
The idea of a substance has more objective reality than the idea of an attribute or the idea of a mode.
The idea of infinite substance has more objective reality than the idea of finite substance.
[P]
Now it is indeed evident by the light of nature that there must be at least as much [reality] in the efficient and total cause as there is in the effect of that same cause.
According to the light of nature, there is at least as much being/reality in the cause as there is in its effect.
From where does Descartes draw his theory of cause and effect and its relation to the quantity of being/reality? Aristotle? Scholasticism?
For whence, I ask, could an effect get its reality, if not from its cause?
And how could the cause give that reality to the effect, unless it also possessed that reality?
Hence it follows that something cannot come into being out of nothing, and also that what is more perfect (that is, what contains in itself more reality) cannot come into being from what is less perfect.
From the aforementioned principle, it follows that
A thing cannot come to be from no thing.
Perfection, the quantity of being/reality a thing has
That which is more perfect cannot be the effect of a cause which is less perfect than it
But this is manifestly true not merely for those effects whose reality is actual or formal, but also for ideas in which only objective reality is considered.
For example, not only can a stone which did not exist previously not now begin to exist unless it is produced by something in which there is, either formally or eminently, everything that is in the stone; nor heat be introduced into a subject which was not already hot unless it is done by something that is of at least as perfect an order as heat–and the same for the rest–but it is also true that there can be in me no idea of heat, or of a stone, unless it is placed in me by some cause that has at least as much reality as I conceive to be in the heat or in the stone.
BEING/REALITY
[1] ACTUAL/FORMAL
[2] OBJECTIVE
[3] EMINENT
For although this cause conveys none of its actual or formal reality to my idea, it should not be thought for that reason that it must be less real.
Rather, the very nature of an idea is such that of itself it needs no formal reality other than what it borrows from my thought, of which it is a mode.
But that a particular idea contains this as opposed to that objective reality is surely owing to some cause in which there is at least as much formal reality as there is objective reality contained in the idea.
Why do ideas differ in their representational content (object) at all?
Descartes links this to his principle of cause and effect and the quantity of being/reality in the object of an idea.
For if we assume that something is found in the idea that was not in its cause, then the idea gets that something from nothing.
Yet as imperfect a mode of being as this is by which a thing exists in the intellect objectively through an idea, nevertheless it is plainly not nothing; hence it cannot get its being from nothing.
Since (the representational content of) an idea is not nothing, it cannot come to be from nothing.
[P]
Moreover, even though the reality that I am considering in my ideas is merely objective reality, I ought not on that account to suspect that there is no need for the same reality to be formally in the causes of these ideas, but that it suffices for it to be in them objectively.
For just as the objective mode of being belongs to ideas by their very nature, so the formal mode of being belongs to the causes of ideas, at least to the first and preeminent ones, by their very nature.
Ideas are representational by nature.
And although one idea can perhaps issue from another, nevertheless no infinite regress is permitted here; eventually some first idea must be reached whose cause is a sort of archetype that contains formally all the reality that is in the idea merely objectively.
Ideas can cause other ideas.
Ultimately, there is some formal, nonideational cause of the objective reality of certain primary ideas.
(This is reminiscent of Aristotle's deduction of the prime mover.)
Thus it is clear to me by the light of nature that the ideas that are in me are like images that can easily fail to match the perfection of the things from which they have been drawn, but which can contain nothing greater or more perfect.
The cause of the objective reality of ideas is the formal reality of the cause of the ideas.
[P]
And the longer and more attentively I examine all these points, the more clearly and distinctly I know they are true.
But what am I ultimately to conclude?
If the objective reality of any of my ideas is found to be so great that I am certain that the same reality was not in me, either formally or eminently, and that therefore I myself cannot be the cause of the idea, then it necessarily follows that I am not alone in the world, but that something else, which is the cause of this idea, also exists.
If I have some idea whose objective reality is greater than my formal reality as a thinking thing, then by the principle of
at least as much (formal) reality in the cause as there is (objective) reality in the effect, or, something cannot come from nothing,
then NECESSARILY I am not the cause of the idea and something else exists besides me.
But if no such idea is found in me, I will have no argument whatsoever to make me certain of the existence of anything other than myself, for I have conscientiously reviewed all these arguments, and so far I have been unable to find any other.
[P]
Among my ideas, in addition to the one that displays me to myself (about which there can be no difficulty at this point), are others that represent God, corporeal and inanimate things, angels, animals, and finally other men like myself.
[1] body; corporeal nature (res extensa)
[2] animals
[3] humans
[4] myself (res cogitans)
[5] angels
[6] God
[P]
As to the ideas that display other men, or animals, or angels, I easily understand that they could be fashioned from the ideas that I have of myself, of corporeal things, and of God–even if no men (except myself), no animals, and no angels existed in the world.
The ideas of animals, humans, and angels can be derived from the ideas of res extensa, res cogitans, and God.
[P]
As to the ideas of corporeal things, there is nothing in them that is so great that it seems incapable of having originated from me.
The ideas of bodies could come from me, too.
For if I investigate them thoroughly and examine each one individually, in the way I examined the idea of the wax yesterday, I notice that there are only a very few things in them that I perceive clearly and distinctly: namely, size, or extension in length, breadth, and depth; shape, which arises from the limits of this extension; position, which various things possessing shape have in relation to one another; and motion, or alteration in position.
Size, the extension in length, breadth, depth
Shape, the limits of size
Position, which shapes have in relation to each other
Motion, alteration in position
To these can be added substance, duration, and number.
the primary qualities could come from me
But as for the remaining items, such as light and colors, sounds, odors, tastes, heat and cold and other tactile qualities, I think of these only in a very confused and obscure manner, to the extent that I do not even know whether they are true or false, that is, whether the ideas I have of them are ideas of things or ideas of non-things.
But could this really be meaningful at this point in the meditations?
The problem of language and reference:
Do the ideas/words "hot" and "cold" represent two distinct things, or is there really only one thing and its lack so that one of the word's meanings would turn out to be "not the other thing" or "the lack of the other thing"?
For although a short time ago I noted that falsity properly so called (or “formal” falsity) is to be found only in judgments, nevertheless there is another kind of falsity (called “material” falsity) which is found in ideas whenever they represent a non-thing as if it were a thing.
FORMAL FALSITY, judgment
MATERIAL FALSITY, an idea of a thing which represents no thing
For example, the ideas I have of heat and cold fall so far short of being clear and distinct that I cannot tell from them whether cold is merely the privation of heat of whether heat is the privation of cold, or whether both are real qualities, or whether neither is.
And because ideas can only be, as it were, of things, if it is true that cold is merely the absence of heat, then an idea that represents cold to me as something real and positive will not inappropriately be called false.
The same holds for other similar ideas.
[P]
Assuredly, I need not assign to these ideas an author distinct from myself.
For if they were false, that is, if they were to represent non-things, I know by the light of nature that they proceed from nothing; that is, they are in me for no other reason than that something is lacking in my nature, and that my nature is not entirely perfect.
If, on the other hand, these ideas are true, then because they exhibit so little reality to me that I cannot distinguish it from a non-thing, I see no reason why they cannot get their being from me.
the secondary qualities could come from me either as an artefact of my imperfect nature or in the usual manner
[P]
As for what is clear and distinct in the ideas of corporeal things, it appears I could have borrowed some of these from the idea of myself: namely, substance, duration, number, and whatever else there may be of this type.
For instance, I think that a stone is a substance, that is to say, a thing that is suitable for existing in itself; and likewise I think that I too am a substance.
Despite the fact that I conceive myself to be a thinking thing and not an extended thing, whereas I conceive of a stone as an extended thing and not a thinking thing, and hence there is the greatest diversity between these two concepts, nevertheless they seem to agree with one another when considered under the rubric of substance.
Furthermore, I perceive that I now exist and recall that I have previously existed for some time.
And I have various thoughts and know how many of them there are.
It is in doing these things that I acquire the ideas of duration and number, which I can then apply to other things.
the primary qualities of substance, duration, and number could come from me formally
However, none of the other components out of which the ideas of corporeal things are fashioned (namely extension, shape, position, and motion) are contained in me formally, since I am merely a thinking thing.
But since these are only certain modes of a substance, whereas I am a substance, it seems possible that they are contained in me eminently.
the primary qualities of extension, size, shape, position, and motion could come from me eminently
[P]
THE IDEA OF GOD
Thus there remains only the idea of God.
I must consider whether there is anything in this idea that could not have originated from me.
I understand by the name “God” a certain substance that is infinite, independent, supremely intelligent, and supremely powerful, and that created me along with everything else that exists–if anything else exists.
Indeed all these are such that, the more carefully I focus my attention on them, the less possible it seems they could have arisen from myself alone.
Thus, from what has been said, I must conclude that God necessarily exists.
that god necessarily exists, as follows
[P]
For although the idea of substance is in me by virtue of the fact that I am a substance, that fact is not sufficient to explain my having the idea of an infinite substance, since I am finite, unless this idea proceeded from some substance which really was infinite.
The objective reality of the idea of infinite substance cannot come from the formal reality of finite substance (me).
[P]
Nor should I think that I do not perceive the infinite by means of a true idea, but only through a negation of the finite, just as I perceive rest and darkness by means of a negation of motion and light.
the idea of god is not materially false
because I clearly and distinctly perceive that there is more reality in infinite substance than there is in finite substance
On the contrary, I clearly understand that there is more reality in an infinite substance than there is in a finite one.
Thus the perception of the infinite is somehow prior in me to the perception of the finite; that is, my perception of God is prior to my perception of myself.
For how would I understand that I doubt and that I desire, that is, that I lack something and that I am not wholly perfect, unless there were some idea in me of a more perfect being, by comparison with which I might recognize my defects?
to perceive my own imperfection is to perceive the perfection of something other than me
[P]
Nor can it be said that this idea of God is perhaps materially false and thus can originate from nothing, as I remarked just now about the ideas of heat and cold, and the like.
On the contrary, because it is the most clear and distinct and because it contains more objective reality than any other idea, no idea is in and of itself truer and has less of a basis for being suspected of falsehood.
I maintain that this idea of a being that is supremely perfect and infinite is true in the highest degree.
For although I could perhaps pretend that such a being does not exist, nevertheless I could not pretend that the idea of such a being discloses to me nothing real, as was the case with the idea of cold which I referred to earlier.
It is indeed an idea that is utterly clear and distinct; for whatever I clearly and distinctly perceive to be real and true and to involve some perfection is wholly contained in that idea.
It is no objection that I do not comprehend the infinite or that there are countless other things in God that I can in no way either comprehend or perhaps even touch with my thought.
For the nature of the infinite is such that it is not comprehended by a being such as I, who am finite.
And it is sufficient that I understand this very point and judge that all those things that I clearly perceive and that I know to contain some perfection–and perhaps even countless other things of which I am ignorant–are in God either formally or eminently.
The result is that, of all the ideas that are in me, the idea that I have of God is the most true, the most clear and distinct.
the idea of god is the most clear and distinct idea I perceive, even if I cannot comprehend the infinite
[P]
But perhaps I am something greater than I myself understand.
Perhaps all these perfections that I am attributing to God are somehow in me potentially, although they do not yet assert themselves and are not yet actualized.
For I now observe that my knowledge is gradually being increased, and I see nothing standing in the way of its being increased more and more to infinity.
Moreover, I see no reason why, with my knowledge thus increased, I could not acquire all the remaining perfections of God.
And, finally, if the potential for these perfections is in me already, I see no reason why this potential would not suffice to produce the idea of these perfections.
How do I know that I am not potentially god myself?
[P]
Yet none of these things can be the case.
First, while it is true that my knowledge is gradually being increased and that there are many things in me potentially that are not yet actual, nevertheless, none of these pertains to the idea of God, in which there is nothing whatever that is potential.
Indeed this gradual increase is itself a most certain proof of imperfection.
Moreover, although my knowledge may always increase more and more, nevertheless I understand that this knowledge will never by this means be actually infinite, because it will never reach a point where it is incapable of greater increase.
On the contrary, I judge God to be actually infinite, so that nothing can be added to his perfection.
Finally, I perceive that the objective being of an idea cannot be produced by a merely potential being (which, strictly speaking, is nothing), but only by an actual or formal being.
God is actually infinite, not potentially infinite.
The objective being of an idea is caused by an actual/formal being, not a potential being.
[P]
Indeed there is nothing in all these things that is not manifest by the light of nature to one who is conscientious and attentive.
But when I am less attentive, and the images of sensible things blind the mind’s eye, I do not so easily recall why the idea of a being more perfect than me necessarily proceeds from a being that really is more perfect.
This being the case, it is appropriate to ask further whether I myself who have this idea could exist, if such a being did not exist.
[P]
From what source, then, do I derive my existence?
Why, from myself, or from my parents, or from whatever other things there are that are less perfect than God.
For nothing more perfect than God, or even as perfect as God, can be thought or imagined.
[P]
But if I got my being from myself, I would not doubt, nor would I desire, nor would I lack anything at all.
For I would have given myself all the perfections of which I have some idea; in so doing, I myself would be God!
I must not think that the things I lack could perhaps be more difficult to acquire than the ones I have now.
On the contrary, it is obvious that it would have been much more difficult for me (that is, a thing or substance that thinks) to emerge out of nothing than it would be to acquire the knowledge of many things about which I am ignorant (these items of knowledge being merely accidents of that substance).
Certainly, if I got this greater thing from myself, I would not have denied myself at least those things that can be had more easily.
Nor would I have denied myself any of those other things that I perceive to be contained in the idea of God, for surely none of them seem to me more difficult to bring about.
But if any of them were more difficult to bring about, they would certainly also seem more difficult to me, even if the remaining ones that I possess I got from myself, since it would be on account of them that I would experience that my power is limited.
[P]
Nor am I avoiding the force of these arguments, if I suppose that perhaps I have always existed as I do now, as if it then followed that no author of my existence need be sought.
For because the entire span of one’s life can be divided into countless parts, each one wholly independent of the rest, it does not follow from the fact that I existed a short time ago that I must exist now, unless some cause, as it were, creates me all over again at this moment, that is to say, which preserves me.
For it is obvious to one who pays close attention to the nature of time that plainly the same force and action are needed to preserve anything at each individual moment that it lasts as would be required to create the same thing anew, were it not yet in existence.
Thus conservation differs from creation solely by virtue of a distinction of reason; this too is one of those things that are manifest by the light of nature.
[P]
Therefore, I must now ask myself whether I possess some power by which I can bring it about that I myself, who now exist, will also exist a little later on.
For since I am nothing but a thinking thing–or at least since I am now dealing simply and precisely with that part of me which is a thinking thing–if such a power were in me, then I would certainly be aware of it.
But I observe that there is no such power; and from this very fact I know most clearly that I depend upon some being other than myself.
[P]
But perhaps this being is not God, and I have been produced either by my parents or by some other causes less perfect than God.
On the contrary, as I said before, it is obvious that there must be at least as much in the cause as there is in the effect.
Thus, regardless of what it is that eventually is assigned as my cause, because I am a thinking thing and have within me a certain idea of God, it must be granted that what caused me is also a thinking thing and it too has an idea of all the perfections which I attribute to God.
And I can again inquire of this cause whether it got its existence from itself or from another cause.
For if it got its existence from itself, it is evident from what has been said that it is itself God, because, having the power of existing in and of itself, it unquestionably also has the power of actually possessing all the perfections of which it has in itself an idea–that is, all the perfections that I conceive to be in God.
However, it if got its existence from another cause, I will once again inquire in similar fashion about this other cause: whether it got its existence from itself or from another cause, until finally I arrive at the ultimate cause, which will be God.
For it is apparent enough that there can be no infinite regress here, especially since I am not dealing here merely with the cause that once produced me, but also and most especially with the cause that preserves me at the present time.
[P]
Nor can one fancy that perhaps several partial causes have concurred in bringing me into being, and that I have taken the ideas of the various perfections I attribute to God from a variety of causes, so that all of these perfections are found somewhere in the universe, but not all joined together in a single being–God.
On the contrary, the unity, the simplicity, that is, the inseparability of all those features that are in God is one of the chief perfections that I understand to be in him.
Certainly the idea of the unity of all his perfections could not have been placed in me by any cause from which I did not also get the ideas of the other perfections; for neither could some cause have made me understand them joined together and inseparable from one another, unless it also caused me to recognize what they were.
[P]
Finally, as to my parents, even if everything that I ever believed about them were true, still it is certainly not they who preserve me; nor is it they who in any way brought me into being, insofar as I am a thinking thing.
Rather, they merely placed certain dispositions in the matter which I judged to contain me, that is, a mind, which now is the only thing I take myself to be.
And thus there can be no difficulty here concerning my parents.
Indeed I have no choice but to conclude that the mere fact of my existing and of there being in me an idea of a most perfect being, that is, God, demonstrates most evidently that God too exists.
[P]
All that remains for me is to ask how I received this idea of God.
For I did not draw it from the senses; it never came upon me unexpectedly, as is usually the case with the ideas of sensible things when these things present themselves (or seem to present themselves) to the external sense organs.
Nor was it made by me, for I plainly can neither subtract anything from it nor add anything to it.
Thus the only option remaining is that this idea is innate in me, just as the idea of myself is innate in me.
The ideas of God and of myself are innate.
[P]
To be sure, it is not astonishing that in creating me, God should have endowed me with this idea, so that it would be like the mark of the craftsman impressed upon his work, although this mark need not be something distinct from the work itself.
But the mere fact that God created me makes it highly plausible that I have somehow been made in his image and likeness, and that I perceive this likeness, in which the idea of God is contained, by means of the same faculty by which I perceive myself.
That is, when I turn the mind’s eye toward myself, I understand noy only that I am something incomplete and dependent upon another, something aspiring indefinitely for greater and greater or better things, but also that the being on whom I depend has in himself all those greater things–not merely indefinitely and potentially, but infinitely and actually, and thus that he is God.
The whole force of the argument rests on the fact that I recognize that it would be impossible for me to exist, being of such a nature as I am (namely, having in me the idea of God), unless God did in fact exist.
God, I say, that same being the idea of whom is in me: a being having all those perfections that I cannot comprehend, but can somehow touch with my thought, and a being subject to no defects whatever.
From these considerations it is quite obvious that he cannot be a deceiver, for it is manifest by the light of nature that all fraud and deceptions depend on some defect.
[P]
But before examining this idea more closely and at the same time inquiring into other truths that can be gathered from it, at this point I want to spend some time contemplating this God, to ponder his attributes and, so far as the eye of my darkened mind can take me, to gaze upon, to admire, and to adore the beauty of this immense light.
For just as we believe by faith that the greatest felicity of the next life consists solely in this contemplation of the divine majesty, so too we now experience that from the same contemplation, although it is much less perfect, the greatest pleasure of which we are capable in this life can be perceived.