Six metaphysical meditations: $b Wherein it is proved that there is a God and that mans mind is really distinct from his bodyDescartes, René
PhilosophyPhilosophy
Six metaphysical meditations: $b Wherein it is proved that there is a God and that mans mind is really distinct from his body
Descartes, René
Descartes, René, 1596-1650; First philosophy; God -- Proof, Ontological; Knowledge, Theory of; Metaphysics; Methodology
Lastly when we assert, that some _Ideas_ are _Innate_ or _natural_ to us,
we do not mean that they are always present with us (for so no _Idea_
would be _Innate_) but only that we have in our selves a Faculty of
producing them.
OBJECT. XI.
* _The whole stress of which Argument lyes thus; because I know it
impossible for me to be of the same nature I am, ~viz~, having the Idea
of a God in me, unless really there were a God, A God (I say) that very
same God, whose Idea I have in my mind._
Wherefore seeing ’tis not _demonstrated_ that we have an _Idea_ of
_God_, and the Christian Religion commands us to believe that _God_ is
_Inconceivable_, that is, as I suppose, that we cannot have an _Idea_ of
Him, it follows, that the _Existence_ of _God_ is not demonstrated, much
less _the Creation_.
ANSWER.
When _God_ is said to be _Inconceiveable_ ’tis understood of an _Adequate
full conception_. But I am ’een tired with often repeating, how
notwithstanding we may have an _Idea_ of _God_. So that here is nothing
brought that makes any thing against my _demonstration_.
OBJECT. XII.
_Against the Fourth Meditation, Of Truth and Falshood._
* _By Which I understand that Error (as it is Error) is not a Real Being,
Dependent on God, but is only a Defect; and that therefore to make me Err
there is not requisite a Faculty of Erring Given me by God._
’Tis Certain that _Ignorance_ is only a _Defect_, and that there is no
Occasion of any _Positive Faculty_ to make us _Ignorant_. But this
position is not so clear in Relation to _Error_, for Stones and Inanimate
Creatures cannot _Err_, for this Reason only, because they have not the
_Faculties_ of _Reasoning_ or _Imagination_; from whence ’tis Natural
for us to Conclude, That to _Err_ there is requisite a _Faculty_ of
_Judging_, or at least of _Imagining_, both which _Faculties_ are
_Positive_, and given to all _Creatures_ subject to Error, and to Them
only.
Moreover _Des-Cartes_ says thus, _I find_ (my Errors) _to Depend on two
concurring Causes_, viz. _on my Faculty of Knowing, and on my Faculty of
Choosing, or Freedom of my Will_. Which seems Contradictious to what he
said before; And here also we may note, that _Freedom of Will_ is assumed
without any Proof contrary to the Opinion of the Calvinists.
ANSWER.
Tho to make us _Err_ there is requisite a _Faculty_ of _Reasoning_ (or
rather of _Judging_, that is, of _Affirming_ and _Denying_) because
_Error_ is the _Defect_ thereof, yet it does not follow from thence that
this _Defect_ is any thing _Real_, for neither is _Blindness_ a _Real_
Thing, tho stones cannot be said to be _Blind_, for this Reason only,
That they are _incapable of sight_. And I much wonder that in all these
_Objections_ I have not found one _Right Inference_.
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