Six metaphysical meditations: $b Wherein it is proved that there is a God and that mans mind is really distinct from his body — Descartes — John Shaqi
Six metaphysical meditations: $b Wherein it is proved that there is a God and that mans mind is really distinct from his body
Descartes · en
I have also found in my self a _Judicative faculty_, which certainly (as
all other things I possess) I have received from _God_; and seeing he
will not _deceive_ me, he has surely given me such a _Judgement_, that
I can _never Err_, whilst I make a _Right Use_ of it. Of which truth I
can make no doubt, unless it seems, that From hence it will follow, That
therefore _I can never Err_; for if whatever I have, I have from _God_,
and if he gave me no _Faculty_ of _Erring_, I may seem not to be _able to
Err_. And truly so it is whilst I think upon _God_, and wholly convert
my self to the _consideration_ of him, I find no occasion of _Error_ or
_Deceit_; but yet when I return to the _Contemplation_ of _my self_, I
find my self liable to _Innumerable Errors_. Enquiring into the _cause_
of which, I find in my self an _Idea_, not only a _real_ and _positive
one_ of a _God_, that is, of a _Being infinitely perfect_, but also
(as I may so speak) a _Negative Idea_ of _Nothing_; that is to say, I
am so constituted between God and Nothing or between a perfect _Being_
and _No-being_, that as I am _Created_ by the _Highest Being_, I have
nothing in Me by which I may be _deceived_ or drawn into _Error_; but as
I pertake in a manner of _Nothing_, or of a _No-Being_, that is, as I my
self am _not_ the _Highest Being_, and as I _want_ many _perfections_,
’tis no Wonder that I should be _Deceived_.
By which I understand that _Error_ * (as it is _Error_) is not any _real
Being_ dependant on _God_, but it is only a _Defect_; And that therefore
to make me _Err_ there is not requisite a _faculty_ of _Erring_ given
me by _God_, but only it so happens that I _Err_ meerly because the
_Judicative faculty_, which he has given me, is not _Infinite_.
But yet this Account is not fully _satisfactory_; for _Error_ is not
only a meer _Negation_, but ’tis a _Privation_, or a _want_ of a certain
_Knowledge_, which _ought_ (as it were) to be in me. And when I consider
the _Nature_ of _God_, it seems impossible that he should give me any
_faculty_ which is not _perfect_ in its _kind_, or which should _want_
any of its _due perfections_; for if by how much the more _skilful_ the
_Workman_ is, by so much the _Perfecter Works_ proceed from him. What can
be made by the _Great Maker_ of all things which is not _fully perfect_?
For I cannot Doubt but _God_ may _Create_ me so that I may _never_ be
_deceived_, neither can I doubt but that he _Wills_ whatever is _Best_;
Is it therefore _better_ for me to be _deceived_, or not to be _deceived?_