"When I turn my mind's eye upon myself, I understand that I am a thing which is incomplete and dependent on another and which aspires without limit to ever greater and better things; but I also understand at the same thime that he on whom I depend has within him all those greater things, not just indefinitely and potentially but actually and infinitely, and hence that he is God."
-Descartes, Third Meditation: The Existence of God
2 comments:
I don't really see that much of an issue with his argument being so rational. I guess I'm kind of the opinion that faith, while being faith, still has an element of reason to it. It takes faith for us to believe in God, but doesn't it take some reason for us to look at other religions and beliefs and say "those don't make sense" or "those aren't logically consistent"? In addition, I'm not really convinced that if you brought Descartes argument to an atheist he would all of sudden say "I never thought about that before" and thereafter believe in God.
Also, I don't really see how this is all that different from the Intelligent Design argument, which essentially says, "look around, do you really think all this complexity could just happen?". Descartes just kind of says, "look at yourself, look at all these ideas and thoughts you have, do you really think they could just happen, that they don't come from anywhere?"
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