While striving to get the proof of the own existence with the help of his cognitive abilities, Rene Descartes attempted to gather evidence for other truths around him. However, he also realized that the human mind could build on the faulty ground; thus, he searched a better foundation. The God’s existence seemed to be a solid foundation should he prove Him exist. In Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes develops his proofs of the God’s existence. First, the philosopher addressed the ontological argument based on the premise that people could not get an idea of God anywhere than from God himself. Second, Descartes developed the conservation argument arguing that people knew about the God’s existence because nothing else could grant them their existence apart from God. The trouble with Descartes’ proofs is that they were based on innate premises. Inasmuch as the philosopher believed that everything had a cause and concluded that God caused everything to live, he argued that people could make errors because they were not as perfect as God Almighty was.

Descartes’s main premise is that all things and ideas in the world are caused by something real. All things have creators, who made them. All ideas have original objects that projected them; a good example is the Sun and the idea of the sun in the sky that warms people. It means that something or someone had to generate the idea of God and it was not the human mind. Apart from accepting that some ideas were innate, Descartes accepted that the idea of what God was was innate, as well. He said, “By the name God I understand a substance that is infinite [eternal, immutable], independent, all-knowing, all-powerful, and by which I myself and everything else, if anything else does exist, have been created” (Descartes, 1996, p. 16). The confidence in God’s infiniteness is based on the fact that humans are different. Descartes posited that if he was not infinite and perfect, he could not get an idea of anything infinite and perfect other than from something which was infinite and perfect. It means that God is infinite and perfect; ultimately, it means that He exists. When arguing that “there must at least be as much reality in the efficient and total cause as in its effect,” the philosopher assumed that people could not come up with such an idea of the infinite God, if there were no infinite substance or being outside of them (Descartes, 1996, p. 15).

Descartes’ second proof of God’s existence was based on the continuance of people’s existence. Proceeding with the first premise of the primary cause, Descartes meditated that he personally could not be the cause of the own existence. He did not call himself into existence and could not be confident that he was able to preserve or conserve his existence from one moment to another. If he was not able to do it, he could not be the cause of his existence. It meant that there was something or someone that caused him and planted the very idea of God’s existence. Even if the cause of people’s existence was not God, Descartes suggested himself to keep asking for the cause and in such a matter he hoped to reach “an ultimate cause, which will be God” (Descartes, 1996, p. 18).

The ontological proof was given in greater details; thus, it was easier to understand. The idea that one’s existence should be preserved and conserved is less clear. Therefore, the first proof is more convincing. However, they both are based on the premises of innateness; nevertheless, the causality of all things is not evident. It is impossible to say that humans have the idea of the God’s existence only because He put this idea into their minds. It is more likely people who have this idea come from cultures with such a worldview as was said in the one illustration essay on our website. Furthermore, if the God’s existence were so self-evident and innate, people would not question themselves whether God exists or not. Therefore, the dismissal of the ontological proof is in the proof itself (Nolan, 2015).

Descartes’ ontological argument has a circular nature. He started his Meditations from casting doubts onto human senses and thinking that he needed God’s goodness to be confident that his senses did not deceive him. However, when arguing for the God’s existence, Descartes again solicited his senses and innate ideas in order to prove that God was a primary cause. At the beginning of Meditations, Descartes reminded that human senses could be fallible so people should not trust their senses completely knowing that they could deceive them. Further, Descartes explained that human senses could not distort reality completely and present something that did not exist because even dreams were made of fragments of what people had seen before and never showed something so fantastic, elements of which had not been glimpsed in reality.

On the one hand, Descartes argued that humans might have troubles with distinguishing between the reality and dream; on the other hand, people had free will and could err simply because they were not as perfect as God Himself. He supposed that a demon could inflict a grand illusion; in this case, people would not be able to notice it. Even if it were true, Descartes argued that at least his existence could not be falsified; otherwise, the demon would have no one to deceive. Descartes’ ultimate argument against life as a grand illusion was his existence. Here he made his famous assertion. “I am, I exist, is necessarily true each time that I pronounce it, or that I mentally conceive it” (Descartes, 1996, p. 9). In this regard, Descartes proved that the human existence was something that could be proven, whereas the correctness of the human perception of the world was more difficult to prove. In the second case with free will and God’s ultimate perfectness, humans are hardwired to make mistakes because they are not perfect. Both arguments are convincing in terms of the religious thought.

Descartes’ Meditations was important for the history of the philosophical thought and demonstrated the development of the ontological argument and the use of logic in theological issues. However, his arguments were objected right away. Need for the primary cause raises the most doubts and objections, as well as innate knowledge of something. Descartes built his confidence in God’s goodness on the innate ideas implanted in people’s minds and on human cognitive abilities that proved the existence of every person.