An Ontological Oversight: Descartes’ First Argument for the Existence of God Ryan Sadler Bauman College

Over the course of his Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes suspends belief in all material and metaphysical substance before rebuilding from the foundational element of the thinker’s existence, eventually concluding that God exists alongside material things and that the soul and body are distinct. However, the advancement from the thinker’s existence to the existence of authentic material beings necessitates a supremely powerful God who is no deceiver. Descartes claims in Meditation I that “since deception and error seem to be imperfections, the less powerful they make my original cause, the more likely it is that I am so imperfect as to be deceived all the time.” [1] To establish any confidence in the external world, it is imperative that Descartes proves God’s existence, and he attempts this feat at three distinct points in his famed Meditations on First Philosophy. In Meditation III, Descartes argues that the thought of an idea necessitates a cause, which must have a formal reality greater than the objective reality of the idea – this is deemed Descartes’ First Argument for the Existence of God in this paper. Descartes’ First Argument for the Existence of God relies on an enigmatic conception of an ‘idea’ and of how...