Whilst there has been a plethora of beliefs and faith regarding god, the basic premise of a supreme being or beings that hold perfect qualities such as omnipotence, omniscience and Omnibenevolence is present throughout time. The philosophers I will be examining; Plato and Descartes, come from different eras and intrinsically hold different beliefs, thus their philosophies on god differ. It is within Descarte’s discussion of his metaphysical and epistemological beliefs in Meditations that leads to a discussion of the existence of God; which is in Bernard Williams’ words the‘idea of god, the existence of which requires no proof’ (Schectmann, 2014).
However Plato’s discussion of gods in Republic regards both the form of good and the utopian state, Kallipolis; how in order to have an ideal, well- ruled society, the gods must be taught about in flattering stories that will encourage the people to act well. While the two philosophers both present views on God’s that present all-goodness they are presented in two different ways and for different reasons.
As mentioned, Descartes’ metaphysical and epistemological views are discussed in Meditations, and it is through proving the existence of a God, that Descartes attempts to prove that his ideas about the external world are adequate to those objects. That is to say that his thoughts have truth. The meditator (the speaker in meditations) has to establish if God is deceiving him about being.
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In Descartes’ view, he believes in the Abrahamic monotheistic idea of God that is omnipotent and all good. It would be inconsistent with this belief that a God could be deceiving and thus Descartes rejects this. So to support his epistemological theory, he must prove the existence of God. God is the creator of all perfection, an infinite being and this leads us to his casual argument for the Existence of God. He is setting out to prove that God is an innate idea, in other words, an ontological truth, not a fabrication (a production of his imagination) to prove that a person can hold truths about being that are not just inventions of the mind.
As Descartes states ‘there must be at least as much reality in the cause as there is in the effect of that same cause’ (Descartes, 1993, p. 73). That is to say that the cause of ‘X’ must have at least as much reality as ‘X’ itself. Applying this to the view of God, it is the idea of how a finite being (the human) could have developed the idea of an infinite being (God) if it was not from the infinite being itself. Descartes thus comes to the conclusion that ‘the mere fact that I exist and have within me an idea of most a perfect being…provides a very clear proof that God indeed exists’ (Descartes, 1993, p. 80). That is to say that the cause of the idea of God must have at least as much formal reality as the idea of God has objective reality. If this proves true then God provided the idea of God himself therefore he must exist and thus the argument for his existence is proven.
However there are issues that are presented within Descartes ontological argument in Meditations III. It is seen as a simplicity issue, an issue which Nolan describes as the ‘hallmark (Nolan, 2015)’ of his argument that it ‘reads more like the report of an intuition than a formal proof’ (Nolan, 2015). While Descartes believes this is the theory of innate ideas from which God’s existence can be inferred, is a ‘self-evident axiom’ (Nolan, 2015) created free from critique.
I think that Johannes Caterus offers an interesting point on Descartes’ ‘illogical leap from mental world of concepts to the real world things’ (Nolan, 2015); ‘Even if it is granted that a supremely perfect being carries the implication of existence in virtue of its very title, it still does not follow that the existence in question is anything actual in the real world’ (Nolan, 2015). In Descartes text, he just inferred that God must exist through assumption. However Descartes defends his bridge principal (going from the idea of existence to existence itself) through the theory of clear and distinct perception in Meditations IX: that anything we perceive or understand is true.
However I believe there are still fundamental issues with this as I do not believe anything can follow ‘a priori from their concept’ (Nolan, 2015)- that would prove that anything with existing in their concept would be proven, which I do not believe is accurate. While this may also be problematic, I do not believe everyone has the same innate ideas as Descartes states, infact Lori Balster’s statement that ‘he tends to conclude that a given claim in his argument must be true, simply because he cannot imagine how it might be true any other way than how he has conceived it’ (Balster, 1996) seems a better explanation.
Descartes avoids the idea of imperceived effects of body on the mind, effects that could change the belief that God himself planted the idea of God. Balster references the Gestalists and how we have a ‘tendency of intellect’ (Balster, 1996) to perceive things not really present and thus ‘makes it difficult to tile out the possibility that we may have constructed the notion of God somehow from unorganised, sensual perceptions we pick up around us.’ (Balster, 1996) (44). Balster takes the example Helen Keller and how her knowledge of language first came from the recognition of her educator that the sensation of water could relate to the spelling of the word ‘water’ which I believe can provide an interesting rebuttal of Descartes views.
However Descartes does not believe that this sensation perception can influence a person’s mind and thus the person could imagine God himself. ‘He concludes reductively that he must not have come up on the idea on his own’ (Balster, 1996) and it is this reductive approach that rejects imperceived effects and ‘the body’s influence on the mind’ (Balster, 1996) that makes Descartes argument for the existence of God a weak one.
Plato and Descartes have different fundamental reasons for their discussion surrounding God. Some believe that Plato speaks of God when he speaks of the form of good, the highest of all the forms. It is spoken in the Allegory of the Cave – that when in the cave ‘the prisoners in every way believe that the truth is nothing other than the shadows of those artifacts’ (Plato, 1992, p. 515c).
It is when they could get out of the cave and see things in the light they would not return to the darkness. True knowledge is the Form of Good and it is the most fundamental thing in existence. In Plato’s words ‘What the good itself is in the intelligible realm, in relation to understanding and intelligible things, the sun is in the visible realm, in relation to sight and visible things’ (Plato, 1992, p. 508c). That is to say, the ultimate Good (knowledge) illuminates understanding as light illuminates objects.
Many have related the Form of Good to Early Christianity, an ultimate good ‘from which every other derived its goodness’, which is easy to understand how this is related to a traditional christian view of God who created and governs the earth. Especially as Stephen Mean mentions,“The Good”is claimed as a name for God at the beginning of Metaphysics 12.10’ (Menn, 1992). (god as nous ans as the good) and in the republic, Book VII ‘the virtue of reason seems to belong above all to something more divine’ (Plato, 1992, p. 518e). There are references to a high status and being throughout Plato’s work. However, there is no logical evidence that it refers to a higher being such as a God, particularly one of an early Christian god, when Plato lived in a polytheistic society.
While Descartes is aiming to prove the truth to his thoughts, and thus proves the reality of God. Plato wishes to explain how the utopian Kallipolis will benefit from ideas about the gods. For Example, Guardians (those responsible for ruling the Kallipolis city) must be educated, they must ‘shape their children’s souls with stories’ (Plato, 1992, p. 377c) in Plato’s societal ideal.
In the dialogue between Socrates and Adeimantus, it is said ‘a god must alway be represented as he is…a god is really good, isn’t he’ (Plato, 1992, pp. 379a-b). In other words, a God as a being is an ultimate good and thus is only responsible for the good in the world; ‘the good isn’t the cause of all things, then, but only of good vibes; it isn’t the cause of bad ones’ (Plato, 1992, p. 379b) Pg 55. God is thus only Good, and has no negative qualities, much like Descartes’s description of God.
However Plato’s description moves to to reject all evidence of harmful actions by Gods such as ‘the foolish mistake Homer makes about the gods’ (Plato, 1992, p. 379b). These would destroy the workings of the Kalliopolis and thus must be rejected, in a sense, they must monitored from hearing anything that could be negatively viewed about the Gods ‘if it’s to be well- governed’ (Plato, 1992, p. 380b). This is problematic as while the Gods are being presented as all-good they seem to being used here as a suggestion at social control and thus are not the attempt at proof that Descartes discusses.
In Plato’s view the ideas of Gods must be censored to create the ideal city and this will be through ‘laws or patterns concerning the God’s to which speakers and poets must conform’ (Plato, 1992, p. 380c). This leads to Plato’s second idea that ‘God is simple and true in word and deed. He doesn’t change himself or deceive others by images, words, or signs’ (Plato, 1992, p. 382e) because the good do not lie, or the ultimate good would not need to change himself. Thus the ideas surrounding Gods are that they are good and do not mislead with falsehoods and that the guardians will be taught the stories that teach this ‘so that our guardians [of the future] will be as god-fearing and godlike as human beings can be’ (Plato, 1992, p. 383c)
It is interesting to compare Descartes and Plato’s view of God because of their different backgrounds and approaches to the idea. Descartes provides an interesting debate into the existence of God that on the surface but as Lori Balster stated, I believe that ‘Descartes fails to convince argumentatively that it was God who put the idea of God in him, and that he did not create the concept himself (Balster, 1996)’.
The illogical jump from the idea of existence to existence itself does not provide evidence for God’s existence. However, it is plausible to think that a God could exist even if it is not necessary that he does exist, so while it is a weak argument it is not completely illogical. Whereas in regard to Plato, his theory of a Form of Good relates to a view of God that is a higher being, the ultimate truth. However, this is not necessarily argued for in Plato’s Republic but is more focused on how this God-like Goodness (or knowledge) can be achieved rather than it being the nature of gods themselves.
Then the gods become a focus in Republic as a means of education for the guardians and achieving the true societal ideal in the Kallipolis. That is to say that, gods are seen as good and their actions (or at least perceived actions) need to be followed in the utopia. As an atheist, I personally do not find any of these ideas convincing but I can relate to the need for true goodness and do think both provide an interesting debate on the issue of God.
