Is There A God This Has Been One Of The Most Debated Questions Of Man

Is there a God? This has been one of the most debated questions of mankind. Religious icons, historians, archeologists, and others have questioned, investigated, and again questioned the existence of God. In his Discourse on Method, Ren? Descartes attempts to answer this question by means of a meticulous process. He means to guide his readers by the hand to arrive at his assertion that there is, in fact, a ?Nature more perfect than [ourselves]? (Potter 29) In Part IV of the Discourse on Method, Descartes attempts to convince his readers of the certain existence of a superior being. This is a very strategic method on Descartes' part. After reading three full sections of Descartes' diatribe on how they should go about life, readers are entrapped in a world of doubt; a world to which Descartes has led them, and a world in which he is the only one able to get them out. While in Descartes' world of doubt, the reader finds him or herself stumbling upon a somewhat lengthy paragraph concerning the existence of God. After reading this paragraph, the reader is convinced that Descartes is correct in his claim, for he led the reader by the hand through his discourse, and his proof of God. Following Descartes' idea that everything must have a cause, and the cause must have as much reality as the effect, Descartes proves the existence of God. Descartes also uses his cogito to support his logical progression. This progression is as follows: He has an idea of God, an infinitely perfect being; the idea of God has formal existence; whatever has formal existence must have a formally existing cause; there must be as much total perfection in the cause of the idea as there is in the idea itself; his idea of God has infinite total perfection; therefore, God has formal existence. He has broken his process down to the bare essentials for the reader. This is what convinces that Descartes is correct. His method is so simple, so concise, that any doubting reader is convinced by the mere simplicity of his argument. He continues once this is established. He asserts that a Perfect Being must exist, for he knows he is not perfect, therefore something must be perfect. He is certain that he is not perfect, because he also asserts that assuredness is more perfect than doubt. Since Descartes is constantly doubting, his claim is entirely valid. Specifically, he states that: I must hold this notion from some Nature which in reality was more perfect. As for the thoughts of many other objects external to me, as of the sky, the earth, light, heat, and a thousand more, I was less at a loss to know whence these came; for since I remarked in them nothing which seemed to render them superior to myself, I could believe that, if these were true, they were dependencies on my own nature, in so far as it possessed a certain perfection, and, if they were false, that I held them from nothing, that is to say, that they were in me because of a certain imperfection of my nature. But this could not be the case with the idea of a nature more perfect than myself. . . (29) This is the another piece of the foundation of Descartes' argument for the existence of a God. Descartes uses everything that he perceives to support his argument. In other words, he asserts that all that he perceives must come from somewhere, and if all that he perceives are falsities of his senses, this is simply another testament to his imperfection. Descartes has proved the existence of a perfect being. This perfect being, however, does not canote all that the reader thinks of when he or she thinks of, ?God?. Descartes has merely proven the existence of a being that is perfect. Descartes' God is somewhat of a representation of his own imperfections, for the Perfect Being that he describes does not doubt, knows all, and sees all as clear and distinct. In his third meditation, he elaborates further into his existence of God. Descartes has the hypothesis of an evil demon deceiving him all the time. Descartes uses yet another brilliant