Tutorial # 14 Descartes’ Meditations III, IV and V: The Existence of God. Discussion Questions

Try to think about\answer the questions below after having read and meditated:
René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy (Meditations III, IV, and V)
A useful summary of Descartes' "Proof" for the existence of God is HERE
Another very useful resorce is the Descartes Ontological argument entry on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

• What are Descartes’ arguments for the existence of God?
• His ontological argument is grounded in a theory of innate ideas and the doctrine of clear and distinct perception . But Is the idea of God innate? If so, how and why? Try and speculate (reasonably) about it.
• If not, would that make a difference with regard to the existence of God?
• How would you argue that the idea of God is clear and distinct?
• Is Descartes’ argument for the existence of God apriori (take a look at the post on apriori\aposteriori)?
• Is it logically valid? Or does the argument have a different form?
• What are the main differences between St Anselm’s and Descartes’ ontological arguments?
• Is Descartes’ God the God of the Bible (or of any reveled religion)?
• What is the role of God in Descartes’ philosophy?
• What attributes does Descartes’ God possess?
• If God is supremely good, would it follow that we cannot be deceived? In which sense?
• If God is supremely good, would it follow that God gave the same innate ideas to all minds?
• Think about Pascal’s critique: Why Does Pascal claim: “Descartes useless and uncertain”?
• Is Pascal’s target the logical validity of Descartes’ argument?