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God

Atheists said to Abu Hanifa: in any year found Lord?

He said God exists prior to the date and times for its existence is not the first ..

He said to them: Why did the four?

They said three ..

He said to them: Why did the three?

They said two ..

He said to them: Why do before Monday?

They said: one ..

Said to them, and the one before?

They said nothing before him ..

He said to them: If a single computational nothing before him, how is the one true God! It is not the first of its existence ..

They said: At any point of moving your Lord?

He said if I brought a lamp in a dark place to any other moving light?

They said: everywhere ..

Said: If this light, how light industrial heavens and the earth!?

They said: We knew nothing about with your Lord? Is it hard as iron, liquid like water? Gas or smoke and steam?

He said: Do you sit down next to the Supervisor of the patient gasping?

They said: We sat down ..

He said: Do silenced told you after death?

They said no.

He said you had spoken before death, and was moving?

They said: Yes.

Said: What else?

They said get out of his soul.

He said, drove his soul?

They said: Yes.

He said, I described this spirit, it is hard as iron or liquid like water? Gas or smoke and steam?

They said: We do not know anything about them!!

Said: If the spirit creature you can not access to the essence, how do you want me to describe to you the divine?

Prayer

Lord helped me to say a word right in the face of powerful

And not to say falsehood to earn applause vulnerable

And see the other side of the picture

Do not leave me accuse my opponents as traitors because they disagreed with me in opinion

If the Lord gave me money, do not take pleasure

If you gave me strength, do not take my mind

If you gave me success, do not take Toadaa

If you gave me humble, do not take my pride and my dignity

Lord taught me to love people and I love myself

And taught me to myself as Ahacb Ahacb people

And taught me that tolerance is the largest power rankings

Love and revenge is the first manifestation of weakness.

Lord of the wounded pride Atdni if ​​successful

Elias and if it fails

It always reminded me that failure is the experiences that precede success.

Lord of the money if Gerdtna leave me hope

If the success of Gerdtna leave me the power of stubbornness

Even overcome the failure

If Gerdtna the blessing of health, leave me the grace of faith.

Lord offended if people give me the courage to apologize

If I offended people give me courage Amnesty

If I forget thee, Lord Please do not forget me in your forgiveness and your dream

Great then you Kahar is capable of everything ..

Why God? The simple but mysterious answer is that man has an inner quest for someone who is always higher than him to lean on in the times of trouble. Many on the wee hours of December 26, 2004 asked the same question as the tsunami swallowed hundreds of thousands on the day after Christmas. Didn’t they ask God for help? Yes, they most definitely did, but God is God. The God of Wiesel is the supreme creator and when man leaves him in his self aggrandizement, He bids farewell to see man’s frailty.  This was true in the case of Yuri Gagarin, who went to the space and on return reaffirmed his atheist beliefs that there is no God. He claimed he did not see God after soaring a few hundred miles into space. In another test mission as his plane was going in to flame immediately after its launch, it seems Gagarin’s cry for God, presumably for help, was heard through wireless communications.  

The silence of God to the sudden utterance of Yuri Gagarin asking help, to the plea for help from people getting carried 50 feet in to the air by a tidal wave and to the earthquake felt by the citizens of Pakistan fuel the atheists to reaffirm their thinking is correct. But they are pitifully mistaken because if their pioneers, like Bertrand Russell can believe the universe was “just there,” then why cannot God be ‘just there?’ People mostly need a superior being only to find remedies for certain unsolvable issues – whether man made or natural. Under ordinary circumstances, credit for all comfortable rides in the chariot of human conveniences is due to man.  There are many who are averse to the name of God, though they are ready to admit the existence of a ‘supernatural power’ just because they too need the timely intervention by that power in case of trouble. 

The God of Wiesel, that is the God of Abraham, had chartered out His bye-laws long before man began to implement his wicked schemes to test Him by breaking some of the clauses or sub-clauses. The aftermath of such violations of his eternal laws was only known years later to the people who claim to have received the laws and the covenants of God. It was to their dismay that the consequences of these violations were grief and hardships brought upon themselves.

Searching the whereabouts of a judge to reason him in the midst of the execution of a verdict is unheard as it is meaningless – and all these hues and cries are examples of it.  

Throughout history many enemies have gathered together in unity against the Jewish people to eradicate them and though they have failed numerous times, the attempts are far too unnatural for a single nation. But the lamentable situation is, though it may seem that the people in the camp were innocent, the commissions and omissions with regard to the law of unchanging God had been started generations before. They (the people) ignored their creator when He called them in His perfect time, so he bid them farewell to experience the fruits of their own labor. When God bids farewell, it is the tragic loss to not only individuals but to nations as well, as God’s mercies are kept at bay and his chosen are left alone.

Today, God is not only forcibly sent back to heaven but all his traces of existence are being erased from the history of nations as the atheists rally for the removal of “Under God”, “In God we trust” and “Thou shall not” from the banners, bills and boulders that make up our nation. “He is hanging on the gallows” because man has tied the noose.  Night is relevant today because God is forgotten, “murdered” and left in the dust of the twenty first century. He is regarded incapable for anything as many today ungratefully want to eliminate him from the fabric of society. Such is true of all generations but those who have in the past acknowledged him have received his mercy and blessings. The burden Mr. Wiesel carries in the core of his heart should be rendered to the future as the turbulent days are approaching when history will most definitely repeat itself.

The book Night is relevant today as the authenticity of God is being questioned. While most today doubt the existence of a supreme creator, a nation as a whole need someone on top of everything whose set standards they have to go by.  A human head of nation is to implement the rule of the political law and such a man was Hitler. But it is the duty of a people to reconcile with the God of their ancestors who had bade them farewell but is eager to see if they come back to Him, as He is their king. Nazism, Fascism etc are examples wherein the scope-goats such as Elie had to doubt the existence of a God. I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in whom Mr. Wiesel believes.

Book Cover of Night by Wiesel (Image via Wikipedia)

Recently I found myself in a very difficult position at work. I had worked at the company for over 10 years, and considered myself ‘part of the furniture’. All was well until the company were taken over and introduced their own management team. Within a very short space of time, everybody I knew had been push out of the door – one way or another.  I spent a long time out thinking myself into a strategy to survive in the new regime (I was having no luck finding another position!). One day the axe fell and I found myself without work and with no prospects. Every which way I turned was blocked. I was at rock bottom.

Image via Wikipedia

Like most people – regardless of belief – I turned to God for an answer in my darkest hour. Now I’m not saying I fell to my knees and begged for an answer; but I did ask ‘him’ in my own way for help. Now I have to say that my situation did not instantly improve. I was not surrounded in a glowing light whilst everything was made good. Being the logical animal I am, I had thought through many varying scenarios, ranging from good to terrible outcomes. I won’t bore you with the details, but a chain of events a few weeks later turned my situation around. I didn’t win the lottery or experience a genuine miracle, but for me the outcome was more than I had hoped for. Life still isn’t perfect, and I still have some way to go to get back to where I was, but things are better now.

Is this proof that God exists? Did he listen to my prayers and help me in my time of need? As an outsider I would be very sceptical about that. In my own little universe, he helped me big time, and I will always be grateful. I doubt there will ever be proof that actually God exists. Perhaps his strategy is to prove himself to us in individual and personal ways. In any event, even if my circumstances were entirely orchestrated by chance, at least in my world I have someone I can rely on if the world collapses around me again…

Descartes’ main intention is to have an infallible foundation for the sciences and philosophy. But he believes this foundation cannot be built because all the information stored in the mind is ambiguous and conflicting. The knowledge is fallible because the mind receives the information through the senses, which are prone to deception. An example is the image of the sun in the mind’s eye verses the sun seen in space. The difference is astronomical, because the sun in the mind’s eye is conceived as a small yellow tennis ball sized body, while the actual sun is millions of miles in diameter. Consequently, Descartes concludes that the senses cannot be trusted, and cannot be used as a proper foundation for the sciences. So to find a remedy, he plunges in to hyperbolic doubt-a method he uses to clear his mind of all existing information and start afresh. He doubts the existence of everything around him, though not denying them. He comes to the basic maxim that he is a thinking thing without a body, because he doubts even the existence of his own body.  The fact that he thinks at each moment, proves that his mind exists. But even after the hyperbolic doubting, the idea of God as the creator still lingers in him. Descartes still has an idea of God, an “infinite, independent, supremely intelligent and supremely powerful and that created me along with everything else that exists” (Descartes 30). After plunging himself deep in to doubt, he is left only with his mind the knowledge of God’s infiniteness. But his goal must be remembered, he is trying to establish an infallible base for the sciences. To make a better base, he has to build one from scratch by finding his way back in to reality. To come back from doubt haven, he needs a conduit, because he has reduced everything around him to nonexistence. He needs a foolproof channel which has not succumbed to his doubts. He cannot choose his own existence because he knows he is finite. Thus he chooses the next available idea he has left, the existence of God as an infinite being. Thus he begins to prove God’s existence to use it as a reference point and to get back to reality and establish a better base for the sciences.

Continuing on his path to get back to reality, Descartes has come to the stage where he has to prove God’s existence to get out of doubt haven. He accomplishes this proof by recognizing premises and deriving maxims based on them. I wish to discuss the key points in Descartes second proof. The first premises is if man created himself, he would not doubt, desire or lack because he would create himself to be perfect. But the very act of doubting leads one to believe that man did not create himself. Unlike Descartes who is trying to get a better base for the sciences by using doubt as a method, there is no reason why a perfect being should doubt to attain anything. A perfect being is in need of nothing. Thus the first proof is man did not create himself. The second premise is man cannot guarantee his existence for each moment because he did not create himself. This leads to the second proof that since Descartes still exists a thinking thing, there  has to be a supreme being that sustains him-God. The third premise is God by definition exists in Descartes as a creator, not a creation. This leads to the third proof that God is not created by another, but is the creator himself. The fourth premise is the idea that God epitome of absolute perfection, and not relatively perfect to man’s imperfections. Since Descartes finds himself to be finite and imperfect, the very idea of God, a perfect being, is perfect in itself. This leads to the fourth proof that since man is imperfect and the idea of God is perfect, the idea had to come from a perfect being. The fifth premise is man does not possess infinite knowledge. This leads to the fifth proof that the idea that man has about himself as finite, is in comparison to God’s infinite nature. This leads us to the sixth premise, a question-how and from where does this idea of an infinite being come to appear in a finite thinking thing like man? The proof answers this question: the idea of God as a perfect being is innate in man, and can be implanted in him by this perfect being himself. Thus, it can be seen by the seventh premise that this perfect being has worked on man by planting an idea in him about himself. Since God is synonymous to perfection in all respects, he is this prefect being. Therefore, the final proof is that God exists. Now that Descartes had a clear and well defined conduit, he could use to come back to reality from the doubt haven he plunged himself into.

Now that God exists for Descartes, many things that he once doubted become evident. In the proof of the existence of God, the finiteness of man and the infiniteness of God were established; therefore, Descartes can now accept that he was created by God, though he still thinks of himself as a thinking thing. Furthermore, Descartes concludes that since God exists and he was created by God, things could not simply be hyperbolically doubted.  As a result, he couldn’t ignore his faculties of intellect and imagination, which part of his body. His imagination led him to the perception of the existence of his body. It is to be observed that when he started his hyperbolic doubt, he did not deny the existence of his body, but only doubted it. Now that the elements of doubt had been vanquished in the presence of God’s existence, there was no reason why he had to doubt the existence of his physical body. Since he had a physical body, he also felt the driving force of nature that enabled him to live in the world.  As Descartes puts it “And surely there is no doubt that all that I am taught by nature has some truth to it; for by “nature,” taken generally, I understand nothing other than God himself or the ordered network of created things which was instituted by God. By my own particular nature I understand nothing other than the combination of all things bestowed upon me by God” (53). Thus he could legitimately accept all the directions of nature in his body, such as hunger and pain because they were ordained by God.  Now that Descartes accepted the existence of his own body, he could accept the existence of all other physical bodies pointed out to him through his senses by nature. Note that he has come back to rely on his senses again. He concludes that he cannot totally disregard his senses because they are present with good intentions. The senses are part of his body to keep it from harm and assist him with living. But in some cases they are deceived unsuspectingly, for which nothing can be done. Hence, Descartes once again trusts the information gathered for his mind by the senses. With respect to his original intentions of establishing a sound base for the sciences and mathematics, he is back to square one. Descartes learns that the world he is currently living in and the information that is already registered is a sufficient base for all future purposes, because God has established the current order.

Consequently, one can see how Descartes proved the existence of God and why he had to use it. He needed the proof of God to come to a valid conclusion – the present base for the sciences and philosophy is good because it is ordained by God. He used hyperbolic doubt as a mind clearing tool to rid his mind of the present inconsistencies he ascribed to the present world order. But he wound up in a realm where he needed a conduit to get back to the reality. Left with only his mind and the lingering idea of God, he thought of using God to get back the present world. A wise choice indeed because that was the only viable way left for him that above his doubting streak. Once he proved God’s existence, he understood the meaning of all things that surrounded him. He learned that the senses, physical bodies and nature couldn’t simply be doubted and discarded, but they were what God created.  Thus he concluded the purpose of his original goal-he found a base for the sciences and philosophy, it just happened to be the same one he had from the beginning.

Works Cited

Descartes,  Rene.   Meditations on First Philosophy.  Trans.  Donald A. Cress.  Indianapolis, Indiana:  Hackett Publishing Company,  1993. 

I’m an atheist, but I’m open to the possibility that a god might exist. But in order for me to believe in this god, a preponderance of evidence for the existence of said god is required. I can’t take the bible as proof, because if I were to do that, then I might as well accept The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as proof that aliens exist in our galaxy. And frankly, having read the bible, the latter book is a bit more believable than the former.

Why is faith considered a virtue? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, faith is defined as a “firm belief in something for which there is no proof.” If I were to demonstrate this kind of belief in, say, fairies, I’d be the laughingstock of the town, a social pariah. I think it can be safely argued that belief in something for which there is no proof is actually a pretty bad thing. That’s how email scams work. Believing in something without evidence can be a very dangerous thing.

I guess I just need someone to walk me through this logic. Why is it that this god of theirs endows us with brains capable of thinking rationally and logically, yet expects us to completely disregard logic and have faith that he exists? And why is it so damned important for this “all-powerful” deity that we believe he exists? It reminds me of Tinkerbell in Peter Pan. Allow me to illustrate my point with a hypothetical situation. Imagine you are a very smart scientist. You create a life form vastly inferior in complexity to yourself. Would you care if it knew or believed you existed? Speaking for myself, I can honestly say that I wouldn’t give a shit. I have other more important things to worry about, like paying my bills, or maintaining my GPA. So why is it so damned important for the Christian god that we believe in his existence? And why, pray tell, would he send us to hell for using the brains with which he endowed us to conclude that he doesn’t exist?

My biggest problem with the concept of hell is that it completely clashes with the idea of a loving god. Christians claim that we are all his children. That would make their god our parent. A loving parent would punish his child for doing something wrong, but the punishment usually fits the crime, and is meant to teach the child to think about the consequences of his actions and never to do it again. According to Christians, hell is a very horrible place full of fire and brimstone and torture and all sorts of unpleasant business. This god of theirs punishes his children by sending them to this horrible place for eternity! That’s an awfully long time for such a finite amount of time on Earth. The punishment doesn’t exactly fit the crime. And I don’t know of any parent that truly loves his children that would punish his children in such a manner. But Christians justify it by claiming that we are deserving of hell from the time we are born, and that only through the grace of god can we “unworthy, wretched creatures” be saved.

But where does evil come from? Christians say that Adam and Eve brought evil into the world by allowing themselves to be tempted by the serpent and defying god’s commandment not to eat from the tree of knowledge. I don’t know about you, dear reader, but the obvious flaw with this argument just jumps out at me. Who created the serpent? According to the bible, God did. He created everything. Using the transitive property, one can conclude that god is ultimately responsible for all the evil in the world. And since god is allegedly all-knowing, he knew that evil would be unleashed as a result of creating everything. What kind of being would create life, knowing the kind of evil that would be unleashed as a direct consequence? An evil being would. Therefore, not only did god create evil, but he is the embodiment of evil. Q.E.D.

Christians say that their god is perfect. A perfect being cannot create an imperfect thing. Creating something imperfect means that one is not perfect. A perfect being can only create perfect things. The fact that we are not perfect means that we could not have been created by a perfect being (of course, I don’t believe we were “created” at all). I’ve heard Christians try to dodge this argument by claiming we were initially perfect, but fell from grace after being tempted by the serpent. However, the simple fact remains that were Adam and Eve initially perfect, they would not have been tempted by the serpent in the first place. Any flaw, no matter how small, is a sign of imperfection. Therefore, if god exists, he is not perfect. Q.E.D.

I think that about wraps it up for god.

Pyrrhoian sceptic: you can balance. The motive is ataraxia. They act according to appearances. For example, there is a door, so I will walk through the door. But they never say there is a door there dogmatically. They never make knowledge statements.
-Why not dogmatism? Religion and politics were never supposed to be discussed because it creates a fight. The dogmatic attitude toward truth guarantees friction. If somebody thinks that something is good objectively like marring and having kids they will be tortured if they don’t marry and have kids. If they get in the position they will have fear that the marriage can fail.
Ataraxia: This is the highest good. They wanted a peaceful find. They wanted calmness. I have the truth and I don’t care what evidence you bring against it.  
-By balancing reasons that are oppressed to each, we reach a point were we don’t know. We suspend our judgment.
Counterpoise:
-If a god exists a pyrrhoian would look at the evidence that god exists and god does not exist and then they would suspend their judgment. The Pyrrhoians want to achieve ataraxia.
-They don’t deny appearances. For example, if they see green they won’t doubt thecolour that they are seeing. But they deny claims about objective reality.
-The purpose of studying science is to make better counter-arguments on a subject. The more you study the more equipped you are to obtain ataraxia. Scientists want to understand reality.
-The sceptics rejected epistemic (knowledge) virtues and values. There is no point of arguing with someone who misses these things.
-Having an open mind. What I though is a fact is not a fact. Testing theories.
-Scientists are open to challenges about people who can prove them wrong. Science is very competitive.
-Tranquility of mind: is epistemic. It only regards knowledge claims. It includes moral knowledge. They will not complain that giving to charity is wrong.
-We oppose appearances to appearances. They look at the order of the universe. The order of the stars. You have to be crazy if you don’t think this would was created by a god. If there is a god then why do so many people suffer?
10 methods of counter-poison
1) Looking at different animals and comparing them with us. Animals have different sense organs. Not all animals come into the world from the same process. Some animals are born from a sexual reproduction. Some animals are born from eggs and foetuses. They will sense things differently. What is pleasant to one animal is bad to another animal. Since ideas differ it is impossible to judge them, so we have to suspend judgment.

First and foremost, Philosophy is the critical and rational inquiry of existence and nature of universe, and its relationship with human being. In plain words, it inquires and examines rationally the philosophical concepts of existence, nature, goodness, knowledge and beauty.

But, what philosophy is not?

It is a wise question for those who want to study and understand philosophy in depth. This question is indispensable to examine the essence of philosophy, because it extracts the bottom-line entities and concepts whereby philosophy sits, settles and rests. Nowadays, there are several beliefs, misconceptions and weeds in our societies that overshadow and smoke philosophy negatively. Such wrong beliefs and misconceptions from different cultures and traditions create havoc and limitation to the discipline philosophy. People perceive philosophy as a discipline of insanity and wastage of time and energy, since they have been already fixed wrongly to have a false mental picture and perception. But there is nothing as wise as philosophy. Every day we step out the door, we need a refined guidance system that enables us to go through economically, socially, spiritually and psychologically. Through this guidance system we avoid dangers and take advantages of opportunities. Therefore, the question, ‘what philosophy is not’ is very important in such a case.

To begin with, philosophy is not a body of knowledge like the other disciplines with lots of contents, theories and hypotheses. For instance, take psychology, geography, biology, chemistry and others, they are laden and filled by incredible body of knowledge. Nevertheless, philosophy is a pure form of inquiry for wisdom and knowledge. It is a system or path for discovering the unveiled mysteries of life. Philosophy is a dynamic and living force of search that has not yet arrived at conclusion. It entertains a boundless and timeless intellectual seeking for wisdom. A philosopher never gets aged and retired soon because his heart is passionate, enthusiastic and curious for the search wisdom, and he is in tune with the universal truth.

Philosophy is not about my truth, your truth and our truth; it is about the universal truth which is applicable to every human being who has ever walked the planet earth. It works by the cosmological truth. Philosophy dismisses any set of belief or opinion that fails to be proved as a universal truth.  The search is one for the one universal truth.

Philosophy is not a religion. Religion is based on doctrine, revelation and faith. But philosophy does not entertain doctrine, revelation and faith; it is based on reason alone. It tries to explain and address the cosmological issues through level-headedness using reason. In philosophy, reason is the tool whereas in religion revelation and faith. But St. Thomas Aquinas used both reason and faith simultaneously. First, Philosophy carefully fixed a problem in a logical manner then it proceeds for a solution based on the availability of facts and knowledge.  It undergoes further arguments and dialectical process for the framed problem until a solution is reached. But in religion such thing does not work; only faith and worship, never otherwise.

Philosophy is not fearful discipline, because there is nothing that philosophy does not put under question and investigation; from the smallest to the largest questions of life, are invariably questionable.  Even the toughest questions of life, such as the origin of the universe and existence of God are still under investigation through dialectical and logical process. That is the reason why philosophy is not fearful or coward; it is bold enough to ask question. But in religion this thing is not entertained.

Apart from this, philosophy is not a theory or formula. During my undergraduate philosophy classes, I remember that most students used to complain whenever the professors did not give them a handout; they were looking handouts laden with a lot of formula, theory, facts and knowledge to study and memorize by heart. But philosophy is not like that; it is about starting the endless journey for the search of wisdom and life as a whole. Several disciplines in science set a theory to define, explain and predict a certain behavior. But in philosophy such things are totally absent because philosophy as a whole entertains the quest of wisdom.

 Life is not certain; it is uncertain; therefore there is no any formula or theory to put life on exact pattern. Imagine, how life would be, if any formula devised on it; for sure, it will be monotonous, boring, uncreative and ugly.   

At last, Philosophy is not ineffable art. As we all know philosophy is about dialogical reasoning. Therefore, anything which cannot be reasoned out through logical or dialectical method is not part of philosophy; it is something different outside of philosophy. For instance, a painter may be struck by an intuitive flash of knowledge about painting, but if it fails to fall under the dialogical reasoning, it is not part of philosophy; it is ineffable experience or something different. The branch of philosophy, the so-called aesthetics deals about beauty and appreciation of beauty, but ultimately it is based on dialogical reasoning, never otherwise.

To sum up, philosophy is not

§  a body of knowledge

§  about my truth, your truth and our truth

§   a religion or doctrine

§  fearful or coward discipline

§  a theory or formula

§  ineffable art

(maybe) one of  your subjects….Swaroopa

        First of all, I will use the Christian definition of god here. Their god is described as being perfect and omnipotent, to say, that their god has attained perfection, and knows all. This perfect being created the universe today, and everything in it, according to their holy book. The creator, being perfect, should have no needs or wants, no desires or necessities. With this lack of desires, one should have no need to create a universe with people in it. Yet, the universe and everything exists, contradicting one of the two statements above. Therefore, either no god exists, or the mentioned god is not prefect because they have desires and necessities.

        Second, is the lack of influence of a all powerful god. Nobody denies the existence of the moon, because it’s very existence is so clear to us, and happens so often that we know it exists. This does not exist, with the claim of a deity that created us. There is no force acting upon us, others, or the environment that explicitally proves the existence of an all powerful creator. People all claim the existence of a god, but they can never prove a recurring aspect that is exclusive to that god itself. While you may claim that a god has made a significant impact in your life, think of the other negative events that may have occured to you. Some people justify it as the will of God. However anything positive like being able to pay off debts is classified immediately as the work of god, and anything negative is blamed often on the religion’s scapegoat, Satan. If someone thinks this way, is there any way to absolutely prove that the deity, and only the deity caused the specific event to happen.

        Lastly, is the classic Good Vs. Evil struggle. Many religions believe their god is all powerful, perfect, and morally riotous. With this logic in mind, would this god not attempt to eliminate evil whenever it could? Since it is all powerful, it should be able to eliminate the evil in a flash, or with minimal effort. Yet, all the religions of the world recognize a “evil” that must be avoided, how is this possible that it has not been destroyed if their god was good. And if the problem is with the creation, how could the creation turn bad if the creator was all good? How could the creation even be created with the potential to turn bad, and have it be blamed on itself by it’s own creator?

However, as I hope to show, what Descartes has actually done is link the idea of an idea to the idea of a property of actuality. Descartes wants to say that the idea in the mind of a perfect being must exist because the idea of perfection includes the idea of existence. That’s fine, but making another leap from idea to actuality is not. Descartes then tries to link the idea of perfection with the characteristic of things in actuality to exist. In other words, Descartes becomes guilty of taking for granted something he himself struggles with: assigning non material qualities to material things. In this case, it’s not quite so clear-cut, because what Descartes has linked an idea (non material quality) to is not a thing, but a quality of things, namely existence. Furthermore, where existence exists as an idea in our minds and is also manifested in things outside our minds in actuality, perfection exists only in our minds, and it would be contrary to our minds to claim that it existed outside our minds. That is, we could not envision something that actually exists that is perfect. For, no matter how hard we try, we could never think of something which admits of no further improvement whatsoever. In order for something to be perfect, it must be perfect in all scenarios for ever. Reason tells the mind this is not possible. Everything that exists is imperfect in its own way. Saying that something is “perfect for its own purpose” is not a sufficient argument for positing the actual existence of perfection. Something is either perfect or not; a perfect something is not perfect some of the time in some scenarios, and according to Descartes, perfection lacks no perfection at all, and admits of no imperfections or limitations of any kind. For example, one may say “I have the perfect watch.” While the watch may be “perfect” at telling the time, it is particularly imperfect at providing fuel for a fire, or erecting a building, or stopping a moving vehicle, etc., etc. Every material thing is such, and thus nothing that exists outside the mind is perfect. So, not only is it contrary to the mind to even think of a perfect being that actually exists, such a being, as we have seen, could not possibly exist. From this it should be clear that perfection, being only an idea, is in no way connected with existence outside of the mind.

As I believe Descartes would respond to the above counter argument, when the mind finds in itself the idea of a perfect being, it discovers that this is the only idea within it that admits of perfection. Of course we cannot think of anything perfect that exists outside our minds, because nothing but god is perfect. When we think of anything outside of god, we could not imagine something that admits of no further improvement. Yet, somehow, when we think of god, we understand that the type of being it must be is a perfect one. In a sense, perfection exists in the mind solely to introduce god to it. It should be obvious that we can find no perfect thing in actuality, because the idea of perfection only applies to one thing: god; the only reason the mind contains such an idea is because of the existence of god – without god, we would have no idea of perfection. For, if we can conceive of nothing to which no further improvement can be made, what are we doing with the idea of perfection firmly planted in our minds? There must be something in actuality that accounts for the existence of such an idea. That something is god.

However, it’s not enough just to say that, even though there is nothing outside our minds that is perfect, but that nevertheless we still retain this idea in our minds, that something out there must actually be perfect. The mind has a way of manipulating anything it finds within itself in such a way that makes sense to it. Thus when it encounters an idea that is incomprehensible, it does the best it can at making sense of insensibility. For example, there is no idea or thing whatsoever that we cannot think about in some way. In addition, each new discovery the mind makes is in some way comprehensible to it. As an example, the mysterious enigmas of a black hole can be understood by any mind. Now, that’s not to say the idea of a black hole existing in some minds (or any) is actually accurate. But the point here is that, though the black hole may not be described in the mind accurately, it is described. This indicates that the mind, when encountering even the most perplexing phenomenon, at the very least finds a way to explain the perplexity in its own terms. This being said, just because the mind possesses certain ideas that are found nowhere but in the mind (perfection, infinity) does not mean that they exist outside the mind. Rather, it indicates that ideas of this sort have been conceptualized so as to be comprehended by the mind. Proving the conceptual necessity of something does not prove its ontological necessity. That is, by simply showing that the mind has found a way to make sense of a strange idea with which it never comes into contact, Descartes comes no closer to proving that perfection actually exists outside the mind. If perfection does not exist outside the mind, then a perfect being can not exists outside the mind.

However, it would seem saying the mind conceptualizes the idea of perfection in order to make sense of it begs the question: where did the idea come from? If perfection does not exist outside the mind, how did the mind stumble upon it? It seems that it was already in the mind before the mind found it there – innate. It is likely that all the innate ideas, or ideas preexisting in the mind are there for a purpose. That is, they are there to make sense of things. So if perfection is indeed an innate idea, and innate ideas are necessary to explain things to the mind, it must be false that there is nothing outside the mind that exhibits perfection. It is one thing for the mind to come across something outside itself that it does not understand and explain it in ideas already categorized in the mind. It is quite a different thing altogether for the mind to come across an idea that already exists in itself and affix it with merely being something “made sense of” by the mind for lack of an understanding. If that is truly the case – if perfection is innate, and innate ideas help us understand things the mind comes across – it is nonsensical to single out this one idea if we rely on all other innate ideas to lead us to truth. In short, perfection is in our heads for some reason. Not knowing that reason is not a sufficient argument for claiming that there is no reason. Being unsure of something and knowing that something cannot be true are not interchangeable.

Yet all we know of the idea of perfection are its “negatives.” That is, rather than understanding perfection directly, we understand perfection through a series of other concepts that are excluded by perfection such as limitation, degree, improvement, defect, etc. So we know not what perfection actually contains, but only what it does not contain.  To be able to make any kind of judgment about the idea of perfection seems defeated before it starts. In order to make a claim about an idea, the mind must know what it is dealing with. First of all, there is no guarantee that perfection exists as an idea in the mind. For if what the mind knows as “perfection” is actually just a connection of negative ideas, then, strictly speaking, perfection does not exist. Second of all, even if there really is an idea in the mind called “perfection,” the mind obviously knows next to nothing about it (if you suppose knowing what perfection lacks counts as knowledge of perfection – if not, then nothing about it is known), and thus still is not in a position to make a claim about it. That the idea of perfection is innate and somehow useful is essentially an erroneous claim when the mind considers the knowledge it has of perfection. If not erroneous, then this claim is certainly grounded on nothing, since there does not even exist anything positively in the mind that can be called perfection without considering what the idea lacks.

Thus the argument seems to come to an impasse. The mind will never be able to successfully make any kind of reference or critique of the idea of perfection so long as it has such a feeble understanding (or lack thereof) of it. Yet at the same time it is unlikely that the mind will ever be able to truly understand perfection in its entirety. So although both lines of argument presented here are sound, they are not necessarily valid. And until the mind is presented with an example of perfection outside itself, it will be difficult to tie perfection to anything that actually exists.