Descartes, Does he really believe in God?

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I wanted to start a discussion on whether Descartes really believes in God. If his project is to set out and solve the ills of humankind through science, ie cure all disease and one can infer from this, potentially solve the problem of death, what need is there for God.

If one solves the “problem of death” what use is an immortal God???

Thanks.

Look forward to responses and authors who try to answer this question.
 
As to his position on death, could you provide a relevant quote that sums it up? Give us something more to chew on.
 
Let’s suppose man could find methods that would enable them to cure “all” disease and perhaps even extend life out to the point where it might be said to overcome “death”. where do you suppose the knowledge and ability to accomplish this feat comes from? God of course. Scientific acheivement or advances in understanding of the natural world around us does not in any way negate the existence of God. It certifies it. But even if we could solve these problems, we would still be in need of healing and salvation for our souls. For this, there is only one solution: God.
 
Yes, he certainly believed in God. However, in his famous proofs of Gods existence, he set the bar impossibly high. No one could reach the bar he set in his arguments.

I am NOT an expert in Descartes.
 
In Decartes’ Discourse on Method he says that through the use of science we will be able to solve all of the ills of the world. He says this in Part 6,

“That he wants to attain knowledge that is useful to life…and thus make ourselves masters and possessors of nature This is desirable not only for the invention of an infinity of artifices that would enable us to enjoy, without any pain the fruits of the earth and all goods to be found there, but also and principally for the conservation of health, which is without doubt, the primary good.”

At various parts throughout the discourse, he seems very hurried, that he needs as many people as he can working on experiments using his method. Why???

He also choose to right in French (the language of the common folk) rather than Latin (the language of the church and a common practice at the time. Why??? Was he trying to avoid scrutiny???

My theory: Descartes does not believe in God!!!

It would seem that Descartes is immanently concerned with solving all of the problems and ills of health. If you cure all of the ills of the body, what are you left with??? A deathless body. Taken even further, an earthly immortality. If we are able to do away with death and all the disease of the world, what use or need do we then have for the immortal God. Descartes strikes me personally as someone who has an imminent fear of death. He is afraid of death or the ills of this life. This is perhaps reinforced by his urgency in wanting to start scientific experiments right away with as many people working on them as possible.

It is also important to note here that he talks about the “conservation of health” as the primary good. That is a monumental statement. As opposed to something like the health of the soul!!!

I believe that Descartes says he believes in God only to cover his tracks and to avoid persecution!

I would like to get as many people involved in this debate as possible. Please feel free to post or to list other people who have written on this matter. Much appreciated.

Thanks
 
Just a reference for you here: Jacques Maritain was the most famous modern Catholic critic of Descartes. You might google both their names together and find the books he wrote on Descartes. Maritain’s premise is that Descartes’ influence on the modern world was, together with that of Luther and Rousseau, catastrophic. The world became rather too man-self-ego centered, rather than God centered. The enormous influence of Descartes prepared the West for its seemingly endless slide into subjective atheism.

My impression is that Descartes was not a spiritual man. I may be wrong there. I think he was rather too much of the enlightenment, and too little of God was in him. Perhaps it was this about him that irritated Pascal when they first met?
 
Thank you for that reference. I am not very familiar with his work but I will look it up. I am curious to know if other people have reached the same conclusions that I have about Descartes. Most people only focus on his “I think therefore I am”

More posts welcome
 
Are there any others who would like to either affirm or deny Descartes’ belief in God?
 
This article may also interest you. It explains what Pascal thought of Descartes, which was not very flattering. He sees Descartes as more of a Deist than an atheist, but he finds Descartes’ deism to be futile in the end since it stresses the ultimate power of reason over mystery. Like Aquinas, Pascal has great faith in the power of reason, but he also has great belief in unsolvable mysteries that defy the power of reason. When Jacques Maritain put the arrogance of modern science at the feet of Descartes, he certainly was not far off the mark, if at all.

dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2006/11/outline-of-descartes-meditations.html
 
Very Interesting. I am familiar with some of Pascal but not of his treatment of Descartes. I’ll check it out.
 
Anymore comments or ideas on the faith beliefs, if any, for Descartes? Thanks
 
I am not Catholic but Reformed, so I can only speak from that point of view. One new I beleive british theological movement called Radical Orthodoxy, which is mostly Catholic I beleive I read, came to a very similer conclusion about Descarte that the Dutch Reformed tradition did, that he did in the end (despite his beleif in God) truncate God’s existance through autonomy. Autonomy is just the attempt to make some part of creation (reason, economics, evolution, humans, or anything other than God) more ultimate than God.

Descarte did this by assuming that reason could solve all of our problems, no need for revealation (natural or otherwise). He placed the human subject at the center of everything, with good intentions of course but not so good results. His view developed into the enlightenment project, which sought to solve all of societies problems through the use of reason. Now people started to reason that we do not need God, in a logical sense they were wrong but they had valid arguments. A valid argument is one in which the conclusion is implied by the premises, that does not mean that the argument is truthful though, I am not knocking reason in itself here only how it is used.

So I would say that Descarte started the drift towards established atheism, despite his beleif in God (he was Catholic, I beleive, so he definantly beleived in God). The philosopher Hegel tought us that ideas have a history to them. Descarte could, and did in my opinion, lay the foundation to modern nihilsm and atheism by his ideas, ideas progress over time. Radical Orthodoxy agrees with me here.
 
GuardianR4 said:
Are there any others who would like to either affirm or deny Descartes’ belief in God?
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Descartes believed in God. In fact, the whole “Cogito Ergo Sum” argument was supposed to end up proving (to Descartes, at least) the Existence of God.

It did not, of course. What it ended up doing was to Split the Mind from the Body Once And For All.

Pascal particularly could not stomach Descartes’s Reason-Centered Philosophy. If you read Pascal’s “Pensees,” he does occassionally mention Good Ole Renee Disparagingly at Times. 👍
 
Thank you Jwright and ordinaryMelkite for your thoughtful postings.

Jwright,I have not heard of the orthodoxy group but will look them up. I will also do more investigation into the idea of Autonomy.

Ordinarymelkite, I will definetly check out Pascal since he is a personal favorite of mine.

To the group in general, I am toying with the idea of Descartes doing a bait and switch with his readers. Some of my theories.
  1. He is saying only enough about God to keep Church authorities of his back.
  2. Real Truth for him lies in science, as opposed to God.Or not in God at all.
3 His idea of God allows him to become his own God. Again, achieveing immortality, a God like attribute, by solving all the ills of the world through science including disease, old age and eventually Death

4 Descartes’ profession of his belief in God is not only to keep Church authorities happy, but to keep the weak minded masses happy, the ones who will not possess the ability to cure lifes ills anyway. those who can’t help him in his project.

I am not trying to become to much of a Straussian or someone who believes deeply in conspiracy theoies, but when you start taking a look at all of Descartes work as a whole, at the same time, consider the great intelligence of the man, Descartes’ pushing of God off to the sideline (or out of the picture totally) seems to be to much of a coincidence…

******He’s too smart not to realise how his method and beliefs can lend themselves to a dissolution of the idea of God. So is he saying one thing…and really meaning another.
Take for example Alfarabi…

All comments are welcome.

Thanks.
 
GuardianR4 said:
Thank you Jwright and ordinaryMelkite for your thoughtful postings.

Jwright,I have not heard of the orthodoxy group but will look them up. I will also do more investigation into the idea of Autonomy.

Ordinarymelkite, I will definetly check out Pascal since he is a personal favorite of mine.

To the group in general, I am toying with the idea of Descartes doing a bait and switch with his readers. Some of my theories.
  1. He is saying only enough about God to keep Church authorities of his back.
  2. Real Truth for him lies in science, as opposed to God.Or not in God at all.
3 His idea of God allows him to become his own God. Again, achieveing immortality, a God like attribute, by solving all the ills of the world through science including disease, old age and eventually Death

4 Descartes’ profession of his belief in God is not only to keep Church authorities happy, but to keep the weak minded masses happy, the ones who will not possess the ability to cure lifes ills anyway. those who can’t help him in his project.

I am not trying to become to much of a Straussian or someone who believes deeply in conspiracy theoies, but when you start taking a look at all of Descartes work as a whole, at the same time, consider the great intelligence of the man, Descartes’ pushing of God off to the sideline (or out of the picture totally) seems to be to much of a coincidence…

******He’s too smart not to realise how his method and beliefs can lend themselves to a dissolution of the idea of God. So is he saying one thing…and really meaning another.
Take for example Alfarabi…

All comments are welcome.

Thanks.
Click to expand...
I don’t think Descartes wanted to be “God” ultimately, but he DID Place a lot of Emphasis on the Efficacy of Science.

As to “Conspiracy Theories,” those are not so far off the mark. Descartes repeatedly tried (allegedly) to become Part of The Rosicrucian Brotherhood back when they were the “Rage” in Europe at the time. When they (apparently) rejected Him, He then started to publicly Doubt their existence.

Some Rosicrucians now say He Did Become a Rosicrucian after all and basically denied them to Hide his membership. Go figure. 🤷
 
OrdinaryMelkite said:
I don’t think Descartes wanted to be “God” ultimately, but he DID Place a lot of Emphasis on the Efficacy of Science.

As to “Conspiracy Theories,” those are not so far off the mark. Descartes repeatedly tried (allegedly) to become Part of The Rosicrucian Brotherhood back when they were the “Rage” in Europe at the time. When they (apparently) rejected Him, He then started to publicly Doubt their existence.

Some Rosicrucians now say He Did Become a Rosicrucian after all and basically denied them to Hide his membership. Go figure. 🤷
Click to expand...
 
Go figure indeed. His membership with the group would seem consistent with the present speculation about him. The whole beginning of his discourse is a falshood which he then flips on a few pages into the work.

He truly seems someone who is trying to veil his true beliefs, probably from the “unlearned”, as he calls them and also, and more likely, from Church authorities.

Ohhh Descartes…
 
GuardianR4 said:
Go figure indeed. His membership with the group would seem consistent with the present speculation about him. The whole beginning of his discourse is a falshood which he then flips on a few pages into the work.

He truly seems someone who is trying to veil his true beliefs, probably from the “unlearned”, as he calls them and also, and more likely, from Church authorities.

Ohhh Descartes…
Click to expand...
Personally, I’ve always preferred Pascal, who did a pretty good job of pointing out Descartes’s “inconsitencies.” 👍

Pascal, in fact, is one of my heroes. 🙂
 
Charlemagne_II said:
Just a reference for you here: Jacques Maritain was the most famous modern Catholic critic of Descartes. You might google both their names together and find the books he wrote on Descartes. Maritain’s premise is that Descartes’ influence on the modern world was, together with that of Luther and Rousseau, catastrophic. The world became rather too man-self-ego centered, rather than God centered. The enormous influence of Descartes prepared the West for its seemingly endless slide into subjective atheism.

My impression is that Descartes was not a spiritual man. I may be wrong there. I think he was rather too much of the enlightenment, and too little of God was in him. Perhaps it was this about him that irritated Pascal when they first met?
Click to expand...
I would also put Hobbes in that list of People whose influence on the World was Catastrophic. Hobbes basically Justified Moral Relativism and Atheism/Materialism to the Masses. In fact, he is known to some as the “Father Of Materialism.”:rolleyes:

His defense of Absolutist Monarchy rested, in fact, in the idea that, since Morality was Relative and Humanity was Ultimately Wretched, Self-Centered, and Bad, one needed an Absolute Monarch to enforce the “contract” that the Governed could not get out of once they “assented” to it so that one could avoid the dreaded, anarchistic “State Of War,” where life would become intolerably (and famously) “Solitary, Nasty, Brutish, and Short.” 👍

Machiavelli is another one of those “Catastrophic” Influences----for Obvious Reasons. 😃
 
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