Week 3 Descartes: God and his Existence & Ontological Argument

Question 1

deceiving demon

Answer 1

Descartes proposed that there is a deceiving entity invoking universal doubt.

Question 2

Noumena vs. phenomena

Answer 2

Descartes argued that both are true and that theologians must study noumena and scientists study phenomena.

Question 3

Descartes imperfect arguement

Answer 3

Descartes argues that are imperfect we can have no possible way of proving a perfect beings existence. To back this up he claims that nothing comes from nothing.

Question 4

Trademark Argument

Answer 4

God has placed within us the idea of himself as a craftsman’s stamp on his work.

Question 5

The Causal Adequacy Principle

Answer 5

It’s the self-evident principle that there must be “as much reality in the efficient and total cause that there is in the effect of that cause”: ex nihilo nihil fit.

Question 6

The Causal Adequacy Principle

Answer 6

also applies to the realm of ideas and the features depicted by them (ideas are often conceived as images).

Question 7

ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

Answer 7

The fact that we can perceive a perfect idea of god is evidence for his existence.

Question 8

The importance of the argument for gods existence

Answer 8

It constitutes the only way we can transcend subjective self-awareness and progress to the knowledge of the external world and reality.