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On Meditation Five

from Selections from the Objections and Replies

René Descartes
Edited by
John Cottingham
Introduction by
Bernard Williams
John Cottingham
Affiliation:
University of Reading
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Summary

You next attempt to demonstrate the existence of God, and the thrust of your argument is contained in the following passage:

When I concentrate, it is quite evident that existence can no more be separated from the essence of God than the fact that its three angles equal two right angles can be separated from the essence of a triangle, or than the idea of a mountain can be separated from the idea of a valley. Hence it is just as much of a contradiction to think of God (that is, a supremely perfect being) lacking existence (that is, lacking a perfection) as it is to think of a mountain without a valley.

But we must note here that the kind of comparison you make is not wholly fair.

It is quite all right for you to compare essence with essence, but instead of going on to compare existence with existence or a property with a property, you compare existence with a property. It seems that you should have said that omnipotence can no more be separated from the essence of God than the fact that its angles equal two right angles can be separated from the essence of a triangle. Or, at any rate, you should have said that the existence of God can no more be separated from his essence than the existence of a triangle can be separated from its essence.

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Chapter
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Descartes: Meditations on First Philosophy
With Selections from the Objections and Replies
 , pp. 95 - 106
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1996

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