A Coffee Date with René Descartes and Johan de Kater (Caterus)

A Dialogue About the Existence of God

Descartes: He exists!

Student: Excuse me?

Descartes (points at the poster on the wall that says ‘come forth to our discussion group and find out if God exists’): Have you ever wonder the existence of God?

Student: Oh, haha. Yes, I have, constantly. But I think I am too young to understand it, or I shall say human intellect is limited and unable to know for certain if God exists.

Descartes: Nonsense! Let me ask you this. Do you have an idea of God?

Student: Yes, I do, but not an idea of actually existing God.

Descartes: Okay. Even if the idea does not seem to refer to an existence, you admit that this idea exists in your head, right? So what is your idea of God? Is it like something that is supremely perfect?

Student: Yes, I guess. A perfect being.

Descartes: Okay. So do you agree that if an idea of the most perfect thing exist in your head, then there is nothing more perfect than this idea? For example, if you can imagine a cup of coffee which has the perfect aroma, colour, taste, warmth etc., then there is no other coffee you can think of which is more perfect than this.

Student: Hmm hm. Yeah I wish I could have such a coffee.

Barista: Zac!? Your latte.

Student: Yes. Thank you very much.

Descartes: Why don’t we sit down here for a while?

Student: Yes, I would love to.

Descartes: Alright. Now let’s continue with the most perfect coffee in your head. If this most perfect coffee you imagine actually exist in this coffee shop, isn’t it more perfect than your imaginary coffee? So isn’t it contrast with your most perfect idea of coffee?

Student: But… God is not coffee.

Descartes: Exactly! God is a supremely perfect being. It is more perfect to exist than not to exist. Existence is the essence of God [1]. So God must exist!

Student: …I don’t know what to say. This is so true…

Caterus: Excuse me gentlemen, may I join your interesting conversation?

Descartes: Absolutely.

Caterus: I think you are right sir. It is more perfect to exist than not to exist. God is perfection itself. However, it does not follow that God actually exist in reality.

Descartes: How?

Caterus: Since the essence of perfection includes existence, God’s essence and existence seem to be inseparable. However, we are only talking about the idea of perfection and the idea of God. The ideas of perfection and God are merely ideas in our mind that does not entail actual existence of God. Therefore, even if you suggest that God must exist to be the most perfect entity, it still cannot prove that God necessary exist in reality [2].

Descartes: You got a point. But you may not clearly understand what idea is. Okay. Let’s start from this.

(Descartes took a sip of the latte.)

Descartes: Now everything existing in the world has a kind of reality which I called formal reality. Substance which is finite has finite formal reality. Substance which is infinite has infinite formal reality. In this case, only God has infinite formal reality. And there is one more formal reality: the ideas of our mind are modes of thinking, and therefore have modal formal reality [3]. So gentlemen, do you understanding what I am saying up to this point?

Caterus: Yes.

Student: Kind of.

Descartes: Let me continue with this and you will understand it more clearly. Our ideas, besides having modal formal reality, also have objective reality when they refer to object in the world. Objective reality also has three degrees depend on the object that it refers to: infinite, finite, and mode. For example, our idea of the sun has finite objective reality, because the idea refers to the sun, and although the sun is enormous, it is finite. Now compare it with the idea of this cup of latte. Which one do you think has larger objective reality?

Student: The sun?

Descartes: That’s right. And which one has more formal reality?

Student: The sun right?

Descartes: They have the same degree of formal reality, because they are both finite and are considered equally as finite substance. Therefore, they have finite formal reality. It is very clear that our idea of God is an infinite being. So this idea of God has infinite objective reality. And by our innateness and the natural light of reason, we know that something cannot come from nothing. An idea with infinite objective reality must come from something with the same infinite amount of reality. I am not infinite, so I cannot be the cause of such an idea. In other words, there must be an existing infinite being that has infinite formal reality and cause such an idea in me. This infinite being is God.

Caterus (starts clapping slowly): Brilliant… at first listen.

(Descartes looked in despised.)

Caterus: It sounds rather complicated, but it is no different from what you said earlier. For any particular idea to be in the mind, the intellect needs to be modified into certain shape, and this shape represents an object outside the intellect. This process is no different from giving names to things that do not necessarily exist [4]. Therefore, an idea, or a name of an imaginary most perfect entity does not necessarily mean that this entity exists in reality.

Descartes (burst out bits of giggles): Sir, you did not clearly understand what I said about idea. What you suppose was right that God is a name we give to a supremely perfect entity by reference to a being that might be unreal. However, when we are considering the IDEA of God, this IDEA is formally a mode of thinking, and is also objectively a substance existing in the mind [5]. Do you agree?

Caterus: Yes, you may continue.

Descartes: For example, the idea of the sun in the mind that exists objectively as a substance surely has much less reality than the actual sun. However, even though the idea of the sun is a mode of thinking, it still cannot be said that it is nothing, because objectively it is a substance in the mind. Something does not come into existence from nothing. In this case, we know that the actual sun causes the idea of the sun. In other words, the finite formal reality of the sun causes the finite objective reality of the idea of the sun.

Caterus: I see where you are leading.

Descartes: The same can be said about God. The idea of God is formally a mode of thinking, and objectively a substance in the mind. Because this idea of God refers to an infinite object, it has infinite objective reality as a substance in the mind. What could possibly cause an infinite objective reality?

Caterus: An existing infinite being.

Descartes: YES! Therefore, we should draw the conclusion from what has been said that God necessarily exists.

Student: It sounds legit. But since we are not infinite, even though we can conceive infinity, we cannot confirm what infinity actually is. So no matter when we are talking about infinity formal reality or infinity objective reality or God, we lack the certainty in this subject matter. Therefore, after all, this is the limit of human beings, we are not infinite and we will never confirm what infinity is [6]. We still cannot prove God’s existence with absolute certainty.

Descartes: You have to understand that even though our knowledge or intelligence is finite and limited, our wills are just as perfect as God and infinite. It is our ability to doubt that reveals the truth of God’s essence and existence [7]!

Student: I am sorry. But this is too much... It might not be the limit of your intelligence, but it has definitely reached mine. Therefore, I shall still remain an agnostic.

Reference:

[1] Descartes, René. Meditations and Other Metaphysical Writings. Translated by Desmond M. Clarke. Penguin Classics, (1998): 53.

[2] Forgie, J. William. "The Caterus Objection." International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 28, no. 2 (1990): 81-104.

[3] Descartes, René. Meditations and Other Metaphysical Writings. Translated by Desmond M. Clarke. Penguin Classics, (1998): 33-38.

[4] Descartes, René. Meditations and Other Metaphysical Writings. Translated by Desmond M. Clarke. Penguin Classics, (1998): 71.

[5] Descartes, René. Meditations and Other Metaphysical Writings. Translated by Desmond M. Clarke. Penguin Classics, (1998): 72-77.

[6] DeHart, Paul. "The Ambiguous Infinite: Jtingel, Marion, and the God of Descartes ". The Journal of Religion 82, no. 1 (2002): 75-96.

[7] CRUMPLIN, MARY-ANN. "Descartes: God as the Idea of Infinity." International Journal of Systematic Theology 10, no. 1 (2008): 19-20.

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