How, or in what way did Descartes error in his claim that he proved the existence of God?

Question

-Besides the obvious, "You cannot prove, or disprove the existence of God" response. I'm referring to his rational: IE we get are ideas from impressions, that we have nothing in our natural world that could explain how humans possess the concept or impression of infinity, thus God placed it there, etc. (This is an abbreviated version of his argument).

I almost forgot to include Descartes definition of "God" as an all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful, infinite being. Descartes argued that we cannot find any impressions in reality that equal these, even if we alter or reorganize existing impressions.

Answer 1

Descartes errors are many, but perhaps the most fundamental is the assumption of a dualistic world view. In terms of his proof of the existence of God, he assumes that our perception or experience of the transcendent through, for example, the concept of infinity, must have some external cause outside ourselves. It is a pretty clever conceptual trick, but what it does is discount the immediate, authentic and fundamentally human experience of the transcendent and posit the need for some sort of external causal explanation to legitimize it. While this may be an appropriate use of the scientific method for the natural sciences, it is presumptuous of him to simply apply that framework to transpersonal phenomenon like the experience and articulation of the divine. If you look at the long history of the world's mystical traditions (monastic Christianity, Sufi Islam, Kabbhala Judaism, Vedantic Hinduism, and Buddhism for starters), you will see a remarkable uniformity in their rejection of this Cartesian dualistic world view. Rahter than the divine or God being something "out there" and fundamentally other, they see an ultimate unity between the divine within us and the ultimate unity and transcendent nature of reality. In other words, we are ultimately one with God. Jesus said the Kingdom of Heaven is within us. There is no need to provide external validation of that fundamental. insight through some sort of rational deduction.

Answer 2

Descartes then goes on to explore the possibility that his reason itself could be faulty. He then quickly dismisses the idea saying he is not like those people in the asylum... (It's been a long time I've read it, so I can't give you an exact quote, but it's somewhere in the beginning of the Meditations.
I know two arguments against this. The first is provided by Immanuel Kant and the other by Michel Foucault.
Kant claimed there were some areas in which pure reason was inadequate to answers inquiries. He argued existence could not be posed as a predicate (characteristic). Many 'proofs' of the existence of God fall flat if you accept this argument. Simplified, it states that the existence of something is not one of its characteristics. You start discussing something once you've established its existence. You can't argue to the existence of something from its characteristics.
Michel Foucault, which was influenced by Nietzche and the existentialists has an entirelly different approach. He questions the kind of certainty Descartes claims to have when he says 'I am not crazy'. He wrote historical studies on the prison and asylum systems and believed that these systems were part of the process of exclusion, a process by which the dominant members of a society decide that certain others are not to be included in the rational discourse. To Foucault, this is arbitrary. Just calling someone crazy (for saying reason leads us astray, for example) does not answer his argument. It simply excludes him from discourse.
Furthermore (I don't quite remember who said this - it might have been Kant), Descartes also states he cannot believe God would induce him into error because God is good. Here's the problem: God is the one that guarantees the argument that he exists, that he is good, and that reason works to understan things. If reason leads us astray, then how can you believe anything you conclude from it? In other words, the argument is circular.

Answer 3

Descartes argument slightly will get off the bottom. One can't doubt the lifestyles of doubt, and as a result the lifestyles of whatever, a few type of notion, which you can actually safely label a manifestation of oneself. Where he went mistaken used to be the whole thing he mentioned after that. Nothing extra will also be proved with out accepting extra premises.

Answer 4

The kagan of the Khazars didn't accept Christianity bcoz it seems illogical. He's wrong. His understanding was quite limited to human reasoning. That's his error. He thought that it's impossible for a God, who is All powerful, will himble Himself by dying and suffering. My point is that he assumed an All-knowing God therefore WE cannot know why He loves us. His reason is beyond our reasoning. Just like when we love our sweetheart.

Answer 5

Easy. Descartes assumed he understood and comprehended the concept of perfection and an infinite being. He said since he was imperfect and finite, the only way he could conceive of perfection and infinity was if God Himself gave him the knowledge I believe that no man can fully comprehend perfection or infinity, they are only abstract ideas to us.

Answer 6

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_of_indiscernibles#Controversial_applications