Rene Descartes (1596-1650) was a French Philosopher, Mathematician, and scientist, widely regarded as the "Father Of modern Philosophy". His ideas have left a profound and lasting influence on western Philosophy, Science and Mathematics. So, the critics were of the opinion that his method of radical doubt was an attack on traditional beliefs, and church. So, in his "Meditations on the first Philosophy” that was written in 1641, he stressed the need of six meditations that reconcile reason with faith to explore the nature of the self, the existence of God and the distinction between mind and body. In the 'Preface to the Reader' of this book Descartes talks about the existence of God and the soul.
In the first meditation, "On what can be called into doubt," Descartes questions the reliability of sensory perceptions. He says that though senses won't deceive anything, there is a possibility that a deceiver or an evil demon may create a complete illusion of the external world. In his second meditation, "On the nature of the human mind" he says that actually doubt needs a thinking subject. Descartes' "Cogito, ergo, sum" means "I think, therefore I am". He defines mind as a purely thinking one, a non-physical substance that is a distinct one from the body. His third meditation, "On the existence of God" argues that an infinite, a perfect being couldn't have originated from a finite and imperfect mind. So, he believes that God exists
In the fourth meditation, "On truth and Error, Descartes examines how errors arise despite the existence of God. Though God has given the free will, humans come to judgements without enough evidences in many things. In the fifth meditation, "On the essence of Material things", Descartes comes to the conclusion that truth and true essence can be understood through mathematical principles. His sixth meditation, "on the distinction between mind and body", he opines that all material objects exist because of God's benevolence.
In Descartes’ opinion, when the human mind reflects on itself, it realizes that it is actually a thinking thing. So, from the consciousness one can understand that nothing besides thinking belongs to the essence of the mind. Then concerning God's existence, he is of the opinion that it is really the miss use of the freewill that makes humans judge certain things wrongly, without sufficient evidences. Here, the benevolent God would never need the humans get deceived. So, no doubt there is a perfect one or more perfect one than ourselves. Thus, he comes to the conclusion that God exists. Though Descartes' meditations seem to challenge the traditional views of knowledge, they have no doubt succeeded a lot in their discovering the true certainties and rational truths.
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-------Thulasidharan V
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