Since there seem to be a lot of topics flying round about the connection between enlightenment, life, God and the Strive For Perfection, I Will here present an overview of René Descartes' Meditations. My version of his argument is a little weak in places, and seems to contradict itself somewhat at the end, mainly because I have omitted the Mind/Body Distinction and the Dream Argument. However, I think it is a comprehensible presentation of his fundamental ideas.

1) Truths claimed through sense experience are subject to doubt.

2) Whatever is to count as knowledge, therefore, cannot come through the senses (unaided by reason).

3) Whatever is to count as knowledge, therefore, must be acquired through reason.

4) Truths of reason are necessarily true (clear and distinct ideas or rationally proven perceptions e.g. 1+1=2)

5) Cogito Ergo Sum is an example of necessary truth.

6) If I think then I am a thinking being (Res Cogitans).

7) I perceive clearly and distinctly and know the necessary that something cannot be created from nothing (including the self). [4]

8) All events are caused. [3, 4, 7]

9) I am an event.

10) I am caused. [4, 8]

11) Whatever is, cannot be caused by (or have less representative reality than) something less than itself.

12) I, res Cogitans, have the idea of a perfect, benevolent, omnipotent God.

13) I cannot be the author of this idea. [4, 7, 8, 11]

14) Part of my idea of God is that he is perfection.

15) Whatever is perfect exists, since existence is perfection. [4]

16) Therefore God exists. [7, 11, 12]

17) A perfect God cannot deceive since deception is an imperfection.

18) Therefore I know that 4 is true (the Circular Move).

19) I can be mistaken in my judgements. [1]

20) But since 17 is true, God cannot be responsible for 19.

21) Therefore my own imperfections account for 19.

22) But by rational deductions [2], I can acquire knowledge through the senses since God has given me the capacity to correct my erroneous judgements.

This can easily be adapted for Atheists.

Deception is a part of exstence. So surely it can't be imperfect. Either that or God is imperfect, which he can't be if he is 'all that is'.

It shouldn't be. It exists because we can make mistakes. We are considered perfect because of our power to learn from our mistakes. I think. I don't completely agree with all of it either.

I don't believe imperfection exists in the eyes of God, since nothing is supposed to be anything apart from what it already is at every given moment.

So you are suggesting a completely random path and destiny for everything, and that Fate doesn't exist? This seems to deny the existence of an omnipotent God, or am I missing your point?

The complete Meditations can be found here. It explains a lot of things better than I could hope to.

It's a dodgy subject.



Everything created is an expression of the creator. If what is created is to change, then it can only change according to Gods programming (for want of a better word).

As for humans. We are also God. We are a consciousness as god is, xept I guess you could say we've been individualised. If god knows how everything is to change, then he also knows how we will react to the change, since we are he, and he knows how he would react in the same circumstances.