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.
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