Ontological argument Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===René Descartes=== [[File:Frans Hals - Portret van René Descartes.jpg|thumb|left|upright|French thinker René Descartes proposed several arguments that could be termed ontological.]] [[René Descartes]] (1596–1650) proposed a number of ontological arguments that differ from Anselm's formulation. Generally speaking, they are less formal arguments than they are natural [[intuition]]. In [[Meditations on First Philosophy#Meditation V: Concerning the Essence of Material Things, and Again Concerning God, That He Exists|''Meditation'', Book V]], Descartes wrote:<ref>{{Cite book|last=Descartes|first=René|url=http://www.classicallibrary.org/descartes/meditations/8.htm|title=Meditations on First Philosophy V: On the Essence of Material Objects and More on God's Existence|author-link=René Descartes}}</ref> {{Quote|But, if the mere fact that I can produce from my thought the idea of something entails that everything that I clearly and distinctly perceive to belong to that thing really does belong to it, is not this a possible basis for another argument to prove the existence of God? Certainly, the idea of God, or a supremely perfect being, is one that I find within me just as surely as the idea of any shape or number. And my understanding that it belongs to his nature that he always exists is no less clear and distinct than is the case when I prove of any shape or number that some property belongs to its nature.|||source=}} Descartes argues that God's existence can be deduced from his nature, just as [[geometry|geometric]] ideas can be deduced from the nature of shapes—he used the deduction of the sizes of angles in a triangle as an example. He suggested that the concept of God is that of a supremely perfect being, holding all perfections. He seems to have assumed that existence is a predicate of a perfection. Thus, if the notion of God did not include existence, it would not be supremely perfect, as it would be lacking a perfection. Consequently, the notion of a supremely perfect God who does not exist, Descartes argues, is unintelligible. Therefore, according to his nature, God must exist.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/descarte/#SH5b | title=René Descartes (1596–1650): Overview | publisher=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy | date=13 September 2008 | access-date=2011-10-12 | author=Skirry, Justin}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page