Descartes: A Biography

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 Descartes: A Biography

else’s will, or even of the immense will of God, which is outside the scope

of our will’ (I,). While repeating the analysis of error already offered in

theMeditations– that we err only when we make judgements about things

that we do not adequately understand – Descartes was anxious not to hold

God responsible for human error. There is nothing in human nature that

necessarily causes error. Although Descartes does not mention the sin of

Adam, it is obvious that Calvinists and even some Catholic followers of

Augustine would have distinguished between the capacity of the human

mind in its pristine, prelapsarian condition and the error-prone faculties

with which sinful human beings were subsequently endowed. However,

there is no suggestion of such theological qualification in thePrinciples,

when it argues: ‘That there is freedom of our will and that we are able to

assent or not assent...is so evident that it should be counted among the

first and most common notions that are innate in us’ (I,). At the same

time, God is all-powerful, and everything is preordained by Him. ‘The

power of God by which He not only knew eternally everything that exists

or could exist, but also willed and preordained them, is infinite’ (I,).

Descartes has to admit that he cannot reconcile God’s preordination and

human free will, as he had explained in correspondence with Princess

Elizabeth.

PartIconcludes with a summary of the degrees of certainty that we

can claim for our beliefs. There is a descending hierarchy of reliability

from (a) revealed truths, to (b) what is critically examined, to (c) what we

spontaneously and uncritically believe based on our experiences.

Although the light of reason, however clear and evident it is, may seem to suggest

something different to us, we should put our faith exclusively in divine authority

rather than in our own judgment. However, in the case of things about which divine

faith does not teach us anything, it is very inappropriate for a philosopher to accept

anything as true that they have never perceived as true; and it is even more inappropriate

to trust in the senses, that is, in the uncritical judgments of childhood, than in mature

reason. (I,)

Part IIof thePrinciples, entitled ‘The Principles of Material Things’,

provides a summary of the Cartesian concept of matter and of the most

fundamental laws of nature by which changes in material things occur.

Descartes outlines, in this context, his argument against the possibility

of what he calls an ‘absolute vacuum’. The argument is that if God were

to remove all the matter from a vessel, its sides could not remain apart

because the distance between them would then be a property of nothing,