Descartes: A Biography

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 Descartes: A Biography

in its actions, in the same way that it depends on God for its existence’

(iv.).

Descartes makes two further attempts to reply to this question.The

first effort repeats the resolution adopted in thePrinciples, more or less

acknowledging that this is a problem that exceeds the limited powers of

human intelligence. ‘Just as knowledge of God’s existence should not pre-

vent us from being certain of free will, because we experience and feel

it in ourselves, likewise knowledge of our free will should not make us

doubt God’s existence’ (iv.–). Without resolving the problem in any

way, this encouraged Elizabeth to hold onto both parts of an apparently

contradictory conjunction. However, one of the features that was cen-

tral to the debate within Calvinism was the compatibility of (a) God’s

knowing in advance that human beings will perform evil actions, and (b)

without any remedial divine intervention, God’s deciding in advance on

the reward or punishment of such actions. Descartes tried to address this

issue, unsuccessfully, in his letter of January.

His effort involved telling the following story. Suppose a king prohibits

dueling in his kingdom, and assume that he also knows that two of his

subjects (who live in different towns) are very likely to duel if they meet.

If he gives orders to these two individuals that cause them to meet and,

despite the king’s orders, to duel, one could see how the duel results

both from the free will of the two individuals and from the king’s order.

Descartes tries to apply this story of the king to God, in order to distinguish

within God two different acts of the will. ‘In the same way, theologians

distinguish in God a will that is absolute and independent, by which he

wills that all things occur as they do, and another will which is relative,

which applies to the merit or demerit of men, and by which he wills that

his laws be obeyed’ (iv.). This attempt was bound to fail, for reasons

that Descartes himself had acknowledged elsewhere. One reason was that,

according to the Cartesian account, there are no real distinctions within

God between different acts of the will, and therefore the analogy with

the king limps too much to be of any assistance. The more fundamental

reason was the one already mentioned, namely, that we genuinely do not

understand God, and we cannot hope to provide a coherent account of

His thoughts and actions by borrowing the completely inept concepts that

apply to human beings.

The question about God and free human actions had obvious implica-

tions for an account of how Christians understood the efficacy of prayer.