Chapter 17 The third group refutes a well-known British philosopher's work, and the author's reply ① Ⅱ

"Then there remains only the idea of ​​God, in which it must be considered whether there is anything that can come from myself. By the name God I mean a substance which is infinite , independent of anything else, the Supreme Wise, the Almighty, and all things, whether I myself or the world (if there is any world), were created by this entity.1 All these things are thus ②, that is, the more I think about them, the more I feel that they cannot come from myself. Therefore, from all the above, the conclusion that God exists ③ must be drawn." ① French second edition: "And not only myself, but everything else (if there is anything else) is created by this entity".

② "All these things are like this", French second edition: "All these things are seriously like this." ③ "It must be concluded that God exists", the second edition of the French version is: "It must be concluded that God exists." Considering the attributes of God so that from there we find the idea of ​​God, and seeing if there is anything in this idea that can be derived from ourselves, I find (if I am not mistaken) that what we grasp by the name God Neither does it come from us, nor does it necessarily come from something external.For, by the name God, I mean a substance, that is, I mean that God exists, not from any idea, but from inference.Infinity, that is to say, I can neither apprehend nor conceive its end or its very remote parts, nor can I conceive of parts long past, so that the name infinity does not give us the idea of ​​God's infinity, which Only offering my own stops and boundaries.I am not dependent on anything else, that is, I cannot comprehend what a cause God might have been, and it seems to me that I have no ideas other than the memory of my own. The name thing fits me, and my own ideas have their beginnings at different times, and are therefore dependent on something else.

① Second edition of the French edition: "or its last part". To say that God is independent of other things, therefore, says nothing but that God belongs to those things whose source I do not know.It is the same to say that God is infinite, as we say that the earth belongs to those things whose limits we cannot comprehend.Thus the whole idea of ​​God is negated; For what is this idea that has neither end nor origin? "Most wise".May I ask what concept Mr. Descartes uses to comprehend the wisdom of God? "Almighty".I would also like to ask, what concept does he use to understand his ability to see future (that is to say, non-existent) things?

For me, of course, I conceive of power in terms of images or memories of past things,1 inferred that he did so in the past, so he was able to do so in the past; therefore, so long as he will exist, He will also be able to do this in the future, that is to say, he has the ability to do so.But all these things are ideas that can come from outside things. ① "Understand", the second edition of French is "understand". "Creator of everything in the world".I use the method of what I have seen, for example, I saw a newly born person who grew up from being so small that he could barely see it to being so big now, and he can make a kind of image of creation; I think it is very important for creating this Name, no one has any other idea.However, with the created world we can imagine, this is not enough to prove creation.

① "Creation", the second edition of the French version is: "The Creation of the World". Thus, while it is shown that there is an infinite, independent, omnipotent, etc. being, it does not mean that there is a Creator, unless one thinks it quite right to infer that from what The Thing exists, and we believe that this Thing created everything else, and therefore the world was once created by Him. Furthermore, he says that the ideas of God and our souls arise from our hearts and dwell in them.I would like to know whether the souls of those who sleep deeply and dream nothing have not thought.If their souls do not think at all, their souls have no ideas;

Hence no idea arises from and dwells in us, for what arises from and dwells in us is always present in our thinking. ① "He", the second edition of French is: "Mr. Descartes". Nothing that we ascribe to God can come from the external world as a model cause; for in God there is nothing similar to external things, that is, to corporeal things.It is evident, however, that whatever we perceive to be in God to be unlike something external cannot come to our minds through the medium of something external, but only through the medium of this differential cause, that is to say, God. among.

Now I ask how the philosopher derived the intellect of God from external things; for it is easy for me to explain what the ideas I have are in the following way: By the word idea, I It refers to the whole form of a certain perception; for who can perceive something without being aware of it, and therefore lacks this form or this idea of ​​the intellect?This form or this idea of ​​the intellect, extending to infinity, constitutes the idea of ​​the intellect of God.Some attributes of God are like this②. ① "All forms of a certain perception", French second edition: "Forms of all perceptions".

② French second edition: "What I say about this perfection should also apply to all other perfections." However, since I have used the idea of ​​God in our minds to prove God's existence, and there is in this idea a power so vast that we realize that if anything other than God was not created by God, if there were If God exists, he would object to the existence of those things, and then obviously from the fact that their existence is proved, it also proves the whole world, that is to say, everything that exists other than God was created by him of. Finally, when I say that an idea is innate to us, or that it is naturally imprinted in our soul, I do not mean that it is always present in our minds, because, in that case, it would be There are no ideas; I mean only the function within ourselves of producing such ideas.

"The whole effect of my argument for the existence of God consists in the fact that I see that if God, the God of whom I have an idea, does not exist, my nature cannot be what it is, that is, Say, I can't possibly have the idea of ​​God in my mind." Well, since it is an unproven thing that we have the idea of ​​God in our minds, and since Christianity forces us to believe that God is incomprehensible, that is, in my opinion, people cannot have the idea of ​​God, so the existence of God does not matter. Not proven, let alone created. To say that God is incomprehensible refers to an understanding that understands God fully and fully.Besides, the reader will be bored if I repeat how many times I have explained how we have the idea of ​​God in our minds.

① "Heart", missing in the second French edition. On the Fourth Meditation On Truth and Error "Thus I realized that error, as an error, does not depend on anything real of God, but is merely a defect, and that I need not have God for me in order to err. What ability has this purpose given me? ① The second edition of the French version of "Capability" is "Function". Ignorance is, of course, only a defect and requires no positive function to be ignorant; but as for error, it is not so obvious.For it seems that stones and all other inanimate beings do not err because they are incapable of reasoning and imagination, and it follows that, in order to err, it is necessary to give to those who err a sense, or at least It is an imagination (both functions are positive), but only given to the person who makes mistakes.

In addition, Mr. Descartes said: "I found that my mistakes were caused by two reasons, namely, due to the cognitive function and the selection function of my mind or my free will." This seems to be related to what was said before. contradiction.It must also be noted in this respect that the freedom of free will is assumed and not proved, although this assumption is contrary to the opinion of the Calvinists. ① "It seems to be", French second edition: "I think". ② "Calvinism" is Protestantism, commonly known as Jesus. Although the defense said that the function of reasoning (or rather judgment, or affirmation or negation) is required to make mistakes, since making mistakes is a shortcoming, it cannot be said that this shortcoming is real because it cannot be called real like blindness. Things are the same. Although a stone cannot see, it cannot be said that the stone is blind. What strikes me in all these objections is that I have not come across any conclusions which I think are rightly inferred from principles. ①French second edition: "Or better said judgment, that is to say affirmation and negation." Concerning liberty, I presuppose nothing but what we feel every day in our hearts, and this is well known from the light of nature; And I can't understand why he says here that this contradicts what I said before. There may be some, however, who, when they consider God's predestiny, cannot understand how our liberty can survive and be compatible with God's predestiny; nevertheless, there is no one who, after looking at himself, does not feel To see and experience will and freedom is but one thing, though rather there is no difference between what is voluntary and what is free.And this is not the place to check what the Calvinist opinion is. "For example, the past few days I've checked to see if anything exists in the world, and noticed that just because I checked the question, it was obvious that I myself did, I had to do something like this Judgment, that is, a thing I see so clearly is true, not because some external cause compels me to do so, but simply because there is a great There is a strong inclination in my will so that the less unlimited I feel, the more freely I believe." ① French second edition: "Really exists". To say that there is a great clarity in the intellect is so vague that it would be inappropriate to include it in an argument.The man who has no doubts thinks he has such clarity, and his will is as much inclined to affirm that which he has no doubts, than the man of knowledge.So this clarity is why someone has an opinion and defends it tenaciously, but he cannot make him realize with certainty that it is true. Besides, it does not depend on the will not only to know that a thing is true, but also to believe it, or admit it; Whether I am willing or not, we have to believe it.Yes, it is an act of the will to affirm or deny, to support or reject some propositions; but it does not follow from this that assent and inner confession depend on the will. The conclusion, therefore, that the defect which constitutes the wrong form lies in the improper use of our liberty has not yet been sufficiently proved. The question is not whether it is right to bring a great clarity into the argument, as long as it can be used to explain our thinking clearly, and that is the case.For there is no one who does not know that there is a clarity in the intellect, that is a clarity or clarity of knowledge, which everyone thinks they have, but which may not be available to everyone; but That doesn't prevent it from being very different from stubborn opinion.This obstinate opinion is formed by lack of apparent perception. When he says here that whether we will or will not, we place our trust in what we clearly understand, it is telling us that whether we will or will not, we will and Wishing for good things makes no difference as long as they are clearly apprehended by us, because it doesn't matter whether we don't want them or not, because wanting and not wanting the same thing is the same thing. contradictory. On the Fifth Meditation On the Essence of Bodily Things "For example, when I think of a triangle, even though there may be no such shape anywhere in the world outside my mind, perhaps it never has, but after all the shape has some definite quality or form or Essence is there, unchanging, eternal, not invented by me, and never dependent on my spirit, as we can show from the fact that we can deduce the properties of this triangle." . If such a shape exists nowhere in the world at all, I cannot see how it can have the quality of the shape; for what is nowhere never exists, and therefore has neither existence nor quality.The idea of ​​a triangle that we perceive in our minds comes from what we have seen, or from another triangle that we have made from what we have seen; After the triangle, even after the thing died out, the name triangle continued to exist.In the same way, if once we understand by thinking that the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles, and we give the triangle another name, that is, it is a thing with three angles, and the sum of the triangles is equal to two right angles, when When there are no triangles in the world, it does not prevent this name from continuing to exist.Thus the proposition that a triangle is a thing having three angles, and that the sum of the triangles is equal to two right angles, would be eternal; but the properties of a triangle would not therefore be eternal, for in case all triangles were annihilated, it would It doesn't exist anymore. In the same way, the proposition that man is an animal will be true for eternity, because of the eternal name; but if the race of man were to be extinct, the nature of man would cease to exist. ① "Eternal", missing in the second French edition. From what has been said above, it is clear that essence, since it is different from being, is nothing but a collection of nouns joined by verbs; therefore no existential essence is figment of the human mind.Just as the image of man in the spirit belongs to man, similarly, the essence belongs to existence; or the proposition that Socrates is man belongs to the proposition that Socrates is or exists. Similarly, Socrates The faculties belong to this same Socratic being.And the proposition that Socrates is a person, when Socrates does not exist, it just means a bunch of nouns, or the word existence itself has the image of the unity of a thing pointed out by two names. The distinction between essence and being is well known; here is not speaking of an eternal concept or idea of ​​truth, but of eternal names.The name of eternity has been amply refuted and denied before. Concerning the Sixth Meditation on the Existence of Material Things "For, since, since God has given me no faculty to know things as they are" (that is, God has sent me the idea of ​​bodies by himself or through the medium of some creature higher than bodies), "but on the contrary, he has given I have a great tendency to believe that they are sent to me by corporeal things, or from corporeal things, if in fact his ideas do not come from or arise from corporeal things, but From or arising from other causes, I do not see how it can be argued that it is not a deception; therefore, it must be admitted that there is something bodily." ①French second edition: "from elsewhere or... sent to me". Everyone agrees that it is not a crime for a doctor to deceive a patient for the patient's own health, and for a father to deceive the child for the child's own benefit;Therefore, Mr. Descartes pays attention to whether the proposition that God can never deceive us is generally true; if it is not generally true, then the conclusion that there are corporeal things is therefore wrong. In order to justify this conclusion, it need not be said that we must not be deceived (for, on the contrary, I confess frankly that we are often deceived); nevertheless, our inability to see our errors indicates that there is in God a will to deceive; a will to deceive cannot exist in God.Here again it can be seen that the conclusion is correctly deduced from the principle. ① "For I now realize that between this one and the other" (that is, between waking and dreaming) "there is a very great difference in that our memory can never We connect our various dreams to each other, to the continuity of our lives, in the same way that we connect those things we have seen." I ask whether it is true that a man, when he dreams he wonders whether he is dreaming, cannot dream that his dream is connected with a long chain of ideas of past things.If he can, then things of some action belonging to the past life of the sleeping man can be taken to be true, as they were when he woke up.Besides, as he himself said, since the whole reliability and the whole truth of science depend only on the knowledge of the real God, or else an atheist cannot realize that he is awake because of his Memories of past lives, or else one does not need to know the real God to know that he is awake. ①The first edition in French is "The Last Rebuttal". ② "very large", the second French version is "very significant". ③French Second Edition "Remembrance of Actions in Past Lives". The sleeping and dreaming man cannot perfectly and truly connect his dreams with ideas of past things, although he dreams of connecting them.For, who can deny that the sleeping man cannot be mistaken?But later, when he wakes up, he can easily recognize his mistake. An atheist cannot realize that he is awake because of the memory of his past life, but if he does not know that he was created by God, who cannot be a liar, then he cannot know the mark enough to convince him that he is Not mistaken. ① French second edition: "Remembrance of the actions of past lives".