Compare Yacob And Descartes

The philosophers Zara Yacob, a seventeenth-century Ethiopian philosopher, and René Descartes, a seventeenth-century French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist, were two very important religious intellectuals of their time. Yacob and Descartes were similar in many ways despite never meeting but also differed considerably in that they both believed in God but arrived at that conclusion in very different ways. They also had profoundly different ways of thinking. The two extraordinary philosophers contributed a substantial amount of work towards what is now modern Western Philosophy.

On the subject of God and faith, Zara Yacob believed faith in god was a crucial component to life. Unlike Descartes, Zara Yacob never doubted the existences
Descartes was highly educated and attended one of the most renowned schools in all of Europe. Not content with the knowledge taught to him in school, he read as many books as he could find which contained obscure and beyond ordinary knowledge. Descartes realized that he had accepted many false opinions as true in his search for knowledge. To find any concrete and constant knowledge he decided he must set all opinions aside and only accept answers that he found in himself as true. He arrived at the idea that since everything false that he had learned was learned by way of the senses, he must no longer trust the senses because “it is prudent to never trust wholly those things which have once deceived us”. He began to question whether everything he perceived and sensed was actually real or was he dreaming everything he thought he perceived. Since he could not prove whether he was being deceived or what he perceived was real he began going under the assumption that everything he knew was not real until he without a doubt proved it otherwise. To be clear, Descartes believed in the existence of God but doubted him whereas Zara Yacob always whole heartedly believed in the existence God. Descartes stayed in this state doubting everything until he meditated his most famous phrase “Cognito ergo sum”, I think therefor I am. Descartes came to this conclusion once he reached his ultimate level doubt, doubting everything including the world, sky, earth, mind, and body. The one thing he did not doubt was that he existed. Since he had the capability to think for himself regardless of if he was being deceived by God or not, he must exist and therefor God must be