Descartes Meditations IV, And Principles Of Philosophy Analysis

In Meditations IV, Rene Descartes defends God against the accusation that He is responsible for the errors and mishaps of human beings. Descartes argues that God granted human beings the ability choose, i.e., free will, and it is poor use of said free will that is responsible for human error, not God. In his later publication, Principles of Philosophy, he continues his vehement defense of God but includes a significant addition in that undermines this position. I will argue that although Meditations IV and Principles of Philosophy are mostly consistent, Descartes' explicit statement that God willed and preordained all that is and can be renders the texts inconsistent.
In order to explain how a perfect and all-knowing God exists, Descartes needs to explain how such a perfect God creates human beings who are prone to error, injustice and evil. After all, a perfect and all-knowing being should have no problem creating perfect beings capable of an error free existence. In response to this criticism, Descartes posits a theory of judgement, which identifies two principle causes of human error: knowledge and free will (Meditations IV, 1-20).
The different natures of knowledge and free will exacerbate the problem. While knowledge is limited, Descartes says of free will
The compatibilist view holds that although determinism is true, human beings still possess free will. On the one hand he presents a strong case for the moral responsibility of human beings based on an ability of free choice. On the other, he says the will of God is far superior to the will of human beings (Meditations IV, 1-21). The implication here being although human beings have free will and the power to choose, God's greater will can overrule it. Therefore, human beings remain morally responsible for good and bad outcomes, despite the existence of an all perfect, omnipotent God and a deterministic