Summary Of Descartes Ontological Argument

Introduction:
Descartes uses his rule of clear and distinct perception and later his ontological argument to not only state the prerequisite criteria to be justifiably certain of something, but also prove the existence of God. Descartes Ontological argument is seemed as a must to fix any circularity problems in his rule of perceptions, as well as, in his belief proof the existence of an all powerful being. In this paper I will first explore the rule of clear and distinct perception and its charge of circularity. Then I will go through Descartes Ontological arguments and see if the argument proves the existence of a supreme being, and if so, does the argument fix the charge of circularity of the rule of clear and distinct perception. Finally,
This seems to be a correct statement. If you know something to be true, you should be able to clearly perceive what that thing is and be able to distinctly separate it from everything else. Descartes uses this rule of clear and distinct perception then to his famous argument for his own existence. To start off his argument that we all remember as “I think, therefore I am”, Descartes states that he clearly and distinctly perceives that he has some doubt about the actual existence of something. This is an obviously true statement because Descartes cannot clearly, nor distinctly, perceive everything that is true. He knows his doubt to be true because he can distinctly and clearly perceive the doubt. Because he knows that the doubt exists he knows that it is certain that he is clearly and distinctly experiencing some sort of mental process. This process is called thinking. So far if he can be certain of at least three things. His doubt and his ability think. He then uses the rule of clear and distinct perception to prove his existence. This entire argument is based on the truth of his rule. But in order to be certain that his rule is true he must use his rule. This is the charge of circularity. He also claims that he is certain of his rule of clear and distinct perception. Being an idea, he must think in
The use of this argument is more then uses this same line of reasoning to question the existence of God. He states that he must know the truth on the existence of God in order to conclude the truth of the rule of clear and distinct perception.

However, it seems that Descartes is using a different thinking process when he argues the existence of God. Descartes argues that there must be more reality in the maker of an object than in the object itself and that if the object holds reality then so must the creator. He then goes into his ontological argument, arguing that causation is the key for existence to begin. The maker must make the object in order for the object to exist. This is true in all things. I am the result of my parent. The tree was the result of a seed that was the result of a different tree. This chain goes on and on backwards through time. This means there must be a supreme creator that started the chain. He argues that it would be incoherent to doubt that something does not exist because in order to doubt something it has to have existence. It would be incoherent to deny the existence of God. It is self- evident that God exists. That is there should be no doubt that God does in fact exist. And if it’s true that God does exist, and we know we can clearly and distinctly perceive God, then we can be sure that the existence of God