Descartes's theodicy

Abstract

In the Fourth Meditation, Descartes asks : ' If God is no deceiver, why do we sometimes err?' Descartes's answer (despite initial appearances) is both systematic and necessary for his epistemological project. Two atheistic arguments from error purport to show that reason both proves and disproves God's existence. Descartes must block them to escape scepticism. He offers a mixed theodicy: the value of free will justifies God in allowing our actual errors, and the perfection of the universe may justify God in making us able to err. Though internally coherent, Descartes's theodicy conflicts with his view of divine providence.

Responsibility in Descartes’s Theory of Judgment

“…Descartes's project in the Fourth Meditation involves explicitly drawing the 42. Descartes's conception of freedom is a topic of lively, current debate: see, for example, Ragland (2006) and Lennon (2015). See my (2014) for an overview of the difficulties in interpreting Descartes on the issue.…”

Descartes on Human Freedom

“…They propose that similarities between Descartes' theodicy and Augustine's (354–430) theodicy of De libero arbitrio help to make sense of Descartes' conception of freedom (Gilson (by way of Descartes' Oratorian theologian contemporary Guillame Gibieuf, 1591–1650); Menn, cf. Matthews; Ragland, “Theodicy”). Others suggest, because of the significance of the mental faculties in Descartes' solution, that Thomas Aquinas's (1225–1274) faculty model of the mind heavily influenced Descartes (Alanen, Concept of Mind and “Power to Do Otherwise”; Carriero) and that Descartes' conception of human freedom is illuminated by investigating the similarities and differences between Thomas's two distinct faculties of will ( voluntas ) and free decision ( liberum arbitrium ) and Descartes' single faculty of “will or freedom of choice” ( voluntas , sive arbitrii libertas )…”

Descartes's sceptical theism

“…8.Cf. Ragland (2007). Ragland also reads Descartes as appealing to the sceptical theist's strategy in Meditation Four , although he sees this strategy as employed towards different ends.…”

“…16.Ragland (2007), 138–139, briefly takes up the question of why Descartes thinks that creating the meditator with an uncorrectable tendency for error would have to be a malicious act. He suggests an argument on Descartes's behalf which I represent as follows: (1) a state of affairs can justify God's having created the meditator with an uncorrectable tendency to error only if God lacked the power to bring about this state of affairs in any other way.…”