Comparing Descartes God And The Christian God
DESCARTES’ GOD Do we need a watchmaker god or the Christian God and how is it related to living a good life? The subject of god has always fascinated me, and I love to read how others interpret their personal gods. It is also interesting to see how people prioritize their gods in their life and what importance they give their gods. I believe that the Christian God is the true God and exactly what we need to live a good life. We need to have a goal and an end, which is eternal happiness with God. Descartes’ god is the watchmaker god that simply winds up the clock of time and walks away, letting all things happen on their own, according to the natural laws that god put into place. The first problem with this is with Descartes’ lack of
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This is not proof because there are no public recordings, witness reports, documents or fulfilled prophecies that lead us to believe that his theory is true. This is simply a made-up idea that Descartes invented in his imagination and provides no actual proofs. Compare this theory of Descartes with the Christian God, we have Roman documents that describes an agitator named Jesus Christ that was put to death by crucifixion. This crucial documentation along with thousands of witnesses that have firsthand knowledge of the miracles Jesus performed, written documents of his apostles and disciples, and prophecies from the Old Testament that were fulfilled by Jesus. This is the difference between an idea that is fabricated in one’s own mind and a well-documented faith tradition, like Christianity.
The next issue is that even know that Descartes’ god is perfect, Descartes places …show more content…
Christianity believes that, mankind has free will and can make decisions that can have good and evil consequences. Without free will we are simply puppets, with the law being the puppet master, thus, the meaning of life is lost. If we are simply puppet that have no control over our environment, how exactly does one manipulate the laws of nature? Descartes does not address this apparent contradiction in his book. Another aspect of free will is that humans choose where their immortal spirit will reside for eternity, we either go to heaven or hell. Descartes does not discuss this except in a couple of areas and he says that the soul and body are separate and the reasonable soul is assigned to a body after the soul is created (5, 4). This is problematic because the body and soul are two distinct things, according to Descartes, and can exist fully, apart from each other. He goes further by saying that the person does not need a body to exist, but just the soul, which is the thinking and reasoning part of the person (4, 2). This brings up the question of the eternal disposition of soul and body, what happens to it? When does it end? Again, there is no discussion for this essential question. Descartes does say with science, we will resolve the issue of death, we
This is not proof because there are no public recordings, witness reports, documents or fulfilled prophecies that lead us to believe that his theory is true. This is simply a made-up idea that Descartes invented in his imagination and provides no actual proofs. Compare this theory of Descartes with the Christian God, we have Roman documents that describes an agitator named Jesus Christ that was put to death by crucifixion. This crucial documentation along with thousands of witnesses that have firsthand knowledge of the miracles Jesus performed, written documents of his apostles and disciples, and prophecies from the Old Testament that were fulfilled by Jesus. This is the difference between an idea that is fabricated in one’s own mind and a well-documented faith tradition, like Christianity.
The next issue is that even know that Descartes’ god is perfect, Descartes places …show more content…
Christianity believes that, mankind has free will and can make decisions that can have good and evil consequences. Without free will we are simply puppets, with the law being the puppet master, thus, the meaning of life is lost. If we are simply puppet that have no control over our environment, how exactly does one manipulate the laws of nature? Descartes does not address this apparent contradiction in his book. Another aspect of free will is that humans choose where their immortal spirit will reside for eternity, we either go to heaven or hell. Descartes does not discuss this except in a couple of areas and he says that the soul and body are separate and the reasonable soul is assigned to a body after the soul is created (5, 4). This is problematic because the body and soul are two distinct things, according to Descartes, and can exist fully, apart from each other. He goes further by saying that the person does not need a body to exist, but just the soul, which is the thinking and reasoning part of the person (4, 2). This brings up the question of the eternal disposition of soul and body, what happens to it? When does it end? Again, there is no discussion for this essential question. Descartes does say with science, we will resolve the issue of death, we