Six metaphysical meditations · René Descartes
ANSWER.
None of _Gods_ Attributes can proceed from _outward objects_ as from a _Pattern_, because there is nothing found in God like what is found in _External_, that is, _Corporeal_ things; Now ’tis manifest that whatever we think of in him _differing_ or _unlike_ what we find in them proceeds not from them, but from a cause of that very _diversity_ in our Thought. And here I desire to know, how this Philosopher deduces _Gods Understanding_ from _outward Things_, and yet I can easily explain what _Idea_ I have thereof, by saying, that by the _Idea_ of _Gods Understanding_ I conceive whatever is the _Form_ of any _Perception_; For who is there that does not perceive that he _understands_ something or other, and consequently he must thereby have an _Idea_ of _understanding_, and by enlarging it _Indefinitely_ he forms the _Idea_ of _Gods Understanding_. And so of his other Attributes. And seeing we have made use of that _Idea_ of _God_ which is in us to demonstrate his existence, and seeing there is contain’d in this _Idea_ such an _Immense Power_, that we conceive it a contradiction for _God_ to _Exist_, and yet that any thing should _Be_ besides Him, which was not _Created_ by Him, it plainly follows that demonstrating His existence we demonstrate also that the whole world, or all things different from _God_, were _Created_ by God.
Lastly when we assert, that some _Ideas_ are _Innate_ or _natural_ to us, we do not mean that they are always present with us (for so no _Idea_ would be _Innate_) but only that we have in our selves a Faculty of producing them. * _The whole stress of which Argument lyes thus; because I know it impossible for me to be of the same nature I am, ~viz~, having the Idea of a God in me, unless really there were a God, A God (I say) that very same God, whose Idea I have in my mind._ Wherefore seeing ’tis not _demonstrated_ that we have an _Idea_ of _God_, and the Christian Religion commands us to believe that _God_ is _Inconceivable_, that is, as I suppose, that we cannot have an _Idea_ of Him, it follows, that the _Existence_ of _God_ is not demonstrated, much less _the Creation_. When _God_ is said to be _Inconceiveable_ ’tis understood of an _Adequate full conception_. But I am ’een tired with often repeating, how notwithstanding we may have an _Idea_ of _God_. So that here is nothing brought that makes any thing against my _demonstration_.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.