Six metaphysical meditations · René Descartes
OBJECT. X.
Wherefore, to say that God is _Independent_, is only to say That _God_ is in the Number of those things, the _Original_ whereof I do not Imagine: and so to say that _God_ is _Infinite_, is the same as if we say That He is in the Number of Those Things whose _Bounds_ we do not Conceive: And thus any _Idea_ of _God_ is Exploded, for What _Idea_ can we have without _Beginning_ or _Ending_? ~Omniscient~ or Understanding all things, Here _I_ desire to know, by what _Idea_, _Des-Cartes_ understands _Gods Understanding_? ~Almighty~, I desire also to know by What _Idea Gods Power_ is _understood_? For _Power_ is in Respect of Future Things, that is, Things not Existing. For my Part, I understand _Power_ from the Image or Memory of past Actions, arguing with my self thus, He did so, therefore he was _able_ (or had _Power_) to do so, therefore (continuing the same) he will again have _Power_ to do so. But now all these are _Ideas_ that may arise from _external Objects_. ~Creatour~ of all things, _I_ can frame an _Image_ of _Creation_ from what I see every day, as a Man Born, or growing from a Punctum to that shape and size he now bears; an other _Idea_ then this no man can have at the word _Creatour_; But the _Possibility_ of _Imagining_ a Creation is not sufficient to prove that the world _was created_. And therefore tho it were _Demonstrated_ that some _Infinite Independent Almighty Being_ did _exist_, yet it will not from thence follow that a _Creatour exists_; unless one can think this to be a right inference, we _believe_ that there exists something that has created all other things, therefore the world _was Created_ thereby. Moreover when he says, that the _Idea_ of _God_, and of our _Soul_ is _Innate_ or _born in us_, I would fain know, whether the _Souls_ of those that _sleep soundly_ do _think_ unless they _dream_; If not, then at that time they have no _Ideas_, and consequently no _Idea_ is _Innate_, for what is _Innate_ to us is never _Absent_ from us.
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