Brain Function and God

Relationship of Certainty to God From Descartes Compare With Gassedi, Pascal, and Spinoza

The French philosopher Rene Descartes was one of the most transformational figures of his time and his work is now considered one of the pillars of modern Western philosophy. Descartes was the first to eloquently describe the issues that are related to the problem of how the mind and brain function, how they are related, and the mysterious connection that exists that provides the foundation in which human consciousness can exist. Descartes was also skeptical of many of the assumption that were previously taken for granted as truth. For example, Descartes was unsure of how reliable the human senses were at providing reliable interpretations of whatever the external reality that exists happens to be.

Descartes skepticism of the senses serves as a critical component of his overall worldview and how he believed that the external environment and God were related. His theories were meet with a wide spectrum of different responses from many of the contemporary thought leaders of the day such as Gussedi, Pascal, and Spinoza. These individuals disagree in some way about Descartes's idea of Certainty to God based on his theories and used his work as the focus of their own rebuttals. This analysis will provide a brief introduction to the key points that Descartes outlines as well as provide an overview of the spectrum of responses that emerged after Descartes theories were published.

Method and Mediations on First Philosophy

Descartes published his book Mediations on First Philosophy in 1641 in Latin and it was not translated into English until sometime later and to this day it remains as one of the most widely read philosophy texts to this day. One of the primary reasons that this text has been so influential in the field is the strong skeptical perspective that it applies to the whole of reality. After some of his initial works received what might be considered a number of constructive criticisms, Descartes focused on the things that he could know for sure and without doubt and is willing to readily admit that some of the things that he believed during his life could easily have been wrong. When we apply a skeptical lens to what we might consider to be reality, then this perception of reality might easily crumble under the weight of scrutiny.

Descartes was the first truly grasp the problems that exist when trying to validate an external reality through the senses and the mind and brain interactions that must occur to enable such a position. He believed that the mind and brain, although connected, were connected in some manner that cannot necessarily be verified. For example, if there was an all-powerful and omnipotent God, then this God should certainly be able to deceive people in whatever ways they wished according to Descartes; which was the line of thinking that led him to question whether or not we could trust our senses, or to what extent. Yet he believed that our mind-brain interaction helped to form our self-identity and the ways in which we relate to the world.

"I perceive first that I have a head, hands, feet and other members composing that body which I considered as part, or perhaps even as the whole, of myself. I perceive further, that that body was placed among many others, by which it was capable of being affected in diverse ways, both beneficial and hurtful; and what was beneficial I remarked by a certain sensation of pleasure, and what was hurtful by a sensation of pain. And besides this pleasure and pain, I was likewise conscious of hunger, thirst, and other appetites, as well as certain corporeal inclinations toward joy, sadness, anger, and similar passions" (Descartes, Meditation VI).

For example, Descartes believes that our stomachs may provide information to our minds to give it a cue to address the hunger that is present and there is no doubt that they are connected in some manner. However, the exact relationship between the mind and the body is far from certain and this insight was one of Descartes greatest contribution to philosophy. It's a problem that continues to exist despite all the advances of modern technology as contemporary researchers still have not cracked the exact mechanisms that serve to create the relationship.

Beyond this contribution, Descartes theories that built upon this foundation were heavily disputed, both then and now, by philosophers about the concept of God and how it interacts with reality. Descartes used the foundation to attribute different kinds of substances that existed which included infinite and finite thinking substances as well as infinite and finite material substances (Mahon, J., N.d.). He believed that God was the only thing in eternal existence and that God create all of the subsequent substances which were finite in nature. Descartes believes that since the mind and body are apparently two distinct and separate entities that they must be composed of a different type of substance that make their existence possible. However, not everyone agreed that the possibility of having different types of materials in the universe. For example, Spinoza takes great pains to argue that there is only one type of substance and it is infinite in nature.

PROP. VII. Existence belongs to the nature of substances.

Proof. -- Substance cannot be produced by anything external (Corollary, Prop vi.), it must, therefore, be its own cause -- that is, its essence necessarily involves existence, or existence belongs to its nature.

PROP. VIII. Every substance is necessarily infinite.

Proof. -- There can only be one substance with an identical attribute, and existence follows from its nature (Prop. vii.); its nature, therefore, involves existence, either as finite or infinite. It does not exist as finite, for (by Def. ii.) it would then be limited by something else of the same kind, which would also necessarily exist (Prop. vii.); and there would be two substances with an identical attribute, which is absurd (Prop. v.). It therefore exists as infinite. Q.E.D. (Spinoza, The Ethics).

Spinoza uses the argument for only one type of substance to later serve as the argument for an God that is of the same substance and eternal. He further argues that:

"If God is the only substance, and (by axiom 1) whatever is, is either a substance or in a substance, then everything else must be in God. "Whatever is, is in God, and nothing can be or be conceived without God" (Ip15). Those things that are "in" God (or, more precisely, in God's attributes) are what Spinoza calls modes." (Spinoza, The Ethics)

Thus Spinoza is essentially arguing that God is exhibited in all things and that the entirety of substance is a manifestation of the properties of God. He further believed that basically everything was God and that God was in everything, however there seems to be some debate about whether he could be considered a pantheist (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2016). He believed that nature and God were virtually synonymous and that many of the confusing ideals about God are a result of trying to project human qualities or trying to make God and anthropic being to understand, or to use the concept for their own purposes.

Still other philosophers such as Blaise Pascal tried to avoid any use of a certainty in their arguments for God's existence and instead he framed the exercise as a decision-making process that took a pragmatic account of the possible options available (Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy, 2012). He frames the decision as a type of wager, later to become known as Pascal's Wage, in which one must try to determine for themselves whether they believe that God is "true." Thus this argument can be considered as something of a bet in which the individual can either win or lose; however, if the individual loses then this could have severe consequences and it is more practical to choose to believe in God's existence.