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Descartes's theodicy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2007

C. P. RAGLAND
C. P. RAGLAND
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Saint Louis University, 221 North Grand Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63103
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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.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , June 2007 , pp. 125 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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References

Notes

1. See Etienne Gilson La liberté chez Descartes et la théologie (Paris: Alcan, 1913), 441.

2. Donald Cress ‘Truth, error, and the order of reasons: Descartes'spuzzling synopsis of the fourth meditation’, in J. Cottingham (ed.) Reason, Will, and Sensation: Studies in Descartes's Metaphysics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 149; see also 143 and 151.

3. Georges Dicker Descartes: An Analytical and Historical Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 108–109.

4. See Cress ‘Truth, error, and the order of reasons’, 149, and Michael Della Rocca ‘Judgment and will’, in S. Gaukroger (ed.) The Blackwell Guide to Descartes’ Meditations (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 142–159.

5. Commentators frequently view the Fourth Meditation as an exercise in theodicy. In addition to other works cited in this paper, see J. L. Evans ‘Error and the will’, Philosophy, 38 (1963), 137; Hiram Caton ‘Will and reason in Descartes’ theory of error’, Journal of Philosophy, 72 (1975), 87–104; and John Cottingham Descartes (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), 64–65. However, only two articles and two books in the current secondary literature do much to underscore the importance or internal coherence of Descartes'stheodicy. These are Lex Newman ‘The fourth meditation’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 59 (1999), 559–591; Michael Latzer ‘Descartes's theodicy of error’, in E. Elmar and M. Latzer (eds) The Problem of Evil in Early Modern Philosophy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001), 35–48; Zbigniew Janowski Cartesian Theodicy: Descartes’ Quest for Certitude (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000); and Stephen Menn Descartes and Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). My interpretation is generally in agreement with these authors (especially Newman and Latzer), though I will note below some specific points of disagreement.

6. References to Descartes employ the following abbreviations: AT: Adam and P. Tannery (eds) Oeuvres de Descartes, 2nd edn, 11 vols (Paris: Vrin/C.N.R.S., 1974–1986); CSM 1: J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, and D. Murdoch (tr.) The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); CSM 2: J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, and D. Murdoch (tr.) The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); CSMK: J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, D. Murdoch, and A. Kenny (tr.) The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol.3: The Correspondence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

7. See Synopsis (AT 7:15/CSM 2:11), Fourth Objections (AT 7:215/CSM 2:151), Letter to Mersenne, 18 March 1641 (AT 3:334–35/CSMK 175), and Second Replies (AT 7:149/CSM 2:106). However, Descartes realized that his theodicy could apply to sin. See the letter to Mesland, 2 May 1644 (AT 4:117/CSMK 234), and the Fourth Meditation (AT 7:58/CSM 2:40–41).

8. For Descartes, the absolute certainty involved in scientific knowledge ‘is not to be sought or hoped for’ in the conduct of our lives, (To Hyperaspistes, August 1641; AT 3:422–23/CSMK 188–189), where ‘moral’ certainty is enough; see Part 4 of the Discourse (AT 6:25, 37–39/CSM 1:123, 130), Principles IV. 205 (AT 9b:323/CSM 1:289 n2).

9. See also the letters to Elizabeth of 6 October 1645 (AT 4:314/CSMK 272) and 3 November 1645 (AT 4:332/CSMK 277).

10. See also AT 7:144/CSM 2:103.

11. Augustine On Free Choice of the Will, T. Williams (tr.) (Indianapolis IN: Hackett, 1993), 3 (bk I, 2).

12. See the introduction to Marilyn McCord Adams and Robert Adams (eds) The Problem of Evil (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), esp. 2 and 16.

13. See, however, the Sixth Meditation, where Descartes seems to rest some slight weight on a probabilistic argument concerning the body's existence (AT 7:73/CSM 2:51).

14. Harry Frankfurt ‘Descartes on the consistency of reason’, in Michael Hooker (ed.) Descartes: Critical and Interpretive Essays (Baltimore MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), 36.

15. Ibid., 34.

16. Ibid., 38.

17. For a more detailed discussion of this terminology, see Newman, ‘The Fourth Meditation’, 563–564.

18. See Nelson Pike ‘Hume on evil’, in Adams and Adams The Problem of Evil, 38–41, and the introduction to the same volume, 4.

19. For a more specific account of an MSR, see William Rowe ‘The problem of evil and some varieties of atheism’, in Adams and Adams The Problem of Evil, 128.

20. My point here opposes remarks in Cress ‘Truth, error, and the order of reasons’, 149–151.

21. See also AT 4:118/CSMK 235 and AT 1:165/CSMK 27.

22. E. M. Curley ‘Descartes on the creation of the eternal truths’, Philosophical Review, 93 (1984), 589.

23. For presentations of the standard reading, see Harry Frankfurt ‘Descartes on the creation of the eternal truths’, Philosophical Review, 86 (1977), 36–57 (esp. 50); and Alvin Plantinga Does God Have a Nature? (Milwaukee WI: Marquette University Press, 1980), 113. Peter Geach (‘Omnipotence’, Philosophy, 48 (1973), 7–20) seems at times to endorse the standard reading, though he also explores the sort of alternative reading later developed by Curley.

24. Curley ‘Descartes on the creation’, 571.

25. See Latzer ‘Descartes's theodicy of error’, 46–47. Latzer seems to endorse the standard interpretation of the creation doctrine.

26. See Edwin Curley Descartes Against the Skeptics (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), 198.

27. See Jonathan Bennett ‘Descartes's theory of modality’, Philosophical Review, 103 (1994), 639. Curley discusses these conflicts in ‘Descartes on the creation’, 571–575. On the issue of science, see Steven Nadler ‘Scientific certainty and the creation of the eternal truths: a problem in Descartes’, Southern Journal of Philosophy, 25 (1987), 175–192.

28. See Curley ‘Descartes on the creation’; Michael Della Rocca ‘Descartes, the Cartesian circle, and epistemology without God’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 70 (2005), 1–33; and Dan Kaufman ‘Descartes’ creation doctrine and modality’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 80 (2002), 24–41. Kaufman's article is a good entryway into this debate about the creation doctrine, because it contains very clear and concise summaries of the most important prior interpretations.

29. See also the comparison between God and Jupiter at AT 7:380/CSM 2:261.

30. For more on this topic see Dan Kaufman ‘God's immutability and the necessity of Descartes’ eternal truths’, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 43 (2005), 1–19.

31. Latzer ‘Descartes's theodicy of error’, 47.

32. See Kaufman ‘Descartes’ creation doctrine and modality’.

33. See Stephen Wykstra ‘The Humean obstacle to evidential arguments from suffering: on avoiding the evils of “appearance”’, in Adams and Adams The Problem of Evil, 138–160.

34. My terminology here follows Della Rocca ‘Judgment and will’, 145.

35. G. E. Moore Principia Ethica (New York NY: Prometheus Books, 1988), 184. See Newman ‘The Fourth Meditation’, 570–572. Leibniz also invokes the principle of organic unities. See the first appendix to his Theodicy, E. M. Huggard (tr.), Austin Farrer (ed.) (LaSalle IL: Open Court, 1985), 378.

36. Though it fits with his big-picture strategy, Descartes's emphasis on the inscrutability of God's purposes seems to conflict with his earlier claim that error is a privation. See A. B. Gibson The Philosophy of Descartes (London: Methuen, 1932), 326; and Joel Thomas Tierno Descartes on God and Human Error (Atlantic Highlands NJ: Humanities Press, 1997), 58.

37. Descartes insists that some sort of ‘[intellectual] perception … is a prerequisite of judgement’ (Comments on a Certain Broadsheet; AT viiib. 363/CSM i. 307; see also Fifth Replies; AT 7: 377/CSM 2: 259 and AT 8a: 18/CSM 1: 204. See L. J. Beck The Method of Descartes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952), 206.

38. While the Latin word peccare has both theological and non-theological senses, it is not clear how Descartes intends to use it here. My translation follows CSM in preserving the ambiguity of the Latin, but Anthony Kenny translates the word as ‘sin’ in his ‘Descartes on the will’, in R. J. Butler (ed.) Cartesian Studies (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1972), 15; see also Latzer ‘Descartes's theodicy of error’, 35–36.

39. So Donald Cress is right to say that Descartes’ theodicy of error ‘draws heavily upon Augustinian teachings’, though he is wrong in claiming that ‘Descartes did not allow sin to enter his account of the origin and nature of error’ (‘Order of reasons’, 152). Other works noting important parallels between Descartes's treatment of error and Augustine's treatment of evil include Latzer ‘Descartes's theodicy of error’; Susan Bordo The Flight to Objectivity: Essays on Cartesianism and Culture (Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 1987), 78–82; and Menn Descartes and Augustine, 301–322. For interesting discussions of whether Descartes incorporates Augustine's idea of original sin, see Janowski Cartesian Theodicy, 137–140, and Menn Descartes and Augustine, 316–318.

40. Here I disagree with Newman ‘The Fourth Meditation’, 570.

41. For this sort of reading of Cartesian freedom, see Kenny ‘Descartes on the will’, and Charles Larmore ‘Descartes’ psychologistic theory of assent’, History of Philosophy Quarterly, 1/1 (1984), 61–74.

42. For an entry into the debates about Cartesian freedom, see my ‘Descartes on the principle of alternative possibilities’, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 44 (2006), 377–394; ‘Alternative possibilities in Descartes’ Fourth Meditation’, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 14 (2006), 379–400; and ‘Was Descartes a libertarian?’, in Daniel Garber and Steven Nadler (eds) Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, vol. 3 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 57–90.

43. But see James Petrik Descartes’ Theory of the Will (Durango CO: Hollowbrook Publishing, 1992).

44. Augustine On Free Choice, 89 (bk 3, 9). Here I disagree with Calvert ‘Descartes and the problem of evil’, 125, and agree with Latzer ‘Descartes's theodicy of error’, 38–40, and Menn Descartes and Augustine, 319–320. See also Tierno Descartes on God and Human Error, 69.

45. See Calvert ‘Descartes and the problem of evil’, 123, and Edwin Curley's entry ‘Descartes, René (1596–1650)’, forthcoming in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd edn (New York NY: Macmillan Reference Books, 2006).

46. Here I disagree with Calvert ‘Descartes and the problem of evil’, 119–123, and Bernard Williams Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry (Atlantic Highlands NJ: Humanities Press, 1978), 166.

47. Della Rocca ‘Judgment and will’, 145.

48. For discussion of a similar point, see Newman ‘The Fourth Meditation’, 573–574.

49. M. McCord Adams ‘Horrendous evils and the goodness of God’, in Adams and Adams The Problem of Evil, 213.

50. Thanks to Michael Della Rocca for raising this objection in correspondence.

51. The rest of this section briefly summarizes ideas developed in detail in my ‘Descartes on divine providence and human freedom’, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 87 (2005), 159–188.

52. See Aquinas Summa Theologica, I.22.3, and Luis de Molina On Divine Foreknowledge (Part 4 of the Concordia), A. J. Freddoso (tr.) (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), 1–5.

53. In a similar vein, the sceptical theist passage insists that there is no cause to doubt God's existence if there are ‘instances where I do not grasp why or how [quomodo] certain things were made by him’ (AT 7:55/CSM 2:38–39; my emphasis)

54. See Della Rocca ‘Cartesian circle’, sections 7 and 8.

55. Thanks to Robert Adams, Michael Della Rocca, Aaron Cobb, Peter Byrne, and two anonymous referees for Religious Studies for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. I am also grateful to Saint Louis University for a Mellon summer grant that funded the initial writing of the paper.