Descartes' and Kants Approaches to God Term Paper

Descartes' and Kants Approaches to God - Term Paper Example To begin with, one should state the claims which were made by Descartes since the ideas of Kant primarily reject them. Thus, the former developed the so called ontological argument for existence of God: Descartes based his proof on the concept that God is the most perfect creature and, since existence is a part of perfection, He ought to exist (Cahoone 45). One would make no mistake, pointing out that this approach is a rather short one and features fine logic at first sight. Indeed, Descartes takes one premise that both people who believe in God and those who do not believe in God would not reject, namely that He is the most perfect creature. In other words, he is able to appeal to the common ground of the people when they perceive the higher power without connection to any dogmatic principles. Indeed, it would not be an exaggeration to point out that the idea of God or any deities might have emerged as the opposition to the corrupted material world; so, the metaphysical world as we ll as its inhabitants is largely thought to be free of vices. That is why the ontological argument which was presented by Descartes makes sense to a certain extent.However, the criticism which was developed by Kant latter makes even more sense. Thus, for this German philosopher, the argument that was presented by Descartes possesses one important flaw which destroys the whole integrity of it: according to the logic of the claim, existence is inseparably connected to the object of idea. That is why the perfection or greatness of idea might be modified by the fact whether it exists or not