SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONARIES

From Classics in the Philosophy of Religion, by James Fieser

© 2026, updated 6/1/2026, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

 

_______________________

CONTENTS

• Galileo Galilei: Science Independent of Religion (from "Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina")

• Pierre Gassendi: Christianized Epicureanism (from Philosophical Treatise)

• René Descartes: God as Sustainer of a Mechanical World (from The World, Meditations, Principles of Philosophy, Letters)

• Isaac Newton: God as Skilled Engineer (from Principia, Letters to Benton)

 

_______________________

 

We can understand the scientific revolution as a contest between two ancient conceptions of the cosmos, by Aristotle and Epicurus, where ultimately Epicurus won. Aristotle's view was embraced by medieval Christian thinkers, and dominated European thought for centuries. It rested on six key principles. (1) The cosmos is finite and spherical, beyond which there is no space or time. (2) It is a plenum with no empty space anywhere. (3) Its matter is infinitely divisible, with no smallest parts. (4) The cosmos has a hierarchical structure, with the unchanging heavens made of a special element (aether) and the changing earthly realm made of a qualityless underlying stuff (prime matter). (5) Natural objects are composed of prime matter, which is shaped into the four elements (earth, air, fire and water), then further shaped into particular things (e.g., rocks and trees). (6) Nature is governed by internal natural purposes and substantial forms that pull objects toward their final goals. Epicurus and his followers denied all of these Aristotelian principles. For them, the cosmos is infinitely vast, consisting only of finite atomic particles moving in a vacuum. External forces push passive atoms into motion, where they collide, combine, and eventually form elements and then objects. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, this Epicurean view became the template of the "new science", as it was called, whose motto was "matter in motion". The older Aristotelian worldview was still institutionally tied to Christian theology, and every aspect of it became a point of conflict with the modern Epicurean scientists. But the main theological tension concerned substantial forms, which medieval thinkers used to explain the immateriality of the human soul and the purposeful order of creation. To move beyond these Aristotelean constraints, defenders of the new science needed to "Christianize" Epicureanism, similar to how centuries earlier Augustine had Christianized Plato, and Aquinas had Christianized Aristotle.

          Galileo launched the first major attack against the entire Aristotelean worldview. Though he was not an Epicurean himself, his discoveries ended Aristotle's celestial hierarchy, and his mechanics freed nature of hidden internal forms and natural purposes. This left a universe defined purely by what can be observed and measured mathematically. He writes that the book of nature "is written in mathematical language . . . without which means it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it" (Assayer). Once Galileo cleared away the Aristotelian structure, Pierre Gassendi initiated the transition to the Epicurean system. He accepted everything in Epicurean physics that supported modern science, but discarded the Epicurean doctrines that directly contradicted the Bible. For example, Epicurus disbelieved in the concept of an afterlife and any involvement of a powerful divine being in our lives. As a Christian, Gassendi took the reverse position and defended these concepts, but he still accepted the branding of "Epicureanism". By contrast, Descartes held an Epicurean agenda similar to Gassendi's, but hid every direct association with Epicurus. By the late seventeenth-century, virtually all of the active scientists held the Epicurean view of matter in motion. Newton is the most famous example, who united Galileo's mathematical mechanics with the atomistic view of matter. By doing so, he permanently established the image of the universe as a grand machine under the governance of a skilled divine engineer.

 

_______________________

 

GALILEO GALILEI:

SCIENCE INDEPENDENT OF RELIGION

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) was born at the Tucsan city of Pisa, in what is now Italy. He held influential chairs of mathematics at the universities of Pisa and Padua before his appointment as chief philosopher and mathematician to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Galileo pioneered the use of the telescope, which led him to discover Jupiter's satellites, the phases of Venus, and sunspots. He used this empirical evidence in a way that challenged traditional geocentric cosmology. His support for Copernican heliocentrism led to a conflict with Church authorities. The "Galileo Affair", as it is called, represents the confrontation between early modern science and church authority over the structure of the cosmos. In 1616, the Roman Inquisition declared the Copernican theory heretical because it conflicted with passages of Scripture suggesting that the sun moves around the earth. Despite receiving a warning from the Church, Galileo published his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems in 1632, which openly defended heliocentrism. This defiance provoked a trial by the Roman Inquisition in 1633, which forced Galileo to public renounce his position and sentenced him to a lifetime under house arrest.

          The selections below are from his "Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina" written in 1615, in which he defends his scientific position against charges of religious heterodoxy. He argues here that Copernican astronomical models do not undermine Christian faith and that natural science must remain free from church authority. In the section on literal interpretation not binding natural philosophy, he argues that while Scripture is infallible, its surface wording aims at the uneducated populace. Reading these passages with strict literalism, he warns, leads to absurdities and heresies. The bible's primary goal is spiritual salvation, and thus its incidental remarks on nature should not dictate scientific truth. In the section on the true purpose of scripture and its silence on astronomy, he argues that divine revelation is meant to convey religious mysteries that exceed human reason, not to substitute for empirical science. God gave humans an intellect to investigate the physical world directly. The writers of the Bible, he says, clearly omitted technical discussions of astronomy, which indicates that such scientific information is irrelevant to salvation. In the section on astronomy and the authority of Augustine, he argues that the Church Fathers intentionally avoided debates regarding the size, and motion of the heavens. Augustine explicitly stated that the Holy Spirit chose to omit matters from scripture that provide no spiritual use. Accordingly, scriptural silence on these topics shows that heliocentrism cannot be a matter of faith. In the section on addressing proven natural facts, he argues that theologians must work to harmonize sacred texts with conclusions established by scientific observation and proof. Human authority cannot compel a scientist to unsee empirical facts that they discover. Accordingly, the burden of proof rests on opponents of science to disprove a theory, rather than demanding scientists to reject their own reasoning. In the final section on astronomy and the case of Joshua commanding the sun to stand still, he argues that taking this biblical miracle entirely at face value is incompatible with even traditional geocentric astronomy. For, under the Ptolemaic model, stopping the sun would shorten the day rather than lengthen it. Joshua simply spoke in popular language to describe a prolonged day to ordinary people.

 

PROPER READING OF SACRED TEXTS (from "Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina")

Literal Interpretation Cannot Bind Natural Philosophy

Here, then, is the reason they give for condemning the idea that the Earth moves and the Sun stays still. In many places, Scripture says the Sun moves and the Earth stands still. Scripture can never lie or make a mistake. So anyone who claims that the Sun itself does not move, and that the Earth does, must be wrong, and their view deserves to be condemned.

          On this point, I believe we need to consider one thing first. Everyone agrees, rightly, that Scripture can never lie, but only once we have grasped its true meaning. And that true meaning, I believe, is often hidden. It is frequently very different from what the words seem to say on the surface. So if someone insists on reading Scripture only by its literal wording, they can easily go wrong. Read this way, Scripture would seem to contain contradictions, statements that are plainly false, and even serious heresies and blasphemies. Taken literally, it would force us to give God feet, hands, and eyes. It would force us to attribute to Him human emotions like anger, regret, and hatred, even forgetfulness of the past and ignorance of the future. The Holy Spirit dictated these passages, and the sacred writers phrased them this way for a reason: to meet the understanding of ordinary people, who were largely uneducated. But educated readers need more than that. Wise interpreters must uncover the true meaning behind these passages, and explain why the words were chosen as they were. This is such standard doctrine among theologians that it hardly needs proving.

          From this, I believe we can reasonably conclude that Scripture followed the same approach whenever it touched on natural questions, especially the most obscure and hard-to-grasp ones. It did this to avoid confusing ordinary people, and to keep them from growing more resistant to the deeper mysteries of faith. As we have seen, Scripture did not hesitate to disguise even its most fundamental statements for the sake of ordinary understanding. It even described God Himself in terms utterly foreign to His true nature. So it seems unlikely that the same Scripture would suddenly abandon that approach whenever it happened to mention the earth, water, the Sun, or any other created thing. Why would it switch to strict, narrow literalism only on these incidental topics? That seems especially unlikely given that such statements have nothing to do with the real purpose of Scripture (which is to teach us how to worship God and save our souls). These are exactly the kinds of technical matters ordinary people would not understand anyway.

          Given all this, I do not think we should start debates about natural questions by appealing to scriptural authority. We should start with direct observation and solid proof instead. Both Scripture and nature come from God's word. Scripture is what the Holy Spirit dictated; nature is what faithfully carries out God's commands. Everyone agrees that Scripture, to reach ordinary people, often says things that look different from the literal truth. Nature works differently. Nature is strict and unchanging. It never breaks the laws set for it, and it does not care whether people can understand its hidden workings or not. So whenever direct observation or solid proof shows us a natural fact, we should not doubt it, let alone condemn it, just because some scriptural passage seems, on its surface, to say otherwise. Scripture's words do not all carry the same weight as nature's laws. And God reveals Himself just as powerfully through nature as through Scripture's sacred words.

          This may be what Tertullian meant when he wrote: "We believe God is known first through nature, and afterward recognized through doctrine: nature reveals Him through His works, doctrine through preaching."

True Purpose of Scripture and Its Silence on Astronomy

None of this means we should not hold Scripture in the highest regard. Quite the opposite. Once we are certain about some natural fact, we should use that certainty to help us properly interpret Scripture and to find the true meaning that must be hidden somewhere in the text. For, a true meaning can never conflict with a proven truth. I would argue that Scripture's main purpose was to convince people of truths that go beyond human reasoning, truths that no science or method could make credible except through the words of the Holy Spirit Himself. I would also argue that even on questions that are not matters of faith, Scripture's authority should outweigh that of ordinary human writings, where writings based on plain narration or probable reasoning rather than rigorous proof. That seems only fitting, given that divine wisdom surpasses all human judgment and guesswork.

          I do not think we are required to believe that God, who gave us senses, reason, and intellect, wanted us to set those aside. I do not think He meant for us to get by some other means the knowledge we can get through them. And I do not think that means we must deny our senses and reason even when direct observation or solid proof puts a natural fact right in front of our eyes and our minds. This is especially true for sciences where Scripture says almost nothing, and what little it does say comes in scattered, incidental remarks. Astronomy is a perfect example. Scripture covers so little astronomy that it does not even name the planets, except the Sun and Moon, and, once or twice, Venus, under the name Lucifer. If the biblical writers had meant to teach people how the heavens are arranged and how they move, and if we were supposed to learn all this from Scripture, I do not think they would have said so little about it. What little they said is nothing compared to the countless remarkable facts this science actually demonstrates.

Astronomy and the Authority of Augustine

In fact, the most respected and learned Church Fathers held that the biblical authors did not just fail to teach us about the layout and motion of the heavens and stars, their shapes, sizes, and distances, they deliberately left all that out, even though they knew it perfectly well themselves. Saint Augustine expressed it as follows:

People often ask what shape we should believe the heavens to be based on Scripture. Many argue at length about this, a question our biblical authors wisely left alone. Knowing the answer would not help anyone live a better life, and worse, arguing about it wastes time that should go toward things that actually matter for salvation. Personally, I do not care whether the heavens form a sphere enclosing the earth on all sides, balanced at the center of the universe, or whether they simply cover the earth from above like a flat disk. But the credibility of Scripture is at stake here. I have made this point before. If someone does not understand how Scripture speaks, and comes across something in it that seems to contradict what science shows to be true, they might stop trusting the rest of Scripture's genuinely useful teaching. So let me put it simply: our biblical authors knew the truth about the shape of the heavens. But the Spirit of God, who spoke through them, chose not to teach us these things, because they do nothing to help anyone toward salvation.

Saint Augustine makes the same point again two chapters later, in chapter ten, this time about whether we should believe the heavens move or stand still. There he writes:

Some of our brothers raise a question about the motion of the heavens: do they stand still, or do they move? If they move, they ask, how can they be a 'firmament'? But if they stand still, how do the stars — which we believe are fixed within them — travel from east to west, with the stars near the pole tracing smaller circles, so that the heavens appear to spin like a sphere (if there is a hidden pole on the far side) or like a disk (if there is not)? My answer is that working this out properly would take careful, difficult research. I do not have time for that kind of inquiry right now, and neither should the people we are trying to guide toward salvation and the good of the Church.

Bringing this down to our own specific question, one consequence follows necessarily. The Holy Spirit did not intend to teach us whether the heavens move or stand still. He did not intend to teach us whether their shape is a sphere, a disk, or a flat plane. He did not intend to teach us whether the Earth sits at the center of the universe or off to one side. It follows that He could not have intended to settle other questions of the same kind either. For, such questions so closely tied to these that you cannot take a position on one without the other. This includes the question of whether the Earth or the Sun is the one that moves. . . .

RESPONSIBILITY OF PROPER INTERPRETATION

Addressing Proven Natural Facts

Given all this, and since two truths can never contradict each other, wise interpreters have a responsibility: work hard to find the true meaning behind sacred passages. That true meaning will always match whatever clear observation and solid proof have already shown us to be certain. Scripture, for the reasons already given, often allows interpretations that are far from the literal words. And we cannot say for certain that every interpreter is divinely inspired. If they were, they would not disagree with each other about what the same passages mean. So I believe it would be wise not to let anyone pin a passage of Scripture to one particular natural claim, and treat that claim as settled truth, when direct observation or solid proof might later prove it wrong. Who has the right to set limits on human understanding? Who can claim that everything knowable in the world has already been discovered? . . .

          Telling astronomers to distrust their own observations and demonstrations, as if these could only be errors and false reasoning, is asking them to do the impossible. It is not just asking them to unsee what they see and to not understand what they understand. It is asking them to search for evidence and somehow find the opposite of whatever they actually find. Before anyone could demand this, they would first need to show astronomers how to make the mind work backwards, how to make the lower faculties, like imagination and will, override the higher ones, so that a person could choose to believe the opposite of what their own reasoning tells them. I am talking here only about purely natural questions, not matters of faith. Questions of faith are a separate matter entirely.

          I would ask these wise Church leaders to think carefully about the difference between doctrines that are open to debate and ones that have actually been proven. Once they clearly understand how binding a genuine proof is, they will see that scientists working with demonstrated facts cannot simply switch their opinions whenever they like. There is a real difference between instructing a mathematician or a scientist and instructing a merchant or a lawyer. You cannot change a proven conclusion about nature or the heavens the way you can change an opinion about what is allowed in a contract or a business deal. The great scholars and saints of the Church understood this difference well. This is clear from how hard they worked to refute bad arguments, (or actually, philosophical mistakes) as several of them say outright. Saint Augustine, for instance, wrote:

We should hold firmly to this: whatever the wise thinkers of this world can genuinely prove about nature, we should show to be compatible with our Scriptures. But whatever they teach that actually contradicts Scripture, we should regard as false without a doubt, and we should prove it false by whatever means we can. In this way, we hold to the faith of our Lord, in whom all the treasures of wisdom are hidden. We will not be led astray by the empty talk of false philosophy, and we will not be frightened by the superstition of a false religion.

I believe we can draw a clear lesson from these words. The books of secular scholars contain two kinds of claims about nature: some are genuinely proven, and others are simply asserted. For the proven ones, theologians have a responsibility: show that they do not actually contradict Scripture. For the merely asserted ones (taught, but not proven) if they contradict Scripture, we should treat them as false, and show why by every means available. So genuinely proven natural facts should not be set below Scripture. Instead, we should show how Scripture does not actually conflict with them. This means that before anyone condemns a natural claim, they first need to show that it has not actually been proven. And that responsibility belongs to the people who doubt the claim, not the people who believe it. That only makes sense: people who think an argument is false are in a much better position to find its flaws than people who already find it convincing.

          In fact, here is what actually happens with this particular theory. The more its supporters study it, test its reasoning, repeat its observations, and check its results, the more convinced they become. Your Highness knows the story of the mathematician who used to teach at the University of Pisa. In his old age, he set out to study Copernicus's theory, hoping to refute it soundly; he only judged it false because he never actually studied it. But as soon as he understood its foundations, its reasoning, and its proofs, he found himself convinced. He went from being the theory's opponent to being its strongest defender. I could name other mathematicians, too, who, moved by my recent discoveries, have admitted that the old picture of the world needs to change, since it simply cannot hold up anymore. . . .

Astronomy and the Case of Joshua

Finally, we should consider the passage about Joshua. Can it really be taken at face value, without changing the plain meaning of the words? And how could the Sun's obeying Joshua's command to stand still have made the day last so much longer?

          Under the Ptolemaic system, this simply could not happen. Here is why. The Sun moves along the ecliptic from west to east. That motion runs opposite to the primum mobile, which moves from east to west and is what actually creates day and night. So if the Sun stopped its own motion, the day would get shorter, not longer. To make the day longer, you would actually need to speed the Sun up, not slow it down. In fact, to keep the Sun fixed in the same spot in the sky without sinking toward the west, you would have to accelerate it until it matched the speed of the primum mobile. That is about 360 times faster than its normal speed.

          So if Joshua had meant his words in the strictest possible sense, he would have told the Sun to speed up, so that the sweep of the primum mobile would not carry it down toward sunset. But the people listening to him probably knew only one kind of celestial motion: the great east-to-west motion everyone could see. So Joshua spoke in terms they would understand. He was not trying to teach them how the heavens actually worked. He just wanted them to grasp how amazing the miracle was, that the day had been made longer. So he spoke in the way they could understand.

Source: Galileo Galilei, "Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina" (1615), independently machine translated from the original Italian, not based on any previous translation.

 

_______________________

 

PIERRE GASSENDI:

CHRISTIANIZED EPICUREANISM

 

Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655) was born in the village of Champtercier in southeastern France to a modest farming family. He showed early intellectual promise, giving public lectures in his teens. He studied at the University of Aix and later at Avignon, where he was trained in Aristotelian philosophy and theology, though he soon developed a critical view of scholasticism. Ordained a priest in 1616, he held a series of academic posts, including a lectureship in philosophy at the University of Aix, before moving to Paris, where he became part of the city's scientific and literary circles. During these years he cultivated friendships with leading figures such as Galileo, Kepler and Hobbes, and participated actively in the early development of modern science. His major intellectual project was the revival and Christian adaptation of ancient Epicurean atomism, a task he pursued in a series of works culminating in his posthumously published Philosophical Treatise (Syntagma Philosophicum) in 1658. He also wrote influential biographies of Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, and Peiresc, reflecting his wide scientific interests. Gassendi died in Paris in 1655 at the age of 63. The selections below are from his Philosophical Treatise.

          In the third century BCE, the Greek philosopher Epicurus taught that everything in existence is composed of tiny, indivisible atoms moving endlessly through an infinite void of empty space. These atoms have weight, and because of that weight they naturally fall downward through the void. Their collisions and combinations arise from this motion, along with a slight, spontaneous "swerve" that prevents the atoms from falling in perfectly parallel lines. Over infinite time, these motions produce physical bodies and living organisms without any guiding purpose or design. Because Epicurus held that all things are material configurations, he maintained that human souls are also atomic structures that disperse at death, which makes the mind entirely mortal. He acknowledged the existence of gods, but held that they do not govern the world, hear prayers, or exercise providence. Gassendi sought to preserve the scientific core of Epicurean atomism while rejecting its denial of divine creation, providence, and immortality.

          In the opening section on atoms created by God, Gassendi argues that a modified version of Epicurean atomism is superior to alternative theories of universal matter. To make the Epicurean view compatible with Christian theology, he rejects the ancient claim that atoms are eternal, ungenerated, or infinite in number and shape. Instead, he argues that atoms constitute a finite first matter created by God at the beginning of the world. This system successfully explains physical composition without relying on scholastic concepts like infinitely divisible matter or pure potentiality. In the section on God imposing initial motion on atoms, he rejects the Epicurean view that atoms possess an intrinsic force that has driven them aimlessly from all eternity. Rather, Gassendi says, God is the source of their motion, which he continuously preserves in all things. God gave each atom a determinate size and shape, and also a capacity to collide and bind with other atoms. From there the atoms organized into the first seeds from which all subsequent biological generation follows.

          In the section on the innate conception of God, Gassendi responds to historical reports of isolated and godless nations. Following Epicurus, he argues that humans have an inborn "preconception" (prolepsis) of God that is drawn toward acknowledging his divine nature. Small groups of atheists represent rare aberrations from natural human development. Just as physical disabilities do not disprove that nature intends humans to have complete limbs, the existence of a few atheists does not invalidate the natural knowledge of God impressed upon the human mind. In the section on the principle of equilibrium and a natural designer, Gassendi offers an Epicurean design argument for God's existence. Epicurus's principle of equilibrium is that, for any distinct force or quality existing in nature, an equal and opposite counterpart must exist to balance it out. According to Gassendi, this supports the idea of a divine designer, even though Epicurus himself did not recognize this. For, since the physical universe exhibits a clear order, the principle of equilibrium dictates that it must be balanced by a proportional rational cause. Attributing such precise design to blind chance would run contrary to the principle of equilibrium by pairing a structured effect with a chaotic cause. In the section on divine attributes, Gassendi expands on Epicurus's position that God has the attributes of immortality and blessedness. While humans cannot represent God exactly as he is in himself, we can deduce divine perfections through comparison with observable qualities. We must attribute to God true perfections, with no hint imperfection. Consequently God is most "blessed", insofar as he is secure in his own eternal constancy free from any adversity.

          In the section on divine providence, Gassendi argues that such providence exists because a supremely perfect God cannot lack the perfection of caring for his creation. Further, drawing on the medieval notion of continuous creation, Gassendi held that the cosmos cannot subsist independently without its creator's continuous assistance. Since the world came out of nothing and does not exist of itself, it cannot subsist independently without its creator's continuous assistance. Thus, the cosmos continuously depends on its creator just as light depends entirely on a luminous source. If God's sustaining power were withdrawn, he argues, the world would instantly cease to persist. In the closing sections, Gassendi responds to two of Lucretius's arguments against immortality. As to Lucritius's argument that the human mind grows old with the body, Gassendi responds that apparent mental deterioration in old age occurs only within the imagination and its underlying physical organs. This is analogous to a scribe who cannot write elegantly because his pen has worn down, where the defect belongs entirely to the instrument rather than to the scribe. Gassendi next addresses Lucretius's argument that the mind gets sick with delirium and lethargy along with the physical diseases of the body. In response he argues that delirium results from a failure of the bodily organ of imagination rather than from a flaw in the mind. Similarly, Emotional passions belong properly to the sensitive appetite, which is a physical faculty of the body, not the mind.

ATOMISM (Syntagma Philosophicum, 2.1.1.3)

Atoms Created by God and Not Eternal

It appears that the view of those who hold that atoms are the primary and universal matter of all things can be shown to be superior to the alternatives. To establish this, it is helpful to begin directly with the words of an anonymous author. After first noting that "there is no opinion so false that it does not contain some element of truth, though that truth is obscured by its mixture with error," he continues as follows: "In claiming that the world consists of atoms, the Epicureans spoke truly; but in claiming that those atoms had no beginning, that they moved aimlessly through a vast void, and that they were later forced together into four great bodies, they told a mere fable." This testimony is useful, I say, because it shows that nothing prevents us from defending the view that the matter of the world, and the things within it, is atomic, so long as whatever false elements have been mixed into that view are removed.

          Therefore, to press the point, we first maintain that the claim that atoms are eternal and ungenerated must be rejected, as must the claim that they are infinite in number or in every kind of shape. It may, however, be granted that atoms are First Matter, created by God in a finite quantity at the beginning. From this matter he formed the visible world and ordained, and permitted, it to undergo its subsequent changes, such that all bodies that exist in nature are ultimately composed of it. On this account, this position contains nothing objectionable that is not corrected in the same way as one must correct Aristotelian and other views, which likewise posit matter as eternal and ungenerated, and some of which even make it infinite. At the same time, this view [of Epicurus] has a clear advantage: it allows one to explain how composition and dissolution proceed down to first principles; why something is corporeal and solid. Also, it shows how it comes to be large or small, rare or dense, soft or hard, sharp or dull, and so on. These and similar features are not explained with the same clarity by other views, which treat matter as infinitely divisible, or as "pure potentiality," as they say; or as having form with too little variety; or as being endowed with primary and secondary qualities that are either inadequate to account for the diversity of things or ill-suited to them. This is evident from what has already been shown.

God Imposed Initial Motion on Atoms

Next, we maintain that the claim that atoms possess a motive force or impetus from themselves must be rejected. Accordingly, we also reject the view that they have a motion by which they have wandered in various ways from all eternity and by which they are still in motion even now. It may instead be admitted that atoms are mobile and active by the power of moving and acting that God instilled in them at the moment of their creation. With this power he also cooperates, insofar as he preserves all things and thereby acts together with all things. . . .

          Yet this view also has a particular advantage. It identifies, as it were, the origin and innermost root from which all motion and every action arise in what are called secondary causes. This point cannot be successfully explained by other accounts, especially those that treat "form" as the principle of all motion and action. For they nevertheless insist that whatever entity is present in that form is derived from matter, even though they elsewhere portray matter as entirely inert and devoid of all motive and active power. . . .

          From this, it may accordingly be supposed that God created at the beginning such a vast multitude of atoms as was required for the entire world to be formed from them. It was not necessary that God create atoms individually and then join them into progressively larger parts until the world was finally composed of them. Rather, in creating the mass of matter as something resolvable into corpuscles [i.e., atoms] (and thus as composed of corpuscles as its smallest and ultimate parts) we understand him to have created [only] those corpuscles within it [i.e., the mass of matter].

          It may further be supposed that each individual atom received from God at creation its own determinate bulk, size, and shape, in an indescribable variety. Likewise, each received a corresponding power of motion, agitation, and unfolding. Consequently, each possessed the power of disengaging, emerging, springing forward, striking, rebounding, and retreating. Each also had the power of mutually seizing, embracing, holding, and binding with others, and so forth. In this way, God provided whatever was necessary for all the ends and effects he then intended.

          It may further be supposed that, when God at the beginning commanded the earth and the waters to bring forth plants and animals, he thereby established a kind of nursery of all generating things. That is, he composed from selected atoms the first seeds of all things. From these, the propagation of things would thereafter proceed through generation.

KNOWLEDGE OF GOD

Innate Preconception of God (Part 2, Sect. 1, Bk 4, Ch. 2)

[Chapter 2] [Cicero states] that he believes there are many nations so emboldened by savagery that among them there is no suspicion of the Gods. . . . Nevertheless, it can be answered that all these [reports of indigenous nations who lack knowledge of God], when compared to the totality of the human race, are so small a number that it ought to be considered as a monstrosity that they do not consent to the multitude of all others. For certainly, just as however many humans may be born or become disabled, this does not prevent men from being said to possess from nature itself the integrity of their members. So, however much some may either be born or become Atheists, this does not prevent men from possessing a certain knowledge of God impressed upon them by nature itself. For, just as those disabilities are like certain aberrations from the royal road (which is not on that account either abolished or rendered less beaten) so these impious opinions are certain paths deflected from the general track, which does not therefore vanish or become less frequented. Thus, the exception of a few does not invalidate the proposition. Nor does the opinion of some who do not acknowledge God make the preconception held concerning God any less natural than the blindness of some who do not see light makes the faculty for seeing light any less natural. From this, one may further infer that just as it is established that light exists, insofar as all men, aside from a few blind ones, perceive and declare it to be so according to the faculty they possess. So it is surely established that God exists, insofar as all men perceive Him. . . .

          Let it remain settled, then, that there is in humans a certain ingrafted or preconceived notion of God, and that this very notion is a suitable argument by which the existence of God is proved. It remains only to be said by what means such a preconception is produced. First, it can be said to be produced when the mind is produced or comes into being, insofar as there is a capacity or aptitude in the mind so that, upon the first available occasion, it is carried toward acknowledging God, or the existence of a divine nature. . . .

          Next, it can be properly said that this generation [of the notion of God] occurs when first, as an occasion arises, there is formed in the mind a certain species or image of a supreme, immortal, and blessed nature, which we judge to exist. Plainly, such is the prolepsis, preconception, or Prenotion, toward which we thereafter look back, as was declared in its proper place when dealing with the Criteria of Epicurus [i.e., Epicurus's test for truth]. . . .

           [Chapter 7.] For it follows entirely from this that a preconceived notion has been impressed upon our minds, by which we sense that God cares for our affairs. And indeed, this notion seems most of all to be blotted out in prosperous times, as Lactantius observed: "For then especially," he says, "God slips from the memory of men, when, enjoying His benefits, they ought to give honor to divine indulgence; but it is awakened immediately in adversity, and there is no greater or more present solace than from that very source. . . ."

The Principle of Equilibrium requires Positing a Designer of Natural Design (Part 2, Sect. 1. Book 4, Chap 2)

[Epicurus] is all the less excusable because this [i.e., his naturalistic logic] did not serve as a more natural occasion of "preconception" for him, whereby he might simultaneously recognize both that God exists and that he is also the primary cause. Indeed, Epicurus understood from seeing this wondrous appearance of things that they do not exist by chance, and reasoned that there is a producing and governing cause of all things. However, he failed to follow his own precepts, according to which this very conclusion ought to have been drawn. For, according to Cicero's account, his [i.e., Epicurus's] principle of argumentation was equilibrium or equal distribution, according to which the positing of one contrary or relative necessitates the positing of the other [as a balancing counterpart].

          It cannot be denied that a marvelous order exists in the world. The revolutions of the stars, the changes of the seasons, the successions of generations, and the arrangements and functions of parts. All things in the world, in a word, cry out for order and declare the world to be a most highly ordered structure. I ask, therefore, since there is that which is ordered, must there not also be an Orderer; and if equilibrium does not hold sway here, where ultimately will it find a place? To assert that Chance or Fortune is the ordering cause is to overthrow the very principle of equilibriam itself. For, Chance, or Fortune, is either nothing at all, or, if it deserves to be called anything, it is a blind thing, devoid of counsel, ignorant of order, and rather the parent of confusion. Would there then be equilibrium unless a cause were inferred from an effect that is inelegant, rash, uncomposed, and confused; or is the world truly such, or can it be perceived as such, except by one who is blinder than Fortune herself? This principle and the reasoning deduced from it are valid not only against Epicurus, who at least taught from other grounds both that God exists and that the world was created, but also against those who deny God and believe the world to be uncreated.

          It is as if one should think, given that there is such great arrangement in the world, that there was no one who arranged it. Certainly, he who confesses an arranger has this very arrangement which he observes as his evidence, whereas he who denies it lacks any argument. Whatever he may assume, the arrangement itself always stands in the way and carries the greater weight. Will he devise the notion that the world possesses this arrangement of itself? Surely he will be inventing it. He will not be establishing a matter that he knows, but will oppose a clear proof with a fiction that cannot be proven. For how could anyone ever prove either that the world is or that it has its arrangement of itself? Has he who says this always existed, or did he receive it from someone who, having existed from eternity, could be a suitable witness to be believed when saying the world was always such? . . .

          To speak briefly, since all arrangement is the work of reason and counsel, the thing arranged must necessarily be something distinct from that to which the counsel and reason belong. Because that which is done by reason and counsel does not yet exist, and that which does not yet exist cannot act by counsel and reason, it is required that there be something else which precedes the thing arranged and which possesses the counsel and reason by which it may arrange it. Therefore, since there is arrangement in the world, or a work of reason and counsel, it is necessary that there be something besides the world in which counsel and reason reside, and which provided the world with the arrangement it has. Therefore, this being is from itself, and consequently exists necessarily. For, it must have always existed, nor could there have been a fate that it should exist, from which the world might be prepared. The world is not, therefore, from itself, nor is anything that is in the world. Rather, it is from that one whom we call God, who may therefore be called the First Cause, the Prime Mover, the Fountain of all Being, the Origin of all perfection, the Supreme Being, and the Prince of the World. For this reason, it is as necessary to understand that God exists as it is necessary for the order of the world to become clear to one who pays attention. . . .

Divine Attributes of Immortality of Blessedness (Part 2, Sect. 1. Book 4, Chap. 4)

It follows now that we should discuss those perfections of immortality and blessedness that Epicurus attributed to God, as well as others that are made known by the light of nature or can be attributed to Him to some extent based on Epicurus's own thought. Indeed, we have established from what has been said so far that God is an incorporeal substance, devoid of any physical form, the kind of form that humans naturally tend to imagine when thinking of the Divine. Accordingly, it is appropriate to say something regarding the "conjunctions" or properties of this substance; these are commonly called Attributes, and here we understand them by the name of Perfections.

          Since the arguments in the first section sufficiently addressed the question Whether God exists, and those following addressed What He is, it seems that the subsequent points will address the question What kind of being He is. It must be stated at the outset that we can say nothing that truly represents God in our minds exactly as he is in Himself. We can only know the perfections of God through a certain analogy or comparison to those qualities observed in other things. Therefore, we are far from understanding or attributing to him these qualities exactly as they exist in Him, reaching only as far as a weak mind can grasp with its greatest effort.

          In the meantime, it is enough that we acknowledge our own weakness and testify that there are other perfections in God of which we do not have even the slightest hint. We must confess that those we do attribute to him exist in him with such eminence that whatever excellence we grasp of them is less than an atom compared to the universe. Thus, we will understand that whatever perfection we observe in things can be attributed to God. Yet, at the same time, as we have already touched upon, whatever might introduce a shadow or suspicion of imperfection must be stripped away. For one cannot attribute enough perfection to Him who is an inexhaustible sea from which all perfection flows, nor can one sufficiently remove or deny imperfection in him in whom no imperfection exists. . . .

          Finally, it is not necessary to use many words to prove that God is Blessed. Indeed, this is ultimately a common notion: that God is considered not only blessed, but even the most blessed of all. Blessedness is nothing other than a certain joyful and constant possession of goods, with the exclusion of all trouble. Accordingly, God surely cannot be conceived as anything but most blessed. He is the source of all goods and can lack no good. being most perfectly aware of His own goods and His own condition, He cannot fail to be supremely delighted by them. Being eternal and immortal, He cannot fail to be secure in His own constancy. And being free from all evils, He cannot fail to be a stranger to every trouble.

          Certainly, even Epicurus himself knew these things. Although he erred in thinking that divine happiness must be separated from the administration of the world, he nevertheless perceived correctly that God must be so happy that nothing can be added to or taken away from his happiness, as is recorded among his own Sayings. He realized this, no doubt, after he understood that from the things commonly believed about the gods, no other notion of the divine nature could be drawn except that it was utterly miserable. Saturn castrated Uranus; Jupiter expelled Saturn; plots were hatched against Jupiter by his own kin, who in turn suffered his punishments. Of the rest, some were hung up, others thrust down from Heaven to Earth, some stripped of their divinity, and others slain by men—not to mention the adulteries, jealousies, thefts, hatreds, quarrels, battles, and other such "praises" belonging to so many of them.

Divine Providence and Special Care (Part 2, Sect. 1. Book 4, Chap. 6-7)

Furthermore, let us set aside for a moment the consensus of all nations and that common notion or "preconception" by which Providence is recognized. Let us then ask: is it not reason itself which (whether we look toward God or toward the World) manifestly demonstrates that Providence exists? Regarding God, since it is evident that He exists (a fact not even Epicurus denies), does not the same logic that proves His existence also convince us that He is supremely perfect? Even Epicurus acknowledged his most excellent nature. And it is quite clear that we cannot conceive of God as lacking any perfection. Indeed, if a perfection were missing, the name of God would more properly belong to whatever being possessed it. Even if one were to argue that a perfection we conceive might not actually exist in reality, our minds could nonetheless imagine a nature in which such perfection was inherent, thereby conceiving of something more divine than God himself, which is both absurd and impious.

          Moreover, who would not hold that the ability to provide for the World and to care for the nature of things is in actual fact a perfection? It is certainly not an imperfection, as a being is more perfect in proportion to its worthiness of command and the generosity, nobility, liberality, wisdom, and goodness of its spirit. Thus, the perfection of providing for the World and caring for its affairs must be fully attributed to God. For if you claim this perfection is repugnant to His nature—arguing that a most happy being cannot be occupied with business—then let us instead conceive of a different nature, one where the highest happiness and the management of affairs can coexist. Why should this not be possible? We see even among men that those very tasks which overwhelm a lowly or untrained mind are mere sport and delight to one who is sublime and skilled.

          Therefore, that nature which can carry out the care of things without any detriment to its happiness will be far more perfect than one which is incapable of maintaining its happiness while caring for things. It is the former nature, not the latter, that is truly divine. We should not, then, remain stuck in this limited view, but rather lift our thoughts to that being which is simultaneously most happy and most provident. Since God is of this sort, His nature must be understood as such. This is further confirmed because we cannot conceive of God without also understanding him to be the wisest, most powerful, and the best. Truly, what kind of God would He be if He were ignorant, or powerless, or begrudging? Would not a nature that knew, had power, and did not begrudge be more perfect? . . .

          Turning then to the World: if it was first established by God, as has already been shown, it certainly cannot be abandoned by its Author. There is no craftsman who does not prefer his work to be well-cared for rather than neglected. God cannot have held His own work in such contempt as to not look out for what was most beneficial for it. Indeed, no one knows better what a thing requires or how it ought to be governed than its own creator.

          Nor should you say that the World could have been created so perfect by God that it would thereafter subsist on its own without needing a caretaker. For since the World does not exist of itself—and would be nothing if the work of the Creator which drew it from nothing were removed—it cannot truly remain anything unless the same power that first gave it existence continues to persevere. It depends upon its Author no less than light depends upon a luminous source. Just as light cannot be maintained without the Sun from which it is generated, so the World cannot endure safely without the God by whom it was once produced. There are some things that seem to stand without their causes. Nevertheless, these are things that are already something apart from those causes, which merely move matter or temper existing forces to produce something new. But the World, which was nothing without God, has nothing in itself by which it could subsist by itself if God were not assisting it.

CRITICISM OF EPICUREAN REJECTION OF IMMORTALITY (Part 2, Sect. 3. Book 14, Chap. 3)

Against Lucretius's Argument that the Mind Grows Old with the Body

It now remains for us to address the objections that Lucretius has assembled with great display and in a very long sequence. We must therefore first point out that he wrongly claims that, once belief in immortality is overturned, fear of the underworld is overturned at the same time. Once this fear is removed, one may live securely and enjoy pure pleasures without regret. . . .

          [Lucretius argues against immortality] from the fact that the mind or soul is generated, grows up, gains strength, ages, and fails together with the body:

We observe that the mind is born together with the body, grows along with it, and ages in the same way. Just as children wander about with weak and tender bodies, so too their minds have only a slight and fragile power of judgment. Then, when the age of life has grown strong with robust strength, the mind's counsel becomes greater, and its power increases. Later, when the body has been shaken by the force of advancing age, and the limbs have fallen away with blunted strength, the intellect limps, the tongue and the mind rave, everything fails, and all faculties desert us at one and the same time. Therefore, it is fitting that the entire nature of the soul should also dissolve, like smoke vanishing into the high breezes of the air, since we see it born together with the body, growing together with it, and—as he has shown—wearing out with age and finally collapsing.

In this argument two parts must be distinguished, the first, that the soul is born, the second, that it grows and ages along with the body. . . . It therefore seems appropriate to discuss each part separately. . . .

          As for the second part of the argument, the reply (which can also be used against some of the arguments that follow) seems to have already been anticipated by Aristotle himself. The passage is certainly relevant, whether it shows a contradiction in Aristotle or can be interpreted in the way of those who maintain that he regarded the soul as mortal. It is a well‑known text, and it runs as follows:

The intellect seems to come into being from outside, and to be a kind of substance, and not subject to corruption. For if it were corrupted, this would most of all occur through that dulling which happens in old age. But in fact the situation is just the same as with the instruments of the senses themselves. For if an old man were to receive the eye of a young man, he would see no differently than the young man himself. [Aristotle, De Anima III.5, 430a17–23]

          Thus old age does not occur because the soul itself has suffered anything, but because something similar happens as in drunkenness or in illness. The very act of understanding and contemplating withers because some other internal factor has been damaged, while the soul itself, which performs these functions, remains untouched by the impairment. For these words plainly show why we say that every change which seems to occur in the soul, or in its reasoning part, as the body grows and then ages, does not in fact occur in the soul itself, but in some other inner power distinct from it, namely the imagination and its bodily organ. When that organ is well or badly affected, the soul itself does not suffer anything; only the functions of imagination flourish or wither.

          Give an old man, then, what Aristotle calls a young man's eye, and similarly give him a young man's imagination equipped with the same images. The soul will then show that it has not itself grown old, but that what has happened to it is the same sort of thing that occurs through drunkenness or illness. For when drunkenness or the force of illness subsides, a person no longer appears delirious. This is because the brain has been restored and the imagination has recovered, and he reasons again as he did before. In the same way, when the brain and imagination are once more affected in a youthful manner, the soul will no longer seem to regress into childhood, but will reason as it previously did. Thus it will show that whatever change occurred did not occur in the soul itself, but in the imagination and its bodily organ.

          The situation is similar to that of a scribe who once produced elegant characters with a suitable pen, but can no longer do so once the pen has been worn down through use. Or it is like someone who, riding a strong horse, has often won at Olympia, but cannot win anymore once the horse has been exhausted by age. Restore the pen to its former condition, and the scribe will write elegantly again. Restore the horse to its former strength, and the rider will once more deserve to be crowned at the great Olympic games. To put it briefly, whatever change or defect appears comes from the instrument, not from the principal agent itself.

Against Lucretius's Argument that the Mind gets Sick with the Body

Third, [Lucretius argues against immortality] from the fact that the soul not only suffers illnesses, but is also itself affected by the very diseases of the body:

To this is added the fact that we see the body itself take on monstrous diseases and harsh pain, and likewise the soul undergoes sharp anxieties, grief, and fear. Therefore it is fitting that it too should share in death. Indeed, the soul often wanders amid the diseases of whatever body it inhabits; for it becomes deranged and speaks deliriously, and sometimes it is carried off into a deep lethargy, an everlasting sleep, with eyes and drooping head sinking down. From this state it can neither hear voices nor recognize faces, nor is it able to perceive those who stand around it, trying to call it back to life, their faces and cheeks dripping with tears. Therefore you must admit that the soul too is dissolved, since the contagion of disease penetrates into it. For pain and disease are each a maker of death, as we have learned from the destruction of many, which we have previously witnessed.

This is also another argument of Panaetius. For when Cicero continues speaking about him, he says: "He brings forward another line of reasoning: that whatever feels pain must also be capable of illness; and whatever can fall into illness can also perish. But souls feel pain; therefore they too perish."

          Nevertheless, as far as delirium and lethargy are concerned, the reply is clear from what has just been explained. The mind can, through delirium, function badly, and through lethargy fail to exercise its functions at all. This is not because of any fault in itself, but because the imagination or its bodily organ is either disturbed or entirely obstructed. As for the passions, which are or are taken to be certain proper diseases of the soul, the first reply seems able to be drawn from Aristotle. For in the passage already cited he adds that love, hatred, and other passions belong not to the intellect, but to the body that possesses it. For, the intellect is perhaps something more divine and free from passion. That is, the proper function of the intellect is to understand and to reason (even though he also counts thought among the passions), whereas the passions belong to appetite, which is a bodily faculty.

          Although passion comes after cognition and depends upon it, it might seem necessary for passion to be received in the very subject that possesses cognition. Nevertheless, the soul, so long as it is in the body, makes use of bodily images that reside in the imagination. The imagination, by forming these images, cooperates with the mind in cognition. The motions of bodily or sensitive appetite then follow the motions of imagination. Because of this, the entire disturbance or passion can belong to appetite and to the body, while the mind itself remains untouched by passion. It is just as when a master and his servant walk along the same road: the entire burden of the luggage rests with the servant, while the master walks free.

          Next, in the soul, or in its higher part, we must admit a certain rational appetite. This is the power commonly called the will, named from its act. Through it we experience ourselves drawn toward things that are honorable and divine. It must also survive in the soul after death, since in a state of happiness it will feel pleasure, and in a state of misery it will feel pain, both of which relate to some appetite. For this reason, we must say that certain motions can indeed be admitted in the soul. Because they bear some analogy to the motions of the sensitive appetite, they are called passions. Yet these passions are not passions in the sense that they involve any expansion, contraction, rupture of continuity, or similar bodily changes that could bring any harm to the substance.

          Nor should this seem surprising in something that is incorporeal, for it occurs even among bodily things we see. For example, gold, amianthus, and similar substances remain unconsumed and indestructible by fire, which destroys everything else. And Aristotle himself holds that the substance of the heavenly bodies is of such a kind that, although it is altered by the very light of the sun by which lower things are altered, it nevertheless neither grows hot nor burns, nor is dissolved nor destroyed in the way these lower things are.

Source: Pierre Gassendi, Syntagma Philosophicum (1658), independently machine translated.

_______________________

 

RENÉ DESCARTES:

GOD AS SUSTAINER OF A MECHANICAL WORLD

René Descartes (1596–1650) was born in La Haye, France, into a family of minor nobility. An inheritance from his mother provided him with financial independence, allowing him to live without holding a regular academic or professional post. In his twenties, he enlisted as an officer in the Dutch and Bavarian armies during the early years of the Thirty Years' War, using his military travels to observe different European cultures and study mathematics. To work without distraction, Descartes moved to the Netherlands in 1628, where he lived for twenty years. To maintain privacy, he changed his residence at least two dozen times and kept his address secret from all but a few close acquaintances. Despite these precautions, his writings involved him in major public disputes with Dutch universities. The most notable was the Utrecht Crisis of 1642 to 1643, when theologian Gisbertus Voetius accused Descartes of teaching doctrines that promoted atheism. The dispute led the magistrates of Utrecht to condemn Descartes' ideas, and he was forced to seek protection from the Prince of Orange and the French ambassador to avoid legal penalties. In 1649, Descartes accepted an invitation from Queen Christina of Sweden to join her court in Stockholm as a personal philosophy tutor. The queen required her daily lessons to take place in her unheated library at five o'clock in the morning during the winter. After several months in Sweden, Descartes contracted pneumonia and died in Stockholm in February 1650 at the age of fifty-three. During his lifetime, Descartes transformed multiple disciplines. He invented analytic geometry, which bridged the gap between algebra and geometry, and formulated early mechanical laws of physics. His scientific theories on optics and physiology challenged centuries of Aristotelian dominance and became influential across Europe. In philosophy, he used ancient skepticism as a tool to clear away traditional Aristotelian theories, which allowed him to advance a more scientifically grounded view of the relation between the human mind and body. The selections below are from several of his writings.

          The concept of God is prominent throughout Descartes' philosophy, but it functions mainly as a divine component of the mechanical universe, and not an object of personal devotion. The first set of selections below are from an early work of Descartes' called The World (Le Monde), which aimed to explain the entire physical universe through mathematical laws of motion rather than medieval theological concepts. The very idea of this work was controversial since it mechanized the cosmos and reduced the human body to an automated machine, thereby removing spiritual purposes from the study of nature. Fearing persecution after the Catholic Church condemned Galileo for similar ideas, Descartes suppress these writings during his lifetime. In The World, he presents his theory as a "fable", and asks us to imagine an infinitely vast imaginary new world with all its scientific details. In the section on the qualities of matter in this new world, he rejects the traditional Aristotelean idea of substantial forms that reside in and organize matter. Instead, he says, the true essence of matter purely is simply the solid extension that occupies space, which in turn allows us to view the cosmos as a predictable clockwork system. While he holds that it is ultimately God who moves all material things, he says that God does this uniformly, without any alteration, and we recognize his actions as laws of nature. This mechanical movement transforms the initial chaos of the cosmos into an orderly world without any need for substantial forms. In the section on the laws of nature in this new world, he proposes three such laws that explain virtually everything that takes place in the physical world around us. For example, his first law states that each part of matter maintains its current state unless a physical collision forces it to alter. In the section on no divine intervention, he specifies that God performs no miracles to interrupt this natural course, thereby removing divine whim and ensuring absolute scientific predictability. In the final section he mechanizes biology by describing the human physical body as an automated machine. Functions like walking, eating, and breathing operate purely form the physical arrangement of organs, resembling the gears of a clock or the hydraulics of an artificial fountain.

          The next set of selections are from his most famous work, The Meditations (1641). In the first discussion, he defends the concept of the soul's immortality. Unlike physical things which can be divided into parts and thus be destroyed, the human mind is indivisible and thus inherently incorruptible and immortal by its very nature. Next is Descartes' version of the ontological argument for God's existence, which takes a different approach from Anselm's original version. Simplified, Descartes' main intuition is, just as 180 degrees is a necessary attribute of a triangle, so too is existence a necessary attribute of God. That is, when we focus on the idea of a supremely perfect being, the concept of supreme perfection must logically include actual and eternal existence. Descartes then presents a potential objection to this argument, that our thoughts do not dictate reality. Just because we can conceive of a perfect being existing, says the critic, it does not follow that this being actually exists in the world. We all know how to separate what a thing is from whether it exists, such as when I imagine a fictional winged horse without at the same time assuming that the creature inhabits physical reality. In response to the critic, Descartes argues that the matter is different when we are talking about God as a supremely perfect being. For, unlike with winged horses, existence is a perfection that belongs inseparably to God's true and immutable nature.

          The final set of selections are taken primarily from letters, where Descartes discusses God's connection with the cosmos in four ways. It is in his points here that we see how integrated his notion of God is with the functioning of the cosmos. First, he argues that God's presence extends throughout the cosmos. Descartes is not proposing here the pantheistic view that God and the cosmos are one and the same, which would have been heretical. Rather, he wants to impress how connected God is with the physics of the cosmos, and he expresses this idea with the more modest claim that it is God's "presence" that is everywhere, not God himself. By this he means that while God is active in every location through his power, his essence has no literal relation to physical place or extension. He says that we must avoid the prejudice of imagining spiritual substances as if they occupy space, recognizing instead that God surpasses the material world entirely through infinite perfection. Second, he argues that only God is infinite, whereas the universe is indefinite. A substance can only be called "infinite", he says, if we have a positive reason to know that it is, and this applies only to God. By contrast, the material universe is best termed "indefinite" because human perception merely gives us no reason for establishing its boundaries. Indeed, if we attempt to imagine an empty space beyond a finite boundary we will conceive of that region in three dimensions, thereby extending the universe past those imagined limits. But this is not a positive or direct reason to think that the universe is endless, only an indirect one. Thus, we must apply the term "indefinite" to the universe, and reserve the term "infinite" to God.

          Third, Descartes argues that God continually sustains all motion in the universe. Like Gassendi, Descartes draws on the medieval notion of continuous creation that the cosmos cannot subsist independently without its creator's continuous assistance. According to Descartes, God created matter together with motion and rest, and he preserves the same total quantity of motion throughout the cosmos. This ongoing conservation follows from God's absolute immutability: because God's nature never changes, God always acts in a uniform way. And this uniform action establishes the law of nature that any undivided piece of matter naturally remains in its state of motion or rest until some external encounter forces it to change. Fourth, Descartes argues that all eternal truths are dependent upon God, including mathematical truths such as 1+2=3, where God could have willed them differently if he initially chose to do so. That is, truths are only true because God willed them to be so, rather than God knowing their truth independently of Himself. Because God's will and knowledge are identical, Descartes maintains that God freely established the laws of geometry and logic like a monarch establishing laws in a kingdom. Even though our finite minds are structurally incapable of conceiving how contradictions could both be true, we must acknowledge that the necessity of these truths remains entirely subject to God's unbounded will.

MECHANICAL WORLD

Infinitely Vast Imaginary New World (Le Monde, Chapters 5, 6)

I still have many other things to explain here, and I would even be glad to add a few reasons to make my views seem more plausible. But so that the length of this discussion is less tiresome, I want to wrap part of it in the form of a fable, through which I hope the truth will still show itself clearly enough, and will be no less pleasant to look at than if I presented it completely bare. . . .

          So allow your mind, for a short while, to step outside this world and come see another, entirely new one, which I will bring into existence before you in imaginary space. Philosophers tell us that these spaces are infinite; and we ought to believe them, since they themselves are the ones who invented them. But so that this infinity does not hinder or confuse us, let us not try to reach its limits; let us go only far enough that we lose sight of all the creatures God made five or six thousand years ago. And once we have stopped at some fixed point, let us suppose that God creates anew, all around us, so much matter that, no matter which direction our imagination extends, it no longer perceives any place that is empty.

          Although the sea is not infinite, someone out in the middle of it on a ship can stretch their gaze, it seems, endlessly, and yet there is still more water beyond what they can see. In the same way, even though our imagination seems able to extend itself without limit, and even though this new matter is not supposed to be infinite, we can still suppose that it fills spaces far larger than any we might have imagined. And so that there is nothing here you might object to, let us not allow our imagination to reach as far as it could. Instead, let us deliberately confine it within a defined space, no larger, for example, than the distance from the Earth to the principal stars of the Firmament. Then let us suppose that the matter God has created extends far beyond on every side, out to an indefinite distance. For it is far more reasonable—and far more within our power—to set limits to the activity of our own thought than to the works of God.

The Qualities of Matter in this New World

Since we are taking the liberty of imagining this matter however we like, let us give it a nature in which there is nothing that anyone could not understand as clearly as possible. To that end, let us explicitly suppose that it has none of the forms of Earth, Fire, or Air, nor any more particular form such as wood, stone, or metal, and that it has none of the qualities of being hot or cold, dry or moist, light or heavy, or of having any taste, smell, sound, color, light, or anything similar—nothing in its nature, in short, that one could say is not plainly known to everyone.

          Although we should not think, on the other hand, that this is the Philosophers' "prime matter," stripped so thoroughly of all its forms and qualities that nothing understandable remains, we should instead conceive it as a real body, perfectly solid, filling equally all the lengths, breadths, and depths of that vast space where we have fixed our thought—so that each of its parts always occupies some portion of that space, in exact proportion to its size, unable to fill a larger one, unable to compress itself into a smaller one, and unable to allow anything else to enter the place it occupies while it remains there.

          Let us add to this that this matter can be divided into every kind of part and shaped into every form we can imagine, and that each of its parts is capable of receiving within itself any motion we can conceive. And let us further suppose that God truly divides it into many such parts—some larger, some smaller; some of one shape, some of another—just as we choose to imagine them. Not that he separates them so that there is any empty space between them, but rather that all the distinction he introduces consists in the different motions he gives them, so that from the very first moment they are created, some begin to move one way, others another; some more quickly, others more slowly (or even, if you prefer, not at all), and that they continue thereafter in their motions according to the ordinary laws of Nature. For God has so wonderfully established these Laws that even if we suppose he creates nothing more than what I have described, and even if he introduces no order or proportion into it but instead composes from it a Chaos as confused and tangled as any poet could describe, these Laws are sufficient to ensure that the parts of this Chaos disentangle themselves and arrange themselves so well that they take on the form of a most perfect World, in which one could see not only Light but also all the other things, both general and particular, that appear in the real World.

          Before I explain this in greater detail, pause a moment to consider this Chaos, and notice that it contains nothing that is not already so perfectly familiar to you that you could not even pretend to be ignorant of it. For the qualities I have assigned to it, if you paid attention, I supposed them only as you yourself could imagine them. And as for the matter of which I composed it, nothing in the realm of inanimate things is simpler or easier to understand; its idea is so fully included in every image our imagination can form that you must necessarily grasp it, or else never imagine anything at all.

          Even so, philosophers are so subtle and know how to find difficulties in things that seem perfectly clear to everyone else. Further, the memory of their [Aristotelean view of] "prime matter," which they admit is rather hard to conceive, might distract them from understanding the matter I am describing. Because of this, I must say here that, if I am not mistaken, all the difficulty they encounter with their own notion comes only from their wanting to distinguish it from its own quantity and outward extension, that is, from its property of occupying space. And although I am willing to grant that they may be right about this, since I have no intention of arguing with them, they should not find it strange if I suppose that the quantity of the matter I have described differs no more from its substance than number differs from the things numbered. And if I take its extension, or its property of occupying space, not as an accident but as its true Form and Essence—for they cannot deny that it is extremely easy to conceive it in this way. And my aim is not, as theirs is, to explain the things that actually exist in the real world, but only to imagine a world at will, one in which there is nothing that even the simplest minds cannot grasp, and which could nonetheless be created exactly as I have imagined it. . . .

The Laws of Nature in this New World (Le Monde, Chapter 7)

But I do not wish to delay any longer in telling you by what means Nature alone will be able to disentangle the confusion of the Chaos I have described, and what laws God has imposed upon it.

          Know then, first of all, that by "Nature" I do not mean here some goddess or any other sort of imaginary power. Rather, I use this word to signify matter itself, insofar as I consider it together with all the qualities I have attributed to it, taken all together, and under the condition that God continues to preserve it in the same manner in which He created it. For from this alone—that he continues to preserve it in this way—it necessarily follows that there must be many changes in its parts. And since these changes, it seems to me, cannot properly be attributed to the action of God, because His action does not change, I attribute them to Nature. And the rules according to which these changes occur, I call the laws of Nature.

          To understand this better, remember that among the qualities of matter we supposed that its parts had various motions from the very beginning, when they were created; and, in addition, that they all touched one another on every side, with no void anywhere between them. From this it necessarily follows that, once they began to move, they also began to change and diversify their motions through their encounters with one another. And thus, if God then preserves them in the same manner in which he created them, he does not preserve them in the same state. That is, since God always acts in the same way, and therefore always produces the same effect in substance, there arise—so to speak accidentally—many differences within that effect. And it is easy to believe that God, who, as everyone should know, is immutable, always acts in the same manner. But without involving myself further in these metaphysical considerations, I will set down here two or three of the principal rules according to which we must think that God causes Nature to act in this new world, and which will suffice, I believe, to make you understand all the others.

          The first law is this: that each part of matter, taken individually, always remains in the same state so long as the encounter of other parts does not force it to change. That is to say: if it has some size, it will never become smaller unless other parts divide it; if it is round or square, it will never change that shape unless others compel it; if it is fixed in some place, it will never leave it unless others drive it out; and if it has once begun to move, it will always continue with equal force until other parts stop it or slow it down. . . .

          I suppose as a second rule, that when one body pushes another, it cannot give it any motion without losing as much of its own at the same time, nor take any away from it without its own increasing by as much. . . .

          I will add for the third, that when a body moves in a curved line, and no movement can ever be made by it that is not in some way circular, as was said above, nevertheless, each of its particular parts always tends to continue its own movement in a straight line.

 

No Divine Intervention or Disruption in the Course of Nature

And so, to leave no room for any exception, let us add to our suppositions that God will never perform any miracle in this world, and that the Intelligences or rational Souls we may later imagine within it will in no way disturb the ordinary course of Nature.

          After this, however, I do not promise to give here exact demonstrations of everything I say; it will be enough if I open the path along which you can discover them for yourself, once you take the trouble to look. Most minds lose interest when things are made too easy. And to create here a picture that will please you, I must use shadow as well as bright colors. So I will simply continue the description I have begun, with no other aim than to tell you a kind of fable.

Humans as Mechanical Body and Thinking Soul (L'Homme)

These humans will be composed, as we are, of a Soul and a Body. And I must describe the body to you first on its own, then the soul on its own, and finally show you how these two Natures must be joined and united in order to form humans who resemble us.

          I suppose that this Body is nothing more than a statue or an earthen machine that God shapes expressly to make it as similar to us as possible: so that He not only gives it externally the color and form of all our members, but also places inside it all the parts required for it to walk, to eat, to breathe, and finally to imitate all those of our functions that can be imagined as arising from matter and depending only on the arrangement of the organs.

          We see clocks, artificial fountains, mills, and other similar machines which, though made only by human hands, still have the power to move on their own in many different ways; and it seems to me that I could not imagine so many kinds of motions in this one machine I suppose to be made by the hands of God, nor attribute to it so much ingenuity, that you would not have reason to think it capable of even more.

IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL (Meditations, Synopsis)

We cannot conceive of a body except as something divisible, whereas the mind can only be conceived as indivisible. We are simply unable to conceive of half a mind, as we so easily can with the smallest physical body. Thus, their natures are not only different, but in certain respects contrary to one another. I have not pursued this matter further in this treatise for two main reasons. First, what I have said is sufficient to show clearly that the extinction of the mind does not follow from the destruction of the body, thereby offering hope of an afterlife. Second, the premises required to prove the immortality of the soul depend upon a complete system of physics. Such a physics would need to establish two points. First, it must show that all general substances—that is, all things that cannot exist without being created by God—are by nature incorruptible. They can never cease to exist unless God deprives them of his support and reduces them to nothing. Second, it must show that physical matter in general is such a substance, which is why it cannot perish either. However, a human body differs from matter in general. It is merely a specific configuration of parts and other physical properties. The human mind, by contrast, is not composed of such temporary properties, but is a pure substance. Even if all the activities of a mind change—for instance, if it thinks new thoughts, wills different choices, or perceives different objects—it does not thereby become a different mind. A human body, on the other hand, becomes a different thing simply if the shape or form of any of its parts is altered. From this it follows that while the human body may easily perish, the human mind—or soul, for I make no distinction between them—is by its very nature immortal.

ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FOR GOD (Meditations, 5)

Necessary Attributes of a Triangle

[W]hen I imagine a triangle, a figure of that kind may nowhere exist outside my thought, nor may it ever have existed. Nevertheless, this figure possesses a certain determinate nature, form, or essence that is immutable and eternal. I have not invented this nature, nor does it depend in any way upon my mind. This is evident because we can demonstrate various properties of the triangle, such as the fact that its three angles equal two right angles, or that its greatest side is opposite its greatest angle. Whether I want to or not, I now recognize these properties as clearly belonging to it, even though I did not think of them at all when I first imagined a triangle. Consequently, these properties cannot be said to have been invented by me.

Nor does the objection hold good that this idea of a triangle may have reached my mind through my senses because I have occasionally seen triangular bodies. I can form in my mind an infinity of other geometric figures that could never have been objects of sense perception. Yet I can still demonstrate various properties belonging to their nature just as I can for the triangle. These properties must certainly be true, since I conceive them clearly. They are therefore real entities rather than pure nonexistence, for it is clear that whatever is true is something real, and I have already demonstrated that whatever I know clearly is true. Even if I had not demonstrated this, the nature of my mind is such that I cannot help holding these properties to be true whenever I conceive them clearly. I recall that even when I was still strongly attached to objects of sense, I counted as most certain those truths that I conceived clearly regarding figures, numbers, and other matters pertaining to arithmetic, geometry, and pure abstract mathematics.

Existence as a Necessary Attribute of God

Now, if I can draw the idea of something from my thought, it follows that everything I know clearly and distinctly as belonging to that object really does belong to it. Can I not derive from this an argument demonstrating the existence of God? It is certain that I find the idea of God, that is, the idea of a supremely perfect Being, within me just as clearly as I find the idea of any shape or number. Furthermore, I know no less clearly and distinctly that actual and eternal existence belongs to God's nature than I know that the properties I demonstrate of a figure or number belong to that figure or number. Therefore, even if everything I concluded in my preceding Meditations turned out to be false, the existence of God would remain for me at least as certain as the truths of mathematics, which concern only numbers and shapes.

Objection: Existence can be Separated from Essence

This indeed does not seem clear at first, as it appears to present the illusion of a sophism. Because I am accustomed to distinguishing between existence and essence in all other things, I easily persuade myself that existence can be separated from the essence of God, and that we can therefore conceive of God as not actually existing. Nevertheless, when I consider the matter more carefully, I clearly see that existence can no more be separated from the essence of God than the property of having three angles equal to two right angles can be separated from the essence of a triangle, or the idea of a mountain from the idea of a valley. Thus, conceiving a God—that is, a supremely perfect Being—who lacks existence (which is to say, who lacks a certain perfection) involves no less of a contradiction than conceiving a mountain that has no valley.

          But although I cannot really conceive of a God without existence any more than a mountain without a valley, still from the fact that I conceive of a mountain with a valley, it does not follow that there is such a mountain in the world. Similarly, although I conceive of God as possessing existence, it would seem that it does not follow that there is a God which exists; for my thought does not impose any necessity upon things. Just as I may imagine a winged horse, although no horse with wings exists, so I could perhaps attribute existence to God, although no God existed.

Response: It is Impossible to think of God without Existence

But a sophism is concealed in this objection. For from the fact that I cannot conceive a mountain without a valley, it does not follow that there is any mountain or any valley in existence, but only that the mountain and the valley, whether they exist or do not exist, cannot in any way be separated one from the other. While from the fact that I cannot conceive God without existence, it follows that existence is inseparable from Him, and hence that He really exists. It is not that my thought can bring this to pass, or impose any necessity on things, but, on the contrary, because the necessity which lies in the thing itself, i.e. the necessity of the existence of God determines me to think in this way. For it is not within my power to think of God without existence (that is of a supremely perfect Being devoid of a supreme perfection) though it is in my power to imagine a horse either with wings or without wings.

          We must not here object that it is in truth necessary for me to assert that God exists after having presupposed that He possesses every sort of perfection, since existence is one of these, but that as a matter of fact my original supposition was not necessary, just as it is not necessary to consider that all quadrilateral figures can be inscribed in the circle. For supposing I thought this, I should be constrained to admit that the rhombus might be inscribed in the circle since it is a quadrilateral figure, which, however, is manifestly false. [We must not, I say, make any such allegations because] although it is not necessary that I should at any time entertain the notion of God, nevertheless whenever it happens that I think of a first and a sovereign Being and, so to speak, derive the idea of Him from the storehouse of my mind, it is necessary that I should attribute to Him every sort of perfection, although I do not get so far as to enumerate them all, or to apply my mind to each one in particular. This necessity suffices to make me conclude (after having recognized that existence is a perfection) that this first and sovereign Being really exists. Just as though it is not necessary for me ever to imagine any triangle, yet, whenever I wish to consider a rectilinear figure composed only of three angles, it is absolutely essential that I should attribute to it all those properties which serve to bring about the conclusion that its three angles are not greater than two right angles, even although I may not then be considering this point in particular. But when I consider which figures are capable of being inscribed in the circle, it is in no wise necessary that I should think that all quadrilateral figures are of this number; on the contrary, I cannot even pretend that this is the case, so long as I do not desire to accept anything which I cannot conceive clearly and distinctly. And in consequence there is a great difference between the false suppositions such as this, and the true ideas born within me, the first and principal of which is that of God. For really I discern in many ways that this idea is not something factitious, and depending solely on my thought, but that it is the image of a true and immutable nature; first of all, because I cannot conceive anything but God himself to whose essence existence [necessarily] pertains; in the second place because it is not possible for me to conceive two or more Gods in this same position; and, granted that there is one such God who now exists, I see clearly that it is necessary that He should have existed from all eternity, and that He must exist eternally; and finally, because I know an infinitude of other properties in God, none of which I can either diminish or change.

GOD'S CONNECTION TO THE COSMOS

God's Presence Extends Throughout the Cosmos (Descartes to More, April 15, 1649)

[You] seem here to place God's infinity in the fact that He exists in every place, and I do not agree with that opinion. Rather, I think that God, by reason of His power, is present everywhere, but by reason of His essence has absolutely no relation to place. And since in God power and essence are not distinct, I think it better in such matters to reason about our own mind or about angels, whose nature is more proportioned to our way of perceiving, than to reason directly about God. The difficulties that follow all seem to me to arise from the prejudice that we have become too accustomed to imagining every substance—even those we deny to be bodies—as if they were extended, and to philosophize rashly about beings of reason, attributing to what is not a being the properties of a being or a thing. But we must rightly remember that what is not a being can have no true attributes, and that notions such as part and whole, subject and attribute, and so on, cannot be understood of it in any way. Therefore you conclude very well that the mind is merely playing with its own shadows when it considers logical entities.

          A fixed and finite number of leagues would be enough, and so on; but it goes against my conception to assign any boundary to the world, and I have no measure for what I ought to affirm or deny except my own perception. I therefore say that the world is indeterminate or indefinite, because I recognize no limits in it; but I would not dare call it infinite, because I perceive that God is greater than the world—not by reason of extension, which, as I have often said, I do not understand as belonging properly to God, but by reason of perfection.

Infinite God vs. Indefinite Universe (Descartes to Chanut, June 1647)

I remember first of all that Cardinal Cusa and several other Doctors have supposed the world to be infinite, and the Church has never criticized them for it. On the contrary, people think it honors God to conceive His works as exceedingly great. My view is easier to accept than theirs, because I do not say the world is infinite, but only indefinite. There is a rather notable difference here. To say that something is infinite, one must have some reason to know it as such, and that can come only from God. But to say it is indefinite, it is enough simply to have no reason proving that it has boundaries. Thus it seems to me that one cannot prove, or even conceive, that the matter composing the world has limits. For when I examine the nature of this matter, I find that it consists in nothing but extension in length, breadth, and depth, so that whatever has these three dimensions is a part of this matter. And there can be no space entirely empty—that is, containing no matter—because we cannot conceive such a space without conceiving in it these three dimensions, and therefore matter. Now, in supposing the world to be finite, one imagines beyond its boundaries certain spaces that have their three dimensions, and thus are not purely imaginary, as the Philosophers call them, but contain matter; and since this matter cannot be anywhere except in the world, it shows that the world extends beyond the limits one wished to assign to it. Having therefore no reason to prove, and indeed being unable even to conceive, that the world has boundaries, I call it indefinite; but I cannot deny that it may perhaps have some limits known to God, though incomprehensible to me. That is why I do not say absolutely that it is infinite.

          When its extension is considered in this way and compared with its duration, it seems to me that it gives only the occasion to think that there is no imaginable time before the creation of the world at which God could not have created it, had He wished. And that one has no reason, on that account, to conclude that He truly created it before an indefinite time, because the actual or real existence the world has had for five or six thousand years is not necessarily connected with the possible or imagined existence it might have had beforehand, just as the actual existence of the spaces conceived around a globe (that is, around the world supposed to be finite) is connected with the actual existence of that same globe. Moreover, if from the indefinite extension of the world one could infer the eternity of its duration with respect to past time, one could infer it even more easily from the eternity of the duration it must have in the future. For faith teaches us that although the earth and the heavens will perish—that is, change their appearance—the world, meaning the matter of which they are composed, will never perish; as is evident from the promise of eternal life to our bodies after the resurrection, and consequently also to the world in which they will exist. But from this infinite duration the world must have in the future, one does not infer that it has existed from all eternity, because all the moments of its duration are independent of one another.

God Sustains Motion (Principles of Philosophy 2.36-7)

36. God is the primary cause of motion, and He always preserves the same quantity of motion in the universe.

          Concerning the nature of motion, once we have considered it in this way, we must examine its cause, and this cause is twofold: first, the universal and primary cause, which is the general cause of all motions in the world; and second, the particular cause, by which individual parts of matter acquire motions they did not previously have. As for the general cause, it seems clear to me that it is none other than God Himself, who created matter together with motion and rest in the beginning, and who now, through His ordinary concurrence alone, preserves in all of matter the same quantity of motion and rest that He originally placed in it. For although motion in moving matter is nothing but a mode of that matter, it nonetheless has a definite and determinate quantity, and we can easily understand that this quantity can remain always the same in the whole universe, even though it changes in its individual parts. Thus we may think that when one part of matter moves twice as fast as another, and the second part is twice as large as the first, there is just as much motion in the smaller part as in the larger; and that as the motion of one part becomes slower, the motion of some other part equal to it becomes faster. We also understand that it is a perfection in God not only that He is unchangeable in Himself, but also that He acts in the most constant and immutable manner possible; so that, apart from those changes which evident experience or divine revelation makes certain, and which we perceive or believe can occur without any change in the Creator, we ought to suppose no others in His works, lest any inconstancy be attributed to Him. From this it follows that it is entirely reasonable to think that, since God moved the parts of matter in various ways when He first created them, and now preserves all this matter in exactly the same way and by the same reason as He first created it, He also preserves in it always the same quantity of motion.

37. The first law of nature is that every thing, so far as it can, always remains in the same state; and thus whatever is once set in motion continues to move.

          And from this same immutability of God, certain rules or laws of nature can be recognized, which are the secondary and particular causes of the various motions we observe in individual bodies. The first of these is that every thing, insofar as it is simple and undivided, remains, as far as it can, always in the same state, and never changes except through external causes. Thus, if some portion of matter is square, we easily persuade ourselves that it will remain square forever unless something else arrives to alter its shape. If it is at rest, we do not believe it will ever begin to move unless some cause pushes it. Nor is there any greater reason, if it is moving, to think that it will ever of its own accord, and without being hindered by something else, interrupt its motion. Therefore we must conclude that whatever is moving continues to move, as far as it can. But because we are dealing here with the earth, whose constitution is such that all motions occurring near it quickly come to a stop—and often for reasons that escape our senses—we have from early childhood judged that motions halted by causes unknown to us cease of their own accord; and now we are inclined to think the same of all motions, imagining that they naturally come to rest or tend toward rest. This is in fact utterly contrary to the laws of nature, for rest is the opposite of motion, and nothing can by its own nature tend toward its opposite or toward the destruction of itself.

Eternal Truths Dependent upon God

Letter 1 (Descartes to Mersenne, May 6, 1630)

As for the eternal truths, I say again that they are true or possible only because God knows them as true or possible, and not that they are true as though God knew them independently of Himself. If people understood the meaning of their own words, they could never say without blasphemy that the truth of something precedes God's knowledge of it, for in God to will and to know are one and the same. So that from the very fact that He wills something, He therefore knows it, and therefore the thing is true. One must not say, then, that if God did not exist, these truths would nonetheless be true, for God's existence is the first and most eternal of all truths that can be, and the only one from which all the others proceed. But what makes it easy to go wrong here is that most people do not consider God as an infinite and incomprehensible being, the sole Author on whom all things depend; instead they stop at the syllables of His name and think it is enough to know Him if they know that "God" means the same as Deus in Latin and is worshiped by human beings. Those who have no higher thoughts than this can easily become atheists. Because they understand mathematical truths perfectly but not the truth of God's existence, it is no wonder they do not believe the former depend on the latter. But they ought to judge the opposite: since God is a cause whose power surpasses the limits of human understanding, and since the necessity of these truths does not exceed our knowledge, they are something lesser and subject to that incomprehensible power. What you say about the production of the Word does not seem to me to conflict with what I say; but I do not wish to meddle in theology, and I even fear you may think my philosophy grows too bold in daring to give its opinion on matters so exalted.

Letter 2 (Descartes to Mesland, May 2, 1644)

Considering the difficulty of conceiving how it was free and indifferent for God to make it not true that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, or, more generally, that contradictories cannot both be true together, one can easily remove this difficulty by reflecting that God's power can have no limits, and also by reflecting that our mind is finite and created with such a nature that it can conceive as possible only those things that God has willed to be truly possible, but not with such a nature that it can also conceive as possible those things that God could have made possible, but which He nevertheless has willed to make impossible. For the first consideration shows us that God could not have been determined to make it true that contradictories cannot be together, and therefore He could have made the opposite; and the second assures us that, although this is true, we must not try to understand it, because our nature is not capable of doing so. And although God has willed that certain truths be necessary, this does not mean that He has necessarily willed them; for it is quite another thing to will that they be necessary, and to will them necessarily, or to be compelled to will them. I admit that there are contradictions so evident that we cannot represent them to our mind without judging them entirely impossible, such as the one you propose—that God could have made creatures not dependent on Him. But we must not represent such things to ourselves in order to understand the immensity of His power, nor conceive any priority or precedence between His understanding and His will. For the idea we have of God teaches us that there is in Him only one single action, entirely simple and entirely pure. Saint Augustine expresses this very well in these words: "Because you see them, they exist", etc., because in God "to see" and "to will" are one and the same thing.

Sources: Meditations (1641), translated by Elizabeth S. Haldane, adapted. Le Monde (1664), L'Homme (1662), Principles of Philosophy (1644), and Letters independent machine translation from the French and Latin, not based on existing translations. All items here by Descartes were selected and edited by Emma Fieser.

 

_______________________

 

ISAAC NEWTON:

GOD AS SKILLED ENGINEER

Isaac Newton (1642–1727) was born in Lincolnshire, England, and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he later served as Professor of Mathematics. He developed calculus, formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation, and revolutionized optics through his study of light. He also served as Master of the Mint and President of the Royal Society. His monumental work, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687), fundamentally established a mechanical worldview that dominated science for centuries. Despite his reputation as a pillar of empirical science, Newton spent decades engaged in secret alchemical experiments, theological research, and the study of ancient prophecies. He viewed the universe as a temple where physical laws were maintained by continuous divine power. Privately, Newton held that magnetism and gravity were spiritual forces rather than mere blind machinery. He was also privately a heterodox anti-Trinitarian, who rejected the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity and viewed the ancient heresy of Arianism as the true original faith. He believed ancient scripture had been corrupted by later church officials.

          In the 1713 revision of the Principia, Newton added a brief section describing his natural theology. In this he argues that the clockwork regularity of celestial mechanics cannot be explained by purely physical laws alone. Rather, it requires the continuous oversight of a supreme master. Natural philosophy, then, must investigate the physical appearances of the cosmos to uncover the attributes and dominion of this unified creator. In the section on the design argument for God, he argues that the highly ordered, concentric orbits of the planets and moons cannot arise from mere mechanical causes, because comets move freely in dramatically eccentric paths. This structural contrast proves the cosmos was designed by an intelligent, voluntary agent who strategically separated solar systems to prevent gravitational collapse. In the section on God as universal ruler and true sovereign, he argues that God is defined by His active dominion over servants, making him a literal cosmic king rather than a passive world-soul. As an all-knowing, eternal sovereign, he exists everywhere and always, and his absolute presence directly creates the structure of time and space. In the section on divine omnipresence, he argues that God is substantially present throughout the entire universe, yet he remains completely immaterial and experiences no physical resistance from moving bodies. Human beings cannot grasp the divine substance, which means that we must deduce God's existence strictly through his physical contrivances.

          In a series of correspondence with clergyman Richard Bentley, Newton discusses whether there are specific aspects of cosmology that defy purely natural explanations. He suggests several such instances. In the section on God creating luminous bodies, he argues that if cosmic matter were scattered through finite space, gravity would pull it into one central mass. However, infinite space allows multiple masses. He insists natural causes cannot explain why matter divided into unique shining stars and little opaque planets, which implies the work of a voluntary agent. In the section on God needed for precise motion of planets, he argues that the current tangential velocities and precise distances of the planets could never arise from gravitational forces alone. Constructing a stable system where planets revolve in neat, concentric circles required an intelligent cause who accurately calculated and balanced the exact masses and gravitational powers of each celestial body. In the section on the possibility of evenly spaced particles, he argues that while all cosmic particles could theoretically stand perfectly poised in an infinite equilibrium, this scenario is mathematically as unlikely as balancing an infinite number of sharp needles on their points. Only divine power could establish such an exact balance, which any minor finite force would instantly destroy.

GOVERNANCE AND PERFECTIONS OF THE SUPREME BEING (Principia, Book 3, General Scholium)

Design Argument for God from Planetary Mechanics

The six primary planets are revolved about the sun in circles concentric with the sun, and with motions directed towards the same parts, and almost in the same plane. Ten moons are revolved about the earth, Jupiter and Saturn, in circles concentric with them, with the same direction of motion, and nearly in the planes of the orbits of those planets, But it is not to be conceived that mere mechanical causes could give birth to so many regular motions, since the comets range over all parts of the heavens in very eccentric orbits. For, by that kind of motion they pass easily through the orbs of the planets, and with great rapidity. And in their aphelions, where they move the slowest, and are detained the longest, they recede to the greatest distances from each other, and thence suffer the least disturbance from their mutual attractions. This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. And if the fixed stars are the centers of other like systems, these, being formed by the like wise counsel, must be all subject to the dominion of One. This is especially since the light of the fixed stars is of the same nature with the light of the sun, and from every system light passes into all the other systems. And so that no systems of the fixed stars should, by their gravity, fall on each other mutually, he has placed those systems at immense distances one from another.

God as Universal Ruler and True Sovereign

This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is to be called Lord God, or Universal Ruler (pantokrator). For God is a relative word, and has a respect to servants; and Deity is the dominion of God not over his own body, as those imagine who fancy God to be the soul of the world, but over servants. The Supreme God is a Being eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect. But a being, however perfect, without dominion, cannot be said to be Lord God. For we say, my God, your God, the God of Israel, the God of Gods, and Lord of Lords. But we do not say, my Eternal, your Eternal, the Eternal of Israel, the Eternal of Gods. We do not say, my Infinite, or my Perfect. These are titles which have no respect to servants. The word God usually signifies Lord; but every lord is not a God. It is the dominion of a spiritual being which constitutes a God: a true, supreme, or imaginary dominion makes a true, supreme, or imaginary God. And from his true dominion it follows that the true God is a living, intelligent, and powerful Being; and, from his other perfections, that he is supreme, or most perfect. He is eternal and infinite, omnipotent and omniscient; that is, his duration reaches from eternity to eternity; his presence from infinity to infinity; he governs all things, and knows all things that are or can be done. He is not eternity or infinity, but eternal and infinite; he is not duration or space, but he endures and is present. He endures forever, and is everywhere present; and by existing always and everywhere, he constitutes duration and space. Since every particle of space is always, and every indivisible moment of duration is everywhere, certainly the Maker and Lord of all things cannot be never and nowhere.

Divine Omnipresence and the Limits of Human Knowledge

Every soul that has perception is, though in different times and in different organs of sense and motion, still the same indivisible person. There are given successive parts in duration, co-existent parts in space, but neither the one nor the other in the person of a man, or his thinking principle; and much less can they be found in the thinking substance of God. Every man, so far as he is a thing that has perception, is one and the same man during his whole life, in all and each of his organs of sense. God is the same God, always and everywhere. He is omnipresent not virtually only, but also substantially; for virtue cannot subsist without substance. In him are all things contained and moved; yet neither affects the other: God suffers nothing from the motion of bodies; bodies find no resistance from the omnipresence of God. It is allowed by all that the Supreme God exists necessarily; and by the same necessity he exists always and everywhere. Whence also he is all similar, all eye, all ear, all brain, all arm, all power to perceive, to understand, and to act; but in a manner not at all human, in a manner not at all corporeal, in a manner utterly unknown to us. As a blind man has no idea of colors, so have we no idea of the manner by which the all-wise God perceives and understands all things. He is utterly void of all body and bodily figure, and can therefore neither be seen, nor heard, nor touched; nor ought he to be worshipped under the representation of any corporeal thing.`

          We have ideas of his attributes, but what the real substance of any thing is we know not. In bodies, we see only their figures and colors, we hear only the sounds, we touch only their outward surfaces, we smell only the smells, and taste the savors; but their inward substances are not to be known either by our senses, or by any reflex act of our minds: much less, then, have we any idea of the substance of God. We know him only by his most wise and excellent contrivances of things, and final causes; we admire him for his perfections; but we reverence and adore him on account of his dominion: for we adore him as his servants; and a god without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but Fate and Nature. Blind metaphysical necessity, which is certainly the same always and everywhere, could produce no variety of things. All that diversity of natural things which we find suited to different times and places could arise from nothing but the ideas and will of a Being necessarily existing. But, by way of allegory, God is said to see, to speak, to laugh, to love, to hate, to desire, to give, to receive, to rejoice, to be angry, to fight, to frame, to work, to build; for all our notions of God are taken from the ways of mankind by a certain similitude, which, though not perfect, has some likeness, however. And thus much concerning God; to discourse of whom from the appearances of things, does certainly belong to Natural Philosophy.

GOD'S SPECIAL ACTS OF INTERVENTION IN COSMOLOGY

God Needed to Create Luminous Bodies (Letter to Richard Bentley, December 10, 1692)

As to your first query, it seems to me that if the matter of our sun and planets and all the matter in the universe were evenly scattered throughout all the heavens, and every particle had an innate gravity toward all the rest, and the whole space throughout which this matter was scattered was but finite, the matter on the outside of the space would, by its gravity, tend toward all the matter on the inside, and by consequence, fall down into the middle of the whole space and there compose one great spherical mass. But if the matter [of the universe] was [initially] evenly disposed throughout an infinite space, it could never convene into one mass. But some of it would convene into one mass and some into another, so as to make an infinite number of great masses, scattered at great distances from one to another throughout all that infinite space. And thus might the sun and fixed stars be formed, supposing the [original] matter were of a lucid nature. But how the matter should divide itself into two sorts, and the part of it which is fit to compose a shining body should fall down into one mass and make a sun and the rest which is fit to compose an opaque body should coalesce (not into one great body, like the shining matter, but into many little ones); or if the sun at first were an opaque body like the planets or the planets lucid bodies like the sun, how he alone should be changed into a shining body whilst all they continue opaque (or all they be changed into opaque ones whilst he remainst unchanged), I do not think explicable by mere natural causes, but am forced to ascribe it to the counsel and contrivance of a voluntary agent.

God Needed for Precise Motion of Planets (Letter to Richard Bentley, December 10, 1692)

To your second query, I answer that the motions which the planets now have could not spring from any natural cause alone, but were impressed by an intelligent Agent. . . . Were all the planets as swift as Mercury or as slow as Saturn or his satellites [i.e. its moons]; or were the several velocities otherwise much greater or less than they are (as they might have been had they arose from any other cause than their gravities); or had the distances from the centers about which they move been greater or less than they are (as they might have been had they arose from any other cause than their gravities); or had the quantity of matter in the sun or in Saturn, Jupiter, and the earth (and by consequence their gravitating power) been greater or less than it is; [then, in any of these cases] the primary planets could not have revolved about the sun nor the secondary ones about Saturn, Jupiter, and the earth, in concentric circles as they do, but would have moved in hyperbolas or parabolas or in ellipses very eccentric. To make this system, therefore, with all its motions, required a cause which understood and compared together the quantities of matter in the several bodies of the sun and planets and the gravitating powers resulting from thence.... And to compare and adjust all these things together in so great a variety of bodies, [such a design] argues that cause to be, not blind and fortuitous, but very well skilled in mechanics and geometry.

Possibility of Evenly Spaced Particles Not Converging, but Not Likely (Letter to Richard Bentley, January 17, 1693)

I agree with you that if matter evenly diffused through a finite space, not spherical, should fall into a solid mass, this mass would affect the figure of the whole space . . . The reason why matter evenly scattered through a finite space would convene in the midst you conceive the same with me, but that there should be a central particle so accurately placed in the middle as to be always equally attracted on all sides, and thereby continue without motion, seems to me a supposition as fully as hard as to make the sharpest needle stand upright on its point upon a looking glass. For if the very mathematical center of the central particle be not accurately in the very mathematical center of the attractive power of the whole mass, the particle will not be attracted equally on both sides. And much harder it is to suppose all the particles in an infinite space should be so accurately poised one among another as to stand still in a perfect equilibrium. For I reckon this as hard as to make, not one needle only, but an infinite number of them (so many as there are particles in an infinite space) stand accurately poised upon their points. Yet I grant it possible, at least by a divine power; and if they were once to be placed, I agree with you that they would continue in that posture without motion forever, unless put into new motion by the same power. When, therefore. I said that matter evenly spread through all space would convene by its gravity into one or more great masses, I understand it of matter not resting in an accurate poise. . . .

          And so a mathematician will tell you that if a body stood in equilibrio between any two equal and contrary attracting infinite forces, and if to either of these forces you add any new finite attracting force, that new force, howsoever little, will destroy their equilibrium and put the body into the same motion into which it would put it were those two contrary equal forces but finite or even none at all; so that in this case the two equal infinities, by the addition of a finite to either of them, become unequal in our ways of reckoning; and after these ways we must reckon, if from the considerations of infinities we would always draw true conclusions.

Source: Issaac Newton, Principia Mathematica (1687/1713/1726), translated by Andrew Motte, adapted; letters to Richard Bentley, adapted.

STUDY QUESTIONS

Please answer all of the following questions.

1. According to Galileo in the "Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina," why did the biblical authors use language that suggests the sun moves and the earth stands still?

2. According to Galileo in the "Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina," why should scientific investigation begin with direct observation and solid proof rather than scriptural authority?

3. According to Galileo in the "Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina," what is Saint Augustine's view regarding why the Holy Spirit omitted details about the shape and motion of the heavens from Scripture?

4. According to Galileo in the "Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina," why does the burden of proof rest on those who doubt a scientific claim rather than those who demonstrate it?

5. According to Gassendi in the Syntagma Philosophicum, how does his Christianized version of atomism differ from the ancient Epicurean view regarding the origin and quantity of atoms?

6. According to Gassendi in the Syntagma Philosophicum, what is the ultimate source of the motion and active power present in atoms?

7. According to Gassendi in the Syntagma Philosophicum, why do rare reports of isolated atheist nations fail to disprove the existence of an innate human preconception of God?

8. According to Gassendi in the Syntagma Philosophicum, how does the principle of equilibrium require positing a rational designer for the ordered universe?

9. According to Gassendi in the Syntagma Philosophicum, why does the continuation of the physical world require the ongoing sustaining power of its creator?

10. According to Gassendi in the Syntagma Philosophicum, how does he use the analogy of a worn pen to refute Lucretius's claim that the soul ages with the body?

11. According to Gassendi in the Syntagma Philosophicum, why do emotional passions and diseases like delirium belong to the body rather than the rational mind?

12. According to Descartes in The World, what is the true form and essence of matter in his imaginary mechanical universe?

13. According to Descartes in The World, what is his first law of nature regarding the state of moving or resting matter?

14. According to Descartes in the Meditations, why is the human mind inherently indivisible and immortal compared to the physical body?

15. According to Descartes in the Meditations, why is existence an inseparable perfection belonging to the essence of God?

16. According to Descartes in his letter to Chanut, why does he describe the material universe as indefinite rather than infinite?

17. According to Descartes in the Principles of Philosophy, why does God preserve the exact same total quantity of motion throughout the universe?

18. According to Descartes in his letter to Mesland, why are mathematical truths dependent upon God's free will rather than existing independently of Him?

19. According to Newton in the General Scholium of the Principia, why does the structural contrast between planetary orbits and comet paths prove the existence of an intelligent cause?

20. According to Newton in his letter to Richard Bentley, why can gravity alone not account for why matter divided into luminous stars and opaque planets?

21. Short Essay Options: Please select one of the following and answer it in a minimum of 100 words.

(a) Critics argue that Galileo’s claim misinterprets biblical authority. They state that taking Scripture as written purely for the uneducated allows scientists to reinterpret theology whenever a new theory arises. How might Galileo respond?

(b) Critics argue that Gassendi’s attempt to Christianize Epicurean atomism is an impossible hybrid. Atomic mechanics presupposes a self-sustaining material realm. This mechanics makes divine creation and intervention superfluous. How might Gassendi respond?

(c) Critics argue that Gassendi’s analogy of the worn pen fails to protect the soul's immortality. A damaged brain prevents the soul from thinking rationally. Thus, the mind is functionally destroyed along with its physical organ. How might Gassendi respond?

(d) Critics argue that Descartes’s mechanical model of nature reduces living organisms and human bodies to mere clockwork automata. This reduction undermines human agency and dignity. How might Descartes respond?

(e) Critics argue that Descartes’s ontological argument commits a logical fallacy. It attempts to define an object into actual existence simply by adding existence to a list of conceptual perfections. How might Descartes respond?

(f) Critics argue that Descartes’s doctrine that God freely created eternal mathematical truths destroys reason. If God could make two plus two equal five, then human logic is completely unreliable. How might Descartes respond?

(g) Critics argue that Newton’s design argument relies on a god of the gaps fallacy. It appeals to divine intervention whenever current gravitational equations fail to explain planetary arrangements. How might Newton respond?

(h) Critics argue that Newton’s claim that God is substantially present throughout space makes God a physical entity. This entity occupies spatial extension, which contradicts divine immateriality. How might Newton respond?

(i) Critics argue that Newton’s scenario of particles standing in perfect equilibrium across infinite space is a mathematical abstraction. It has no relevance to real physical matter subject to gravitational collapse. How might Newton respond?

(j) Critics argue that the overall Mechanical Worldview developed by these thinkers eliminates final causes and spiritual purpose from nature. This leaves behind a cold, godless universe governed solely by passive matter in motion. How might any one of these thinkers respond?