Descartes, the father of modern philosophy, was once baffled as to why, given God’s perfect nature, humans, who were created by God, erred. God, as a perfect being, did not endow humans with faculties that make mistakes. But as experience showed, Descartes made countless errors. Descartes explained that it was free choice of the will that led him to err. Despite being a perfect faculty, the will extended beyond the intellect. When the will judged things that were not well understood, it erred. However, despite the proofs he laid out, I’d like to avow my conviction that Descartes’ use of free will to explain his errors is flawed by dubious and unproven claims. In his construct, Descartes did not explain some of his claims clearly. Several of his claims also contradict each other. I shall first delineate in steps his arguments which lead to his aforementioned conclusion. I shall also draw some parallels and distinctions between Descartes’ view of error and Augustine’s view of sin. Finally, I shall expound on his dubious claims and on how his construct is flawed by such claims.
Descartes starts off by getting rid of the possibility of a deceiving God. He recognizes that God can never deceive him for one simple reason. “…the will to deceive undoubtedly attests to maliciousness or weakness. Accordingly, deception is incompatible with God (¶ 2, Meditation 4).” Since the will to deceive indicates maliciousness, which is a kind of weakness or imperfection, God, who is perfect, does not therefore deceive. Next, he states that the faculties by which he judges things are given by God (¶ 3), for God is the creator of everything (¶ 22, Meditation 3). As he has shown that God does not deceive him, it follows that God does not give him a faculty that makes mistakes (¶ 3, Meditation 4). But it does not necessarily mean he could never make a mistake, for experience shows that he is subject to countless errors (¶ 4). Knowing that God does not make him err, he attempts to find the cause of his errors. As he contemplates on the idea of God, a supremely perfect being, he also comes to notice a negative notion of nothingness, the farthest deviation from perfection. Having perfect faculties but erring and lacking many things, he sees himself as in the middle of these two extremes. With that in mind, he thus comes to understand that such error does not depend on God, but is “merely a defect (¶ 4).” In other words, error is just a privation of knowledge caused by a finite faculty (¶ 4). With the knowledge he ought to have he would not have erred. But this still does not explain why God allows such a defect. Descartes inquires further into the nature of his errors. He sees that his errors depend on simultaneous concurrence of his intellect and his will (¶ 8). Through the intellect he perceives ideas which he can judge about; and the intellect does not err in this manner (¶ 8). Nevertheless, there are some ideas which the intellect does not perceive. Descartes does not believe he is deprived of those ideas, but rather he lacks them. In other words, he believes God does not deprive him of what he ought to have, for the sole reason that he cannot reason why God ought to have endowed him with a greater faculty of knowing than he (God) did (¶ 8).
Notwithstanding that, Descartes states “Nor…can I complain that the will or free choice I have received from God is insufficiently ample or perfect, since I experience that it (free will) is limited by no boundaries whatever (¶ 8).” The only faculty that Descartes experiences no boundaries is the will. Descartes reasons that willing is just a matter of deciding to do or not do the same thing. When the intellect proposes something that requires the will’s decision, we do not sense the will being coerced by any external force (¶ 8). In other words, it is a spontaneous process when we will something. Concordantly, being free does not necessitate being able to be moved in each direction (¶ 8). Conversely, the more one inclines toward one direction, the more freely one chooses that direction (¶ 8). Descartes further states that natural knowledge increases one’s freedom, because the more he understands the good aspects in it, the more he is inclined to that direction (¶ 8). Nevertheless, Descartes also states the implication of this reasoning. “However, the indifference that I experience when there is no reason moving me more in one direction than in another is the lowest grade of freedom, but rather of a defect, that is, a certain negation in knowledge (¶ 8).” It thus follows that the indifference felt when there is no reason to budge in any direction indicates a lack of knowledge. With these in mind, Descartes shows what causes the errors. It is true that the faculty of willing given by God is most perfect per se, and thus is not the cause of errors (¶ 9). It is also true that the faculty of understanding given by God, if understands, understands rightly, and cannot be deceived (¶ 9). However, being boundless, the will extends further than the intellect, and is not contained within the same boundary (¶ 9). When the will extends to things not understood, it has no inclination towards the good direction since it is indifferent to such matters (¶ 9). As a direct corollary, the will easily turns away from the good and true, and in this manner it succumbs to deception (¶ 9). To corroborate this further, Descartes states that privation, a defining characteristic of wrong-doings and falsehoods, is not caused by God, since it is not a thing (¶ 15). Thus it is not imperfect of God to have allowed him to will in instances without clear and distinct perception in the intellect (¶ 15). To stave off the argument that God could have made it such that he never makes a mistake, Descartes posits a possibility that there may somehow be a greater perfection in the universe as a whole if only some of the constituents are imperfect rather than all being similar (¶ 15).
Interestingly, Descartes’ view of error is both similar to and different from Augustine’s view of sin in several ways. In Descartes’ view of error, God is perfect, creates everything and not malicious. Like-wise, Augustine postulates that God is omnipotent, creator of everything, but does not create evil. While Augustine’s remain a postulation throughout his argument, Descartes takes steps to prove his view of God by his principle of causality in Meditations 3. Nevertheless, both utilize a similar notion of God to motivate their argument. While Descartes’ view concerns error and Augustine’s concerns sin, both seemingly disparate subjects have similar definitions. According to Descartes, error is just a privation of knowledge caused by a finite faculty (¶ 4). Augustine, in addressing sin, states that it is due to a mind that fails to rule (Section 19, Book I). Both arguments, despite of different subject, actually resemble each other. Knowledge, in Descartes’ view, can be seen as the ideas necessary to will rightly. Had he possessed and perceived the knowledge clearly and distinctly, he would not have erred (¶ 4). Wisdom, in Augustine’s view, is what the mind uses to govern and hence act rightly (Section 20, Book I). Without wisdom, the mind allows itself to be empowered by something subordinate to it, namely lust. The privation of knowledge and wisdom in their respective context causes one to deviate from the good and true. Besides that, Descartes and Augustine also share the same central focus in their respective arguments, namely free choice of the will. Augustine identifies free will as the cause of sins (Section 34, Book I). And while Descartes has a similar idea, his idea is more subtle and refined than Augustine’s. Descartes believes that free will does not cause error per se, but when it extends beyond the intellect, it errs (¶ 9). Nevertheless, both arguments state that free will is endowed by God, and they both take extreme measures in not implicating God.
Despite Descartes’ utmost effort to unify the notions of imperfect beings and a perfect God, many of his claims are dubious and unproven. His use of free will to explain his errors is flawed in this regard. Firstly, his definition of perfect, especially pertaining to that of his, as an imperfect being, is vague at best, and contradictory at worst. “…What can that supreme creator of all things make that is not perfect in all respects? (¶ 5)” He states rhetorically that everything that God creates is perfect. Perfect, in this sense, means complete and without weaknesses. In attempting to explain his imperfections, Descartes thinks that God may have unfathomable reasons for letting him to err (and hence making him imperfect), so that the universe as a whole can be perfect (¶ 7, ¶ 15). Essentially, Descartes is saying constituents can be imperfect per se, but in a way such that the sum is perfect. This effectively undermines the earlier posits that his faculties (constituents of the universe) have to be perfect because they are given by God. This brings the question: on what criteria that Descartes judges something to be perfect? Descartes does not clarify this. Secondly, in showing how free will leads to errors, Descartes states that the free will faculty is perfect and boundless, but errs when he extends it beyond the intellect (¶ 9). Since free will is the faculty that wills and decides, what decides that it should extend beyond the intellect? Invariably, it is the will itself. Does this not indicate imperfection in the will itself to have led itself to err? Descartes makes the same dubious claims when he says “...he (God) assuredly has not given me the sort of faculty with which I could ever make a mistake, when I use it properly.” Again, who or what determines if he should use the faculty properly? It is the will itself. Descartes’ notion of free will being perfect is thus flawed.
Thirdly, Descartes undermines his earlier arguments when he states that God agrees with him in eliciting acts of the wills in which he (Descartes) is mistaken (¶ 15). He explains this by saying that there is greater perfection in him “in being able to elicit those acts than in not being able to do so (¶ 15).” Undoubtedly, different beings are mistaken to varying degrees. Does a person who deviates greatly from the good still contain greater perfection than a person who is just being indifferent? In other words, is it always better to take an action, regardless of how bad it is, than taking no action? In some cases, taking action exacerbates the situation further than not taking any action; and that brings further imperfections. Thus, Descartes is wrong in saying it is more perfect to be able to elicit those acts than not being able to. Descartes clarifies this by explaining privation, and this is my fourth point on his dubious claims. Privation, according to Descartes, is the defining characteristic of falsehood and wrong-doing (¶ 15). Descartes also mentions that privation needs no God’s concurrence, since privation is not a thing. In other words, God is not cause of privation. This does not make sense, since God, being the ultimate cause, is the one who decides if he should or should not bring about the existence of things. Accordingly, God is the one who will the privation. If privation characterizes falsehood and God wills the privation, does it not follow then that God allows falsehood, which indicates imperfection on God’s part? This effectively renders Descartes’ point that God is supremely perfect flawed.
Fifthly, Descartes’ argument on why God does not deprive him of what he ought to have lacks strength. “For although perhaps there may exist countless things about which I have no idea, nevertheless it must not be said that, strictly speaking, I am deprived of these ideas but only that I lack them in a negative sense. This is because I cannot adduce an argument to prove that God ought to have given me a greater faculty of knowing than he did (¶ 8).” As I have mentioned earlier, Descartes believes God does not deprive him of what he ought to have, for the sole reason that he cannot reason why God ought to have endowed him with a greater faculty of knowing than he (God) did. It is possible (and also stated by Descartes himself) that his faculty of understanding is limited, and hence he is not capable of adducing the proof, when there may be a proof. In other words, it is not certain whether there is such a proof. His reason is not cogent, and therefore there is no reason why Descartes ought to believe that God does not deprive him of what he ought to have. Nevertheless, Descartes makes up for this by explaining privation. But as explained and objected in my fourth point, God is the one who wills the privation. Descartes’ arguments rest on his faculties being perfect per se, yet it is uncertain whether God does deprive what he (Descartes) ought to have. Concordantly, it is also not certain whether his faculties are perfect. Thus Descartes’ entire construct is flawed by this feeble claim.
To sum it up, Descartes makes several dubious claims which effectively undermine his construct of free will as the cause of his errors. Descartes, despite his prodigious effort, is not very successful in his attempt to solve the problem.