Disputation on the Ways of Knowing God: Part 3
By Gisbertus Voetius
About the Modes of Knowing God
Part 3
Respondent: Theodorus Voet, Utrecht, December 2, 1665.
§. 1. Since a theologian has to deal with the different ways we can know God—especially connatural natural knowledge and acquired knowledge from Scripture, experience, and reason— not only positively, but critically, it should not seem strange that theologians as well as philosophers have decided to examine [René] Descartes’ opinion, especially since they found some people dedicated to sacred study and ministry not only admiring his view too patiently, but almost entirely caught up in it, neglecting their theological studies. Descartes first proposed his position in a way that, like Vorstius, he would have needed to give a lot more responses, notes, apologetic explanations, prefaces, and letters if he had lived longer, unless he could have protected himself by hiding behind the shield of a helpful clause. For he says: “If these things are accepted, almost all other things, at least the more general ones which I have written about the world and the earth, can hardly (note well) be understood otherwise than as explained by me, so it seems (note well). But nevertheless, mindful of my own weakness, I affirm nothing (note well), but I submit all these things both to the authority of the Catholic Church (note well) and to the judgment of those wiser than me. And I wish nothing to be believed by him, except what evident and invincible reason will persuade him.”[1] That is what he says in Principles of Philosophy, part 4, sections 206–207. I am happy to agree with our theologians about that last condition he sets out for all readers. I have argued that so far, I have not seen any clear and undeniable reason on the question of the natural knowledge of God that would deserve Archimedes’ “Eureka!” and deserving of a cone and cylinder engraved on his tombstone.[2]
§. 2. But regarding his warning (in his Preface to the Parisian Theologians) that the main questions about God and the soul’s distinction from the body are among those that should be demonstrated by philosophy rather than theology, I would not want this extended so far in the question of God’s existence that theologians get excluded from dealing with it.[3] Were that the case, they would be swinging the theological sickle into philosophy’s harvest field, which is truly overstepping their bounds. This objection gets raised against [Jacobus] Revius’ Theological Consideration in the preface to Descartes’ Notes on the Program … from 1648.[4] So what was the Leiden Theological Faculty thinking in 1625 when, in response to the request from the highly esteemed Holland Provincial Court, it issued that judgment about the Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross which the renowned Dr. Hoornbeeck included on page 993 of the second edition of his Summary of Controversies (which is really worth reading)?[5] But enough on that. The Leiden philosopher, David Stuart, defends this position with several arguments in his disputation on innate ideas on March 18, 1665.[6] I do not think he wanted to stop our theologians, whether his or ours, from dealing with any questions that can be demonstrated not just from God’s Word, the first principle, but also from the light of nature and right reason, the second principle. In that same preface, he says of the Theological Faculty of Paris that “nowhere in human philosophy is there thought to be greater perspicacity and solidity.”[7] Nor can he deny that his Jesuit teachers greatly emphasized metaphysics in their very theology; so much so that you could construct a metaphysical system from their theological commentaries on Thomas’ Summa—just as someone has provided a sample in an edition of the Metaphysics of Gabriel Vázquez.[8] Our theologians should not be excluded from dealing with these same questions, since they never set aside the sciences and arts, especially logic and metaphysics, which they intensely studied in school and at home. Nor do they, above the Papists, become dull to the use of reason and the knowledge of first philosophy out of reverence for and study of the Scriptures. Moreover, the very title of Descartes’ Meditations indicates that these two questions belong to first philosophy (not geometry, algebra, or optics). I would much rather have one theologian who explains this question methodically, clearly, and perspicuously, and defends it from Scripture, experience, and reason (like the celebrated Alting I praised earlier in his New Elenctic [Theology]),[9] than a hundred Cartesians who, failing to properly understand their own views, or themselves, or their own positions, or those of others, or metaphysics and theology, simply get themselves tangled up and cannot get out of the knots without piling absurdity upon absurdity, as Descartes’ philosopher-opponents have more than proved against him. But enough of that. Let us hear him testifying about his own method and philosophical doctrines.
§. 3. Regarding the truth, certainty, clarity, and evidence of his method and philosophical views about the natural knowledge of God, he says this in his letter or preface to the Parisian Theologians: “Nevertheless, I do not think anything more useful can be achieved in philosophy than diligently seeking out and expounding the very best reasons (namely, for God’s existence and the soul’s distinction from the body) so accurately and clearly that everyone will agree in the future that these are demonstrations.”[10] But did Descartes actually accomplish this, or think he accomplished what he set out to do? Read the next page, where he talks about his proofs and arguments like this: “I have pursued,” he says, “the primary and principal reasons to such an extent that I now dare to propose them as absolutely certain and utterly evident demonstrations. And I will also add that they are such that I do not think they leave any room open to the human intellect to ever find better ones; The necessity of the subject matter, and the glory of God to which this whole undertaking is referred, compel me to speak somwhat more freely about my work here than is my custom.”[11]
In his letter to Dinet, the Jesuit provincial in France, on page 158 of the 16mo edition, he says: “Using the principles of metaphysics, I have demonstrated God’s existence and the real distinction of the human soul from the body ….”[12] And a little later: “In my Meditations, I have carefully refuted and dispelled doubt more accurately than anyone else’s writings that we have, unless I am mistaken.”[13]
Ibid. On page 161: He talks about the veteran philosophers who teach in the schools. He says that they were afraid that with the publication of his philosophy, “with the truth being uncovered, the scholastic controversies would be abolished, and at the same time their entire doctrine would go up in smoke,” thinking the publication of his philosophy would uncover the truth, and so on.[14]
Ibid. On page 165: Regarding the certainty and evidence of publishing his philosophy, he says: “By this method I hope to expound so clearly the truth of all those things commonly disputed about in philosophy, that whoever seeks it will very easily find it there.”[15]
Ibid. On page 168: He says he has followed only plain and easy paths: “For it is not surprising if someone makes more progress through [those paths] than others far more talented who follow those rough and impenetrable ones.”[16]
And on page 169, he says that in the samples he had already given, he had explained not just one or two questions, but more than six hundred questions which no one before him had explained that way. And a little later: “Make a list of all the questions solved by other philosophies over so many centuries in which they flourished, and you probably will not find as many, or ones as important. Indeed, I profess that I can demonstrate that every single answer given by the distinctive principles of peripatetic philosophy is illegitimate and false:”[17] and what follows on pages 170–71.[18]
On page 172: “I wholly profess that there is nothing pertaining to religion (he means the Roman Catholic religion) that cannot be explained equally well, or even more easily, by my principles than the commonly accepted ones.”[19]
On page 173: He says that if people accept his true views (which he had already proved), all reason for scholastic doubt and debate would be removed.[20]
On page 175: He reports that a certain physician of the keenest and most perceptive genius had compliled an entire philosophy within a few months from some of [Descartes’] published writings.[21]
On page 208: And throughout the whole letter he acknowledges the novelty or innovation of his principles and philosophical tenets, dissenting from the common philosophy of the schools—so that he ought to be regarded and called, if not the original inventor, at least the restorer of that philosophy, with the epigram prefixed to his Notes on a Program …:[22]
Now let us compare what he himself says.
Concerning the superiority, usefulness, certainty, evidence, and novelty or renovation of his method, proofs, and opinions.
I. He himself casts significant doubt on the certainty, superiority, and usefulness of his method for acquiring philosophical truth in his Discourse on Method, page 12 of the quarto edition.[23] Descartes’ encomiast in the preface to his Notes on a Certain Program quotes some words from this to defend Descartes against Revius’ Consideration, saying: “Although my work satisfies me well enough, I will set forth its model here for you, not wishing to be an authority leading anyone to undertake something similar. Perhaps others to whom God has gifted with superior talents will be able to accomplish greater things; but I fear that even this very thing I have undertaken is so arduous and difficult that it would scarcely suit very few to imitate. For even just this one thing—that we should set aside all the opinions with which we were once imbued—is not to be attempted by everyone. And the greatest part of mankind falls into two classes, for whom it is quite unsuitable….”[24] See the rest.
Now compare what he says about erasing everything from the mind, and that doubt is the best way to arrive at a certain truth of things. See part I On Principles, page 1.[25] Why did he not recommend this supposed best method to everyone, at least to students of philosophy, for whose benefit he was chiefly publishing his philosophical ideas?
II. Regarding the certainty of his other philosophical doctrines, in thesis I above we heard him waffling, hesitating, doubting. Add from that same book, Part 4 of his Principles of Philosophy, pages 240–41, just the marginal notes (to save space): “It suffices if I have explained how insensible things could possibly be, even if perhaps they are not actually such. Yet those things I have explained seem at least morally certain. Indeed, more than morally certain. But I submit all my views to the authority of the Church.”[26] Of course, this is supposed to be explaining the nature of things that exist—when he is just proposing mere possibilities that are neither real, never were, and never will be.
III. Regarding evidence, listen to him in his dedicatory epistle prefixed to his Principles: “You (addressing the Most Serene Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia) are the only person I have found so far who perfectly understands all my published treatises up to now. For most others, even the most talented and learned, they seem extremely obscure; and it usually happens to nearly everyone else that if they are versed in metaphysics, they hate geometry; but if they study geometry, they do not grasp what I have written about first philosophy. I am only acknowledging your unique genius, to which everything is equally clear—which is why I am right to call it incomparable. And when I consider that such a varied and perspicuous knowledge of all things is not found in some aged gymnosophist who has spent many years in contemplation, but in a young princess ….”[27]
Regarding his most evident demonstrations, which do not leave any room open to the human intellect to ever find better ones, as he claimed in the letter to the Parisians, he says right after that: “And yet, although I consider them certain and evident, I cannot therefore persuade myself that they are accommodated to the capacity of all.”[28] And a little later on the next page: “Because, however, they are somewhat lengthy, and require a highly attentive reader, very few actually understand them. Thus, although I consider those I use here to equal or even surpass the certainty and evidence of geometrical proofs, I still fear that many cannot sufficiently grasp them, both because they are somewhat lengthy and build on one another, but especially because they require a mind completely free of preconceptions and able to readily disengage itself from the senses.”[29]
Elsewhere he says people do not understand his philosophical views because they do not pay close enough attention to them. Another devoted Cartesian used to say that only the ignorant or those with malicious biases disapprove of Cartesian philosophy. So, what about the many promoted Doctors of Philosophy, Mathematics, and other faculty members at the Universities of Leiden, Utrecht, and Groningen, even public Professors? It is obvious that they pursue Cartesian philosophy with great study and zeal, some testifying to such dedication in their published works, speeches, prefaces, and theses. Is he going to say that these talented scholars who have studied for years are malicious, negligent, inattentive, or just stupid like horses and mules (Psalm 32:9) understanding nothing? What about the Sorbonne in Paris, to which he attributed great “insight and solidity in human philosophy” in his letter to them? And what about the Jesuits who so diligently study metaphysics, physics, and even mathematics (as their many published works show, listed in Phil[ippe] Alegambe’s Bibliotheca[30]), whom he praises as his teachers and gives so much credit to in his letter to Dinet? Would he call all of them stupid, malicious, negligent, or inattentive—the very people he described in his letter to the Jesuit Dinet, “Although many could not understand [Descartes’ ideas], some extremely talented and learned men (who bothered to examine them more carefully) found they contained many new (note well.) truths…”?[31] If you ask who and what sort these gifted people are, he will vaguely indicate on the next page: “Those who persuaded themselves that [he] could explain something unobjectionably certain.”[32] This is why “the great majority of people, not just those who freely philosophize outside the schools but also most teachers, especially the younger ones relying more on talent than undeserved scholarly reputations—in a word, all who love truth—wanted my whole philosophy brought to light.”[33] But then, lest he seem to boast and give a record about himself like the Rosicrucians in their Fama, Confessio, etc. or the fanatics like David Joris and the Quakers in England today, a few pages later (3v, 16mo ed.) he calls a certain physician “a man of the keenest, most perceptive genius” who, “though well-versed in scholastic philosophy … upon reading Descartes’ Dioptrics and Meteorology, judged they contained some truer philosophical principles … [and] was so sagacious that within a few months…”[34] This in 1642. But years later, about this same physician in his 1648 Notes on a Program, he babbled on pg. 49: “These words show that he read my writings, but in no way understood them, or was able or willing to.”[35]
And on page 53: “Moreover, I am compelled to admit that I am filled with shame for having previously praised that author as a man of keenest intellect, and for writing somewhere that I did not think he taught any opinions which I would not acknowledge as my own….”[36] See the rest, and other things said elsewhere about matters and persons, about himself and others, by anyone who wants to fully know this man’s mercurial spirit (that is, his inconstancy, contradiction, falsity, calumny, detraction [or disparagement]). But perhaps someone with the same theological knowledge and conscience as him will brush this all away, applying this panacea: Descartes never took a vow of truthfulness, candor, justice— just as he himself responded to someone accusing him of having illegitimate children, in that publicly condemned letter to Gisbertus Voetius, pg. 12 of the quarto edition: “And surely, if I had any such children, I would not deny them: for I was recently a young man, and I am even now a man, nor did I ever take a vow of chastity, nor did I wish to appear more saintly than others.”[37]
IV. Regarding his novelty, innovation, restoration, or unusual, or previously not accepted explanation and demonstration of natural knowledge, unknown, or untaught in the philosophical schools, he had said more than enough in his letter to Dinet. Compare that with these words from his letter to the Parisian theologians: “Most impious people are unwilling to believe God exists and that the human mind is distinct from the body for no other reason than that they say no one has up to this point been able to demonstrate it. Although I completely disagree with them, but on the contrary think that nearly all the reasons given on these questions by great thinkers, when properly understood, have the force of demonstration, and I am persuaded that scarcely any can be given that were not previously discovered by others.”[38]
The Leiden philosopher Adriaan Heereboord affirms the same thing in many places in that excellent disputation (except for the fifth wheel in the wagon, which I will cover in my next thesis) on the natural knowledge of God, included in volume 1 of his Select Disputations. In sections 6 and 8 on page 163 (12mo edition, 1650) he says: “Whatever the case may be, one can still find in modern and disputatious philosophy reasons that should not be dismissed, which establish objective natural knowledge of God.”[39] To which he appends a concise review of Thomas’ five reasons in question 1, article 3. Therefore, in this necessary and certain demonstration, the truth was not just sitting around waiting for Descartes to liberate it.
§. 4. Let us now see whether the explanation and proof of congenital philosophical and theological knowledge was just waiting for Descartes to come and free it. Regarding theological knowledge, we can expect nothing from him; since it is agreed that he was unskilled in true, scriptural theology, neither treating it studiously nor wishing to; and that he was a stranger, or at least jejune, in scholastic and present-day Papist theology is clear to anyone reading his writings. In the branch of philosophy called first philosophy or metaphysics, he accomplished little, only explaining and defending two questions about God’s existence and the soul’s distinction from the body. For apart from those questions belonging to pneumatics and natural theology, he was so caught up in explaining them and defending them against objections that he revealed too clearly his weakness in understanding and judging metaphysical formalities and abstractions. I will not even how he went about proposing such lofty and difficult philosophical ideas in a methodical, precise, clear, and evident way, or how he dealt with similar things and hypotheses taken or assumed without proof, or the non-principles on which he built his own ideas. Finally, there are the contradictions, confusions, and evasions he typically resorted to when attacked by opponents, like a man who has fallen into water grasping at anything. We will give an example of this below.
[1] René Descartes, Principia Philosophiae (Amsterdam: Johannes Jansonius, 1666), pg. 241. In translation: Descartes, Principles of Philosophy in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 1, trans., John Cottingham, et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pg. 291.
[2] [It was Archimedes’ wish to have this on his tombstone.]
[3] Descartes, Meditationes de Prima Philosophia … (Amsterdam: Daniel Elzevirius, 1670), Epistola. In translation: Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 2, trans., John Cottingham, et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pg. 3.
[4] [Anonymous], Lectori in Descartes, Notae in Programma quoddam … (Amsterdam: Ludovicus Elzevirii, 1648), pg. A2r–A5r. Cf. Jacobus Revius, Methodi Cartesianae Consideratio Theologica (Leiden: Hieronymus de Vogel, 1648).
[5] Johannes Hoornbeek, Summa Controversiarum Religionis … (Utrecht: Office of Johannes à Waesberg, 1658), pgs. 993–1002.
[6] [Cannot find.]
[7] Descartes, Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, Epistola. In translation: Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 2, pg. 5.
[8] Gabriel Vázquez, Disputationes Metaphysicae … (Antwerp: Joannes Keerbergius, 1618).
[9] Alting, Theologia Elenctica Nova.
[10] Descartes, Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, Epistola. In translation: Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 2, pg. 4.
[11] Descartes, Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, Epistola. In translation: Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 2, pg. 4.
[12] Descartes, Objectiones Septimae in Meditationes de Prima Philosophia … (Amsterdam: Ludovicus Elzevirius, 1642), pg. 157. In translation: Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 2, pg. 387.
[13] Descartes, Objectiones Septimae in Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, pg. 158. In translation: Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 2, pg. 387.
[14] Descartes, Objectiones Septimae in Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, pg. 161. In translation: Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 2, pg. 388.
[15] Descartes, Objectiones Septimae in Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, pg. 165. In translation: Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 2, pgs. 389–90.
[16] Descartes, Objectiones Septimae in Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, pg. 168. In translation: Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 2, pg. 391.
[17] Descartes, Objectiones Septimae in Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, pg. 169. In translation: Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 2, pg. 391.
[18] Descartes, Objectiones Septimae in Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, pgs. 170–71. In translation: Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 2, pgs. 391–92.
[19] Descartes, Objectiones Septimae in Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, pg. 172. In translation: Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 2, pg. 392.
[20] Descartes, Objectiones Septimae in Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, pg. 173. In translation: Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 2, pg. 392.
[21] Descartes, Objectiones Septimae in Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, pg. 175.
[22] Descartes, Objectiones Septimae in Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, pg. 208. In translation: Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 2, pg. 396.
[23] Descartes, Specima Philosophiae: Seu Dissertatio de Methodo … (Amsterdam: Johannes Janssonius, 1656), pg. 12. In translation: Descartes, Discourse on the Method in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 1, pg. 118.
[24] Descartes, Specima Philosophiae: Seu Dissertatio de Methodo … (Amsterdam: Johannes Janssonius, 1656), pg. 12. In translation: Descartes, Discourse on the Method in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 1, pg. 118. Cf. [Anonymous], Lectori in Descartes, Notae in Programma quoddam …, A3r.
[25] Descartes, Principia Philosophiae (Amsterdam: Johannes Jansonius, 1656), pg. 1. In translation: Descartes, Principles of Philosophy in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 1, pg. 193.
[26] Descartes, Principia Philosophiae, pgs. 240–41. In translation: Descartes, Principles of Philosophy in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 1, pgs. 289–91.
[27] Descartes, Principia Philosophiae, Epistola Dedicatoria. In translation: Descartes, Principles of Philosophy in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 1, pg. 192.
[28] Descartes, Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, Epistola. In translation: Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 2, pg. 5.
[29] Descartes, Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, Epistola. In translation: Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 2, pg. 5.
[30] Philippe Alegambe and Pedro de Ribadeneira, Bibliotheca Scriptorum Societatis Iesu … (Antwerp: Joannes Meursius, 1643).
[31] Descartes, Objectiones Septimae in Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, pg. 160. In translation: Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 2, pg. 388.
[32] Descartes, Objectiones Septimae in Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, pgs. 160–61. In translation: Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 2, pg. 388.
[33] Descartes, Objectiones Septimae in Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, pg. 161. In translation: Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 2, pg. 388.
[34] Descartes, Objectiones Septimae in Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, pgs. 174–175.
[35] Descartes, Notae in Programma quoddam …, pg. 49. In translation: Descartes, Comments on a Certain Broadsheet in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 1, pg. 306.
[36] Descartes, Notae in Programma quoddam …, pg. 53. In translation: Descartes, Comments on a Certain Broadsheet in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 1, pg. 307.
[37] Descartes, Epistola Renati Des Cartes Ad Celeberrimum Virum D. Gisbertum Voetium …, pg. 12.
[38] Descartes, Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, Epistola. In translation: Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 2, pg. 4.
[39] [Cannot find.]