Descartes and the Lowering of God

(While this 'story' surrounds some few thinkers, I recognize that there are many lost to me, and to history, which I leave out.)

   Descartes' Cogito is often read as denying the reality of objects.  This is how I think Descartes understood it as well, but, as I have written on in the past, I think that Cartesian doubt is actually a doubt of the subject, and his ability to act in relation to objects: Cartesian doubt preserves objects unchanged (theoretically), while separating us from them (practically).

   The result of Descartes' interpretation of the cogito as the list of cognitive acts (perceiving, willing, denying, &c), leaves him with a jumble of things which he rightly recognizes as containing nothing that relates them to the same being (as existing) over time.  The unity of these 'representations' is not contained in all of these acts of the mind (taken in an empirically psychological manner).  However, the continuity of his existence he takes as granted, and so can say, analytically, that there is some infinite idea/being that he depends upon for (the unity of) his existence.  This being is God.

   In relation to Descartes, Kant recognizes the pure concepts which are required when we experience representations, and which - under the unity of apperception - explain the unity of experience.  The unity of apperception plays the same role in Kant as God plays for Descartes (in the third meditation).  However, Descartes choice had a peculiar result in the history of philosophy (as we have received it) which we can, perhaps, learn from.

   As a result of God taking the position of the unity of apperception, and becoming responsible for the unity of experience, we found a way of thinking God which was immediately connected in our theoretical experience of the world (analytically).  However, Descartes begins a tradition that results in the lowering of God.

   Malebranche's Occasionalism represents a view where God works a miracle at every moment to position things correctly.  Spinoza's Monist-Deism does more or less the same in terms of making everything in nature an act of God.

   Leibniz is the first thinker (known to me) in the rationalist tradition that has been handed down, and emphasized, to truly recognized the problem here.  Leibniz demanded that God should not be considered to have caused any miracle save for the bringing into existence of the World.  This single miracle is, to Leibniz, worthy of His greatness.  If we consider, also, that the bringing into existence of everything is understood by Leibniz in terms of the triumph of Good (since this is the best of all possible worlds) it is clearer that this reflects a kind of practical attitude at the foundation of his system.  This decision of Leibniz' seemed to be incredibly important for the development of Kant's thought in relation to this same area.

   I do not write this post to plant a knife in Descartes back, nor to complain about Malebranche's or Spinoza's shortcomings.  I think that all of these thinkers were in possession of the answer to the problem I have raised here - the answer just laid dormant in their systems until a genuine concern with goodness could once again take its place at the helm of the structure of the system (and not merely the interest in first attending to it).  In order to learn from Descartes, Malebranche and Spinoza, we can uncover these practical propositions in their work (as well as bring them out more clearly in Leibniz), and so recover a great deal of clarifying thought for our own benefit (and training).

Understanding the Question: "Do you Believe in God?"

    When asked if I believe in God I have what may seem a peculiar reaction.  After many years of reading in the history of philosophy, I do not think that asking about my belief in God is meant to query my opinion about an inherently unknowable entity, nor is it meaningfully posed if it asks if I am going by the word of some few I have accepted as authorities.  When I consider what I end up thinking about to answer the question, I consider nothing apart from how I have been living my life.  Here my interest in this question is not in answer it, but in accounting for, and even justifying, my reaction to it by evaluating what the question asks.  I will be helping myself to Kant's Practical Philosophy as a standard terminology for getting at the meaning of the question about belief in God.  I will develop an account in brief of Kant which may serve as an introduction to Kant's thoughts on the interface between morals and religion.
   When asked about their belief in God, many people have an answer grounded in a position developed over the history of philosophy, and either acquired from study or environment; these positions are: Theism, A-theism, A-gnosticism.  These positions are worthy of thought, but I mean to argue that none of them can satisfy the question concerning belief in God.  Why is this? It is because I am insisting that the question properly requires one consider their own life in a particular way that needs no recourse to arguments.
   I expect it sounds strange to insist that asking if one believes in God is a question of how one lives, or perhaps it is not so strange.  In either case, I mean to provide some justification, as well as some clarity.  But, how do I justify this, and what sort of clarity will be given?
   First, in order to justify reconsidering our beliefs in God in new terms, I will first examine what it is to have an interest in God.  There is a discourse already in the work of many thinkers concerning the source of our interest in God, and just as frequently people are surprised by thinkers who assure us that all men believe in God (at least in a certain sense).  I hope to be able to justify a certain sense in which many of us may have at least a vacillating belief in God.  As I mentioned, I will be employing Kantian terminology in order to have a standard for expression rather than a whole array of terms from the tradition.  This choice was based on my own familiarity with Kant, and not because such an account could not be given from another source.  I would be very interested in showing how these terms would be applicable elsewhere in the history of philosophy, and would love to share exchange with others on this matter.
   Second, the clarity which I want to provide does not, and cannot, consist in an answer to the question for any us: ultimately, each of us must look at our own lives to see if we believe and in what way.  But I hope to produce some clarity concerning our approach to this question, as well as some maxims in dealing with it.  We should not approach this question from the perspective of metaphysics except insofar as we mean to clarify the question - we cannot answer it with any doctrine, and our continual attempts to do so only hinder our understanding of the question and deny the answer we all have available.

The Interest in God as Unknowable Entity
   There are many ways we can talk about our interest in God, and many traditions.  I am not here considering all of the different cultural representations of faith, but rather the bare possibility of taking an interest in a God.  One reason why interest in God is particularly suited for a question like this is because of how unfathomable the object of interest is.
   Consider some object we can think, but which we cannot know.  Granting that you cannot know it, or determine it in any way, consider how you may take an interest in it and first think of it.  We do not know what it is, so have no idea of its usefulness, and we also have no reason to avoid it.  In fact, we are not even thinking the object in this example, since without any determinations this unknowable object is the same as any number of unknowable objects.  'God' is a concept of such an unknowable object, yet given some additional determinations which are interesting.  How is it that such an unknowable object becomes the object that takes on such determinations?
   When I speak of something as knowable I mean, with Kant, the possibility that an object can be given in experience.  And while God is unable to be given in an experience, we are still interested in him.  How we take an interest in these sorts of objects is a task that Kant accomplishes, and which we can benefit from considering.
   We can be interested in things we can come to know because they can be given to us in a certain way.  However, with things that cannot be given to us we can still have something we take an interest in which makes an interest out of something else, and this something else may be something which cannot be given.
   The moral law is given to us through the experience of moral feeling.  We recognize a duty to act or omit action from the experience of the moral law.  What the moral law imputes to us is the possibility of acting for the sake of that duty, and not for an externally determined factor, that is, it leads to an interest in our freedom.  So far as we consider our acts, or the acts of others, to be moral, we are also considering them to be freely done.  This isn't a metaphysical proof of freedom, but it is a proof of our taking others and ourselves to be free (in a positive sense) as an element of our morals and moral discourse.
   I use this example of freedom as a postulate to illustrate how something which cannot be known can become interesting to us.  If we did not have any moral experience we also would never be concerned with ourselves as free, though we may very well consider ourselves spontaneous (freedom in a negative sense).  A similar structure is illustrated in Kant which shows how we believe in God (as well as an immortal soul).  I will illustrate it briefly:
   Reason is a faculty of seeking unconditioned unity, not only in knowledge, but in life.  If we have ends that must conflict, then they are not in unity with each other.  The Highest Good is a state where none of our ends are in conflict, and we also have all of our ends met: we are happy to the degree which we are virtuous, and since we will be perfectly virtuous we will be perfectly happy.  (I have written about Worthiness to be Happy, and it would be good to read to clarify this point.)
   When we pursue the Highest Good we are striving to be moral, and restraining our desires whenever it is necessary in order to discipline ourselves to be more inclined to do what we ought to do.  However, it is still not in our power to make nature reward us for our virtue, and so we find that we have also assumed a postulate in the midst of these activities as well: God, a being who is able to judge and reward us for our moral worthiness.  So we find here that something which we do know - our way of acting - contains an interest that we did not arbitrarily insert, but which constitutes the coherence of the pursuit of our highest aim.

The Question Concerning Belief
   There is no impartial guarantee for the existence of God given above, nor is one possible.  However, God is required whenever we are willing to bring about the Highest Good - the unity of virtue and happiness.  If we are asked if we believe in God, and see in our own lives an effort to promote the Highest Good, then that is the same thing as our believing in God.  This is why I say that when we are asked if we believe in God, we have but to look and see how we are living our lives.
   If we see ourselves as promoting the Highest Good, yet deny our belief in God, we are saying that we are trying to bring about and end which we also take to be impossible, which is a direct contradiction in our behavior.  Of course, we can fluctuate in our belief, but we can be honest about what we are postulating at any time and find that sometimes we are believers and sometimes not.
   It is very important to point out that this faithful natural attitude does not depend upon any scripture or cultural development of a particular kind.  Rather it is would appear to be the fertile field out of which such scripture and articulate philosophical positions about God (for and against) begin to develop, as well as the basis on which scripture should be interpreted.  The more we can open ourselves up to carefully thinking through these sorts of fertile contexts in our own lives, the sooner we will be able to unravel many difficulties and disputes.
   (We may want to consider a thinker like Kierkegaard here, and wonder if his description of the knight of faith could serve as material for continued reflection on faith.  It appears that one could interpret the knight of faith as maintaining exactly that we will the Highest Good, yet affirm it to be impossible.  I am not committed to such a reading, but I do think that there are some who are interested in this, and I simply want to note that I am also interested in discussion about it.)

What do we do Now?
   Classical Theism, A-theism and A-gnosticism all present evaluations of approaches to the question concerning the the existence of God.  In the above, we have realized that a belief in God is not directly concerned with His existence as the result of a doctrine, but in how we are living our lives; and the way in which we are living our lives reflects our belief.  The classical treatment of questions directly addressing the existence of God still can serve us as examples of arguments that attempt to show some limits or extensions to our knowledge, but they can never really tell anyone if they believe in God or not.
   We should definitely not forget the classical treatment of the existence of God, but we should be very clear when we are presenting it and reviewing it as a sort of refresher about what we can know, however, it should be completely dispensed with in real discussions of religion, since a religious belief in God is not the product of any subtle arguments, but is found simply in how we organize our life around the problem of the pursuit of happiness and virtue.

Appendix: Ways of Believing or Non-Believing
   It may be interesting to consider the above analysis and see if we can establish briefly a use for the terms Theism, A-gnosticism and Atheism in this context.  Of course, these names for positions will acquire an entirely different mien now that we have reinterpreted the question concerning the belief in God along the lines we have.
   It seems that all finite rational beings (at least humans) are in one of these four conditions concerning God: interest, hope, belief, or delusion.
   If we acknowledge our self-worth or worthlessness, then we are able to take interest in the possible existence of God.  This seems to be a sort of pure A-gnosticism.
    If we are desirous of happiness from our worth, then we are desirous of God, and hope for His existence.  If we act as if we will be rewarded, then we believe in God.  This seems to be a sort of pure Theism.
   If we were to strive against virtue, then it seems like we may have a reversal of Theism available to us: if we are desirous to avoid punishment from worthlessness, then we are desirous of the non-existence of God, and hope for His non-existence.  If we act as if we will not be punished for our viscousness, then we do not believe in God.  This is a sort of pure A-theism.
   If you take yourself to know, theoretically, that there is, or is not, a God, then you are deluded.  This is usually considered Fanaticism.
   Some remarks must be made here which seem interesting.  Here it appears that A-theism is being accused of immorality.  I do not mean to imply that those who call themselves A-theists because of a position they have developed or have received from the history must be immoral, but rather that insofar as so-called A-theists are moral, I would probably consider them to be A-gnostic or even Theistic in the terms developed above.  It is important to keep in mind that these re-definitions of traditional terms are meant to express non-doctrinal positions which need not be articulated in order to be inhabited. 

Re-Evaluating the 'Substance' of Descartes' Cogito

   A traditional reading of Descartes' Cogito is that the subject is a substance of the sort that is separate from, stands 'under' or 'alongside' cognitions (the 'seeming appearing', willing and unwilling, loving and hating, &c). A recent discussion with a friend provided an opportunity to question this traditional reading of Descartes in a novel way with relation to the 'Self' concept; it occurred to me to consider if the Cogito is better described by reference to the cognitions themselves, the very 'surface of things', to the 'seeming appearing', rather than something that stands 'under' or 'alongside' these cognitions.
   The consideration that led me to this reading involves a discussion of what I will refer to as the depth of the 'Self' concept. Different thinkers consider of the Self as having different depth, and so use the term (and some others) in different ways. I must give an account of what I mean by 'depth' here before I can continue on to the interpretation.
   I will assume for the discussion here that the term 'experience' will mean the broadest sense of experience, such that all possible contents are recognizable within it. For some thinkers' terminology, a perception is considered equal to an experience (or an experience is considered simply perception). In this way, all possible content of thought are treated as not necessarily relational external to the perception (relation would just be another thing within the perception). In this manner of speaking, the Self, thought as the perceiver, is given negatively as the container the perception. Here, the subject is given in advance (a priori), since it is the stage wherein the experience is given.
   Others, such as Kant, speak of experience as a synthesis of different perceptions, such that the subject really does not come about except through laws of the organization (synthesis) of perceptions into experience. In this case, the subject is not a ground of the perception, but a result of the synthesis of perceptions.
   When there is only one perception required for the Self, I say that there is less 'depth' (and this is not at all intended in a pejorative sense). Descartes is a thinker who seems to take the subject to be thought in a single moment, as it were, and not considered an entity synthesized in reference to cognitions. But, if there is nothing that stands outside cognitions to identify with the subject, the subject will be the cognitions themselves, related to a cognition of their relation (also in the same perception), and so here the subject is a mere thinking (thing), while still being matter (though of a cognitive, not material, sort). A 'thinking thing', then, does not need to imply an object that then thinks which is separate from cognitions, but apparently could be taken to be the cognitions themselves related by a cognition - put awkwardly, the Cogito is simply a 'thinking'.
   To clarify why I consider this reading of Descartes seriously, I will first clarify why I think that Descartes' subject/Self concept has the depth of a single perception.
   The reason that it occurs to me to say that the subject in Descartes has minimal depth is that Descartes treats the subject as requiring preservation moment to moment, where preservation is explicitly treated as equivalent to creation. If we were to be skeptics, the Self could have just been created -now- with all of its current cognitions. Descartes requires God as our creator and preserver, where God simply refers to the continuity of Descartes existences as a condition.
   Here we can already catch a glimpse of why it is incorrect to call the subject in Descartes a substance (something Descartes himself admits), since it is not self-caused, or unconditioned. Also, because the entirety of the self needs preservation we can see how the entirety of the Self must be in the momentary perception so far as it is cognizable at all.
   The argument for the necessity of the idea of God also gives some weight to reading Descartes as a 'thinking' rather than a 'thinking thing' (where thing is an underlying substance). The proof involves how all finite ideas are only possible with an infinite idea as their ground (from which the finite ideas came). Descartes is a finite idea, and he requires that ground for his origin. (I will pass over supposed problems in this argument, since the purpose here is to try to assess the character of the Self, as Descartes thinks it. I do think the difficulties here can be resolved.)
   These considerations leave me with much to consider. First of all, I am interested in how this division of terms forms a complete account, and how such a division of terms is comparable to those of other writers. Next, I consider the development of a 'moral proof' (like Kant's) to become more recognizable here. Insofar as we accept the unity and continuity of the subject we believe in God as a preserver, and, in the Fourth Meditation, insofar as we act in the world and accept the continuity in things there, we accept God as the preserver of those things as they are, and as they are given to us. Certainty, which is a condition for truth for Descartes, requires this transcendent relationship with the divine.
   The last thing that I continue to wonder about is the nature of the doubting that Descartes carries on in the start of his inquiry. Ultimately it seems that he is rejecting a world view where the objects and subject are conceived of substances that preserve themselves, rather than simply rejecting objects of experience (he explicitly maintains the certainty of the objects insofar as they are merely appearance). Descartes is not deceived by his experience, but by the world view he has inherited. Doing an exposition as he does on the real dependence of our cognitions on the transcendent, and comparing it to the messy way his contemporaries may have maintained it, can easily meet the task set in the letter to Sorbonne, where Descartes says that he will give a proof of God that atheists can accept.

Some Starting Points for Kant Study

   I hope to just detail a few interesting areas to consider more closely in Kant. I have done some considerable work in these, but struggle to write at length about them without continually breaking out into new inquiry, so I hope that detailing some generalities and formulating some questions here can be of assistance to my own work and as a suggestion of some things to consider for others.
   The way in which I may deliver some of these could come as shocking and abrupt, and I hope that there are questions probing into what I mean.

Self-Worth/Self-Respect:
   Kant's Practical Philosophy is usually discussed beginning from what we ought to do. This makes sense, because the Moral Law is central in Kant's thought on the order of freedom; however, there are other ways to begin an inquiry into the order of freedom that reveal the moral law from different angles; one such beginning is a discussion of self-worth, and such a starting point may be important for Kant pedagogy(especially if it is not accompanied by, or prefaced with, a study of Theoretical Philosophy, which is required for the significance of laws of freedom in contrast to laws of nature).
   Note the following passage, which is one of a few examples:
   "But it strikes down self-conceit altogether, since all claims to esteem for oneself that precede accord with the moral law are null and quite unwarranted because certainty of a disposition in accord with this law is the first condition of any worth of a person (we shall soon make this more distinct), and any presumption prior to this is false and opposed to the law." (Critique of Practical Reason, 5:73)

   If there is nothing that we ought to do - categorically - then there is no measure for our own worthiness. This also is important for understanding what Kant means when he says that the moral law renders us worthy of happiness, since it is only on the basis of this standard that we truly become worthy of something, that is, have a claim to it. By looking at Practical Philosophy from self-worth first gives us the perspective of the moral law as a means for understanding how we feel worthy, and have self-respect; this is crucial in seeing how the moral law is not a judgment of others from on high, but rather a basis of feeling their worth.
   (It is important to note that worth is here is something that you can claim, and so it not our own value in itself. Kant mentions in relation to this that we have a value in that it is possible for us to have a good will. I will not say any more on this here.)

Moral Disagreement and Moral Discourse:
   In the second Critique, Doctrine of Method, Kant discusses moral pedagogy. He just as well could have discussed supposed moral disagreements and how to approach their resolution. A moral disagreement is a dispute about what ought to be done. It is assumed that both parties involved acknowledge a duty, yet find that they have different appraisals of the situation. Understanding the anatomy of this situation has a great deal of importance in understanding Practical Philosophy generally. There is no rationalizing a duty, but their categorical status can be misleading in terms of how they apply.
   Two parties have duties that conflict with each other. How is this possible? One thing to say is that 'factual' information may be missing for one of the parties. Consider a play rehearsal with the director watching. The scene being performed involves one character murdering another. Someone not involved with the performance witnesses the actions taking place, and understands the situation as an actual murder in progress, and feels compelled to help prevent it from occurring. It is not confusing to us why the director did not feel a duty to help defend the actor, and why the onlooker found himself compelled to help what he saw saw as a victim. It is also 'intuitive' to us to understand that the director had a 'better' understanding of the situation, but the principled basis of this 'better' understanding is still mostly hidden from our view.
   The understanding of a situation is crucial for coming to terms in morals with other people when there is a supposed disagreement. We should expect in any moral disagreement that there is a different understanding of the situation - sometimes radically different - but there is an important question here: what is an understanding of a situation? It certainly is not simply a matter of knowing certain facts, but also the meaning that underlies the facts which really characterizes how we fit them together - the overall heuristic of the interpretation of the situation.

The Ideal of Reason and the unity of the Theoretical and Practical:
   In the first Critique, Kant discusses the idea of God as a regulative principle of the ground of the unity of concepts for theoretical reason. In the second Critique Kant discusses the idea of God as the condition of the Highest Good - an end which unifies Morality. The unity of these two notions of God is implied in the first Critique as the ultimate goal of Metaphysics through the unity of the theoretical and practical themselves:
   "The legislation of human reason (philosophy) has two objects, nature and freedom, and therefore contains not only the law of nature, but also the moral law, presenting them at first in two distinct systems, but ultimately in one single philosophical system. The philosophy of nature deals with all that is, the philosophy of morals with that which ought to be. ...
   The philosophy of pure reason is either a propaedeutic (preparation), which investigates the faculty of reason in respect of all its pure #a priori# knowledge, and is entitled criticism, or secondly, it is the system of pure reason, that is the science which exhibits in systematic connection the whole body (true as well as illusory) of philosophical knowledge arising out of pure reason, and which is entitled metaphysics." (Critique of Pure Reason, A840-1, B868-9)

   The project of bringing together the theoretical and practical is Philosophy. What sort of advance is it that we make when we are engaged in Philosophy? For this I refer back to my earlier discussion of moral disagreement and the understanding of the meaning of a situation. My suggestion is that Philosophy advanced in the interpretation of the situations we find ourselves in, pushing further to get a better and better understanding of what is the most suitable way to understand these situations. How are we to advance in this project? For this, we are guided back to the instincts of Plato and Socrates that still live in Kant - Know thyself. Also, consideration of the value of the moral proof of God in the third Critique, and its relationship to teleology and human purpose, shows a strong attempt at trying to get a framework for how to understand our situation. We cannot overlook, as well, the nature of the aesthetic judgment in laying the foundation for logic - something that is also discussed in the third Critique.

   I know there is something in all three of these for me to continue to consider, and study; I hope that there is something in here for someone else as well.