Publication Details

Abstract

The paper discusses presuppositions of the so-called trademark argument for the existence of God presented by René Descartes (1596 – 1650) in his Meditations on First Philosophy. The author explores the interpretation of Descartes’s idea of God as the infinite that provides a response to a difficult philosophical and theological question: How can the human mind obtain a coherent idea of God, whose infinite and transcendent greatness reaches beyond reason? I propose a conceptual distinction to defend the Cartesian thesis, namely, that it is possible to have a clear and distinct idea of the infinite, while consistently sustaining the negative theological element of God as ultimately incomprehensible.