Ren? Both Descartes and Gottfried Leibniz adhered to the belief in an infinitely powerful, infinitely competent, and infinitely benevolent God. However, Descartes and Leibniz structure the hierarchy of these three defining traits differently as they determine God's actions. Descartes' God is Voluntarist, which means that God has absolute freedom of indifference. Power is supreme for Descartes. Leibniz opposes the arbitrary character of good and truth which arises from Descartes' conception. In response, Leibniz chooses to represent a God whose power is constrained by a dominant intelligence and benevolence. However, in Leibniz's attempt to find absolute truth and goodness outside of God's power, he limits God's power to such an extent that the nature of God is fundamentally altered from the all-powerful, omniscient conception and benevolent that Leibniz claims Ultimately, Descartes' view of God, although problematic, is more compelling because it does not involve the paradox of a God with limited freedom. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay For Descartes, the power of God is paramount. God can will everything to exist. Descartes writes that “every moment of my entire existence depends on him”. God has complete freedom of discretion in choosing what he wants to create or not. Descartes “cannot deny that many other things were done by him, or at least could have been done.” God could have created any kind of world, or no world, if he wanted, and as one of God's creations, Descartes has "no right" to question the way God chose to create the world and his unique role in it. Although Descartes has no right to question God's choice, he need not worry that God's choice is not the best or most perfect because God is infinitely benevolent. Benevolence is a form of perfection and because God is all perfect, He is by definition benevolent. Descartes explains the imperfections of the world by arguing that there is greater perfection achieved by making certain parts of the world imperfect, such as humans. As an imperfect human, he cannot hope to understand this greater perfection. What is fundamental for Descartes is the fact that God cannot be a deceiver because that would be an imperfection. He makes sure to point out that God has the power to deceive, but He simply does not have the will to deceive because that would be a flaw. Descartes believes that God is not a deceiver because that would compromise his infinite goodness, but even the idea of ​​what is good and what is not remains under God's control. “The nature of all goodness and truth is already determined by God. » It is vital to Descartes that God is not a deceiver because God determines what people believe to be truth, therefore a non-deceptive God ensures that what people perceive clearly and distinctly. to be true, it really is. But not only does God determine what people believe to be true, but God determines the truth itself. There is no absolute truth apart from God. As Gary Hatfield writes, even mathematical and logical truths are “established by God and entirely dependent on him, just like all his other creations.” God could have created other mathematical truths. Two plus two could make five if God wanted. So even though mathematical truths seem absolutely true, they are not. It could be otherwise. God is infinitely competent and infinitely benevolent, butthe truths he knows and the goodness he respects were first decided by himself. God is not subject to any external standard. As Hatfield explains, “nothing in the current set of essences required God to create them in place of others.” Descartes' description of God is troubling because it makes goodness and truth completely arbitrary. The ultimate standards by which we judge all our actions and beliefs seem to carry less weight if they were chosen at the whim of God. There is nothing inherent in God's concepts of truth and goodness that required God to choose them. We are God's pawns, believing everything he says, and we have no external standard by which we know it is correct to believe it. Descartes assures us that God is not a deceiver, but this becomes less consoling if we know that God himself has determined what deception is. It seems less important to say that God is all good and omniscient because the terms good and knowledge have been relativized. The only meaningful definition of God is that He is all-powerful. Leibniz is troubled by this image of God. It seeks to resolve the problem of the arbitrary nature of good and truth that arises from Descartes' theory of power as the supreme defining trait of God. Leibniz directly opposes Descartes: “I am far from the opinion of those who maintain that there are no rules of goodness and perfection in the nature of things nor in the ideas that God has. do. » Leibniz believes that the idea that things are good because God created them is not sufficient. This undermines the magnificence of God. “Why praise him for what he did if he would be just as commendable by doing the exact opposite?” Leibniz's God, unlike Descartes' Voluntarist, is an Intellectualist. His infinite intellect and benevolence reign in his infinite power. Leibniz believes that there are standards of truth and goodness that exist outside of God's will. Leibniz believes that there are infinitely many possible worlds within God's intellect and that God chose to create the one that exists because it is the best. There are certain necessary truths, such as the laws of mathematics, that exist in every world. The opposite of these truths would be a contradiction. God simply cannot will that two plus two equals five. In addition to necessary truths, there are contingent truths specific to each possible world. The opposite of these truths does not imply a contradiction, because it could be otherwise, for example if God had chosen to create a world different from his own. However, Leibniz's God has less power than Descartes', even over contingent truths. God had to accept the truths that exist in our world when he chose to create our world. He couldn't create our world and then choose to change some of its laws. Our world existed in God's intellect as it is, with all the truths that exist in our world and all the events that have ever happened and will ever happen. Once he chose our world, there was nothing he could do to change it. “God plans things as they are and does not change their nature. » Truths exist independently of one's desire to realize them through creation. By dividing truths into contingent and necessary truths, Leibniz hopes to preserve a part of both divine and human freedom. If things could have been otherwise, they are not destined and God and men retain the choice of their actions. However, God's infinite benevolence poses a big problem for such reasoning. Because God is infinitely good, he had to choose the best possible world. Leibniz.