The Properties of God

Proposition 8: Mind and body are distinct in reality

Proof: Whatever we clearly perceive can be brought about by God just as we perceive it (Corollary Prop. 7).

But we clearly perceive mind which is a thinking substance (Def. 6).

• It is without body, that is (Def. 7), without any extended substance (Props. 3 and 4).

Conversely, we clearly perceive body without mind, as everyone readily admits.

Therefore, at least through divine power, mind can be without body and body without mind*.

Superphysics Note

In Superphysics, mind without body is called the soul

Substances that can exist independently are distinct in reality (Def. 10).

But mind and body are substances (Defs. 5, 6, and 7) that can exist independently. Therefore, mind and body are distinct in reality.

See:

• Proposition 4 at the end of Descartes’s “Replies to the Second Set of Objections”
• the passages in Principia Part I from Arts. 22-29

Proposition 9: God is a supremely understanding being.

Proof: If you deny this, then God will understand either nothing or only some things.

But to understand only some things and to be ignorant of the rest. This supposes a limited and imperfect intellect, which it is absurd to ascribe to God (Def. 8)

If God understands nothing then he lacks of intellection, the same with men who understand nothing. This involves imperfection which, by the same definition, cannot be the case with God.

If intellection is completely denied of God, he will not be able to create any intellect (Ax. 8).

Intellect is clearly and distinctly perceived by us. And so God can be its cause (Cor. Prop. 7).

Therefore, it is false that intellect is incompatible with God’s perfection for him to understand something. Therefore he is a supremely understanding being. Q.E.D.

Scholium: God is incorporeal, as is demonstrated in Prop. 16.

But this must not mean that all the perfections of extension are to be withdrawn from him.

They are to be withdrawn from him only to the extent that the nature and properties of extension involve some imperfection.

The same point is to be made concerning God’s intellection, as is admitted by all who seek wisdom beyond the common run of philosophers, and as will be fully explained in our Appendix Part 2 Chapter 7.

Proposition 10: Whatever perfection is found in God, is from God.

Proof: If you deny this, suppose that there is in God some perfection that is not from God.

It will be in God either from itself, or from something different from God.

If frorn itself, it will therefore have necessary existence, not merely possible existence (Lemma 2 Prop. 7}, and so (Corollary Lemma 1 Prop. 7) it will be sornething supremely perfect, and therefore (Def. 8) it will be God.

So if it be sa id that there is in God something that is frorn itself, at the same time it is said that this is frorn God. Q.E.D.

But if it be frorn something different frorn God, then God cannot be conceived through himself as supremely perfect, contrary to Definition 8.

Therefore whatever perfection is found in God, is from God. Q.E.D.

Proposition 11: There cannot be more than one God.

Proof: If you deny this, conceive, if you can, more than one God (e.g., A and B).

Then of necessity (Prop. 9) both A and B will have the highest degree of understanding; that is, A will understand everything, himself and B, and in turn B will understand himself and A.

But because A and B necessarily exist (Prop. 5), therefore the cause of the truth and the necessity of the idea of B, which is in A, is B.

Conversely the cause of the truth and the necessity of the idea of A, which is in B, is A.

Therefore there will be in A a perfection that is not from A, and in B a perfection that is not from B.

Therefore (Prop. 10) neither A nor B will be a God, and so there cannot be more than one God. Q.E.D.

Here it should be noted that, frorn the mere fact that something of itself involves necessary existence-as is the case with God - it necessarily follows that it is unique.

This is something that everyone can see for himself with careful thought, and I could have demonstrated it here, but not in a rnanner as comprehensible to all as is done in this proposition.

Proposition 12: All things that exist are preserved solely by the power of God.

Proof: If you deny this, suppose that sornething preserves itself. Therefore (Lernma 2 Prop. 7) its nature involves necessary existence.

Thus (Corollary Lemma I Prop. 7) it would be God, and there would be more than one God, which is absurd (Prop. I I ).

Therefore everything that exists is preserved solely by the power of God. Q.E.D.

Corollary 1: God is the creator of all things.

Proof: God preserves all things (Prop. 1 2); that is (Ax. 10), he has created, and still continuously creates, everything that exists.

Corollary 2: Things of themselves do not have any essence that is the cause of God’s knowledge. On the contrary, God is also the cause of things with respect to their essence.

Proof: Because there is not to be found in God anything of perfection that is not from God (Prop. 10), things of themselves will not have any essence that can be the cause of God’s knowledge.

It follows that before their creation things were nothing at all, because:

• God has created all things wholly, not generating them from something else (Prop. 12 with Cor. I )
• the act of creation has no other cause but the efficient cause (this is how I define ‘creation’), which is God

Therefore, God was also the cause of their essence. Q.E.D.

This corollary is also evident from the fuct that God is the cause or creator of a II things (Cor. I) and that the cause must contain in itself all the perfections of the effect (Ax. 8), as everyone can readily see.

Corollary 3: Hence it clearly follows that God does not sense, nor, properly speaking, does he perceive. For his intellect is not determined by anything external to himself; all things derive from him.

Corollary 4: God is prior in causality to the essence and existence of things, as clearly follows from Corollaries I and 2 of this Proposition.

Proposition 13 God is supremely truthful, and not at all a deceiver.

Proof: We cannot attribute to God anything in which we find any imperfection (Def. 8).

All deception or will to deceive proceeds only from malice or fear.

• Fear supposes diminished power.
• Malice supposes privation of goodness.

No deception or will to deceive is to be ascribed to God, a being supremely powerful and supremely good.

On the contrary, he must be said to be supremely truthful and not at all a deceiver. Q.E.D.

See “Replies to the Second Set of Objections,” No. 4.41

Proposition 14: Whatever we clearly and distinctly perceive is true.

I did not make this into an axiom because it was not at all necessary.

This is only needed for this proposition.

As long as I did not know God’s existence, I did not wish to assume as true anything more than what I could deduce from the first known thing – ‘I am’, as I said in the Scholium to ProposItion 4.

Proof: The faculty of distinguishing true from false is in all of us. It has been created and is continuously preserved by God (Prop. 12 with Cor.) – a being supremely truthful and not at all a deceiver (Prop. 1 3).

He has not bestowed on us (as everyone can discover in himself) any faculty for holding aloof from, or refusing assent to, those things that we clearly and distinctly perceive.

Therefore if we were to be deceived in regard to them, we should be deceived entirely by God, and he would be a deceiver, which is absurd (Prop. 1 3).

So whatever we clearly and distinctly perceive is true. Q.E.D.

Scholium: It follows that we can always take precautions against:

• falling into error
• ever being deceived

This can be done if we make an earnest resolution to affirm:

• nothing that we do not clearly and distinctly perceive or
• what is not deduced from first principles clear and certain in themselves.