What did Descartes get wrong?

René Descartes certainly was a complex person in himself (and in fact a Catholic), as well as a brilliant mathematician. However, his philosophical method, while presumably well-intentioned, has had an adverse effect on human thought for the past several hundred years.

In short, Descartes undermined the Christian worldview by starting with epistemology rather than ontology, with knowing rather than being. Necessarily, “what is” is prior to “what can be known,” for knowing itself implies both the existence of a knower and something to be known. Descartes reversed the order. When you get right down to it, ‘I think, therefore I am’ contains one of the most pernicious confusions possible. If we stop to think about it for a second, we recognize that in order to think I would first have to exist. The quote should actually be “I exist, therefore I can think”  because reality exists before our thinking.

Our thinking depends on reality in two ways:  First, our thinking depends on the reality of our own existence. If we don’t exist, we can’t think. Second, our thinking correctly depends on our properly conforming our minds to what really exists.

Much can be said about all the consequences that flow from this flawed philosophy of Descartes. Let’s look at just a few of them:

The first major consequence arising from Descartes’ philosophy is subjectivism, which Catholic philosopher Ben Wiker (read his stuff; like Peter Kreeft he is really sharp and writes accessibly) describes as “a thinly disguised form of egotism.” Much as Luther and Machiavelli did, Descartes declares that there is no wisdom in the past, or in any external authority, and that whatever seems to be true to us now is what is actually true. We can see this when we run into people who have strongly held but unexamined opinions and no amount of factual evidence or logical argumentation will sway them from that opinion. Their opinion is their opinion and because it is THEIR opinion then it must be true. Period.

The second consequence is the confusion of true wisdom about God with whatever one happens to think about God. This has led to what some call “Cafeteria Catholics,” those who pick and choose which teachings of the Church they will accept and who determine what the nature of God is--usually the all-loving (i.e., permissive) version that is popular today.

The third consequence is that we define reality by what we think it to be. Man (not God, not human nature) has become the measure of all things. We can see this so clearly in the area of gender identity where a man will say “I identify as a woman” meaning “I think I am a woman, therefore I am a woman,” regardless of what his DNA actually is.

A fourth consequence follows: Since God was caused by our thinking Him, then He must only be a thought and not a reality, a mere subjective projection of our own ego. Since there is no God to stand in our way we are free to manipulate our bodies, our human nature, according to our own plan. Rather than taking ourselves to be made in the image of God, with all the moral limitations that entails, we believe that we are self-creators with no limit but our own ever-increasing power.

The serpent, the “father of lies,” convinced our first parents that they should be skeptical of the commands and motives of God and to look to themselves for wisdom and truth. The history of salvation culminated with the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity in Jesus of Nazareth who is “the Way, the Truth and the Life.” For the next fifteen hundred years, the Catholic Church embedded that reality into Western Civilization until the intellectual, theological, and political revolutions instigated by Luther, Machiavelli and Descartes. That revolution reintroduced the ancient seduction so that, once again, humanity was hearing that pernicious lie “you will not die, you shall be like God.”

Cartesian (adjectival form of Descartes) philosophy separated our minds from our bodies, the subjective from the objective, faith from reason, among other things. At the heart of this dualism is Descartes’ faith in doubt. Since we can’t trust what is outside of our minds, we get two approaches to ultimate truth, including God Himself. On the one hand, there are forms of fideism (or faith alone) characterized by a more unreflective, fundamentalist approach to eternal realities and a serious distrust of science and human reasoning, such that God can even appear arbitrary. Adherents of this group include Luther (and many Protestants), Muslims, and even some traditionalist Catholics. On the other hand, there are the rationalists, or the “science alone” crowd characterized by the secular atheism that surrounds us. For most of human history, agnosticism and atheism were considered evidence of a poor intellect, now today’s intellectuals claim these titles as badges of honor. Of course, their methodology has limited “truth” to mathematical and empirical sciences and they altogether deny theology/philosophy a place at the intellectual table.

The Catholic worldview affirms both faith and science/reason as mutually complementary means of accessing the Truth. And when it comes to God, we not only have the revelation of the Christian faith (the Word became flesh) but also the perception of the world around us, which leads us to apprehending the nature of things (natural law) and their Maker.

Courtesy of Leon Suprenant