ABSTRACT
In the Third Meditation, Descartes presents his first two arguments for the existence of God. They are variations on classical versions of the cosmological argument; moreover, both arguments comply with the basic pattern of attempting to give the best explanation of a phenomenon. In this case, God as causal agent best explains why I have an idea of God with a certain content in one case, and why I exist as a thing having an idea of God with a certain content in the other. As a preliminary study for the arguments, Descartes elaborates his conceptual schema. He formally introduces the notion of a clear and distinct idea. He introduces a threefold classification of ideas as adventitious, factitious, and innate. He distinguishes formal and material falsity. He introduces and assigns a major role to the natural light. Finally, he implicitly clarifies the idea of God as he proceeds through his arguments in the Third Meditation.
