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August 15, 2026Intellectual History Review0 citations

Descartes and Morin: the existence of God demonstrated in geometrical fashion

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RARoger Ariew

Key Points

  • To examine the philosophical relationship and mathematical-style theological proofs for the existence of God debated between René Descartes and Jean-Baptiste Morin.
  • Conducted a chronological textual analysis covering three key interaction periods from the mid-1620s to 1661.
  • Evaluated primary source texts including Descartes's Discourse on Method and Meditations against Morin's That God Exists and Astrologia Gallica.
  • Identified critical divergences between Descartes's foundational metaphysics and Morin's mathematical demonstrations of divine existence.
  • Showed that Morin's counter-objections provide essential historical context for understanding early modern Cartesian reception and Morin's own philosophical system.

Abstract

I analyze the relations between Descartes and Morin, mostly about their respective proofs for the existence of God. I do so in three stages: (1) Morin and Descartes, from their first meetings in the mid-1620s to Morin’s objections to Descartes’s Discourse on Method in 1638. (2) Descartes’s criticism of Morin’s treatise That God Exists in 1641 and Morin’s implicit reply to that criticism in the second edition of the work (1655). (3) Morin’s counter-objections, in his posthumously published Astrologia Gallica (1661), to Descartes’s Replies to the Objections to the Meditations. The examination of Morin’s work and his criticism of Descartes can serve two basic purposes, since they are an integral part of Descartes’s context and since they form a good basis for understanding his reception. They can advance our understanding of Descartes’s philosophy, but they need not do so: Morin does not have to be a good reader of Descartes. On the other hand, the examination should reveal something about Morin’s deeper philosophical commitments.

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Cite This Study

Roger Ariew (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a8019db75c2e31742c8608fhttps://doi.org/10.1080/17496977.2026.2708501
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