The Objections of Caterus

The first set of objections to Descartes Meditations is by one Johannes Caterus, a priest of Alkmaar in the Netherlands.

In his reply, Descartes rejects the notion that the content (object) of a thought needs no other cause than the thought itself, to wit, the thinker, and reiterates the notion that the cause of the content of a thought must have at least as much reality formally or eminently as the content has objectively, a crucial premise in his most original proof of the existence of God.

No real argument, here, though D's discussion is more astute and more lucid than C's own.

Too, he repeats the more general claim (he never proves it) that any effect requires a cause containing, formally or eminently, at least as much reality as itself.

And he says (with questionable accuracy) that he never appeals to a first cause argument (see his arguments for God as cause of the idea of God in himself and as cause of himself) for the existence of God because he doesn't see how to show the sequence of efficient causes must have a first because it seems each in the series could have a predecessor.

This appears to be an instance of a fallacious, zombie argument often seen advanced in philosophy of religion.

As someone once put it rather fancifully, a train can always have another car.

But this only proves - or illustrates, rather - that there is no largest natural number and not that (which is false) there is an infinite natural number.

As to the spirituality of the self, he claims to be certain that nothing is part of or in him, the thinking thing, of which he does not know.

(Later, toutes les actions d'un esprit, comme serait celle de se conserver soi-meme si elle procedait de lui, etant des pensees, et partant etant presentes et connues a l'esprit, celle-la, comme les autres, lui serait aussi presente et connue, et par elle il viendrait necessairement a connaitre la faculte qui la produirait, toute action nous menant necessairement a la connaissance de la faculte qui la produit.)

And that he finds innate within himself his idea of God.

How do we in fact learn of God?

We are taught.

The cause of the idea of God being in us is just other people.

How the idea developed culturally is a question for anthropology, history, or the history of ideas.

Against C's objection D explains that saying God is the cause of himself means negatively that nothing other than himself causes him and he needs no such cause and positively that his power is so great he causes himself and preserves himself in being from moment to moment.

That is to say, he repeats the claim that C rejected that something can be the cause of itself. 

And claiming we do not find in ourselves the power to conserve ourselves from moment to moment, he further holds the cause of our conservation must be cause of its own (no chain of causes here is possible), since if it can conserve another it must be able to conserve itself.

[I]l me semble que c'est une chose de soi evident, et qui n'a pas besoin de preuve, que tout ce qui existe est ou par une cause, ou par soi comme par une cause .  .  .  . par une surabundance de don propre puissance, laquelle ne peut etre qu'en Dieu seul[.]