Descartes sets about proving the existence of God through his meditations on knowledge in an effort to prove the skeptics of his time wrong. He first determines that human knowledge is based entirely too much on unproved presuppositions. He argues that this makes it difficult to distinguish between truth and error, since we cannot recognize true knowledge. Descartes proposes that the quest for knowledge must be based upon universal doubt. Specifically, he proposes the following …showed first 75 words of 1322 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1322 total…own existence. This too, strictly speaking, he should have doubted, because he had doubted the principle of contradiction and the testimony of his own consciousness. If Descartes had been consistent, he would have aligned with the skeptics because his universal doubt left him no other choice. Universal doubt, therefore, is a flawed course in pursuing an understanding of human knowledge and the existence of God. Complete doubt cannot lead to an understanding of human knowledge