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Descartes on the immutability of the divine will

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2003

DAVID CUNNING
DAVID CUNNING
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115
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Abstract

Descartes holds that God's will is immutable. It cannot be changed by God and, because He is supremely independent, it cannot be changed by anything else. Descartes' God acts by a single immutable will for all eternity, and there is no sense in which it is possible for Him to will or to have willed anything other than what He in fact wills. Passages in which Descartes might appear to be suggesting a different view are simply manifestations of his analytic method.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , March 2003 , pp. 79 - 92
Copyright
© 2003 Cambridge University Press

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