SOURCE: "On the Idea of God: Incomprehensibility of Incompatibilities?" translated by Charles Paul, in Essays on the Philosophy and Science of René Descartes, edited by Stephen Voss, Oxford University Press, 1993, pp. 85–94.

In the essay that follows, Beyssade examines the paradoxical claims that form the basis of Descartes' metaphysics: that God is incomprehensible and that, to know anything, one must have a clear and distinct understanding of God.

Here I would like to raise the question of the idea of God and its nature, because in the metaphysics of Descartes one thesis remains constant from his lost first draft, written in 1628–29, and because this thesis is paradoxical. The thesis is that the entire methodical structure of scientific knowledge depends on an assured knowledge of God. The paradox is that God is asserted to be incomprehensible.

The totality of Cartesian science is based on metaphysics, and two fundamental principles intersect...