Perhaps, until Karl Marx, philosophers with ideas used God and religion to either provide doubts or explain rational phenomena of the Human mind- including being, doubt, wisdom, and the ability to adapt. Given this thesis, one can search for some sort of compatibility between Augustine and Descartes- both believing that God is the ultimate truth, and that the doubts that seem to occur in one's life-time are human traits. If Aquinas searches for truth and finds it in the Judeo-Christian concept that "because man is directed to God as to an end that surpasses the grasp of his reason" (Aquinas 3). Descartes searches for reality, which, he claims in his Meditation, can only be found if one refuses to doubt the existence of God.
It is interesting to note that Aquinas claims that "certain truths which exceed human reason should be made known to him (Man) by divine revelation" (Aquinas 3). The Creation, to him, is a fact. Descartes has doubts, but says that if you believe in God and that God is real, then most of those beliefs are to be taken without doubt. Religion, therefore, plays a vital role in determining truth, as seen through human eyes, and spoken with human voices.
Descartes does not really admit that a meditating ego changes its mind or thoughts. What he does say is that he knows he exists. He uses the example of wax. "I do not possess eyes with which to see anything, but it cannot be that when I see, or when I think I seeaSo if I judge that the wax exists from the fact that I touch itaI see clearly that there is nothing which is easier for me to know than my own mind." (Descartes 81) In other words, one's senses are the steps that lead to reality. Wax is wax. Smell is smell. A thought is a thought. Meditating may enhance something, but not truly change it.
Does a meditating ego create ideas? "aideas must proceed from objects outside me, since they do not depend on my will." (p. 83) It seems clear to me that...