The following essay will provide a brief overview of the existence of God from René Descartes to Immanuel Kant. First, section (1) examines Descartes' proof of the existence of God. Section (2) explores GW Leibniz's views on the existence of God in addition to his attempts to rectify the shortcomings of Descartes' proofs. The remainder of the essay then examines two other philosophers, David Hume in section (4) and Immanuel Kant in (5), who argue that the existence of God cannot be rationally proven. (1) As a devout Catholic, Descartes undeniably believed in God. He clearly expresses his faith in the letter of dedication preceding the Meditations on the First Philosophy. Here, Descartes writes that we must “believe in the existence of God because it is taught in the Holy Scriptures and, conversely, that we must believe in the Holy Scriptures because they came from God” (Descartes, 1). However, at the beginning of the Meditations, Descartes questions everything, including religion, in his search for absolute certainty. In the third meditation, he doubts the existence of God before providing his first rationalistic proof of the existence of God. In offering the proof, he first asks “whether God exists” (25). However, even though he questions the very existence of God, Descartes maintains his innate idea of ​​God. After some deliberation, he concludes that because he has an innate idea of ​​God (which is not made by the mind or derived from the senses), it must be God who endowed him with his innate idea. Descartes compares his innate idea of ​​God to the “mark of an artisan impressed on his work” – similar to a stamp that says “Made by God.” Furthermore, Descartes reasons this because it exists as a thinking thing and... middle of paper ......od to exist. As the above illustrates, Descartes and Leibniz believed that the existence of God could be proven by reason. But Hume and Kant, who will be discussed later, did not believe that argument or reason could establish the existence of God (3). David Hume attacks both Descartes' and Leibniz's methodology for establishing the existence of God in the following sentence: It is absurd to claim to demonstrate a fact or to prove it by a priori arguments. Nothing is demonstrable, unless the opposite implies a contradiction. Nothing that is clearly conceivable involves a contradiction. Everything we conceive as existing, we can also conceive as non-existent. There is therefore no being whose non-existence implies a contradiction. Therefore, there is no being whose existence is demonstrable. » (Bailey, 79).