Concept

Occasionalism

Q: Did al-Ghazali anticipate Hume on causation?

In a remarkable way, yes. Al-Ghazali argues in The Incoherence of the Philosophers (c. 1095) that the conjunction of fire and burning is not a necessary connection grounded in the fire's nature but a habitual pattern God maintains. God could perfectly well cause cotton to be cold in the presence of fire and does not because of His regular ordering, not because the fire compels the burning. David Hume's later argument (1739) that we observe only constant conjunction and not necessary connection has very similar structure, with the major difference that al-Ghazali grounds the regular pattern in God's regular willing while Hume grounds it in custom or psychological projection.

Intro

Occasionalism is the position that God is the only true cause in the universe. Created things, fire, billiard balls, human wills, do not really cause anything. They are occasions on which God directly does the causing.

On this view, when fire burns cotton, the fire is not actually causing the cotton to burn. The fire's nearness is the occasion on which God Himself causes the cotton to combust. When you decide to raise your arm, your decision is the occasion on which God moves your arm. When one billiard ball strikes another and the second moves, the impact is the occasion on which God causes the second ball to move.

The view is named for the Latin causa occasionalis, "occasional cause," as opposed to causa efficiens, "efficient cause." Created things are occasional causes (the situation in which God acts); God is the only efficient cause (the agent who actually does the causing).

The position is strongest in two historical streams. Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715), a French Oratorian priest, developed it as a Cartesian-Augustinian system, especially to solve the mind-body interaction problem Descartes had left open. Al-Ghazali (1058-1111), the great Sunni theologian, made it the centerpiece of the Ash'arite Islamic mainstream, partly as a defense of God's absolute sovereignty against Aristotelian-natural-philosophy readings.

Occasionalism is one of three classical positions on God's relationship to created causation. The other two are Divine Conservationism (God sustains creatures in existence but they have their own real causal powers) and Concurrentism (God both sustains and directly cooperates with every creaturely act). Occasionalism is the strongest position on divine sovereignty and the weakest on creaturely independence.

In full

Occasionalism is the metaphysical-theological doctrine that God is the sole efficient cause of every event in the created order. Created substances ("secondary causes" in the scholastic vocabulary) have no causal power of their own; they exist as occasions providing the natural context in which God directly causes the relevant effects. The doctrine has a strong form (all causation, including all of nature, is direct divine action) and a partial form (occasionalism about some domain only, typically mind-body interaction or miracles). Malebranche held the strong form; some early-modern figures held partial forms.

The doctrine emerges from two pressures. Theologically, it reads biblical texts about God's continuous sustaining (Acts 17:28 "in him we live, and move, and have our being"; Hebrews 1:3 "upholding all things by the word of his power"; Colossians 1:17 "in him all things consist") as language about direct ongoing causation, not merely sustaining-in-being-of-things-with-their-own-powers. Philosophically, it answers the question of how distinct substances can causally interact at all, especially Cartesian mind and body. If a mental decision and a physical motion are radically different kinds of thing, how can one cause the other? Malebranche's answer: neither causes the other; God causes both, with the mental decision being the occasion of the physical motion.

The position is the maximally strong reading of divine sovereignty in the created causal order. Its great rival, Thomist Concurrentism, holds that creatures are genuine causes whose operations God concurrently sustains and cooperates with; the weaker Divine Conservationism holds that creatures are genuine causes whose existence (but not whose causal acts) God sustains. The three positions form a spectrum: occasionalism puts all causation in God; concurrentism splits causation between God and creatures concurrently; conservationism leaves causation to the creatures while God sustains the creatures themselves.

Historical development

Islamic occasionalism is the earlier and more developed tradition.

Al-Ash'ari (874-936) and the Ash'arite school articulate occasionalism partly as a defense against Mu'tazilite rationalism (which gave creatures more autonomous causal power) and partly to ground a maximally sovereign reading of the Qur'an.
Al-Ghazali (1058-1111), in The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahafut al-Falasifa, c. 1095), gives the most famous defense of occasionalism. His targeting of necessary causal connection between natural events (the relation between fire and cotton; the relation between drinking and quenching thirst) anticipates David Hume's later skeptical argument about causation by ~700 years. Al-Ghazali argues that the conjunction of fire and burning is not a necessary connection grounded in the fire's nature but a habitual pattern God maintains; God could perfectly well cause cotton to be cold in the presence of fire and does not because of His regular ordering, not because the fire compels the burning.

Christian occasionalism appears in early-modern Cartesianism.

Géraud de Cordemoy (1626-1684) and Louis de la Forge (1632-1666) developed early Cartesian-occasionalist accounts, especially about mind-body interaction.
Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715) is the major figure. His De la recherche de la verite (1674-75) and Entretiens sur la metaphysique et sur la religion (1688) develop occasionalism as a comprehensive metaphysical system. Malebranche argues that only an infinite will can have a necessary connection to its effect, which only God's will satisfies; therefore only God's will is causally efficacious, and all other apparent causation is occasional.
Arnold Geulincx (1624-1669), a Dutch Cartesian, developed a parallel occasionalist system, especially around mind-body parallelism.

Modern engagement: contemporary philosophy of religion has revisited occasionalism, though it remains a minority position. Jonathan Kvanvig, Hugh McCann, and Alfred Freddoso have engaged the position philosophically, generally in service of arguments against occasionalism (Freddoso, "God's General Concurrence with Secondary Causes," 1991, is a classic concurrentist response). Some Reformed theologians (notably Jonathan Edwards in The Mind and his metaphysical writings) have been read as occasionalist or near-occasionalist, especially on continuous creation.

Biblical and theological grounding

The texts most often cited in occasionalism's defense:

Acts 17:28, "in him we live, and move, and have our being", read as God being the immediate ground of every act, not merely sustaining a creature that acts on its own.
Hebrews 1:3, "upholding all things by the word of his power", read as continuous direct causation rather than mere sustaining-in-existence.
Colossians 1:17, "in him all things consist", the cosmic-Christ verse read as God's direct activity throughout creation.
Daniel 5:23, "the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways", read as God's direct control over every event.
Matthew 10:29, no sparrow falls "without your Father", read as direct divine causation.
Proverbs 16:33, "the lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of Jehovah", read as God directly determining apparently-chance events.

Concurrentists and conservationists read the same texts as referring to God's sustaining-of-creatures-who-then-act (concurrentism: God concurrent with the act; conservationism: creature acts on its own once sustained). The exegetical dispute is whether biblical sustaining-language entails direct divine causation of every event.

Strengths

Maximal divine sovereignty. No event in the universe is independent of God's direct action. The position is the strongest reading of biblical texts about God's continuous activity.
Clean solution to the Cartesian mind-body problem. If neither mind nor body causes the other (both being caused by God on the occasion of the other), the question of how radically different substances interact dissolves.
Anticipates Humean causation analysis. Al-Ghazali's argument that natural conjunctions are habitual rather than necessary anticipates Hume's later argument about causation by centuries, with the difference that al-Ghazali grounds the habitual pattern in God's regular willing rather than in custom or psychological projection.
Apologetically tidy for some kinds of miracle. A miracle is not God intervening in a closed natural causal order; it is God doing what He always does (directly causing every event) but with a different pattern than usual. There is no "violation of the laws of nature" because there are no creature-laws to violate; only God's regular patterns of action.
Strong account of prayer and providence. If God directly causes every event, then God's response to prayer is metaphysically simple: He causes a different event than He otherwise would have.

Problems and standard objections

Eliminates genuine secondary causation. The view denies that creatures have real causal powers, which most Christian theology has affirmed: God grants creatures their own causal powers (Gen 1:11 "let the earth put forth grass", with the earth doing the putting-forth; Gen 1:24 "let the earth bring forth living creatures"). Aquinas argues this is essential to God's glory (a God who can grant creatures real powers is greater than one who must do all the causing Himself; SCG III.69).
Threatens the natural sciences. If natural causes do not really cause, the project of investigating natural causes is misframed. The sciences are not investigating real causal regularities but only God's habitual patterns. Most occasionalists accept this rephrasing, but the cost is significant for the philosophy of science.
Makes God the immediate cause of every evil act. If every event is directly caused by God, then God directly causes every murder, every act of cruelty, every sin. The murderer's "willing" of the act is just an occasion; God does the causing. Occasionalists respond by distinguishing physical causation (God's, direct) from moral responsibility (the creature's, mysterious), but the response strains.
Counterintuitive about causal experience. Our pretheoretical experience is that we cause our actions, our perceptions are caused by external objects, and natural events have natural causes. Occasionalism must say this whole-cloth experience is systematically misleading. The cost is high.
Threatens human freedom and moral responsibility. If God directly causes my "decision" and my action, my free will is not clearly preserved. Malebranche tried to preserve a limited human consenting-power, but the move is philosophically difficult.
Inflates miracles unnecessarily. If every event is God's direct causation, the category of miracle loses its grip. The biblical pattern is that some events are extraordinary precisely because they are not the usual pattern; occasionalism flattens this into "God's pattern varies."

Position in the spread

Occasionalism is one of three classical positions on God's relationship to created causation. The full spread:

Position	Creature's causal role	God's causal role	Standard proponent
Occasionalism	None; creatures are mere "occasions"	God is the sole efficient cause of every event	Malebranche, al-Ghazali
Concurrentism	Creatures are real causes whose acts God concurrently cooperates with	God sustains creatures and cooperates with each act	Aquinas, Reformed mainstream
Divine Conservationism	Creatures are real causes acting on their own	God sustains creatures in existence (but not their acts)	Durandus, Freddoso (modern)

The three positions agree that God sustains creatures in existence at every moment. They differ on whether creatures have their own causal powers and whether God's involvement in each causal act is direct (occasionalism), concurrent (concurrentism), or absent (conservationism).

Common questions this page answers

Q: What is occasionalism?

Occasionalism is the metaphysical position that God is the only true cause in the universe. Created things (fire, billiard balls, human wills) do not really cause anything; they are occasions on which God directly does the causing. When fire burns cotton, the fire is just the context in which God Himself causes the cotton to combust. The position was developed in Islamic theology by al-Ghazali (11th c.) and in Christian philosophy by Nicolas Malebranche (17th c.). It is the strongest classical reading of divine sovereignty over the created causal order.

Q: Who are the major occasionalists?

In Islamic philosophy, al-Ash'ari (874-936) and especially al-Ghazali (1058-1111, The Incoherence of the Philosophers) are the canonical figures; occasionalism is the Ash'arite mainstream. In Christian philosophy, Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715) developed the most systematic Christian-occasionalist account; Arnold Geulincx and Géraud de Cordemoy developed parallel Cartesian-occasionalist systems. Jonathan Edwards is sometimes read as near-occasionalist on continuous creation, though the reading is contested.

Q: Doesn't occasionalism eliminate human free will?

This is one of the standard objections. If God directly causes every event including human decisions and actions, the creature's free will and moral responsibility are difficult to preserve. Malebranche tried to maintain a limited human consenting-power, but most critics argue the move is philosophically strained. Concurrentism (Aquinas) and divine conservationism (Durandus, Freddoso) preserve genuine creaturely causal powers more straightforwardly.

Q: How is occasionalism different from concurrentism and divine conservationism?

All three are positions on God's relationship to created causation. Occasionalism: God is the only cause; creatures are just occasions. Concurrentism (Aquinas, Thomist mainstream): creatures have real causal powers, but God cooperates with every creaturely act through concursus. Divine Conservationism (Durandus, modern Freddoso): creatures have real causal powers and act on their own; God sustains them in existence but does not cooperate with each individual act. Occasionalism is the strongest on divine sovereignty; mere conservationism is the strongest on creaturely independence; concurrentism is the mainstream middle position.

Q: Did al-Ghazali anticipate Hume on causation?

In a remarkable way, yes. Al-Ghazali argues in The Incoherence of the Philosophers (c. 1095) that the conjunction of fire and burning is not a necessary connection grounded in the fire's nature but a habitual pattern God maintains. God could perfectly well cause cotton to be cold in the presence of fire and does not because of His regular ordering, not because the fire compels the burning. David Hume's later argument (1739) that we observe only constant conjunction and not necessary connection has very similar structure, with the major difference that al-Ghazali grounds the regular pattern in God's regular willing while Hume grounds it in custom or psychological projection.