Occasionalism

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For another meaning in linguistics, see Nonce word.
Occasionalism is a philosophical theory about causation which says that created substances
cannot be efficient causes of events. Instead, all events are taken to be caused directly by God. (A
related theory, which has been called "occasional causation", also denies a link of efficient causation
between mundane events, but may differ as to the identity of the true cause that replaces them. [1])
The theory states that the illusion of efficient causation between mundane events arises out of God's
causing of one event after another. However, there is no necessary connection between the two: it is
not that the first event causes God to cause the second event: rather, God first causes one and then
causes the other.

Contents

 1Islamic theological schools

 2Dualism
 3Hume's arguments, Berkeley and Leibniz
 4Quantum mechanics
 5See also
 6Notes
 7External links

Islamic theological schools[edit]

The doctrine first reached prominence in the Islamic theological schools of Iraq, especially in Basra.
The ninth century theologian Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari argued that there is no Secondary Causation in
the created order. The world is sustained and governed through direct intervention of a divine
primary causation. As such the world is in a constant state of recreation by God.
The most famous proponent of the Asharite occasionalist doctrine was Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn
Muhammad al-Ghazali, an 11th-century theologian based in Baghdad. In The Incoherence of the
Philosophers,[2][page  needed] Al-Ghazali launched a philosophical critique against Neoplatonic-
influenced early Islamic philosophers such as Al-Farabi and Ibn Sina. In response to the
philosophers' claim that the created order is governed by secondary efficient causes (God being, as
it were, the Primary and Final Cause in an ontological and logical sense), Ghazali argues that what
we observe as regularity in nature based presumably upon some natural law is actually a kind of
constant and continual regularity. There is no independent necessitation of change and becoming,
other than what God has ordained. To posit an independent causality outside of God's knowledge
and action is to deprive Him of true agency, and diminish his attribute of power. In his famous
example, when fire and cotton are placed in contact, the cotton is burned not because of the heat of
the fire, but through God's direct intervention, a claim which he defended using logic. In the 12th
century, this theory was defended and further strengthened by the Islamic theologian Fakhr al-Din
al-Razi, using his expertise in the natural sciences of astronomy, cosmology and physics.
Because God is usually seen as rational, rather than arbitrary, his behaviour in normally causing
events in the same sequence (i.e., what appears to us to be efficient causation) can be understood
as a natural outworking of that principle of reason, which we then describe as the laws of nature.
Properly speaking, however, these are not laws of nature but laws by which God chooses to govern
his own behaviour (his autonomy, in the strict sense) — in other words, his rational will. This is not,
however, an essential element of an occasionalist account, and occasionalism can include positions
where God's behaviour (and thus that of the world) is viewed as ultimately inscrutable, thus
maintaining God's essential transcendence. On this understanding, apparent anomalies such as
miracles are not really such: they are simply God behaving in a way that appears unusual to us.
Given his transcendent freedom, he is not bound even by his own nature. Miracles, as breaks in the
rational structure of the universe, can occur, since God's relationship with the world is not mediated
by rational principles.
In a 1978 article in Studia Islamica, Lenn Goodman asks the question, "Did Al-Ghazâlî Deny
Causality?"[3] and demonstrates that Ghazali did not deny the existence of observed, "worldly"
causation. According to Goodman's analysis, Ghazali does not claim that there is never any link
between observed cause and observed effect: rather, Ghazali argues that there is no necessary link
between observed cause and effect.

Dualism[edit]
One of the motivations for the theory is the dualist belief that mind and matter are so utterly different
in their essences that one cannot affect the other. Thus, a person's mind cannot be the true cause of
his hand's moving, nor can a physical wound be the true cause of mental anguish. In other words,
the mental cannot cause the physical and vice versa. Also, occasionalists generally hold that the
physical cannot cause the physical either, for no necessary connection can be perceived between
physical causes and effects. The will of God is taken to be necessary.
The doctrine is, however, more usually associated with certain seventeenth century philosophers of
the Cartesian school. There are hints of an occasionalist viewpoint here and there
in Descartes's own writings, but these can mostly be explained away under alternative
interpretations.[4] However, many of his later followers quite explicitly committed themselves to an
occasionalist position. In one form or another, the doctrine can be found in the writings of: Johannes
Clauberg, Claude Clerselier, Gerauld de Cordemoy, Arnold Geulincx, Louis de La Forge, François
Lamy, and (most notably), Nicolas Malebranche.

Hume's arguments, Berkeley and Leibniz[edit]

These occasionalists' negative argument, that no necessary connections could be discovered
between mundane events, was anticipated by certain arguments of Nicholas of Autrecourt in the
fourteenth century, and were later taken up by David Hume in the eighteenth. Hume, however,
stopped short when it came to the positive side of the theory, where God was called upon to replace
such connections, complaining that "We are got into fairy land [...] Our line is too short to fathom
such immense abysses."[5] Instead, Hume felt that the only place to find necessary connections was
in the subjective associations of ideas within the mind itself. George Berkeley was also inspired by
the occasionalists, and he agreed with them that no efficient power could be attributed to bodies. For
Berkeley, bodies merely existed as ideas in percipient minds, and all such ideas were, as he put it,
"visibly inactive".[6] However, Berkeley disagreed with the occasionalists by continuing to endow the
created minds themselves with efficient power. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz agreed with the
occasionalists that there could be no efficient causation between distinct created substances, but he
did not think it followed that there was no efficient power in the created world at all. On the contrary,
every simple substance had the power to produce changes in itself. The illusion of transeunt efficient
causation, for Leibniz, arose out of the pre-established harmony between the alterations produced
immanently within different substances. Leibniz means, that if God did not exist, "there would be
nothing real in the possibilities, not only nothing existent, but also nothing possible." [7]

Quantum mechanics[edit]
In 1993, Karen Harding's paper "Causality Then and Now: Al Ghazali and Quantum Theory"
described several "remarkable" similarities between Ghazali's concept of occasionalism and the
widely accepted Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. She stated: "In both cases, and
contrary to common sense, objects are viewed as having no inherent properties and no independent
existence. In order for an object to exist, it must be brought into being either by God (al Ghazili) or by
an observer (the Copenhagen Interpretation)." She also stated: [8]
In addition, the world is not entirely predictable. For al Ghazali, God has the ability to make anything
happen whenever He chooses. In general, the world functions in a predictable manner, but a
miraculous event can occur at any moment. All it takes for a miracle to occur is for God to not follow
His ‘custom.’ The quantum world is very similar. Lead balls fall when released because the
probability of their behaving in that way is very high. It is, however, very possible that the lead ball
may ‘miraculously’ rise rather than fall when released. Although the probability of such an event is
very small, such an event is, nonetheless, still possible.

See also[edit]
 Pre-established harmony
 Psychophysical parallelism
 Theological determinism

Notes[edit]
1. ^ Steven Nadler, 'The Occasionalism of Louis de la Forge', in Nadler (ed.), Causation in Early Modern
Philosophy (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993), 57–73; Nadler,
'Descartes and Occasional Causation', British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 2 (1994) 35–54.
2. ^ Griffel, Frank (2010), Al-Ghazali's Philosophical Theology, Oxford University Press.
3. ^ Goodman, Lenn Evan. “Did Al-Ghazâlî Deny Causality?” Studia Islamica, no. 47, 1978, pp. 83–120.
JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1595550.
4. ^ Daniel Garber, Descartes' Metaphysical Physics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 299–
305.
5. ^ David Hume, An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, sect. 7, pt. 1.
6. ^ George Berkeley, A Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, sect. 25.
7. ^ Leftow, Brian (1989).  "A Leibnizian Cosmological Argument".  Philosophical Studies: An International
Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition. 57 (2): 135–155. ISSN 0031-8116.
8. ^ Harding, Karen (Summer 1993),  "Causality Then and Now: Al Ghazali and Quantum
Theory"  (PDF), The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, 10 (2).

External links[edit]
 Cosmological Argument aiming to establish Occasionalism
 Occasionalism from the Catholic Encyclopedia
 International Society for the Study of Occasionalism
 Occasionalism article in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy