LEIBNIZ'S CRITICISM OF OCCASIONALISM AND A RESPONSE

THROUGH A RECONSTRUCTION OF AL-GHAZĀLĪ'S AND

MALEBRANCHE'S ARGUMENTS

AHMED HALİL OĞUZHAN GÜL

BOĞAZİÇİ UNIVERSITY

2019
LEIBNIZ'S CRITICISM OF OCCASIONALISM AND A RESPONSE

THROUGH A RECONSTRUCTION OF AL-GHAZĀLĪ'S AND

MALEBRANCHE'S ARGUMENTS

Thesis submitted to the

Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts

in

Philosophy

by

Ahmed Halil Oğuzhan Gül

Boğaziçi University

2019

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ii
iii
 ABSTRACT

Leibniz’s Criticism of Occasionalism and a Response Through a

Reconstruction of Al-Ghazālī’s and Malebranche’s Arguments

Occasionalism is a theory of causation in which it is argued that God is the only

causal agent and the cause-effect relations perceived in nature are actually

occasional causes or customary conjunctions determined by divine volition

(Muhtaroğlu, 2017a, p. ix). Leibniz became familiar with occasionalism through

Malebranche's elaboration. He found the occasionalist thesis problematic because

created substances lack causal powers in the occasionalist theory, which according

to him meant therefore that the theory is bound to turn into monism. For Leibniz, if

substances lack an intrinsic force to act, then their substantiality cannot be

accounted for (Leibniz, 1989, p. 159-60). This makes "God the very nature of

things, while created things disappear into mere modifications of the one divine

substance" (Leibniz, 1989, p. 165). To what extent does this criticism undermine

occasionalism? Is it possible to argue for substances while rejecting any forces

intrinsic to the natures of things? In this thesis, I will answer these questions by

using the arguments and metaphysical frameworks of two occasionalists from two

distinct traditions; al-Ghazālī from the Ashʿarite school and Malebranche from the

Cartesian occasionalists. After elaborating Leibniz's criticism, I expound on the

motivations and the arguments for occasionalism and the ontological frameworks

of the thinkers respectively. My thesis shows that the respective frameworks of al-

Ghazālī and Malebranche give them sufficient tools to argue against natures or

forces intrinsic to creatures while arguing for the existence of created substances

and hence, Leibniz's criticism is shown to be begging the question.

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 ÖZET

Leibniz’in Vesilecilik Eleştirisi ve Gazâlî ve Malebranche’ın Argümanları

Bağlamında Bir Cevap

Vesilecilik, Tanrı'nın yegane etken neden olduğunun ve doğada genellikle neden-

sonuç ilişkisi olarak algılanan ilişkilerin etkenlik içermeyen vesileler ya da

Tanrı'nın iradesine dayanan bir-arada-oluşlar olduğunun savunulduğu bir

nedensellik teorisidir (Muhtaroğlu, 2017a, p. ix). Leibniz vesilecilik teorisinden

Malebranche vasıtasıyla haberdar oldu. Leibniz'e göre vesilecilik, yaratılmış

varlıklara nedensel bir güç atfetmediği için kaçınılmaz olarak tekçiliğe kayacaktır.

Eğer bir töz, içkin bir kuvvet taşımıyorsa, tözlüğü açıklanamaz (Leibniz, 1989, p.

159-60). Böylece vesilecilik için Tanrı, şeylerin doğasının kendisi olur ve

yaratılmış şeyler tek ilahi tözün modifikasyonlarına indirgenirler (Leibniz, 1989, p.

165). Bu eleştiri vesileciliği ne ölçüde zayıflatmaktadır? Şeylerin var olduğu

onların doğalarına içkin bir kuvvetin varlığı reddedilerek savunulabilir mi? Bu

tezde bu soruları cevaplandırmaya çalışacağım. Bunu yapmak için iki farklı

vesilecilik geleneğinin iki önemli düşünürünün argümanlarını ve metafizik

çerçevelerini kullanacağım. Bu düşünürler, Eş'ari vesilecilerinden Gazâlî ve

Kartezyen vesilecilerinden Malebranche olacak. Leibniz'in eleştirisini izah ettikten

sonra bu düşünürlerin argümanlarını ve çerçevelerini ele alacağım. Tezim

göstermektedir ki Gazâlî ve Malebranche'ın metafizik çerçeveleri ve argümanları,

şeylerin doğalarına içkin bir kuvvetin varlığını reddederken aynı zamanda şeylerin

var olduklarını savunmaya imkan tanımaktadır. Böylece Leibniz'in eleştirisinin

ilkenin talebi (petito principii) mantık hatasını içerdiği anlaşılmaktadır.

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my advisors for their invaluable help from the very beginning

until the very end of this work, Dr. Nazif Muhtaroğlu and Assoc. Prof. Chryssi

Sidiropoulou. I also would like to thank Prof. Stephen Voss, Prof. Aydın

Topaloğlu and Assist. Prof. Sun Demirli for their significant contributions and

kind responses.

I am greatly indebted to my beloved wife who supported me all the way

through the best and the worst in the process. Also to my family, my mother Dr.

Ayşe Gül and my father Prof. Zafer Gül, who believed in me before I believed in

myself. Also I'd like to give special thanks to my brother Hakan who always

encouraged me and my brother-in-law Mustafa. The support of my whole family

and my in-laws have been invaluable.

I am grateful to my friends Taha, Fazıl, Furkan, Bahadır, Osman and Baber

for all their support and for listening to me present my thesis to them on numerous

occasions.

I am hugely indebted to Sidi Muhammad Mahy, whose support have been

great and indispensable.

Finally I am fully indebted to God, the First and the Last, the Apparent and

the Hidden, with whom is all might and power as the occasionalist thesis suggests.

And may His choicest peace and blessings be upon his Choicest Servant.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION……………….…….……….…………...……................1

1.1 General introduction to occasionalism……..………………...….….…..…….........1

1.2 General outline of the thesis……………………….…………...……..……............4

1.3 Leibniz's criticism of occasionalism as monism…..………….…..…..….....……...5

CHAPTER 2: AL-GHAZĀLĪ AND THE ARGUMENTS FOR ASHʿARITE

OCCASIONALISM………………………………….…………….………..…..….…......13

2.1 Al-Ghazālī and the motivation behind Ashʿarite occasionalism……........….........13

2.2 Was al-Ghazālī actually an occasionalist?...............................................................15

2.3 Al-Ghazālī's arguments for occasionalism and Ashʿarite metaphysics...................18

2.4 Infinite regress and the problem of actual infinity……………………..................22

2.5 Modality, necessary connection and natures according to al-Ghazālī…................27

2.6 A Ghazālīan response to Leibniz's arguments against occasionalism….………...35

CHAPTER 3: MALEBRANCHE AND THE CARTESIAN

OCCASIONALISTS............................................................................................................40

3.1 Main motivations for occasionalism amongst the Cartesians….….……...............40

3.2 Descartes, substance-mode relations, clear and distinct ideas....….……....……...41

3.3 Malebranche's arguments for occasionalism.……..……………….….………......45

3.4 A response to Leibniz's criticism using Malebranche's arguments................….....50

CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION………………..….…..……………………..…..................54

APPENDIX: END NOTES…...……………….……….…………………....….....……....56

REFERENCES………………..………………..………..…………….……......................60

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 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 General introduction to occasionalism

The question that pertains to the nature of causation has been asked numerous

times in the history of philosophy by philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas,

Nicholas Malebranche, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, David Hume and Immanuel

Kant. As a phenomenon that they have witnessed many times, people commonly

take it for granted that when a cotton thread is held near fire, the thread will catch

fire and it will burn to ashes. But can the relation between these two events

actually be demonstrated to be necessary? David Hume (d. 1776) with his

empiricist epistemology famously denied that the necessity of causal relations

can be taken for granted in his Treatise on Human Nature and Enquiry

Concerning Human Understanding. He argued that when event A occurs before

event B numerous times, it is a habit of our minds to assume a necessary causal

link between the two, but we never actually have an impression of this causal link

itself. It is not reason but induction and habit that leads us to assume such a

connection and as such, it is no more than mere personal and social belief, as

induction would never yield definite results (Hume, 2000, 2007).

Before Hume's criticism of the necessity of causal relations in the world,

Ashʿarite occasionalists in the Islamic tradition like Abū Ḥāmid Muhammad al-

Ghazālī (d. 1111) and Cartesian occasionalists like Nicholas Malebranche (d.

1715) have argued against the existence of an actual causal link between things in

the world altogether. Instead, they argued that everything we observe and

1
generally posit as causes are mere occasions for God to directly intervene and

create. In fact, it is well-known and declared also by Hume that he has read

Malebranche when he was in France and adopted some of Malebranche's

criticisms against the scholastic defense of causation while rejecting also the

occasionalist thesis at the center of Malebranche’s arguments (McCracken, 1983).

Occasionalism is becoming an important area of research recently again through its

connection with Hume’s philosophy and British Empiricism, its relation with the

Cartesian and Islamic philosophies, and the role it played in arguing against

Aristotelian natures prevalent amongst the scholastics [1]. In addition to the history

of philosophy, it is also appealing for those who would like to propose original,

comprehensive and consistent interpretations of modern science [2].

In The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahāfut al-Falāsifah), al-

Ghazālī has argued in very similar lines to Hume and said that empirical data

does not lead us to discover necessary causal connections between events, giving

the above example of the burning of cotton and fire, that we only perceive

recurring simultaneous occurrences of certain events. So bringing fire and a

piece of cotton together would not necessarily entail the burning of cotton as

there is no logical entailment. Unlike Hume however, occasionalists did not

argue against an epistemological access to an ontological grounding of causal

necessity altogether, but argued that causation regarding temporally originated

things and events is rationally necessary, and the sole causal agent possible is

God. Hence, every event that happens and every created substance and accident

is necessarily linked to God’s causal agency. These arguments will be elaborated

in more detail in the following chapters.

2
 The ideas of Cartesian occasionalists such as Nicholas Malebranche,

Géraud de Cordemoy and Louis de la Forge were criticized by many

philosophers such as John Locke, David Hume and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz,

all of whom argued against the occasionalist framework from different angles.

This thesis will be focusing on G. W. Leibniz's criticism of occasionalism as

monism as an opening question, and expound on the occasionalist arguments

brought forth by al-Ghazālī and Malebranche to finally formulate a response to

this criticism. It should be mentioned here that this is not the only criticism that

Leibniz brought against occasionalism, but the thesis will be revolving around

this particular criticism and the questions raised by it.

While occasionalism as a theory of causation was widely left behind

along with much of metaphysics after Hume and Kant in Western academia, it

did not wither completely, especially not from the Islamic intellectual space [3].

Nazif Muhtaroğlu and Ozgur Koca argue that in the late 19th and early 20th

century, there was a hot debate in Ottoman intellectual circles regarding the

implications of modern scientific theories as they were imported from the West

(Muhtaroğlu & Koca, 2017). While some Ottoman thinkers like Beşir Fuad (d.

1887) accepted positivism, other Muslim intellectuals like Ali Sedad (d. 1900)

and Hamdi Yazır (d. 1942) tried to disassociate modern science from its

materialist interpretation and adapt it to their own occasionalist framework. Ali

Sedad argued in his Principles of Transformation in the Motion of Particles

(1883) that atomism and thermodynamics, which were certain novel scientific

discoveries of his era, provided external support to the Ashʿarite occasionalist

position which postulated the existence of atoms and the constant renewal of

accidents (Ibid).

3
1.2 General outline of the thesis

For the purposes of my work, the starting point of my thesis is Leibniz’s criticism

of occasionalism as monism. In the last section of the first chapter, I discuss

Leibniz’s criticism in which he claims that occasionalism necessarily boils down

to a monist framework where everything turns into the modifications of a single

divine substance. How and to what extent does Leibniz’s criticism undermine the

occasionalist thesis, how and how well can a response to his criticism be

constructed using both Malebranche’s and al-Ghazālī’s arguments are the

opening questions of my thesis. After presenting Leibniz's criticism of

occasionalism in the first chapter, I explore and discuss the occasionalist thesis as

formulated by al-Ghazālī and Malebranche in the second and third chapters.

The focus of the thesis then is for the most part a thematic and historical

study of occasionalism and the arguments for it as formulated by al-Ghazālī and

Malebranche in particular and arguments brought forth by Islamic and Cartesian

occasionalists in general, their respective metaphysical frameworks and

motivations for developing occasionalism. The opening questions about

Leibniz's criticism of occasionalism as monism function as a way to explain and

discuss the arguments for the occasionalism of al-Ghazālī and Malebranche in

depth and in turn, this explanation serves to demonstrate whether occasionalism

as defended by al-Ghazālī and Malebranche is actually prone to monism as

suggested by Leibniz or whether certain theoretical tools in their metaphysical

frameworks and their argumentations help block the way towards a monist

understanding. I argue that by an exposition of the occasionalist arguments of al-

Ghazālī and Malebranche, it can be shown that occasionalism does not

necessarily lead to monism and Leibniz's criticism begs the question.

4
 The primary sources I use in this study are Moderation in Belief (Al-

Iqtiṣād fī aI-Iʿtiqād) and The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahāfut al-

Falāsifa) by al-Ghazālī, The Search After Truth (De la Recherche de la Vérité)

and Dialogues on Metaphysics and Religion (Entretiens sur la Métaphysique et

sur la Religion) by Malebranche, Leibniz's Philosophical Essays edited and

translated by Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber and Leibniz-Arnauld

Correspondence edited and translated by Stephen Voss. I also made use of a

wide variety of secondary sources for context and argumentation, which are

mentioned in the references section.

Leibniz’s criticism is discussed in the next section of the first chapter. In

the second and third chapters I explore and discuss the arguments for

occasionalism by al-Ghazālī and Malebranche. Afterwards I construct

arguments against Leibniz's criticism using and developing al-Ghazālī’s and

Malebranche’s arguments and frameworks for occasionalism. My conclusion is

that Leibniz ultimately fails to undermine occasionalism and his claim that

occasionalism is bound to turn into monism begs the question.

1.3 Leibniz's criticism of occasionalism as monism

G. W. Leibniz (d. 1716) criticizes Malebranche's thesis of occasionalism

extensively in On Nature Itself (De Ipse Natura) (Leibniz, 1989, pp. 155-167).

He claims that occasionalism necessarily boils down to a monist framework in

which everything turns into the modifications of a single divine substance

(Leibniz, 1989, p. 165). This is no small charge, considering the fact that monism

carries fundamental problems for a monotheistic understanding of God according

to many theistic philosophers except for a few figures like Baruch Spinoza (d.

5
1677). Spinoza famously grounded his philosophy on the thesis that God or

Nature (Deus sive Natura) signify the same underlying substance for all that

exists (Della Rocca, 2008). This line of thought is considered to be problematic

by other philosophers, due to undermining God’s transcendence and the

ontological connection it proposes between the temporal occurrents in the world

and the being of God, which is generally seen by monotheists as a form of

heresy. The famous enlightenment thinker Friedrich Jacobi (d. 1819) charged

Spinozism with pure materialism and atheism (di Giovanni, 2009). As such, it is

understandable that neither Leibniz, nor Malebranche who both argue for a

personal God are sympathetic towards this monist framework where everything in

the world boils down to the modifications of a single, unitary divine substance

and there is no real differentiation between God and the rest of existents. In fact,

Malebranche in his letters to De Mairan openly wrote that he despises Spinozism

and argued against it (Ablondi, 1998, p. 3). So this particular criticism towards

the occasionalist thesis by Leibniz is significant because occasionalists would not

want their framework to be open to such a criticism and both parties would

consider that this charge would undermine the occasionalist thesis altogether if it

is justified.

The occasionalist theory of causation rejects necessary natures and any

causation that follows from the natures of things. Instead, it proposes that all

efficient causality belongs to God alone. What is perceived as causes and effects

inherent in the natures of things are simply occasional causes happening in

conjunction solely by the will of God without any necessity following from their

natures (Malebranche, 1980, p. 448). So for instance, fire does not burn by

necessity and cotton does not get burnt by necessity when in contact with fire,

6
but it is God who causes the burning when they are together. Fire is only the

occasional cause for the burning without any real efficient causality.

As a response to the occasionalist thesis, Leibniz argues that

occasionalism is bound to turn into monism by saying that the occasionalist

theory lacks what is fundamental to keep a substance qua substance. He states:

…[W]e cannot exempt him [Malebranche] from criticism unless he can

explain how it is that things themselves can endure through time, even
while those attributes of things, which we call by the name 'nature' in
them, cannot endure… (Leibniz, 1989, p. 159)
For Leibniz, a necessary condition for objects to be counted as a

substance is for them to persist in time. To persist in time on the other hand,

would depend on a nature that belongs to the object, a nature that itself persists,

a nature which is found in certain attributes that belong to the object. While

certain properties of the substance go through change in time, the attributes that

constitute the nature of the substance nevertheless stay the same and account for

the persistence of the substance. Leibniz argues that this nature is essentially

related with causality:

… [T]he very substance of a thing consists in a force for acting and being
acted upon. From this it follows that persisting things cannot be produced
if no force lasting through time can be imprinted on them by divine
power. (Leibniz, 1989, p. 159-60)
Sukjae Lee elaborates that a force for acting and being acted upon

constitute the nature of a thing which gives it its persistence, or its trans-

temporal identity according to Leibniz (Lee, 2015, p. 144). The causal history of

a substance functions in differentiating it from other substances, individuating it

and giving it a trans-temporal unity. Hence according to this line of argument,

the denial of natures or forces to act for things also leads to a denial of their

substantiality.

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 At this point, it is important also to recall Leibniz's famous pre-established

harmony theory, as it may give us a better idea of his understanding of a

substance and his criticism of occasionalism. With his account of a substance,

Leibniz proposes a unique solution to the mind-body problem. The interaction

between mind and body was extensively discussed by rationalists of his age such

as Descartes, later Cartesians such as Malebranche and also by Spinoza.

According to Leibniz's account, a true substance must include true unity and

reality along with a force to act as mentioned. He argues that extended beings

lack these qualities of true unity and absolute reality. As he takes space to be a

continuum where extended bodies are infinitely divisible, he argues that bodies

cannot be considered real substances. This is because a true unity and absolute

reality can only be achieved by being simple and indivisible, which is not to be

found in extension. He says:

I don't really eliminate body, but reduce it to what it is. For I show that
corporeal mass, which is thought to have something over and above
simple substances, is not a substance, but a phenomenon resulting from
simple substances, which alone have unity and absolute reality. (Leibniz,
1989, p. 181)
Therefore, he takes bodies, motion and everything belonging to the world

of extension as a derivative of real substances which are monads as only these

entities satisfy the necessary conditions for being a substance according to

Leibniz. Monads are simple, indivisible, indestructible, active, mind-like

individual substances, infinitely many in number and perfection, all perceiving

the world from their point of view in accord with the omniscience of God

(Leibniz, 1989, pp. 69-81). What concerns our thesis is the fact that although

according to Leibniz, the nature of a thing is constituted by a force to act and to

be acted upon, none of these substances in his system have a power to act and

cause any change in any other substance with the exclusion of God, which is

8
quite similar to occasionalism. The difference between his system and

occasionalism however is that while he rejects inter-substantial causality, he

argues that substances have a force to act upon themselves and cause changes in

their own states. These changes that occur within a substance through its causal

power provide it with a causal history, give it a trans-temporal identity,

individuate it and differentiate it from other substances. He argues that this is the

case because the transfer of properties amongst different substances is

inexplicable. He explains further how everything about a particular substance is

already included in its concept and says: "I hold that every substance contains in

its concept all its states, past and future, and even expresses the whole universe

according to its point of view…" (Leibniz & Arnauld, 2016, p. 237). This also

means that individual substances do not require any effect from any substance

apart from themselves to explain the changes of their states. As no substance in

reality interacts with any other but only with itself, each state of every substance

is caused by its own previous state in time, yet God has pre-established these

monads in such a way that everything that occurs unfolds in perfect harmony, be

it amongst minds and bodies or otherwise (Leibniz, 1989, p. 144). So when I

wish to raise my hand, my hand is raised according to a previous bodily state of

my hand and not as a result of my wish. On the other hand, the fulfillment of my

wish to raise my hand causes another state in my mind without any interaction

with my body. This is because God decided for everything to unfold in a pre-

established harmony as this is the best possible way for things to be created

according to Leibniz (Leibniz, 1989, p. 39).

As such, according to Leibniz, the force to act and be acted upon does not

refer to inter-substantial causality. However, even if it was the case that there

9
was inter-substantial causality in the occasionalist system like concurrentism, it

would be exempt from the particular criticism that Leibniz brought against it,

namely that it is bound to turn into monism, albeit being open to other kinds of

criticisms. Occasionalism according to Leibniz, lacks the fundamental building

block of a substance; a force to act and be acted upon, or a nature which signifies

the essence of a substance and accounts for its persistence, its trans-temporal

substantial unity and individuation. Without efficient causality and the causal

history that results from it, trans-temporal substantial unity and individuation

cannot be accounted for. If trans-temporal substantial unity and individuation are

left unaccounted for, it would mean that nothing can be differentiated and

separated from one another, turning occasionalism into monism with only a

single substance remaining in existence, i.e. God (Leibniz, 1989, p. 159-160).

To bring Leibniz's criticism of occasionalism closer to understanding,

Sukjae Lee expounds on an example that Leibniz gives to support his case (Lee,

2015, pp. 147-151). For Leibniz, if we suppose that there are two objects A and

B with the exact same properties, except that one of them is in motion and the

other at rest, and we examine their properties at t1, then we will not be able to

distinguish the two if we accept the occasionalist thesis of Malebranche. This is

because for Cartesian occasionalists, any inherent force to bring about motion is

not seen as a property of extended substances, as properties or modes of

extension are exhausted by relations of distance in the Cartesian framework

(Malebranche, 1997, p. 106). God conserves the being of A at different locations

over time, which we observe as motion, while He conserves B at the same

location which we observe as being at rest. So motion is explained for

Malebranche and for Cartesian occasionalists, through a relation of distance

10
over time and not through an inherent force that brought its existence about. For

Leibniz, this means that if their properties are examined at t1, they will be

revealed as exactly the same, making them indistinguishable. Therefore, they

cannot be individuated or differentiated from one another, and their trans-

temporal substantial unity comes into question. The occasionalist may wish at

this point to refer to the future states of the respective objects at t2 to show that

object A is changing in location while object B is staying the same and that they

are distinguishable by reference to their future states. Lee suggests that Leibniz

will respond to such a move by arguing that involving future properties is akin to

saying that the state of an object in the future follows from its present state,

which is the same as accepting the force of its nature that is antithetical to the

occasionalist theory (Lee, 2015, p. 150).

To what extent does this criticism undermine the occasionalist thesis? Can

substance be formulated otherwise? How are trans-temporal substantial unity

and individuation going to be accounted for, if not by the causal history of the

substance? If it can be shown that substantial unity can be provided without a

reference to a nature or a force to act inherent in the thing, this will show that

Leibniz's criticism actually depends on an unwarranted premise regarding the

nature of substances, that substantiality must depend on forces intrinsic to their

natures, which would mean that his criticism begs the question (petito principii).

In the next two chapters, I will pursue these questions by examining the

occasionalist frameworks of two philosophers from two distinct traditions; al-

Ghazālī from the Islamic Ashʿarite tradition and Malebranche from the

Cartesian occasionalist tradition. I will do this by first examining their respective

theories of occasionalism in detail with their argumentations and their

11
ontological frameworks. I will then return to Leibniz's criticism at the end of

each chapter.

In the second chapter, I will first examine the occasionalist thesis as

formulated by al-Ghazālī at length. I will explain his arguments and present the

general framework from within which he works out his arguments, i.e. the

Ashʿarite metaphysics, as this framework will provide us with the tools to argue

against Leibniz's criticism. In the final section I will construct arguments using

the tools present in al-Ghazālī's system to formulate a response to Leibniz's

criticism against occasionalism.

In the third chapter, I will examine Malebranche's arguments for

occasionalism and the Cartesian ontology he is working within. After doing so, I

will use Malebranche's arguments and formulate a response against Leibniz's

criticism against occasionalism.

In conclusion, I will show that Leibniz's criticism boils down to a

particular understanding of substance, which does not hold true universally and

can be argued against, but one which Leibniz takes as a premise from the

beginning. As such, the claim that occasionalism is bound to turn into monism

will be shown to be begging the question.

12
 CHAPTER 2

AL-GHAZĀLĪ AND THE ARGUMENTS FOR ASHʿARITE

OCCASIONALISM

2.1. Al-Ghazālī and the motivation behind Ashʿarite occasionalism

Occasionalism is a theory of causation which argues that God is the only cause for

all the occurrents that come to exist, the only efficient cause for all the effects that

come to be. What is perceived as causes and effects in the world are only habitual

conjunctive occurrents or occasional causes by way of God's will to make them as

such, without any necessity following from the natures of things, or actual causal

relations existing in between them. While this underlying definition unites both

Islamic and Cartesian versions of occasionalism, the motivations for coming up

with such a theory of causation differ between the two traditions. One of the major

points that has to be made regarding al-Ghazālī's version of occasionalism in

contradistinction to Malebranche's version of occasionalism is that the arguments

for the former are pretty much intertwined with the arguments he brings for the

existence of God and His attributes (al-Ghazālī, 2013). For the latter however, the

motivation has more so to do with following the Cartesian ontology to its natural

implications as Cartesian occasionalists saw it on matters like substance dualism

and substance-mode relations. Therefore, the arguments put forth by al-Ghazālī

and the Ashʿarites to support occasionalism cannot be completely separated from

one another as they are tied to the arguments regarding the existence of one or

more of the attributes of God and the existence of His essence likewise, making

the arguments stronger than they would have been if they were completely

separate from one another. In Moderation in Belief, al-Ghazālī argues for the

13
existence of God with the divine attributes of knowledge, power and will while at

the same time arguing for occasionalism (Ibid). The arguments, such as the

argument from temporality, argument from contingency, the argument from

necessary connection and the necessary conditions he brings forth for qualifying to

be an efficient cause et. al. all support one another in arguing for the existence of

God with the attributes of will, power and knowledge and arguing that

occasionalism is the only tenable option as a theory of causation, which will be

explored in this chapter. At the end of this exploration, it will be tested whether the

arguments al-Ghazālī brings forth, and the metaphysics he adopts carry any tools

to argue against Leibniz's thesis that occasionalism is bound to give way to

monism.

The motivation behind developing a coherent occasionalist theory for al-

Ghazālī has a lot to do with explaining the relation between the world and God,

harmoniously with how it is found in the Islamic doctrine and the Qur'an. The

scope of God's attributes, especially his agency in the world, including the nature

of miracles are also part of the motivation for the development of the theory of

occasionalism. Al-Ghazālī's aim also is to show that the nature of the world

necessarily leads reason to the existence of God with specific attributes and leads

also to the theory of occasionalism regardless of the miracles found in the

scripture. So his arguments which can be examined in the First and Second

Treatises of Moderation in Belief also mean to prove that occasionalism is the only

tenable option as a causal theory according to reason and the existence of God and

His attributes as found in revelation are also rationally necessary due to the nature

of the world (al-Ghazālī, 2013). So in this sense, for al-Ghazālī and for the

Ashʿarite occasionalists, Islamic doctrine and the religious scriptures function as a

14
context of discovery, and what is discovered within this context is then justified

through an examination of the world and the usage of reason. Before his arguments

are explained in depth, a short discussion has to be made regarding the question

whether or not al-Ghazālī actually adhered to the occasionalist position as was put

forth by some thinkers in the recent decades.

2.2 Was al-Ghazālī actually an occasionalist?

Al-Ghazālī's occasionalism has been the topic of a debate in the academia in the

past few decades (Yaqub, 2017). Despite almost no dispute for nearly a millennium

since the time of al-Ghazālī, whether or not al-Ghazālī actually adhered to the

occasionalist position was put into question and the view that he actually did not

endorse occasionalism has become popular in the academia. Some of the figures

that defend this view are Massimo Campanini (1996) and Frank Griffel (2009).

Griffel argued that al-Ghazālī did not adhere to the occasionalist theory, but only

presented it in some of his works. For Griffel, al-Ghazālī's actual position which

allowed for secondary natural causes was hinted in some of his works when they

are thoroughly analyzed. Despite this, Griffel argues that al-Ghazālī used an

occasionalist language in almost all of his works so that his general readership

which was made up of Ashʿarites who adhere to occasionalism would easily adopt

his works rather than reject them. He states:

Despite its openly occasionalist language, even in his Al-Iqtiṣād fī al-

Iʿtiqād, al-Ghazālī shows no sign that he committed himself exclusively to
an occasionalist cosmology… [H]ere as in most of his works, al-Ghazālī
wishes to leave open whether these events are created directly by God or
are the results of secondary causes. (Griffel, 2009, p. 204)

15
 Campanini also argued that it could not have been possible for al-Ghazālī

to have argued against natural causation altogether, and that he was only against a

necessary connection between a cause and effect independent of God's will. On

this he said:

It is wrong to think that al-Ghazālī absolutely denied the existence of

natural causality. To deny that fire burns cotton would be foolish. What al-
Ghazālī denies is the existence of a necessary connection between the
cause and the caused independently of the Will of God who creates the fact
of burning. (Campanini, 1996, pp. 262-63)
As a response to these two thesis, Aladdin Yaqub makes a strong defense

for the occasionalism of al-Ghazālī, elaborating al-Ghazālī's views and refuting the

arguments made by the critiques (Yaqub, 2017, pp. 22-38). To give a brief

overview, against Griffel's arguments, Yaqub argues that this is a kind of a

getaway approach such that no matter how much textual evidence is presented, the

response would simply be to say that even though an occasionalist language is

employed by Ghazali, he did not actually mean to adopt the occasionalist view.

Rather, he used such a language so that his readers would easily adopt his view and

not reject it. As such, Griffel's position is reading into al-Ghazālī beyond what he

has written despite massive textual evidence to the contrary (Ibid, p. 28). It is a

way of focusing on a few ambiguous passages to refute clear and obvious

meanings in many others, which is not a legitimate way to approach a text.

As for Campanini's view that fire is actually considered as a secondary

cause by al-Ghazālī and that he only rejects a necessary connection between

secondary causes and their effects free from the will of God, Yaqub says that in

many passages, such as those in the 17th discussion of The Incoherence, al-

Ghazālī clearly states that an inanimate object such as fire cannot be considered an

agent (Ibid, p. 26). These passages clearly state that not only can inanimate objects

16
such as fire cannot be primary causes, they cannot even be secondary causes,

because they lack a major property which would make them causal agents; life. Al-

Ghazālī writes:

The one who enacts the burning by creating the blackness in the cotton,
[causing] separation of its parts, and by making it cinder or ashes, is God
(Exalted is He), either through the intermediacy of angels or through no
intermediaries. As for fire, which is inanimate, it has no action. (al-Ghazālī,
2000, p. 167)

In any divine causation theory where God continues to be an active agent in

the world such as concurrentism or occasionalism, God is the primary cause for the

occurrents that come to exist. The difference in these theories is with regards to

secondary causation and whether anything other than God can be attributed with

real causal efficacy. The proponents of concurrentism argue that causal efficacy

can be attributed to created beings. On the other hand, the proponents of

occasionalism argue that only God can be attributed with real causal efficacy,

because only God satisfies the necessary conditions for efficient causality. As

such, occasional causes are not endowed with causal efficacy but only serve as

occasions for God to directly intervene and create. The difference between

concurrentism and occasionalism will be further discussed in the third chapter.

As for the efficient causality of angels or humans which are animate, al-

Ghazālī states above that they can be intermediaries for the acts of God as agents

endowed with life, but even then, being an intermediary agent is understood not as

being a real cause, due to their lacking certain qualities such as complete

knowledge of the act in the case of humans and will that has any freedom from

God in the case of angels, which allows them to be considered as a real cause (al-

Ghazālī, 1987, pp. 134-138). This is because for al-Ghazālī, certain conditions

have to be fulfilled in order to qualify for being a real cause which will be

17
explained later. The necessary connection between God's will and its effect which

is mentioned both by al-Ghazālī and Malebranche also makes the concept of a

secondary cause null and void. To understand these issues in a more elaborate

way, al-Ghazālī's understanding of causation, its necessary conditions and his

arguments for it have to be explained.

2.3 Al-Ghazālī's arguments for occasionalism and Ashʿarite metaphysics

As has been stated in the previous sections, the proofs for the existence of God

and His attributes are closely related to the proofs regarding occasionalism for al-

Ghazālī. The starting point for al-Ghazālī is an examination of the world in the

here and now, which gives the examiner a few qualities that are fundamental to the

nature of the objects in the world (al-Ghazālī, 2013, pp. 27-28). This process of

examination is one which includes both observation and rational inquiry about that

which is being observed. The objects around us, such as the pen and the paper that

I am writing with, have the quality of being temporal occurrents. Occurrent here is

a translation of the Arabic word ḥādith which al-Ghazālī uses, and it is used to

signify any object, property or event that has a beginning in time (as opposed to

pre-eternal or kadīm) and is subject to change. This means that the objects and

events around us that we perceive which are subject to change, can either be

observed to have a beginning, or it can be rationally perceived that they have a

beginning. For instance, I have observed the event of my writing on this paper,

which means I observed the temporality of the event of the writing and the

temporality of that which is written on the paper. Therefore, I know from firsthand

experience that these are occurrents. On the other hand, I can also easily perceive

18
that the pen and the paper that I am using in this process have come to exist at a

certain point in time as they were produced by people in a factory or elsewhere,

also making them occurrents. If something or an event is ḥādith (temporally

occurrent), then it requires a muḥdith (that which brings it into existence from non-

existence or an originator). This is because only nothing can come from nothing,

and if something exists and has a beginning, then its existence must depend on the

existence of something other than itself (Ibid, pp. 28-29). As it will be explained,

al-Ghazālī argues that the world must also be temporally occurrent as it cannot be

pre-eternal, which means it also needs an originator to exist. This argument can be

called the argument from temporality or origination (ḥuduth) (Akgün, 2011, p. 19).

It is an early version of the kalam cosmological argument used widely by theists

for the existence of God, a recent proponent being William L. Craig (Craig, 1979).

Understanding the ontology of al-Ghazālī and the Ashʿarite occasionalists

in general will give the reader a better understanding of why every existent thing

around us is considered to be occurrents in their framework, and why the picture is

even more radical than what is mentioned in the previous paragraph. Maimonides

(d. 1204) summarized the occasionalist Ashʿarite metaphysics and other positions

in the kalam tradition in twelve propositions and explained them in The Guide of

the Perplexed (Muhtaroğlu, 2017b, p. 115). I will refer to the propositions that are

important in helping us understand the matter at hand. These are propositions

number one, three, five, six and eight. They are the following:

1. All things [substances] are composed of atoms.

3. Time is composed of atomic units.
5. Each atom is completely furnished with its accidents and cannot exist
without them.
6. Accidents do not continue in existence during two moments (time-atoms).

19
 8. All existing things (i.e. all creatures) consist of substance and accidents,
and the physical form of a thing is likewise an accident. (Ibid)

By examining these propositions, we understand that for al-Ghazālī and for

the Ashʿarite occasionalists, everything around us is to be understood via

substances which are made up of atomic units that provide the substratum for the

accidents that they carry. These accidents or the properties which cannot endure

for more than a moment are carried by the aforementioned substances. Substances

and their accidents can only be separated from each other conceptually as neither

can do without the other. For instance, the color of a ball, its size, shape or its

motion are accidents which belong to the ball. Neither can the ball exist without

having any accidents, nor can these accidents exist, without having a substance to

inhere in. As the accidents cannot endure for more than one moment, they are

annihilated after each moment of their existence and require an external factor that

would keep them in existence. Likewise, as the substance cannot be separated from

its accidents, once all its accidents are annihilated after each moment, it also ceases

to exist, and requires an external originator that will bring its existence about once

again. As such, it must be noted that this formulation of an atomist metaphysics is

fundamentally different than the atomist ontology proposed by the Ancient Greeks.

For atomists in Ancient Greece such as Democritus (d. 370 BCE) or later for

Epicurus (d. 270 BCE) and his followers, atoms are the fundamental building

blocks of the world which persist by themselves without an external factor

(Warren, 2002). For Ashʿarites on the other hand, atoms require an external agent

to keep them in existence as they cannot persist by themselves for two instances of

time. This is because time is also composed of atoms in the Ashʿarite ontology and

it also is not continuous. Thus, the Ashʿarite occasionalist ontology which al-

Ghazālī also adopts is one in which everything is constantly annihilated and

20
nothing can stay in existence for more than a moment. As such, it is demonstrated

that in such an ontology, to continue existing through time, each thing which

turned out to be an occurrent must be brought about at every moment anew.

This brings one back to the axiomatic principle in metaphysics previously

mentioned which states that anything that has a beginning must have a cause that

brought its existence about, in order to have a reasonable explanation of that

occurrent. As such, not only did everything turn out to be occurrents that are

temporally originated in the Ashʿarite occasionalist metaphysics, but they are also

revealed to be contingent beings, meaning their existence cannot depend on

themselves, and they must be the effect of an efficient cause which is other than

themselves that brought them to be. Due to the fact that accidents cannot endure

for more than one moment, it is also impossible for accidents to pass from one

thing to another. This means that a substance or its accident cannot be the efficient

cause of an effect in another substance or its accident. In such a metaphysics, it is

impossible for any occurrent to qualify for being an efficient cause of any effect,

and God is the only possible and therefore necessary cause for every existent.

Even though the atomist ontology renders it impossible for anything else to

be efficient causes due to the non-enduring nature of the accidents, there are

further proofs for occasionalism that al-Ghazālī employs, especially while refuting

the thesis of philosophers like Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) (d. 1037) in The Incoherence of

the Philosophers and elsewhere, where he brings forth several arguments for

occasionalism and conditions for being an efficient cause that are not built upon

the premise of the non-endurance of accidents. I will explain one such argument

by al-Ghazālī which is built upon the necessary connection between an efficient

cause and its effect as I believe it is an important argument in defense of

21
occasionalism against its opponents who do not adhere to the aforementioned

ontology. Al-Ghazālī adopts this premise from Ibn Sīnā's causality theory while

rejecting his understanding of modality, natural causal necessity and the pre-

eternality of the world, which I will explain in the next sections. I will also explain

the necessary conditions al-Ghazālī mentions for qualifying to be an efficient

cause, as I think they are an important part of his proofs for occasionalism.

2.4 Infinite regress and the problem of actual infinity

One important point to emphasize at this moment is that being temporally

originated is not meant to be one and the same thing with being contingent

conceptually. While being an occurrent implies that the particular thing is also

contingent, it does not mean that all contingent things are necessarily temporally

originated occurrents. The difference can be understood through Ibn Sīnā's model

of the world which includes infinite perfect movements of supra-lunar planets and

infinite generation in the sub-lunar world following Aristotle's model. In the way

that Ibn Sīnā adopts this model, the universe in its totality is contingent by virtue

of its own essence and necessary by virtue of and dependent upon its efficient

cause that is the Necessary Existent or God. At the same time it is pre-eternal and

not temporally originated (Ibn Sīnā, 2009, p. 64). So for Ibn Sīnā, a series can

have an infinite number of elements, but nevertheless be contingent upon

something other than itself, due to the contingency of all of its elements and hence

of the contingency of the whole series.

Al-Ghazālī found the idea of a pre-eternal world problematic, because the

world is never empty of occurrents, and a pre-eternal world would entail infinite

22
regress; that there is a set of occurrents with infinitely many members and he

found the idea of such infinity absurd (al-Ghazālī, 2013, p. 37) [4]. He stated that

this idea of infinity entails many contradictions, which can be explained through

infinite cycles of the planets in the celestial sphere in Ibn Sīnā's model of the

universe. The number of the cycles, which have been occurring since infinity, are

either odd or even, for a number cannot be both odd and even at the same time. But

in either case it does not make sense, because if it is even, why is it lacking a

number which would make it odd, and if it is odd, why is it lacking a number which

would make it even? In either case, infinity is shown to be lacking and it is

contradictory for infinity to be lacking a number according to al-Ghazālī (Ibid, 38).

Another example he gives is the different amount of times it takes for planets to

complete their celestial cycles. If these planets have been revolving since infinity,

that would mean that there are two infinities, one of which is greater than the other

and the other is missing something which can be added to it. But how is it possible

for an infinite to be lacking something? Al-Ghazālī writes:

Saturn according to them, revolves once every thirty years and the sun
revolves once every year. Thus, the number of Saturn's revolutions is equal
to one third of one tenth of the sun's revolutions. For the sun revolves thirty
times in thirty years and Saturn revolves once; and one to thirty is one third
of one tenth. Furthermore, the revolutions of Saturn are infinite, and they
are fewer then the revolutions of the sun, since it is necessarily known that
one third of one tenth of a magnitude is smaller than that magnitude…
Although every one of these numbers is infinite, nevertheless some of them
are smaller than others. This is clearly impossible. (al-Ghazālī, 2013, p. 38)

Thus we see how al-Ghazālī argues against the concept of an actual

infinity. William L. Craig also famously argued in similar lines against the concept

of actual infinity in his Kalam Cosmological Argument, making use of paradoxes

like Hilbert's hotel to show that an actual infinity yields contradictory results and

hence must be rejected (Craig, 1979). Many paradoxes can be related to Hilbert’s

23
hotel which has an infinite number of rooms that can host an infinite number of

people. For instance, if all the people in the odd numbered rooms leave, an

infinitely many people will have left the hotel. However, after placing each person

left in the hotel to half the number of their previous room number (person in room

2 goes to room 1, room 4 goes to room 2 and so on), the hotel will still be full

again. In a second case, if all the people in the hotel leave except the people in the

first three rooms, then only three people will be left in the hotel. The amount of

people that left the hotel are the same infinite number in both cases as they are

matchable according to the modern concept of actual infinity. Yet in one case we

have an infinite number of people left in the hotel and only three left in the other

case, which is absurd. On the other hand, since the rigorous work of Cantor and his

school at the turn of the 20th century, actual infinities are seen as a well-defined

and consistent mathematical concept and are accepted amongst the various schools

of mathematics with the exception of the intuitionist school (Doko, 2017). Doko

argues that it is possible to accept actual infinities in mathematics and in abstract

sets while rejecting them in the actual world. This is because the absurdities that al-

Ghazālī and Craig argue about actual infinities relate to aspects of the world which

are ruled out in mathematics for actual infinities for the sake of consistency and

which must be ruled out, but it is not possible to rule them out in the actual world

(Ibid). One major example is subtraction and division. Subtraction and division is

ruled out of the mathematics of actual infinity, solving the aforementioned paradox

of Hilbert's hotel. For the events that have passed or for any of the occurrents of

the world however, subtraction is always a possibility. For instance a particular

event, like my writing of this thesis may or may not have occurred, and that would

actually change the number of events in a timeline, and it would make a difference

24
whether or not this particular event occurred. Hence it is impossible to equate the

events of the past or the number of occurrents in the world with an actual infinity

which is possible in mathematics or an abstract set with clearly defined rules (Ibid).

Therefore, even if actual infinities are accepted in mathematics and abstract sets,

they cannot be accepted in the world and as such, al-Ghazali's arguments against

actual infinity could still hold, not because actual infinites are problematic in and

of themselves, but because they are problematic in the actual world. Muhtaroğlu

suggests that there is textual evidence which supports the possibility that Ashʿarite

atomism may also have been a result of a rejection of the notion of actual infinity

(Muhtaroğlu 2018, p. 746). If proven, this would mean that Ashʿarite atomism may

have been more than just an axiom, but the result of a certain way of thinking

about infinities.

Returning to the issue of the pre-eternality of the world for Ibn Sīnā, it is

seen that this pre-eternality is necessitated due to his conception of modality and

how he understands contingency and necessity, which are based on Aristotelian

metaphysics (Muhtaroğlu, 2017b, p. 113). According to Ibn Sīnā's version of

Aristotelian metaphysics, every property requires a substratum to exist, including

the properties of contingency or possibility. Actuality relates to formal causes and

potentiality relates to material causes, both of which are part of the subsistence of a

thing (Yaqub, 2017, p. 23). Every actual thing requires a potentiality inherent in its

material cause. The possibility or the contingency of a thing is dependent on this

potentiality, which precedes the particular objects. So for instance, steel carries the

potential to become a metal sword while wood does not. Ultimate potentiality that

precedes all forms, or all actuality is prime matter, which is itself the base for all

actuality and which itself cannot depend on anything else. As such, it has to be

25
eternal, which means the world has to be eternal as well. Thus, Ibn Sīnā's

conception of modality is based on actual occurrences in the world and understood

through time, where necessity implies eternal existence without interruption while

possibility implies existence that happens at certain points in time albeit with

interruption (Back, 1992). For example, fire does not burn cotton at all times

because they are not always in contact, but whenever they get into contact, it burns

the cotton necessarily. As such, it is said that for cotton to burn is a possibility in

itself and a necessity by virtue of its contact with fire. What is possible is

understood through observing the occurrences in nature. This idea will be further

explained in the next section. Al-Ghazālī on the other hand, criticizes this

conception of modality that Ibn Sīnā employs and proposes a different conception

of modality (Muhtaroğlu, 2017b, p. 114).

Al-Ghazālī's criticism of Ibn Sīnā's system which concerns our thesis is

threefold, which also aids him in establishing his occasionalist view over Ibn

Sīnā's system of natural causal necessity and pre-eternality of the world. Firstly, as

stated, he argues against Ibn Sīnā's conception of modality based on the world and

proposes a different conception of modality which is based on conceivability.

Secondly he argues against the necessary connection between a perceived natural

cause and its effect while affirming the necessary connection between an effect

and its true efficient cause. Thirdly he argues against the pre-eternality of the

world on the basis of the impossibility of actual infinity, which has been

previously explained. Now, I will begin with explaining Al-Ghazālī's criticism of

the conception of modality in Ibn Sīnā's system.

26
2.5 Modality, necessary connection and natures according to al-Ghazālī

Al-Ghazālī argues in The Incoherence of the Philosophers against the conception

of modality that Ibn Sīnā and the Peripatetic philosophers employ. As mentioned

earlier, Ibn Sīnā employs a concept of modality whereby the possibility of a thing

is understood extra-mentally and determined by its occurrences in nature at certain

times. It is dependent upon the potentiality of matter and observed in actuality.

This means that for something to be deemed possible, it must occur in nature at

certain times. Al-Ghazālī argues against this conception of modality based extra-

mentally in the world and argues instead that possibility or contingency is not a

property of an object outside the mind but rather a judgment attached to the mind,

depending on the conceivability of a thing (al-Ghazālī, 2000, p. 42) [5]. This

means that miracles such as walking on the water, or fire not burning a man are

possible, and one need not to see their occurrences in nature to say that they are as

such. Rather, mere conceivability is enough to say that such things are possible.

Only those things that imply logical contradiction such as the affirmation and

denial of a certain accident for the same subject at the same time are considered

impossible (Ibid, p. 175). This is because these things are not even conceivable,

such as an object being in motion and being at a stand-still at the same time. As

such, for al-Ghazālī, all that is conceivable and hence all that is possible is within

the scope of divine power while that which is impossible is excluded from it. This

means that the occurrence of all that is conceivable which does not entail a

contradiction is possible because it is within divine power and its existence

depends on the divine will. This brings us back to the argument al-Ghazālī

accepted for causal necessity made by Ibn Sīnā, while rejecting his understanding

of modality and natural causality. According to this argument, "an effect is

27
contingent by virtue of its own essence, and necessary by virtue of its efficient

cause" (Yaqub, 2017, p. 22). An effect is contingent by virtue of its own essence,

and not necessary, because if it were necessary, it would not require any cause to

bring it about. As such, its existence and non-existence are equally possible by

virtue of itself. Therefore, it requires a determiner that preferred its existence over

non-existence, if the contingent being exists. That which determined the existence

of the contingent being is called its efficient cause. This argument will also prove

that it is impossible for there to be secondary causation in al-Ghazālī's causality

model, because of the non-necessary nature of the relation between perceived

natural causes and effects, eliminating natural causes from being eligible

candidates for true efficient causes, because according to this line of argument, an

efficient cause must necessitate its effect.

Following Ibn Sīnā's mentioned argument while rejecting his notion of

modality, al-Ghazālī employs his notion of modality to show how any occurrent is

contingent by virtue of itself and necessary by virtue of its efficient cause. He

demonstrates how the world can be understood to be both necessary, possible and

impossible by virtue of how it is examined. He takes the world to be the effect of

the divine will. As such, by virtue of the presence of the divine will to create the

world, the world is necessary as the presence of the efficient cause necessitates the

effect. By virtue of the absence of the divine will to create the world, it is

impossible for the world to come about, as the occurrent is necessarily in need of

its efficient cause to exist. Finally without a consideration of the absence or the

presence of the divine will, the world by virtue of itself is neither necessary nor

impossible, rather it is contingent, meaning its existence or non-existence are both

possible (al-Ghazālī, 2008, p. 151).

28
 Emphasis has to be made at this point that by an efficient cause, Ibn Sīnā

and al-Ghazālī mean something different than what was meant by Aristotle by an

efficient cause. According to Aristotle, there are famously the four types of causes;

namely material, formal, efficient and final. While the four types of causes are

adopted by Ibn Sīnā, efficient causality is adopted with a slightly altered meaning,

which has great implications for his philosophy (Yaqub, 2017, p. 23). The material

and formal causes relate to the potentiality and actuality of things, which also

relate to an understanding of modality that deems natures of substances and natural

causes as necessary, which were mentioned in the previous section and will also be

explained further in this section.

The focus at this point will be on the meaning of the efficient cause for

Aristotle and Ibn Sīnā. While for Aristotle, efficient cause is the source of motion

and change in a natural object, for Ibn Sīnā and for al-Ghazālī, efficient cause

means not only a principle of motion, but also a principle of being whereby the

efficient cause brings a being into existence from non-existence (Ibid). So while

the Prime Mover for Aristotle functions only as the source of movement and

change, the Necessary Existent for Ibn Sīnā and for al-Ghazālī is not only the

source of movement and change, but also the source of the existence of every

contingent being as well. The difference between Ibn Sīnā and al-Ghazālī on this

issue will be discussed in the next paragraph. What is important at this point is to

emphasize that the origination of contingent beings, i.e. their existence, is therefore

dependent upon their cause and not just their movement.

Although al-Ghazālī confirms Ibn Sīnā in that a contingent being's

existence depends on its efficient cause, he departs from Ibn Sīnā where Ibn Sīnā

following Aristotle argues for the necessary connection between natural causes and

29
their effects. For Ibn Sīnā and for the Islamic Philosophy tradition which follows

Aristotle in general (Peripatetics or Meshāīyyah), whose most famous figures are

al-Fārābī (d. 950), Ibn Sīnā and Ibn Rushd (Averroës) (d. 1198) [6], natural

causation and its necessity are an integral part of their understanding of the world.

Particularly in Ibn Sīnā's system, while existence is bestowed upon everything

through a scheme of emanation starting from the Necessary Existent that is God,

the efficient cause of any particular occurrent is found in nature, and the

connection between this natural cause and effect is likewise deemed necessary. For

instance, it is impossible for fire to come into contact with cotton and for the cotton

not to burn, due to essential qualities of fire and cotton or their natures.

This understanding in part, stems from Ibn Sīnā's understanding of

modality which excludes what is conceivable from the realm of possibility if it has

no extra-mental basis in the world and has not been seen to occur in nature in such

a way, as mentioned earlier in the previous section. Possibility is perceived to

require an extra-mental substratum to inhere in like other properties and is not

perceived to be a mental attribution of the mind. Giving precedence to occurrences

in nature leads to the assumption of essential natures of things by way of how they

are observed, which also leads to the idea of natural causal necessity. As

previously said, al-Ghazālī rejects this understanding of modality in The

Incoherence. On top of that earlier discussion, in the 17th section of The

Incoherence, al-Ghazālī brings forth another argument to demonstrate why this

kind of a natural causation cannot be necessary. In similar fashion to Hume, he

argues that the only thing that the philosophers are justified in saying when they

observe such an event as the burning of the cotton is the conjunction of fire

coming into contact with cotton and the burning of cotton; their co-occurrence.

30
They are not justified to argue for any necessary connection between these events.

He says:

They [the philosophers] have no proof other than observing the occurrence
of the burning at the [juncture of] contact with fire. Observation however,
[only] shows the occurrence [of burning] at [the time of contact with the
fire] but it does not show [the occurrence of burning] by [the fire] and [the
fact] that there is no other cause for it. (al-Ghazālī, 2000, p. 167)
By showing that the connection between what is perceived to be a natural

cause and effect is not necessary, al-Ghazālī also shows that a 'natural cause'

cannot be considered a cause at all. This is due to the fact that as demonstrated

earlier, al-Ghazālī accepts the thesis that an effect is contingent by virtue of its own

essence, and necessary by virtue of its efficient cause, so the cause must necessitate

its effect. If the effect cannot be demonstrated to be necessary by virtue of its

perceived efficient cause, then that which is thought to be its efficient cause ceases

to be considered a cause at all. The regularity of the perceived natural cause and

effect should therefore be understood through regular conjunct occurrence which is

due to the custom, or habit of God (ādah or Sunnat Allāh).

In Moderation in Belief, al-Ghazālī explains this issue through the death of

Zayd who was killed by the severing of his head. Someone who adheres to natural

causation could say that had his head not been severed, he would have been alive,

as he sees the severing of Zayd's head as the efficient cause of his death rather than

a co-occurrent, and could further say that he died before his predestined time by

God because he was killed. Against this view, al-Ghazālī argues that to the

contrary, Zayd dies exactly at his predestined time, because it was God who caused

his death, regardless of whether or not his death coincided with the severing of his

head, the lunar eclipse or the falling of the rain. All of these events may have

occurred in conjunction with Zayd's death, although God may give some (like the

31
severing of the head) precedence over others due to the habitual course of things or

God's habit of creating in a regular way (al-Ghazālī, 2008, pp. 281-82).

As such, we see that none of the occurrences at the time of an event are

taken as its efficient cause and God is seen as the sole agent, but certain

occurrences are given a precedence over others, which explains their regularity of

their co-occurrence. They are explained through custom, or habit of God, which

signifies a general way of God's creating two things conjointly without any

necessity being involved. Al-Ghazālī's statement that causation itself is not

observed in nature but only conjunctions and co-occurrences is very similar to

Hume's argumentation against the logical necessity of causation which Hume

made some half a millennium later. After this point however, al-Ghazālī threads a

different path than Hume (Moad, 2008). Hume famously rejected the logical

necessity of causal relations on the basis of the relation between perceived natural

causes and effects being ungrounded and unjustified and there being no ground to

be found in his epistemology, neither through relations of ideas nor matters of fact

for any other kind of causation to exist. He concluded that cause-effect relations

are precisely the habitual co-occurrents that are observed without a necessity, and

they can only be said to be habits and customs. There exists no access to a ground

whereby we can call this relation between perceived causes and effects necessary

(Hume, 2007, IV).

Al-Ghazālī on the other hand, argues that while perceived natural causes

cannot be considered as actual causes due to the non-necessary nature of the

relation between natural events and the conceivability of other possibilities, there

has to exist causation and causes beyond nature, in order to account for the

existence of contingent beings. Contingent beings cannot bring their existence

32
forth from non-existence when they are non-existent, so they need an external

determiner, which would specify their existence over non-existence in order for

them to come to exist, which is also how a cause is defined for al-Ghazālī (al-

Ghazālī, 2013, p. 29). As such, this being which specifies the existence over non-

existence for contingent beings must have the attribute of will, which is the

attribute of choosing one thing over another, in this case, choosing existence over

non-existence for contingent beings (Fakhry, 1958, p. 117). As previously

mentioned, this is the reason why angels cannot be accounted as the real causes for

the act of burning, but they are only considered as intermediary agents for God to

create things, as they lack the attribute of a free-will (al-Ghazālī, 1987, pp. 239-

40). Secondly, this being must have the power necessary to be able to bring about

the contingent beings, as it is impossible for a causally inert and powerless being to

bring anything about. Thirdly it must have knowledge of that which it is bringing

about, due to the knowledge that is involved in the act and its effect. Again as

previously mentioned, this is one of the reasons why human beings cannot be the

actual causes of the acts that they are perceived to be committing, as they do not

fully know what is involved in the act or the consequences following it. According

to al-Ghazālī, only a being which satisfies these three conditions, i.e. having the

attributes of will, power, and knowledge can be considered as a causal agent (Ibid,

p. 153). Fourthly, it has to have life, as inanimate beings cannot be attributed with

the aforementioned attributes of will, power and knowledge. It is also not possible

to attribute any acts to inanimate beings according to al-Ghazālī (Ibid, pp. 239-40).

It is possible that due to the habitual co-occurrence of perceived causes and

their effects, we may employ a language where we say things like the food that I

ate made me full, or the water took away my thirst, or the fire burned the man even

33
though these things cannot have will as they do not have life. Al-Ghazālī argues

however that in reality this language is only metaphorical and is used to signify a

habitual co-occurrence of the perceived causes and their effects. Our minds and

languages actually lead us to attribute the act to agents with life and will when we

are given an option between the two. If a man throws another man into the fire and

we are asked to choose between whether it was the fire behind the act of killing or

the man who pushed the other, we would go for the man and know that the

attribution to the fire is only metaphorical, because it was only through the volition

of the man that the act occurred (al-Ghazālī, 1987, p. 137). As for the attribute of

knowledge and its relation to causality, an example of two students in an exam can

be given. Student A knows the answers to the questions asked, and the other one

B, not knowing anything, only copies what he sees from his friend. When both of

them give in 100/100 deserving answers for the exam, and the teacher understands

that student B copied his answers from student A, he will not attribute the 100

mark to student B, because 100/100 deserving paper can only be attributed to the

person with knowledge. For al-Ghazālī, when it is understood that being able to act

freely, having the power to bring about the effect, and having comprehensive

knowledge of the effect are necessary conditions for causation, all perceived

causes turn to be metaphorical, and only God can be seen as the genuine cause of

all occurrents.

As for the modality of this efficient cause, unlike the contingent beings

which may or may not exist by virtue of themselves, their efficient cause must be

necessary by virtue of itself, and its necessity is understood by the existence of the

contingent beings whose existences depend on it. This Necessary Existent is

argued by al-Ghazālī to be God, who must have the attributes of divine will,

34
power, knowledge and life. As such, He is the only being that satisfies the

conditions to be able to cause anything (al-Ghazālī, 1987, pp. 134-138).

What is perceived as natural causes and their effects are in reality only

occasional causes or occasions for God's creation, occurring in conjunction,

happening simultaneously, and their repeated existence does not imply necessity or

any type of causation primary or secondary, but only habit (ādah) of God in

creation. So an occasional cause is in fact a habitual co-occurrent and not an

efficient cause. This is the occasionalist theory that al-Ghazālī in particular and

Ashʿarite occasionalists in general argue for.

After examining al-Ghazālī's occasionalism, in the next section I will

consider the arguments against occasionalism by Leibniz and see whether al-

Ghazālī's arguments for occasionalism and his metaphysics give us sufficient tools

to defend occasionalism against Leibniz's thesis.

2.6 A Ghazālīan response to Leibniz's arguments against occasionalism

Leibniz argued that occasionalism is bound to turn into monism, because it lacks the

quality that is fundamental to keep substances intact, i.e. a force for acting or being

acted upon that is intrinsic to a substance, which defines its nature (Leibniz, 1989,

p. 159). To summarize his arguments, for Leibniz, without a reference to a nature

that does not change in a substance, it is not possible to speak of its persistence. The

persistence of a substance in turn is necessary in order to explain its trans-temporal

substantial unity and its individuation and differentiation from other substances. For

him, these conditions can only be fulfilled by the forces that are intrinsic to a

substance. As substances are devoid of any forces intrinsic to them in

35
occasionalism, they can neither be individuated nor can we speak of their trans-

temporal unity, hence their existence is nullified. Without individuation of different

substances, all modes or accidents which must necessarily inhere in a substratum,

find nowhere to inhere but in God. We will see what kind of a response can be

brought to such a criticism by reconstructing al-Ghazālī's arguments within the

Ashʿarite metaphysics.

First of all, for al-Ghazālī and the Ashʿarite metaphysics that he adheres to,

the unity and the individuation of a substance does not necessarily depend on

forces intrinsic to a substance or its nature. As we have previously seen, al-Ghazālī

argues against natures intrinsic to substances at length, yet he does not argue

against the existence of substances altogether. To the contrary, the accidents that

are perceived in the world, such as all the motion, colors, sounds and shapes,

depend on substances to exist, although not in a relation of causation, but in a

relation of ontological dependence as their substratum. As such, substances have

ontological priority to accidents, because accidents have to inhere in substances as

they cannot exist without a substratum. In turn, a substance also must exist with at

least some accidents, and it cannot exist without having any accidents at all. So

substances are necessitated by their accidents and vice versa.

Necessary natures of substances on the other hand were rejected by al-

Ghazālī. As argued in the previous section, his criticism of Ibn Sīnā's

understanding of modality gave him room to reject natures inherent in things.

Instead of Ibn Sīnā's conception of possibility which refers to properties of things

outside the mind, he argued that possibility is a judgment of the mind and what is

possible is what is conceivable (al-Ghazālī, 1987, p. 43). This allowed for him to

undermine the concept of natures inherent in things. He argued that no necessary

36
connection between perceived causes and effects inherent in the natures of things

could be demonstrated, as observation does not give us causation but only

conjunction. As causation is a necessary connection and as no necessity can be

shown in nature, causation in nature is rejected. As such, there can be no intrinsic

quality or forces inherent in the natures of things for al-Ghazālī. The point

however is that, it need not be the case that the force which keeps the substance

intact is intrinsic. It can very well be extrinsic. In fact, it can only be extrinsic as it

has been demonstrated by al-Ghazālī that God is the only causal agent possible.

For an Ashʿarite occasionalist such as al-Ghazālī, God keeps the unity of a

substance qua substance as the basis of its accidents. In turn, God's creation of

certain accidents such as shape and motion, and the atomic ontology of space may

help function in individuating and in differentiating one substance from another.

For instance, when I hit a ball with my foot, and the ball moves from my foot

towards the sky, I can differentiate the ball from my foot via its shape, its

movement, the sound it makes, all of which are created at each moment as the

accidents which belong not to my foot but to the ball. The ball as the substance

which carries these accidents is likewise created at each moment by God. I can also

differentiate it from my foot because of the distance of the atoms that make up my

foot and atoms that make up the ball and the void that exists between substances,

as space is not taken as a continuous unity in Ashʿarite metaphysics. They are

distant and separated, and there is no spatial continuum.

For al-Ghazālī however, it is conceivable for the ball to suddenly turn into a

bird in the middle of the sky, which is not excluded from possibility. This is

however, highly unlikely to happen, not due to any inherent quality or nature

belonging to the ball, but due to God's continuous habit (ādah) of creating in a

37
general pattern. As such, we don’t expect for such a thing to happen, although it is

not excluded from the realm of possibility. The sole reason for it not happening is

God's acting in a common way in general, and not the nature of the ball or any

force belonging to it. This continuous pattern however, may trick some to think

that there is a necessity, a nature that is intrinsic to things which grounds this

pattern whereas this is not the case for al-Ghazālī.

Persistence which is related with conservation of the substance over time,

must be understood in the Ashʿarite ontology by continuous creation, because time

is also understood in an atomic sense and not in a continuum. Over time, as the

thing itself is constantly created due to temporal disunity and the atomic

understanding of time, it is kept as the same substance albeit with different

accidents externally by the act of God, just as anything else in the occasionalist

system is caused by God's divine power and His constant active agency. As for the

occasional cause of this act, for the Ashʿarite occasionalists it is the accident of

persistence (baqā) (Ibn Furak, 1987, p. 237). However this accident is only an

occasional cause signifying the persistence of the substance over time and not its

real cause, as accidents do not qualify for being the actual causes of any effect. As

accidents cannot endure within two atomic instances of time, the accident of

persistence like other accidents is annihilated and created again in the next

moment, along with the substance by the sole agency of God. As such, trans-

temporal unity of a substance is determined externally by God's agency due to His

continuous pattern of creation and not internally, and substance is defined not

through acting on the part of the substance but being acted upon for al-Ghazālī.

Returning to Leibniz's example of the two objects A and B, one of which

was in motion and the other at rest, we see that for al-Ghazālī, it is easy to

38
differentiate them from the beginning. This is because motion for al-Ghazālī is

seen as an accident. So while object A has the accident of motion, object B lacks

this accident and has the accident of rest instead, and as such they are individuated

and differentiated.

Finally, it is also impossible for the temporally occurrent beings to mix

with the pre-eternal for al-Ghazālī as he argues for it in the First Treatise of

Moderation in Belief (al-Ghazālī, 2013, pp. 28-45). This is because a temporally

occurrent being is in need of an originator and it cannot originate itself while the

pre-eternal must exist necessarily, without depending on an external factor. It was

also shown that temporal occurrents cannot form an infinite series going back to

pre-eternity and hence the world in its totality must also be an occurrent. Being

pre-eternal, it cannot be defended without contradiction that God can be a

substratum for accidents which are temporally originated occurrents because

substance-accident relation would entail ontological dependence and temporal

simultaneity, whereas the causal relation between God and the occurrents requires

God to precede the occurrents. This is another argument that undermines Leibniz's

criticism, because Spinozism or monism defends precisely the thesis that God is

the substratum for the infinitely many attributes and modes in an infinite world. As

such, I think that al-Ghazālī's conception of modality, his arguments against

necessity of natural causation and of natures as such give him room to argue for

substances that are continuously created by God, whose substantiality is also

conserved by God without a reference to any inherent nature of the substances, all

the while keeping God ontologically separate from all the created substances. As

shown, Leibniz's thesis that occasionalism is bound to boil down to monism can be

refuted using al-Ghazālī's framework and his arguments.

39
 CHAPTER 3

MALEBRANCHE AND THE CARTESIAN OCCASIONALISTS

3.1 Main motivations for occasionalism amongst the Cartesians

Unlike the relationship between the arguments for God's existence and His

attributes and the arguments for occasionalism within the Islamic tradition, there

cannot be said to be a relationship of these arguments for Malebranche and

Cartesian occasionalists to the same degree. He and the other Cartesian

occasionalists such as Cordemoy are motivated more so by the fact that the

Cartesian framework cannot successfully explain the relation between bodies and

minds and the relation between bodies and bodies without a reference to an

omnipotent actor that is beyond both the material and the cognitive substances in

creation. Either partial or full-fledged occasionalism is seen by Cartesian

occasionalists as a natural outcome of the Cartesian ontology, following from

certain aspects of Cartesianism such as substance dualism, substance-mode

relations and the concept of clear and distinct ideas which relates to a notion of

modality linked with conceivability. As such, the arguments for the latter are only

loosely related with the arguments for God and His attributes. They are however,

related with God and His attributes necessarily, even if they are not related with

the arguments for them, as occasionalism is about the unique, omnipotent and

omniscient God whose will is the only efficient cause for all the effects that come

into being.

It has been generally argued in the academia that the main reason Cartesian

occasionalists tended towards occasionalism as a causal theory had to do with the

40
two separate kinds of substances that are accepted in the Cartesian framework

which cannot successfully be shown to interact with each other; i.e. res extensa

(the spatial substance) and res cogitans (the cognitive substance) (Platt, 2017, p.

139). While substance dualism is certainly a major motivation to develop an

occasionalist thesis, various studies have also shown that there is much more to the

arguments of the Cartesian occasionalists. The Cartesian occasionalist Louis de la

Forge (d. 1666) wrote the following on the difficulty of explaining the movement

of bodies and interaction between different bodily substances:

I think most people would not believe me if I said that it is no more

difficult to perceive how the human mind, without being extended, can
move the body and how the body without being a spiritual thing can act on
the mind, then to perceive how a body has the power to move itself and to
communicate motion to another body. Yet there is nothing more true. (de la
Forge, 1997, p.143)

As such, many studies show that occasionalism is not simply an ad-hoc

solution to substance dualism, but rather a natural follow-up of Cartesianism in its

various aspects such as substance-mode relations, the relation between causation

and conservation as well as substance dualism (Lennon, 1974, pp. 29-36; Loeb,

1981, pp. 210-28). These relations will be explored further in the next section.

3.2 Descartes, substance-mode relations, clear and distinct ideas

Descartes is argued as being amongst the first proponents of the laws of nature in

the modern sense which apply universally, whose metaphysical grounding he saw

in the immutable will of God deciding for these laws to occur as such

(Muhtaroğlu, 2017b, p. 108). On the other hand, it is a matter of debate whether or

not Descartes himself adhered to a partially occasionalist system or whether he

attributed causal efficacy to created substances. Those who argue against it say

41
that this is not the case and it can be deduced from his works such as the Principles

of Philosophy that instead, he argued for certain forces and tendencies of bodies in

nature (Gaukroger, 2002). Another view which Malebranche thought to be true

was that Descartes actually adhered to a partially occasionalist framework, where

bodies are seen as passive substances which cannot cause movement in either

another body or a mind (Ablondi & Simmons, 2017, p. 168). About the nature of

bodily substances, Descartes wrote:

If you find it strange that, in explaining these elements, I do not use the
qualities called ‘heat’, ‘cold’, ‘moistness’, and ‘dryness’, as the
Philosophers do, I shall say that these qualities appear to me to be
themselves in need of explanation. Indeed, unless I am mistaken, not only
these four qualities but all others as well, including even the forms of
inanimate bodies, can be explained without the need to suppose anything in
their matter other than motion, size, shape, and arrangement of its parts.
(Descartes, 2004, p. 18)
According to the Cartesian ontology of spatial existence, the only thing that

can exist in space is extended bodies and their modes. As Descartes explains,

modes are understood as properties which can be reduced to spatial relations due

to the essence of the substances that they inhere in, which is extension. Modes are

understood as such, because they cannot be separated from the substances that they

inhere in. This is because no clear and distinct idea of a mode can be formed

separately from its substance.

The concept of a clear and distinct idea as opposed to an obscure and

confused idea plays a crucial role in the Cartesian framework to understand what is

conceivable and what constitutes certain knowledge of separate ontological

entities. Descartes writes in the Principles of Philosophy:

I call 'clear' that perception which is present and manifest to an attentive

mind: just as we say that we clearly see those things which are present to
our intent eye and act upon it sufficiently strongly and manifestly. On the
other hand, I call 'distinct', that perception which, while clear, is so

42
 separated and delineated from all others that it contains absolutely nothing
except what is clear. (Descartes, 1982, I 45)

As such, this notion of clear and distinct ideas also relates to the

understanding of modality in Descartes, where what is conceivable is considered

possible. In this sense, he is closer to the Ashʿarite occasionalists then the

scholastics who argued within the Aristotelian notion of modality. Clear and

distinct ideas also play a crucial role in the acceptance of two distinct substances of

body and mind in the Cartesian ontology, because these substances can be

conceived as two separate substances clearly and distinctly according to Descartes,

albeit always being encountered together in actuality (Muhtaroğlu, 2017b, p. 109).

Descartes goes even further than the Ashʿarite occasionalists and considers

mathematical and eternal truths to also be subject to the will of God, who decreed

them to be such. Malebranche on the other hand does not include eternal truths to

be within the scope of God's volition but relates them with God's wisdom. As such,

he comes closer to the understanding of Ashʿarite occasionalists, who deemed the

inconceivable to be impossible and therefore outside the scope of God's will (Ibid,

p. 110).

To return back to the subject of substance-mode relations, it is important to

emphasize that a real distinction cannot be made between modes and the

substances that they inhere in, due to the aforementioned reasons relating to clear

and distinct ideas. If modes necessarily inhere in a substance and if it is not

possible to separate a mode from its substance except conceptually, it follows that

motion or any other mode which inheres in one substance cannot be

communicated to another (Lennon, 1974, pp. 34-35). Cartesian occasionalist infer

from this that bodies are passive substances which cannot cause change in any

other substance, be it a body or a mind.

43
 The problem with bodies is twofold. Firstly, if all the modes of bodily

substances are in one way or another related to extension, then an inherent force

that moves an object which explains its motion cannot exist because such a force

cannot be reduced to a relation of extension. This means an external factor is

necessary in explaining the movement of a body according to the Cartesian

occasionalists. Secondly, if movement is a mode of substances, and modes cannot

be communicated from one substance to another, then it is impossible to argue for

one body causing a change in another, as stated earlier. It follows from this that the

motion of a body can neither be explained by reference to itself, as in Leibnizian

causation, nor can it be explained through the work of another body, because

bodies cannot cause change in other substances. This would mean that in such an

ontology, the only way in which a body can 'move' another body is through the act

of God according to the occasionalists, whereby God is the actual efficient cause

that allows the bodies to move and they become occasions for God's causal work,

without actually having any causal power in and of themselves.

As such, occasionalism was thought to be a natural outcome of Cartesian

philosophy according to a certain strand of Descartes' followers who became

known as the Cartesian occasionalists. Indeed, a number of followers of the

Cartesian framework argued either for a full-fledged or a partial occasionalist

theory of causation. While some partial occasionalists saw a great difficulty in

explaining the mind-body interaction, others like Malebranche and Cordemoy

argued for a full-fledged occasionalism. They argued that not only is it the mind-

body relation that is the problem, but the relation between the bodies themselves is

likewise problematic.

44
3.3 Malebranche's arguments for occasionalism

In a complete occasionalist picture of the world, as Malebranche and Cordemoy

argue for, when a billiard ball 'hits' another ball and causes the other to move, it is

actually God who is the efficient cause which creates the first ball's movement and

its hitting the second one, through continually creating or conserving it over time

in different spatial relations. The instance of their collision serves as an occasion

for God to cause the motion in the second one. There is no real cause and effect

relation between the first ball's hitting the second ball and the second ball's motion,

rather it all exists through the efficient causation of God, and God's continuous

creation of the balls in certain distance relations.

At this point, it is important to make mention of another argument that

Malebranche uses to argue for occasionalism, which also relates to the argument

explained in the last section and builds on it. This argument makes use of the

similarity between creation and conservation of a substance. Malebranche writes

in Dialogues on Metaphysics:

[T]he conservation of creatures is, on the part of God who acts, nothing but
their continued creation. I say on the part of God who acts. For the part of
creatures there appears to be a difference, since by the act of creation they
pass from nothingness to being, whereas by the act of conservation they
continue to be. But in essence, the act of creation does not cease, because,
in God, conservation and creation are but a single volition which,
consequently, is necessarily followed by the same effects. (Malebranche,
1997, p. 112)

This passage shows us that for Malebranche, while there is a difference for

creatures when it comes to creation and conservation, on part of God who does the

act of creation and conservation, the two acts are really the same. There is a

difference for the creatures because in the first instance they come to be from

nothing while in the second they are only conserved in existence. For God

45
however, the two volitions are the same and conservation is merely a continued

creation. As the two volitions are the same when it comes to God, the effect that

follows from them is also necessarily the same.

This is an interesting point of similarity between Al-Ghazālī and

Malebranche. For al-Ghazālī, due to the atomist ontology of space and time that he

adopts, conservation is necessarily the same with creation. Malebranche argues for

the same conclusion within a continuous ontology of space and time. Created

substances always exist in certain modifications. This means that it can only be

God who created a particular substance with its modes in the first place that can

continue to create both the substance and its modes, as a substance cannot actually

be separated from its modes clearly and distinctly. Malebranche argues that if God

wills to create something, the thing is created at a certain location. Now in the next

instance when God wills to continue creating or conserving it which is the same

act, God again, wills it at a certain location. This is because it is impossible to

conceive a thing without a location according to Malebranche. Therefore, at each

moment of continued creation, God will conserve the body in certain relations of

distance according to other bodies (Malebranche, 1997, p. 115). Perceived motion

will then necessarily reduce to God's continuing to create the object in particular

locations, not leaving any room for any kind of secondary causation to explain the

perceived motion. The same is true for all the modes of a thing. As the first

creation is really the same with the conservation, and as modes cannot be separated

from the substance except conceptually, the substance and its modes can only be

continuously created by God, and there is no room for any causality left on part of

the creatures.

46
 The occasionalist view and particularly this argument regarding the

sameness of creation and conservation for God by Malebranche can be considered

as a response to concurrentism. Concurrentism was the dominant view of

causation in Christendom in the middle ages which was defended by scholastics

such as Aquinas and Suarez (Muhtaroğlu, 2017b, p. 119). Aquinas argued that

while it was through the act of God that the existence of creatures and their powers

are conserved, secondary causation that is attributed to creation is equally

responsible for particular acts that happen in the world (Aquinas, 1975, III/I p.

221). He uses an analogy to make his point. As in the case of a painter who uses a

brush as an instrument to paint the canvas, secondary causes are instruments for

God to create that also play a role in creation. Efficient causation is then wholly

attributed to both God and the secondary causes (Ibid, pp. 236-237). By showing

that creation and conservation are really the same act for God, Malebranche also

shows that it is not possible to attribute causation to the creatures. This is because

both the mode and substance which has been wholly caused by God in the first

instance of creation, must again be attributed to God during conservation as both

acts are actually the same, leaving no room for causation on part of the creatures.

Another argument Malebranche makes is from the necessary connection

between a cause and an effect. This argument also bears a striking resemblance to

al-Ghazālī's argument discussed in the last chapter in which al-Ghazālī considered

it necessary for the efficient cause to produce its effect and found no such

necessary connection in nature. Malebranche writes:

Now it appears to me quite certain that the will of minds is incapable of

moving the smallest body in the world; for it is clear that there is no
necessary connection between our will to move our arms, for example, and
the movement of our arms. It is true that they are moved when we will it,
and thus that we are the natural cause of the movement of our arms. But

47
 natural causes are not true causes; they are only occasional causes that act
only through the force and efficacy of the will of God. (Malebranche,
1980, p. 449)

Malebranche argues that because there is no necessary connection between

natural causes and effects, they are not to be considered as true causes but only

occasional causes that work through the efficacy of the will of God. The

underlying premise here should be the same as al-Ghazālī's premise which he

adopted from Ibn Sīnā; that an effect is contingent by virtue of itself and necessary

by virtue of its efficient cause. It follows from this line of argument that the

efficient cause must produce its effect necessarily. Through the notion of clear and

distinct ideas, the will to move one's arm and the actual movement of the arm can

be understood as two separate ideas with no necessary connection. If there is no

necessary connection between my will and its effect, then cannot be accepted as a

true cause. This conclusion also shows that the modality employed here is one

which works from conceivability of two separate ideas without any necessity. The

only necessary connection that can be conceived according to Malebranche is

between the omnipotent will of God and its effect. This is because it is impossible

to conceive that God in his omnipotence wills for something to occur and for that

thing not to occur. Malebranche writes:

God wills that a certain kind of world exists. His will is omnipotent, and
this world is thus created. Let God no longer will there to be a world, and it
is thereby annihilated. For the world assuredly depends on the will of the
creator. If the world subsists, it is because God continues to will its
existence. (Malebranche, 1997, p. 112)
As such, the connection between the will of God and its effect is necessary.

Therefore, only God can be considered as a true cause, and the natural causes are

only occasional causes, or occasions for God to act as the true efficient cause. The

regularity in the course of occasional causes is related with God's keeping with His

48
laws which signify his general volitions to act in a common way. This idea of

God's keeping with His laws also resembles al-Ghazālī's concept of the habit of

God which he uses to account for the regularities in nature. Malebranche also

makes room for miracles by making a distinction between general volitions and

particular volitions. While God generally acts within the confines of His law

through general volitions, He nevertheless breaks it on occasion through particular

volitions, which amount to miracles (Malebranche, 1997, Dialogue XI).

The final argument that I want to discuss from Malebranche is the

argument from complete knowledge or the epistemic argument. By this argument,

Malebranche suggests that it is impossible for the mind to be the efficient cause of

a movement in the body, because the mind does not know all the details of the act

when it wills for something to occur in the body. Malebranche states:

For how could we move our arms? To move them, it is necessary to have
animal spirits, to send them through certain nerves toward certain muscles
in order to inflate and contract them, for it is thus that the arm attached to
them is moved; or according to the opinion of some others, it is still not
known how that happens. And we see that men who do not know that they
have spirits, nerves and muscles move their arms, and even move them
with more skill and ease than those who know anatomy best. Therefore,
men will to move their arms, and only God is able and knows how to move
them. If a man cannot turn a tower upside down, at least he knows what
must be done to do so; but there is no man who knows what must be done
to move one of his fingers by means of animal spirits. How, then, could
men move their arms? (Malebranche, 1980, pp. 449-50)

The premise here is that for one to be able to qualify for being an efficient

cause, one must know to the minute detail how the effect is produced. As such a

knowledge belongs only to the omniscient God, only He can qualify for being the

true cause of any effect. The will for the man to cause the movement in the arm

happens in conjunction with the movement, yet his will is only the occasional

cause for God to cause the movement in the arm as the true efficient cause.

49
 It is shown in this section that Malebranche brings several arguments, such

as the argument from the similarity of creation and conservation, the argument

from necessary connection and the argument from complete knowledge to show

that true causation can only belong to God who is omniscient and omnipotent, and

between whose will and its effect there is a necessary connection. In the next

section, a response to Leibniz's criticism of occasionalism will be constructed

using Malebranche's arguments and the Cartesian ontology that he adopts.

3.4 A response to Leibniz's criticism using Malebranche's arguments

Leibniz argued that by rejecting causal powers on part of the creatures, the

occasionalist system of Malebranche lacked what would allow him to argue for

substantial unity and individuation of substances. This is because according to

Leibniz, trans-temporal unity of a substance can only be accounted through

persistence, which in turn depends on a causal history of the substance. This

causal history requires a force that is intrinsic to the creature. As this is precisely

what the occasionalist substance lacks, it cannot be called a substance. Would this

then mean that what was thought to be substances in the occasionalist system

merely boil down to an aggregate of modes and the totality of modes actually

inhere in the single substance that is God as in monism?

It has to be taken into consideration at this point that many aspects of

Malebranche's Cartesian occasionalist system make use of the notion of substance

and necessitate it. The substance-mode relation in the Cartesian system which has

been explained shows that the two cannot be separated from each other clearly and

distinctly and that modes must inhere in a substance in a relation of ontological

50
dependence. From this, it is argued that modes cannot be communicated from one

substance to another. Malebranche also argued on this foundation that creation and

conservation are merely the same act, and it can only be God who created the

substance with its modes that continues to create both the substance and its modes

in conserving it as well, leaving no room for causation on part of creaturely

substances. As such, substance-mode relations ground many of the arguments for

occasionalism for Malebranche. Therefore, one cannot merely see objects as

aggregates or bundles of modes but one has to make reference to substances

necessarily in Malebranche's system. But how can Malebranche account for the

persistence, individuation and the trans-temporal unity of a substance without a

reference to the nature intrinsic to a substance which consists in a force for acting

and being acted upon?

I think that Malebranche could argue against Leibniz by saying that nothing

necessitates that the force which allows for the trans-temporal unity of a substance

be intrinsic to the created substance. An external force that acts upon the substance

and keeps it united will do just as fine. Let's take into account an extended

substance. An intrinsic force that an extended substance has cannot exist, because

such a force cannot be reduced to a relation of extension. On the other hand,

whatever modes this substance has are necessarily caused by the will of God. For

example, if a body is in motion, this is not due to an intrinsic force within the body,

but rather a result of God's constant creation of this body in particular locations

over time. Through God's constant creation and the necessary connection between

the omnipotent will of God and its effect, the modes belonging to this particular

body are kept as its modes over time without a reference to an inherent nature

belonging to the body itself.

51
 If we return to the example of bodies A and B that Leibniz gave which was

explained in the first chapter, one of which was in motion and the other at rest, we

can differentiate them regardless of whether or not motion is accepted as a mode. If

motion is accepted as a mode albeit without a reference to an intrinsic force, the

difference of the two bodies can be explained at t1 without a reference to a future

state, because one of them will have the mode of motion while the other will have

the mode of rest at t1. If motion is not accepted as a mode because it only signifies

a relation of distance over time, the difference can be explained by reference to

their states over time, and this would not, as Leibniz suggests, lead to the

conclusion that current states of the objects follow from a previous state, forcing

Malebranche to accept an intrinsic force which grounds their trans-temporal unity.

This is because for Malebranche, the current states of the objects do not necessarily

follow from their previous states, but rather, they necessarily follow from the will

of God who decides to create a particular set of modes in one body over time while

creating a different set of modes in the other. The different modes which are

created in each respective substance can neither be separated from them nor

communicated to another substance and are necessarily grounded in each

particular substance ontologically. The unity and individuation then depend not on

a nature or a force intrinsic to the created substance, but rather on God's

continuous creation of a substance with its modes over time. The regularities in the

world which may lead to the false conclusion of an intrinsic force in substances

result not from the natures of things but rather from God's general volitions, or His

will to generally create in accord with His laws. As there is no necessity in these

regularities, they do not rule out the possibility of miracles which result from God's

particular volitions, albeit very rarely. Hence, it seems that Leibniz's criticism that

52
occasionalism is bound to turn into monism follows from a particular

understanding of substance, where to be a substance requires persistence and

persistence has to be grounded in forces intrinsic to the creatures. Malebranche's

arguments have shown that persistence need not be grounded in forces intrinsic to

the substances, and it can rather be grounded through a force extrinsic to the

substances, i.e. the efficacy of God's will who conserves or continuously creates

the substance with its modes over time, giving it a causal history through being

affected. If a different understanding of substance can be accounted for in

Malebranche's occasionalist scheme without a reference to intrinsic forces of a

substance, this means that Leibniz's criticism has been shown to be begging the

question.

53
 CHAPTER 4

CONCLUSION

In this thesis, I presented the criticism Leibniz brought to occasionalism, where he

argued that occasionalism will necessarily turn into monism, because occasionalist

substances lacked an inherent force to act, which according to Leibniz accounts for

the persistence and trans-substantial unity of the substances. Without this inherent

force, the substantiality of the things in the occasionalist framework cannot hold

and as such, it is bound to turn into monism according to Leibniz. To see how far

this criticism undermines occasionalism, I first explained and discussed the

occasionalism of al-Ghazālī, who is perhaps the most famous Ashʿarite scholar

that argued for occasionalism in the Islamic world. I argued that through the

atomist ontology of the Ashʿarite school, and through al-Ghazālī's understanding

of modality, his argument from necessary connection, and the necessary conditions

he presents for being an efficient cause, he can argue for an occasionalist model of

causation, in which substances can be accounted for through divine causation, even

though the created substances themselves lack causal powers. As such, Leibniz's

criticism could not undermine the occasionalism of al-Ghazālī. After presenting al-

Ghazālī's occasionalist model and a Ghazālīan response to Leibniz, I presented the

occasionalist model of Malebranche, to whom Leibniz's criticism was first

addressed. The Cartesian substance-mode relations, Malebranche's modality which

is also related with conceivability and his arguments for occasionalism such as the

necessary connection argument also provided him with the necessary tools to show

that while substances are necessarily causally inert, they nevertheless must exist as

the ontological basis for their modes, whose substantial unity is provided through

divine causation. Hence, I showed that Leibniz's criticism could also be responded

54
to through Malebranche's arguments and his metaphysical framework of

Cartesianism, and the examination of the occasionalist models of both

philosophers resulted in showing that Leibniz's criticism failed to undermine

occasionalism due to the fallacy of begging the question.

-THE END-

55
 APPENDIX

END NOTES

[1] For occasionalism's connection with Hume and British Empiricism; see Kail, P.

(2008). Hume, Malebranche and rationalism. Philosophy: The Journal of the Royal

Institute of Philosophy, 83, 311-332 and McCracken, C. J. (1983). Malebranche and

British philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press. For the relation of occasionalism and

scholasticism; see Ablondi, F. &Simmons, J. A. (2017). Malebranche and Suarez on

the power of secondary causes: a contemporary consideration. In N. Muhtaroğlu

(Ed.), Occasionalism revisited: New essays from the Islamic and Western

philosophical traditions (pp. 167-185). Dubai: Kalam Research & Media. For

Cartesian occasionalism; see Sangiacomo, A. (2014). Louis de La Forge and the

‘non-transfer argument’ for occasionalism. British Journal for the History of

Philosophy, 2014, 60-80. For Islamic occasionalism; see Yaqub, M. A. (2017). Al-

Ghazālī’s view on causality. In N. Muhtaroğlu (Ed.), Occasionalism revisited: New

essays from the Islamic and Western philosophical traditions (pp. 22-40). Dubai:

Kalam Research &Media.

[2] For thermodynamics and occasionalism; see Muhtaroglu, N. (2017). Ali Sedad

Bey’s (d. 1900) Kavâidü’t-taḥavvülât fî harekâti’z-zerrât (Principles of

transformation in the motion of particles). In K. El-Rouayheb & S. Schmidke (Eds.),

Oxford handbook of Islamic philosophy (pp. 586-606). New York: Oxford University

Press. For quantum mechanics, modern physics and occasionalism; see Schultz, W.

J. & D’Andrea-Winslow, L. (2017). Divine compositionalism as occasionalism. In

N. Muhtaroğlu (Ed.), Occasionalism revisited: New essays from the Islamic and

Western philosophical traditions (pp. 219-236). Dubai: Kalam Research & Media.

56
[3] An examination of Hume's and Kant's accounts of causality and their criticisms

of metaphysical knowledge is beyond the scope of this thesis and requires a separate

research. Only a brief explanation of Hume's account of causation is given in the

thesis in comparison with al-Ghazālī's account. In spite of the aforementioned attacks

on core issues in metaphysical knowledge, I think that the arguments for

occasionalism and for the existence and attributes of God can still be shown to hold.

This is the case, because regardless of the metaphysical framework (or the lack

thereof) that one adopts, the object(s) of experience show two properties that are

universal: contingency and temporality. As it is the case that whatever we encounter

in experience is contingent and temporal, arguments from contingency and

temporality could still be shown to hold, and the arguments given in the thesis can

still be shown to be relevant today. For Hume's account of causality and his criticism

of metaphysics; see Hume, D. (2000). A treatise of human nature. (D. F. Norton &

M. J. Norton, Eds.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. and Hume, D. (2007). An

enquiry concerning human understanding. (M. Peter, Ed.). Oxford: Oxford

University Press. For a comparison of Hume's account of causality with al-Ghazālī's;

see Moad, E. O. (2008). A significant difference between al-Ghazālī and Hume on

causation. Journal on Islamic Philosophy, 3, 22-39. For Kant's account of causality

and his critique of metaphysics; see Kant, I. (1998). Critique of pure reason. (P.

Guyer & A. W. Wood, Trans., Eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. and

Kant, I. (2004). Prolegomena to any future metaphysics. (G. Hatfield, Trans., Ed.).

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. For a criticism of Kant's critique of

metaphysics in the Islamic intellectual space; see Sabri, M. (2007). Mawqif al-Aql.

Damascus: Dar al-Tarbiyyah.

57
 [4] It might be said: "The second principle remains, namely, your statement
that whatever is not devoid of occurrents is an occurrent; what is its proof?"
We say: "It is because if the world were anteriorly eternal yet not devoid of
occurrents, then there would be occurrents that have no beginning, from
which it would necessarily follow that the revolutions of the celestial spheres
are infinite in number; and that is absurd, because it leads to absurdity, and
what leads to absurdity is absurd. (al-Ghazālī, 2013, p. 37)

[5] The possibility which they have mentioned reverts to a judgment of the
mind. Anything whose existence the mind supposes, [nothing] preventing its
supposing it, we call "possible"; and, if [it is] prevented, we call [it]
"impossible"; and, if it is unable to suppose its non-existence, we name it
"necessary". For these are rational propositions that do not require an existent
so as to be rendered a description thereof, as proven by three things.

One of them is that, if possibility requires something existing to which

to relate and of which it is said that it is its possibility, then impossibility
would require something existing of which one would say that it is its
impossibility. But the impossible in itself has no existence, and there is no
matter to which impossibility occurs such that impossibility would be
[rendered] related to the matter.

The second is that the mind judges blackness and whiteness to be

possible before their existence. If this possibility is related to the body to
which they occur, so as to say, "This means that it is possible for the body to
become black and white," then whiteness in itself is not possible and does not
have the description of possibility. The possible would then be only the body,
possibility being related to it [alone]. [To this], then, we would say, "What is
the judgment [pertaining] to blackness in itself - is it possible, necessary or
impossible?" But there is no way out of saying that it is possible. This shows
that the mind, in judging possibility, does not need to posit [something]
having existence to which it would relate possibility.

The third is that the souls of humans, [according to the philosophers],

are substances that subsist in themselves, neither in body nor in matter, and
are not imprinted in matter. [Moreover,] they are created in time, according to
Avicenna and the rigorous among [the philosophers] have chosen [to believe].
These [souls, according to them,] have [their] possibility before their creation,
but they have neither entity nor matter. Their possibility, hence, is a relative
description. It does not reduce the power [to create them] of the One endowed
with power and the Agent. To what, then does it revert? This difficulty is thus
turned against them. (al-Ghazālī, 2000, p. 42)

[6] While al-Fārābī, Ibn Sīnā and Ibn Rushd (Averroës) are generally accepted as

amongst the Peripatetics who followed Aristotle in the Islamic philosophy tradition,

there is nevertheless great differences in their ways of thinking. While Ibn Rushd is a

loyal follower of Aristotle and an interpreter of the religious doctrine from a strictly

Aristotelean point of view, there is a considerable amount of Neo-Platonic influence

58
in al-Fārābī's and Ibn Sīnā's thought in addition to Aristotle's philosophy. Ibn Rushd

is not only a staunch critic of the Ashʿarite occasionalism and specifically of al-

Ghazālī, he also criticized al-Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā for the Neo-platonic influence in

their way of thinking and ideas such as the emanation theory. For Ibn Rushd's famous

criticism of al-Ghazālī's Incoherence of the Philosophers; see Ibn Rushd. (2008).

Tahafut al-tahafut (The incoherence of the incoherence). (S. Van Den Bergh, Trans.,

Ed.). Oxford: Oxbow Books. For his criticism of al-Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā and their

Neo-Platonic way of thinking as well as more of his criticism of al-Ghazālī and

Ashʿarite occasionalism; see Ibn Rushd. (2012). On the harmony of religion and

philosophy. (G. F. Hourani, Trans.). Oxford: Oxbow Books.

59
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