Occasionalism is the view that for every event that happened in this universe (and beyond), it is by the direct order of divine power, i.e. God. This philosophical theory attempts to explain about how nature’s sequence of events could not happen from substances alone. Instead, the events must be caused directly by God himself. The theory states that efficient causation by substances is merely an illusion between mundane events arising out of a string of constant “occasions” of God’s intervention. This "occasioning" relation, however, falls short of efficient causation. In this doctrine, God creates a series of events for every repetitive action but chose to regulate the reactions in accordance with general laws of nature. In this paper, I will explain the different types of Occasionalisms in the East as well as the West.
French philosopher Louis de la Forge has been known to first coin the term “occasional cause”, even though the subject has been pioneered earlier by Islamic occasionalists. Historically, the philosophical theory were first discussed by the Ash’arites as they explored they implications of the systematic interpretation, development and integration of Aristotelianism and Neo- Platonism that occurred within the Islamic intellectual world in the tenth and eleventh centuries .
Among the Ash’arites, Imam al- Ghazali was the most prominent philosopher of occasionalism and presented his strongest arguments in his influential book, The Incoherence of the Philosophers. The seventeenth discussion of al- Ghazali’s Incohoerence of the Philosophers has become famous for its criticisms of causality. It is widely understood that al- Ghazali’s causality theory means that the philosophers’ theory of causality is false and that they are not right when they deny that things can happen contrary to what they call the law of nature and contrary to what happens habitually.
The seventeenth discussion also criticizes Avicenna about his Aristotelian approach to causality. The criticism drew from Avicenna’s view that there is a necessary causal relation among natural things. Avicenna argues that there is nothing that requires what is possible in itself actually exists, then there must be something that gives to the possible in itself a preponderance of or determinately selects its existence. This contradicts the claim that theological orthodoxy requires God’s intervention (a situation where a natural course of events is interrupted). Hence, al- Ghazali’s main concern was the idea that if creatures themselves necessitate their effects, this would seem to imply that even in case of divine intervention, the natural consequences would follow suit. However, that reasoning contradicts most believers that understood God has absolute power which is a strong conviction among Ash’arite philosophers and Sufis. He introduces a number of Quranic stories in this chapter to point out that it’s “necessary to plunge into the question of causality in order to affirm the existence of miracles.”
Now that we understand al- Ghazali’s belief, we can look deeper into his criticism of causality. He claims that each of the two things has its own individuality and is not the other, and neither the affirmation nor the negation, neither the existence nor the non-existence of the one is implied in the affirmation, negation, existence, and non-existence of the other” .
Al- Ghazali believed that causality is only granted to the necessitating power of God, and so he denies any causal powers in God’s creations. This inception of cause would not allow for secondary causality in that the consequence of creature’s actions would not be the real causes because of the fact that they do not causally necessitate their effects.
However, Occasionalism is not exclusive to the Islamic theology. 16th century Europe had welcomed the idea of occasionalism through the influence of Cartesian metaphysics that flourished till the 18th century. The Cartesian version of occasionalism revolves around the interaction between the mind and body, which is mediated by a divine power. It is theorized that unextended body do not interact directly. His theory on the separation between the mind and the body is brought upon his attempt to demonstrate the existence of God.
The western Occasionalist doctrine discusses how God preserves His existence continuously produce a body (living creation). However, He also cannot create it everywhere nor outside of any particular place, he must himself put it in a place . This theory was La Forge’s greatest work and the argument of continuous creation was later picked up by Nicholas Malebranche.
Occasionalism was not widely accepted for long. However, the influence of Malebranche was quite significant and is still influential in modern philosophers’ work. This characterization, while correct so far as it goes, is seriously inadequate and we can see clearly how problematic this view is in the scientific field, not so much in theology. Occasionalists have seen the lack of real causal influence between mind and body as merely a special case of the more general truth that no two created beings serving as the occasions for his causal and creative activity, but never as causes in their own right. Occasionalisms have always been held primarily for religious reasons, in order to give God the honor due to him as the creator and supreme ruler of the universe. It has, however, been a majority view among philosophical theists.