Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-qs9v7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-10T03:22:23.189Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

9 - How God Causes Motion: Descartes, Divine Sustenance, and Occasionalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Daniel Garber
Daniel Garber
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Get access

Summary

In his Traité de l'esprit de l'homme (1664), Louis de La Forge, one of Descartes' early followers, wrote:

I hold that there is no creature, spiritual or corporeal, that can change [the position of a body] or that of any of its parts in the second instant of its creation if the creator does not do it himself, since it is he who had produced this part of matter in place A. For example, not only is it necessary that he continue to produce it if he wants it to continue to exist, but also, since he cannot create it everywhere, nor can he create it outside of every place, he must himself put it in place B, if he wants it there, for if he were to have put it somewhere else, there is no force capable of removing it from there.

(Traité, p. 240)

De La Forge's argument is an interesting one. He begins with two premises. The first is the doctrine of divine sustenance, that God must sustain the existence of every body, indeed, of every thing, mind or body, at every moment of its existence. Second, de La Forge assumes as a result, it would seem, that God causes motion in the material world by re-creating bodies in different places at different times. From this de La Forge draws the conclusion that only God can move a body. When God sustains bodies, He must sustain them in some place or other; He cannot sustain them everywhere, nowhere, or in any way independently of some place or other.

Type
Chapter
Information
Descartes Embodied
Reading Cartesian Philosophy through Cartesian Science
 , pp. 189 - 202
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×