Concurrentism or Occasionalism?

Vallicella, William F.

doi:10.5840/acpq199670334

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Mere conservationism, furthermore, denies that ‘God is directly involved in the causality of non- divine causes’, and thereby assigns independence of some sort to the world and reserves a more remote role to God (Valicella (1996), 339). This independence does not, however, mean that the world can do without God; on the contrary, without God's conserving activity neither the world as a whole nor secondary causes in particular can endure.…”

Section: The Issue Of Divine Causalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Concurrentism approximates to occasionalism, however, in that it also holds that God is directly causing everything in the world. On this picture, then, God cooperates with secondary causes to the effect that, besides secondary causes causing their actions directly, God causes their action directly as well (Valicella (1996), 339).…”

Section: The Issue Of Divine Causalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Doing, Allowing, and Occasionalism

Şen

2021

Rel. Stud.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In ‘God, evil, and occasionalism’ Matthew Shea and C.P. Ragland appeal to the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing to argue against Alvin Plantinga that occasionalism is morally worse than conservationism. In this article I critically examine their argument and conclude that it fails because it contains an equivocation or is unwarranted. I also offer a case against their position by, first, arguing that on none of three prominent accounts of doing and allowing God merely allows suffering. Second, I develop the ‘Epistemological-Equivalence Argument’ in order to show that even if we grant such a distinction for God's acts, they would be morally on a par.

show abstract

Section: The Issue Of Divine Causalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Issue Of Divine Causalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Doing, Allowing, and Occasionalism

Şen

2021

Rel. Stud.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This account satisfies a crucial condition that William Vallicella describes: “The idea is that a total causal explanation of an event cannot merely specify the relations in which the explanandum‐event [i.e., the effect] stands to other (typically prior) events [i.e., the cause], but must also explain the very existence or occurrence of the explanandum ‐event” (Vallicella , 356). The very existence or occurrence of the explanandum ‐event on our view just is God's existence‐conferring action.…”

Section: Metaphysics Of Causationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Causation, Dispositions, and Physical Occasionalism

Schultz¹,

D'Andrea-Winslow²

2017

Zygon

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Even though theistic philosophers and scientists agree that God created, sustains, and providentially governs the physical universe and even though much has been published in general regarding divine action, what is needed is a fine‐grained, conceptually coherent account of divine action, causation, dispositions, and laws of nature consistent with divine aseity, satisfying the widely recognized adequacy conditions for any account of dispositions.1 Such an account would be a basic part of a more comprehensive theory of divine action in relation to the fundamental concepts of science and of mathematics. Our aim in this article is simply to present such a theory.

show abstract

“…This is argued for by a critic and accepted by a proponent of occasionalism, so should not be thought of as a straw man (Freddoso , 91–99; Vallicella , 351).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Dispositionalist Deity: How God Creates Laws and Why Theists Should Care

Page¹

2015

Zygon

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

How does God govern the world? For many theists "laws of nature" play a vital role. But what are these laws, metaphysically speaking? I shall argue that laws of nature are not external to the objects they govern, but instead should be thought of as reducible to internal features of properties. Recent work in metaphysics and philosophy of science has revived a dispositionalist conception of nature, according to which nature is not passive, but active and dynamic. Disposition theorists see particulars as being internally powerful rather than being governed by external laws of nature, making external laws in effect ontologically otiose. I will argue that theists should prefer a dispositionalist ontology, since it leads them toward the theory of concurrentism in divine conservation, rather than occasionalism, and revives the distinction between internal and external teleology. God on this view does not govern the world through external laws of nature, but rather through internal aspects of powerful properties.

show abstract

Concurrentism or Occasionalism?

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

Doing, Allowing, and Occasionalism

Doing, Allowing, and Occasionalism

Causation, Dispositions, and Physical Occasionalism

The Dispositionalist Deity: How God Creates Laws and Why Theists Should Care

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About