Introduction to Modern Philosophy Second Paper

In The Search After Truth, Malebranche, in order to defend his theory that God is
the only true cause, lists various objections to this theory and then explains why he
believes that they are wrong. Malebranche responds to two of these objections, the two
which I will focus on, by arguing that although God is the cause of all effects,
nevertheless, God is supremely rational, elegant and economical in determining what
effects he will cause and he therefore acts according to various laws of nature that he
ordains and that provide a rational structure to the operation of nature.
The first of these objections, which is the second one that Malebranche deals with
on his overall list, argues that if it were indeed the case that God is the cause of all
effects, then it could also be the case that fire, if God so willed it, would cool rather than
heat and so "the nature of individual things would not be fixed and determinate." The
underlying complaint here seems to be that we understand the things in the world at least
partially by understanding what the essences of these things make them capable and
incapable of doing or, as Aristotelians would put it, by understanding what potentialities
a certain thing actually has. However, if God truly causes everything, then the nature of
the various things in the world becomes completely arbitrary because God, who is
omnipotent, can cause any effect so that, for example, acorns could transform into anvils
rather than trees if God so desired and it is only due to God's arbitrary will that they do
not actually do this. Hence, we are unable to truly understand the world by
understanding the fixed natures of individual things through their potentialities and
abilities.
Malebranche responds to this objection by stating "...since these laws [of nature]


are constant, the nature of fire, its virtues and its qualities do not change" (pg. 218). In
other words, he argues that God chooses to act according to certain 'laws of the
communication of motion' which he himself fixes into place and remains loyal to at all
times except on the rare occasions when he performs miracles. And because God
chooses to cause all effects in accordance with these laws, it is in fact the case that nature
is orderly and predictable and we can therefore attribute certain potentialities and abilities
to different things by which we are able to understand their fixed nature. This
consistency in turn allows us to make rational sense of the world, which we are able to
understand through these constant laws. However, it can still be objected that these laws
are completely arbitrary because God could have chosen any other set of laws and can
choose at any time that he wishes to completely disregard the laws that he has chosen to
follow.
I believe that we can find Malebranche's response to this criticism in the next
objection he deals with. In the Third Proof, it is objected that it is useless to go through
the trouble of heavy preparation for attaining certain ends, such as cultivating food,
because these preparations are not in fact the cause of the end for which they are
implemented to obtain; God is. And because God is omnipotent and has no need for
such preparations to obtain the sought after effect, such preparations are superfluous.
Malebranche responds to this by noting that while it is certainly possible that God
can will anything he wishes, he cannot will anything he wishes without resorting to
miracles, i.e. breaking the general laws of nature which he has ordained to govern his
own conduct so that the world will make rational sense to us. By why does God choose
to establish and follow such laws? Malebranche writes that " God does not multiply his


volitions without reason; he always acts through the simplest ways" (pg. 218) and
elsewhere he writes that "God produces miracles only when it is required by the order he
always follows... the immutable order of justice..." (pp. 219-220). Malebranche's overall
argument here seems to be that God, by his very nature, must act according to a set rules
because his perfection requires that he act in the simplest and most consistent and rational
manner possible rather than in a manner that is chaotic and thus truly arbitrary. Hence,
God had to pick some set of laws to follow and the set that he did choose he probably
chose because it is the simplest and most elegant set and therefore the set most demanded
by his own simple, perfect and beautiful nature. Hence the laws are not arbitrary and
God cannot disobey them as he pleases without violating his own nature. Indeed, he can
only violate them when doing so would more greatly honor God's nature as a just being
than following them would honor his nature as a rational and consistent being.