What is Wrong with Concurrentism?

Year 2014, Issue: 23 - Kaygı (23) 2014, 129 - 144, 30.10.2014

Nazif Muhtaroğlu

https://doi.org/10.20981/kuufefd.28590

Cited By: 1

Abstract

Concurrentism and occasionalism are two principal theistic approaches to the nature of divine causality. Whereas the former affirms the causal efficacy of created beings along with the continuous action of God, the latter explicitly denies any causality to finite beings and considers God to be the only genuine causal agent. In “What is Wrong with Occasionalism?” Katherin A. Rogers examines the implications of these theories in relation to the following topics: our knowledge about the external world, the intelligibility of core ontological concepts and human free will together with moral responsibility. What she concludes from her analysis is that occasionalism has problematic implications with respect to these three points and concurrentism is superior to occasionalism in responding to the problems occasionalism faces in this context. In this paper, contrary to Rogers’, I argue that Rogers’ criticisms of occasionalism are in principle applicable to concurrentism and when they are applied, this theory faces more troubles than occasionalism has faced.

Keywords

Katherin Rogers; Divine Causality; Continuous Creation; Knowledge; Substantiality; Free Will; Moral Responsibility; Occasionalism

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