Divine Sustaining Causes and the Mind-Body Problem

Abstract

In Chapter 11, Angus Menuge provides a model of both divine and creaturely causation that illuminates the mind-body problem. Any successful model, he argues, must lie between the extremes of a strict Aristotelianism, which grants creatures too much autonomy, and a global occasionalism, which grants them too little. One other model that contributes to a solution but will ultimately prove inadequate is the sophisticated alternative account due to Leibniz. In Menuge’s view, God gives human creatures real but conditional causal powers. God delegates real agency to his creatures yet retains the prerogative of either permitting or overriding their actions. Thus, God gives creatures conditional powers to produce certain effects. In any particular case, however, God is able either to permit or to override those powers, as he does in the case of performing a miracle. Menuge further argues that his account better satisfies the theological requirements for any successful view than the main rival views.