how involved is God

[Paphnutius]

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' date='Jan 18 2006, 02:27 PM']Well, as Catholics we believe that God continually intervenes in the working of the world (not quite the best way of putting it though) this is simply what we call providence. Occasionalism is more radical than that and says that created beings have no potential for efficient causality. The implication of this is that we have no free will for this would involve a causal efficacy outside of God which is precisely what occasionalism denies. So everything activity that occurs is directly an act of God. When you will something you are not willing anything at all but are merely a puppet of God. And when you throw a match into your barbeque grill it is not the flamability of the lighter fluid that "causes" a flame to emerge but this too is a direct action of God.

So to put it simply, God is the only efficient cause in the entire chain of cause and effect that we observe in the universe including our own thoughts and actions. Taken to an epistemological extreme, there is in fact no physical world at all and the impressions that we have upon our senses are not caused by exterior material phenomenon but are sort of illusions caused by God. I suppose you could think of this as suggesting that we are in the matrix.

Anyway, occasionalism is not Catholic.
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I said that in fewer words... :

though not as informative...

[photosynthesis]

it seems like a lot of occasionalism has cropped up into a lot of pentacostal thinking. i have a lot of pentacostal friends, and they say stuff like "the Spirit moved me to call you on the phone" or "I think God's calling you to bring cupcakes to the meeting on wednesday," when really they're just projecting their own desires onto God without any real discernment

[Guest Rick777]

[quote name='photosynthesis' date='Jan 18 2006, 10:23 PM']  i have a lot of pentacostal friends, and they say stuff like "the Spirit moved me to call you on the phone" or "I think God's calling you to bring cupcakes to the meeting on wednesday," when really they're just projecting their own desires onto God without any real discernment
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[Paphnutius]

[quote name='photosynthesis' date='Jan 18 2006, 11:23 PM']it seems like a lot of occasionalism has cropped up into a lot of pentacostal thinking.  i have a lot of pentacostal friends, and they say stuff like "the Spirit moved me to call you on the phone" or "I think God's calling you to bring cupcakes to the meeting on wednesday," when really they're just projecting their own desires onto God without any real discernment
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That really is not Occasionalism. The Spirit can and indeed does move and prompt us to do the will of God and at times this may be doing a certain action. Occasionalism in that instance would be them saying that it is God that is causing them to call you alone. In the case that you gave it could be said that they gave assent of their own will (thus sharing in the cause) to call you.

I think that Occasionalism may be found in [u]The Purpose Driven Life [/u]by Rick Warren. I read a few chapters and would like to read more so that I can put together a comprehensive Catholic response to it. In the first few chapters he says things like: "God left nothing up to chance. He determined your race, location, time of birth, etc...." Which if you take literal and follow the logic then God is the one that decided when your parents would concieve (meaning that that is not their own action that did it), whether the doctor would induce labor or not, what type of gene would show up, etc... It seems to have Occasionalism written all over it. As I said, however, I would like to read the entire book to give him a fair chance at clarifying himself.

As far as bringing cupcakes to the meeting, I do not see why God would ever not want what.

Edited January 19, 2006 by Paphnutius