Abstract

Augustine is acknowledged by Malebranche as the source of his occasionalism and he appropriates the architect analogy of Augustine’s De Genesi ad litteram. Augustine’s analogy, however, is not a move toward occasionalism, but a response to Platos claim in the Timaeus that the cosmos can be destroyed and is only preserved by divine providence. The heterological nature of the architect image for creation shows that, far from arguing for occasionalism, Augustine is concerned to avoid the cosmogonically fallacious confusion of divine agency and natural cause.