Malebranche and “Cartesianized Augustinianism”

Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715)¹ is, by general agreement, the greatest French philosopher between Descartes and Rousseau. And Malebranche’s central argument is that God (the only “necessary” being) governs the universe through simple constant “general laws” (lois générales) and “general wills” (volontés générales) which are constant, not through arbitrary, ad hoc, miraculous “particular wills.” In this sense Malebranche makes the constant rule of “general law” not just a legal-moral principle but a metaphysical-theological one: No-one ever, indeed, gave a more “divine” weight to law than Malebranche.