## 1. Distinguishing Theses about Divine Conservation



It will be useful to distinguish between several theses.


* The conservation thesis: The continued existence of created things
depends on God's activity.
* The same-action thesis: God's action of creating things is
the same action as God's conserving things.
* The sole-source thesis: God alone brings about the continued
existence of created things.
* Occasionalism: God is the only genuine cause of any effect.



The conservation thesis is inconsistent with the Deistic understanding
of God's relationship to the world, on which the world's
existence and operation require no divine involvement after the world
is brought into being. In a different way, the conservation thesis is
inconsistent with any view that denies that created things truly
persist through time. If no created thing exists for more than an
instant, God may well be continuously creating, but God is not
conserving what has been created. Within traditional Jewish,
Christian, and Muslim theology the conservation thesis is relatively
uncontroversial, in part because the thesis is apparently implied by
the sacred texts. (One biblical example is Hebrews 1:3: "[The
Son] is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of
God's very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful
word." One quranic example is Al-Baqarah 2:255: "His
eternal power overspreads the heavens and the earth, and their
upholding wearies Him not." For a challenge to the conservation
thesis, see Beaudoin 2007.)



One who affirms that conservation is a continuation of creation goes
beyond the mere affirmation of conservation to a theory about the
nature of conservation. Such a person might have either the
same-action thesis or the sole-source thesis in mind. The same-action
thesis implies that conservation is continued (or
"continuous") creation in the sense that the ongoing
existence of created things through time is an effect of the very
action that caused them to exist in the first place. The action itself
may well be timeless, so it is the effect that is really
continued.



The sole-source thesis implies that conservation is continued creation
in the sense that God conserves in just the way that God creates,
i.e., without the aid of created things, either as causal co-agents or
as patients. Like creation, conservation is an *ex nihilo* act.
The view Edwards expresses above is a representative example of this
claim.



Both the same-action thesis and the sole-source thesis have a
prominent role in the historical discussion of conservation, but they
are distinct claims. Typically 'continuous creation
theory' names the sole-source thesis, which has come to be the
salient idea, but the language of continuous creation has also
sometimes referred to the same-action thesis (e.g., see the
'*continuata creatio*' entry in Muller 1985).



Yet another thesis is occasionalism, which says that God is not only
the sole cause of the ongoing existence of created things but also of
every other event that they may be involved in, including those in
which created things may appear to affect others. Some have objected
to continuous creation theory on the grounds that it implies
occasionalism. (See section 3.1.)


## 2. Arguments for Conservation as Continuous Creation


### 2.1 From Divine Atemporality



Because of the ambiguity noted above, both defenders and deniers of
continuous creation can find some inspiration in the thought of Thomas
Aquinas. In *Summa Theologiae* he says,



> 
> The preservation of things by God is a continuation of that action by
> which He gives existence, which action is without either motion or
> time; so also the light in the air is by the continual influence of
> the sun. (Ia.104.1, reply to obj. 4)
> 



Here the doctrine of divine atemporality supports the same-action
thesis. By one unchanging action God brings about the existence of
creatures (i.e., created things) at whatever times they exist.
(Malebranche echoes this view in, e.g., *Dialogues on
Metaphysics*, VII.7.)



In the article that follows, however, Aquinas argues explicitly that
this does not imply that God preserves created things immediately
(i.e., without an intermediate cause). Some creatures depend on other
creatures for their preservation, as well as on God as their principle
cause (Ia.104.2). Aquinas's claim implies that the preservation
of created things differs from their creation, and that the
sole-source thesis is false.



Contemporary philosophers Jonathan Kvanvig and Hugh McCann argue for
continuous creation theory on the basis of divine immutability. They
defend their case against replies of two sorts: (1) attempts to limit
the object of divine creation so as to exclude the continuing
existence of creatures (while granting divine immutability), and (2)
objections to divine immutability. As Kvanvig and McCann acknowledge,
the notion of divine immutability faces a non-trivial challenge from
the argument that an omniscient being must know what time it is, and
must therefore change (see Kretzmann 1966). For this reason they
suggest bolstering the case for continuous creation theory with
additional arguments.


### 2.2 From the Superfluity of a Distinction



Francisco Suarez endorses the same-action thesis, attributing
the view to Aquinas and others. For Suarez, creation and
conservation are the same act and do not differ "except merely
conceptually or because of some connotation and relation"
(Suarez 1597, 121). He concludes that conservation has no
patient; God does not do something to an already existing creature to
preserve it. Rather, its preservation is an instance of creation
*ex nihilo*. So Suarez's position includes the
sole-source thesis as well.



Suarez supports his position by arguing that any distinction
between creation and conservation would be superfluous. He argues, for
example, that if creation and conservation were two distinct actions,
then the second would have to last for the whole time the creature was
conserved. But if so, the first action could last for that time
equally well, and there would be no point in positing two actions.



Suarez also emphasizes that the effect of creation and
conservation is the same: the existence of the creature.



> 
> ... an action has its unity from its terminus and its
> principle--or from its patient as well, if it is an action on a
> patient. But the production and the conservation have exactly the same
> terminus; therefore, if the principle is the same, as we are
> presupposing, then the action we are discussing here will be the same,
> since creation has no subject [i.e., no patient] (*ibid.*,
> 122).
> 



The arguments of Aquinas, Suarez, and others were influential
enough that Descartes could later describe the same-action thesis as
"an opinion commonly accepted among theologians"
(*Discourse on the Method*, Part Five, 133).


### 2.3 From the Inability of Created Things to Sustain Their Own Existence



A number of thinkers have argued for the sole-source thesis not (or
not only) on the basis of the nature of divine action, but on the
basis of creatures' inability to preserve themselves. In
*Principles of Philosophy*, Descartes argued for God's
existence from the persistence of objects through time. His reasoning
makes it clear that he regarded conservation as a continual
re-creation.



> 
> It will be impossible for anything to obscure the clarity of this
> proof, if we attend to the nature of time or of the duration of
> things. For the nature of time is such that its parts are not mutually
> dependent, and never coexist. Thus, from the fact that we now exist,
> it does not follow that we shall exist a moment from now, unless there
> is some cause--the same cause which originally produced
> us--which continually reproduces us, as it were, that is to say,
> which keeps us in existence. For we easily understand that there is no
> power in us enabling us to keep ourselves in existence. We also
> understand that he who has so great a power that he can keep us in
> existence, although we are distinct from him, must be all the more
> able to keep himself in existence; or rather, he requires no other
> being to keep him in existence, and hence, in short, is God
> (*Principles of Philosophy*, 200).
> 



If created things were able to contribute causally to their ongoing
existence, then God would cooperate with the creatures in conserving
them. This would make creation and conservation distinct on the
assumption that the creatures' causal contributions are not
redundant. But Descartes claims that, given the nature of time,
creatures have *no* power to conserve themselves, and that God
alone causes their continued existence.



Jonathan Edwards, a zealous defender of divine majesty and
sovereignty, gives a similar argument for creatures' dependence
on God for their present existence.



> 
> [The cause of the present existence of a created substance]
> can't be the antecedent existence of the same substance. For
> instance, the existence of the body of the moon at this present
> moment, can't be the effect of its existence at the last
> foregoing moment. For not only was what existed the last moment, no
> active cause, but wholly a passive thing; but this also is to be
> considered, that no cause can produce effects in a *time* and
> *place* on which itself is *not*. 'Tis plain,
> nothing can exert itself, or operate, when and where it is not
> existing. But the moon's past existence was neither
> *where* nor *when* its present existence is. (1758, 400)
> 



Later Edwards adds that the same reasoning shows that no part of the
effect is due to the antecedent existence of the substance in question
(*ibid*., 402). He concludes, "God's
*preserving* created things in being is perfectly equivalent to
a *continued creation*, or to his creating those things out of
nothing at *each moment* of their existence"
(*ibid*., 401).



While Descartes's argument, as stated, assumes that created
things persist through time, Edwards comes close to claiming that
created things do not persist at all. Given continuous creation
theory, he says, "there is no such thing as any identity or
oneness in created objects, existing at different times, but what
depends on *God's sovereign constitution*"
(*ibid*., 404). However, he qualifies this with the claims that
there are different kinds of identity and oneness, and that
God's constitution--that is, God's decree or
ordaining--is what makes truths of this sort.



Edwards's view has two disadvantages with respect to the case
for continuous creation theory. One is that the argument implies that
created things are not genuine causes, a position explicitly rejected
by most thinkers in the tradition (a matter to which we will return
below). The other is that, because creatures arguably do not persist
on this view, it is inaccurate to say that they are conserved. God
does indeed continuously create, but the objects so created are new
objects. So understood, the view implies that nothing is conserved,
properly speaking.



Edwards regarded creatures' inability to sustain themselves as
"plain." Kvanvig and McCann attempt to bolster this
position by undermining several potential reasons for thinking the
contrary. For example, one might think that the diachronic character
of physical laws shows that physical objects have an innate ability to
persist. If they did not, what would make the laws reliable predictors
of objects' behavior? Kvanvig and McCann find this thought
lacking on the grounds that physical laws presuppose the continuing
existence of the world. They are reliable because the presupposition
is correct, but not because the objects they characterize are
*self*-sustaining.



Is the idea of an innate self-sustaining quality tenable? Kvanvig and
McCann consider a number of possible construals and argue that they
are of dubious coherence. They also give an argument with an
Edwardsian flavor. A power to perpetuate one's own existence
would be an ability to cause something to occur at a future time, a
time at which the exercise of the power would no longer exist. No
physical sequence of events could be the basis for such a time-jumping
power, since such a sequence would itself depend on a power of this
sort. So the power would need to bring about a future effect without
the aid of any intervening events to connect them. But nothing that no
longer exists can be causally operative, so there can be no such power
(Kvanvig and McCann 1988, 42-3).


## 3. Arguments for a distinction between creation and conservation


### 3.1 From secondary causation



(See also
 Occasionalism.)



One persistent worry about the sole-source thesis has its roots in the
medieval debate over whether there is secondary causation (i.e.,
genuine causation by created things). Suppose that created things are
causes: fire really does cause water to boil, and ice really does
cause it to cool. If creatures can affect future events in this way,
why should they not at least help to bring about their own future
existence? Why should their causal powers be limited to affecting the
qualities of things without contributing to their own presence in the
world? Contrapositively, if created things cannot bring about their
own future existence, are they also unable to have any effect on the
future?



Occasionalism is the theory that there is no genuine secondary
causation, since God is not only the first cause but the only cause.
We might be tempted to regard a fire beneath a pot of water as a
created cause, but its presence is merely an occasion for God to cause
the water to boil. The worry about the sole-source thesis, then, is
that it implies occasionalism. William Lane Craig, for example, says
that continuous creation theory "runs the risk of falling into
the radical occasionalism of certain medieval Islamic theologians
..." (Craig 1998, 
183).[1] 
The Ash'arites, for example, believed on
scriptural grounds that only God has agency (McGinnis 2006). They
offered a variety of arguments for occasionalism and against
Avicenna's position that created objects have natures as
Aristotle conceived of them and thus have causal powers
essentially. 



Nonetheless, occasionalism has been a minority view among theists.
Aquinas and Suarez both hold that conservation is in some sense
continued creation but reject occasionalism in very strong terms. This
is a typical position among theists, for most of whom the proposition
that continuous creation theory implies occasionalism would constitute
an objection to the former.



It is easy to produce arguments for continuous creation theory that
also support occasionalism. In particular, the arguments that are
driven by the inability of created things to affect the future (such
as those by Descartes and Edwards, above, and similar arguments by
Malebranche) appear to have occasionalism as a corollary. If no cause
can have an effect at a time at which it does not exist, then created
things do not bring about their future states, nor those of other
created things. The changes in the world can only be caused by God.
Malebranche and Edwards would have happily accepted this result;
Descartes' case is less clear. In contrast, Kvanvig and McCann
(1988, 43-44) deny that their similar argument implies
occasionalism.



Apart from any particular argument for continuous creation theory,
Philip Quinn argues that the view itself does not imply occasionalism
(Quinn 1988). Whether causal relations are understood as Humean
regularities, Lewisian counterfactual dependences, or necessary
connections, the proposition that God is the sole cause of the
existence of contingent beings does not entail that God is the only
cause of events. It remains possible that contingent beings
nonetheless have causal influence over the qualities and behavior of
other such beings. The result is a cooperative picture of the evolving
state of the world. "God and the lit match collaborate to
produce the heated water: God provides the water, and the lit match
provides the heat" (Quinn 1988, 70).



Andrew Pavelich poses what we may call the first-moment objection to
such a view. If we consider the moment at which God creates a universe
of objects in motion, it seems that the causal powers of the created
objects could not account for the character of other objects,
including their motion. At the first moment, only God's creative
power could affect their state. But if each later time is one at which
God creates the world *ex nihilo*, then each time is relevantly
similar to the first. At no time will a created thing be able to
exercise its causal powers (Pavelich 2007, 12-13).



One possible reply (discussed by Pavelich) grants that a thing created
at time *t* has no effect on other things at *t*, but
nonetheless affects things at later times (whether the things affected
are identical to things that existed at *t* or distinct from
them). Later times differ from the first at least in that they are
preceded by earlier times, and this opens up the possibility that
things existing at later times are affected by causal powers exercised
earlier. Such a reply is not available to one who, like Jonathan
Edwards, assumes that no object can have an effect at a place or time
at which it is not. However, for those who affirm causal relations
across time, a position that includes continuous creation but rejects
occasionalism is a theoretical option.


### 3.2 From the persistence of created things



One reason for thinking that the persistence of created objects must
depend on some exercise of those objects' causal powers, and not
God's creative power alone, is that an object that did not
depend on its earlier existence could not really be the same object.
To persist, an object's later existence must be due (at least in
part) to its own earlier existence. Persistence, in turn, is a
necessary condition of conservation, since a world without persistent
objects would not be conserved in being but rather succeeded in
being.



We have already noted (in section 2.3) that Edwards's case for
continuous creation comes close to denying that created things do,
strictly, persist through time. One might well wonder, then, whether
the sole-source thesis precludes creatures' identity over time.
The intuition that persistence requires causal dependence (at the
least) is widely shared. Peter van Inwagen, for example, accepts it as
a constraint on acceptable answers to the question of how physical
persons could persist between death and resurrection. In that context
he writes:



> 
> In the end, there would seem to be no way round the following
> requirement: if I am a material thing, then, if a man who lives at
> some time in the future is to be I, there will have to be some sort of
> material and causal continuity between this matter that composes me
> now and the matter that will then compose that man. (van Inwagen 1995,
> 486)
> 



Most physicalists who have since addressed this puzzle have shared van
Inwagen's assumption despite the fact that denying the causal
requirement would make it much easier to provide a solution. This
suggests that the causal requirement has considerable intuitive
force.



The sole-source thesis may even threaten the persistence of creatures
apart from the causal requirement. Craig articulates the question
whether the lack of a patient in conservation has this result.



> 
> Is it even coherent to affirm that God creates a persistent entity
> anew at every instant? If at every t God created *ex nihilo*,
> is it really x which exists at successive instants rather than a
> series of simulacra? Since there is no patient subject on which the
> agent acts in creation, how is it that it is the identical subject
> which is re-created each instant out of nothing rather than a
> numerically distinct, but similar, subject? (Craig 1998, 184)
> 



One way to defend continuous creation theory from the persistence
objection is to argue that it is possible to create the same object
more than once. Quinn distinguishes between creating something
(bringing about its existence) and introducing something (bringing
about its existence for the first time). It is clearly impossible to
introduce something at more than one time, but, Quinn argues, it is
not at all clear that it is impossible to create something at more
than one time. Quinn thus calls the causal requirement into question
(Quinn
 1983).[2]



Temporal parts theory may suggest another line of defense. William
Vallicella says briefly that an occasionalist can affirm the
persistence of created things by holding that time is continuous and
that persisting objects are composed of continuum-many temporal parts
(Vallicella 1996, 353 n. 20). If this is correct, then a continuous
creation theorist can presumably do the same. David Vander Laan
considers a temporal-parts strategy and finds it problematic. Given a
sufficiently inclusive theory of composition, he argues, a series of
objects may indeed compose an object that exists at various times and
thereby persists, but if there are no causal relations between these
objects it does not seem that their sum could be, e.g., a human
person. Arbitrary cross-temporal sums need not be united by internal
causal relations, but persons must (Vander Laan 2006, 164).



Vander Laan explores the range of options for resolving the tension
between continuous creation theory and the causal requirement. The
continuous creation theorist should explain what, if not causal
continuity, could distinguish a case of persistence from a case of
replacement by qualitative duplicates. Of the options he considers,
Vander Laan suggests that the most viable one locates the difference
in a divine fiat that is present in the persistence case and absent in
the replacement case (2006, 165-6). On the other hand, one who
affirms the causal requirement should explain in what sense God
sustains things in existence. Vander Laan identifies two
possibilities: (1) a joint-sufficiency theory on which God's
causal contribution and the creature's causal contribution are
both needed for the creature's persistence, and (2) a
co-operative divine sufficiency theory on which God's act must
cause the creature to bring about its continued existence (2006,
172-4).


### 3.3 From the nature of time



One recent objection to continuous creation theory maintains that it
implies that time is not real (Pavelich 2007, 16-19). Pavelich
argues that for time to be real, it must have a kind of
"temporal inertia," a natural tendency to move from each
moment to succeeding moments. This inertia would include a natural
tendency of things existing at times to continue existing. But it is
this very sort of inertia that continuous creation theory denies,
since it says that the existence of times and objects in time depend
solely on divine acts.



Pavelich suggests that the tension between time and continuous
creation runs even deeper. Given continuous creation theory, times
only stand in relations of before and after because of God's
creative activity. But then we cannot say that God creates one moment
before or after another, as temporal relations hold only subsequent to
those acts of creation.



One possible response to these claims is that time can be real without
"temporal inertia." Some will reject the intuition that
time must move or pass due to its own natural disposition. Some reject
the passage of time entirely. Others will say that temporal passage is
real and that it occurs precisely because of God's creative
activity. (Recall the argument of Descartes quoted in section
2.3.)



Another possible response is that there is a creation-independent time
in which God operates that could confer reality on the time of the
created world. Pavelich contends that even if such a time were real,
it would not succeed in conferring reality on the time of the created
world. The moments of the created world would still not be directly
related to each other so as to make time real. God could even create
them out of sequence or change the past, Pavelich argues, without
causing anything odd that a created being could notice.


### 3.4 From differences in the causal patient and the time of occurrence



According to Craig, it is intuitively clear that creation and
conservation are distinct actions since conservation has a patient (or
object) and creation does not. To conserve a thing in being is to act
*on* that thing. In contrast, to create a thing is not to act
on it or on any other thing, but to bring it into existence from
nothing. Thus the "circumstantial" distinction between
creation and conservation (i.e., causing the existence of something
that did not exist earlier vs. causing the existence of something that
did exist earlier) requires a deeper distinction between the natures
of the actions themselves (Craig 1998, 183). We may call this an
agent-patient theory of conservation (Miller 2009). Craig finds this
intuitive distinction expressed in Scotus, though Timothy Miller
disputes this interpretation (2009, 475).



This difference between creation and conservation also makes it clear,
Craig argues, that the two occur at different times. Creation is
instantaneous; it occurs at the moment that the created thing first
exists. Though the creation of a thing is generally preceded by the
thing's nonexistence, the act itself is not an extended process
of moving something from nonexistence to existence. Until it exists
the thing is not there to be acted upon. But conservation is the act
of preserving a thing in existence from one time to another, so it
must occur over an interval of time (Craig 1998, 186-7). In
other words, creation is synchronic, but conservation is diachronic.
In several ways, then, reflection on the very notions of creation and
conservation lead us to see that the two are to be distinguished.



The agent-patient theory has elicited two objections related to the
time at which conservation occurs. Vallicella argues that on this view
God cannot begin conserving an object (Vallicella 2002) and Miller
argues that on this view God cannot conserve things continuously
(2009, 478-483).



Vallicella observes first that if conservation has a patient,
God's conservation of it must be diachronic. If the act of
conservation were simultaneous with the effect of the object's
existence, then God's act at a time would both cause and
presuppose the existence of that object at that time. So the act must
occur at an earlier time or over an earlier interval. Next Vallicella
argues that if God creates an object *ex nihilo* at *t*,
God cannot conserve it at *t* since it does not yet exist.
Clearly God cannot begin to conserve an object at a time after it is
created, since the object would only exist at that time if it had
already been conserved. So there is no time at which God can begin to
conserve an object. Miller responds by wondering why the object would
not exist at *t*. Vallicella's distinction between the
time of an object's coming into existence and the first time at
which it exists is dubious, since a nonexistent object could not
undergo a process of coming into existence (Miller 2009, 477).



Miller's own objection to the agent-patient theory is that it
does not allow God to conserve continuously (2009, 478-483).
Though conservation is in general diachronic on the agent-patient
theory, God's initial act of conservation must occur at the
moment the patient first exists. This act either brings about the
existence of the patient at a later moment or through a later
interval. If at a later moment, then the patient will not exist at the
times between its creation and the moment in question. If through a
later
 interval,[3]
 then during that interval God would not need to conserve the patient,
since its existence over that interval then would have already been
secured by God's conserving act at its first moment. Any
conserving act during the interval would be redundant. Beyond the
interval the dilemma arises again, suggesting that conservation on the
agent-patient theory would need to be discontinuous, something like a
person pushing a merry-go-round every few seconds to keep it
spinning.



One further problem of the agent-patient theory, Miller adds, is that
if the act of conservation can bring about the existence of a thing
over an interval, then there seems to be no reason that any sustaining
act is needed after the moment of its creation. The interval of
existence caused at its first moment could be long enough to include
the object's entire span of existence. So conservation over time
appears to be unnecessary. Vander Laan (2022) explores
whether Miller's objection to the agent-patient theory can be
circumvented by theories on which God's conserving
action brings about the later existence of the patient only in
conjunction with additional, continuous divine activity.



The arguments surveyed above illustrate how both the historical
discussion and the contemporary debate about creation and conservation
are multifaceted. Considerations regarding divine nature, human
nature, causation, and time are all relevant to whether conservation
should be understood as continuous creation. A key task of those who
wish to stake out a position in the debate, then, is to assess which
of these varied arguments are most powerful and which can be met by
credible objections.