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Malebranche

Theologian & Philosopher (1637 – 1715)

Nicolas Malebranche was a French Cartesian philosopher and theologian who throughout his life published works on ethics, theology, metaphysics, optics, the laws of motion and the temperament of color. His major contribution to philosophy was his synthesis of Augustine and Descartes and his ontological article about God. Malebranche is best known for his doctrines of Vision of God and Occasionalism.

Quotes:

We are made to know and love God.

I love good and pleasure, I hate evil and pain, I want to be happy and I am not mistaken in believing, that people, angels and even demons have those same inclinations.

I beg of you always to dwell upon the necessity of a thorough understanding of principles, in order to stop the vivacity of his mind, and please do not forget to meditate upon the subject of our discussion.

All creatures are united to God alone in an immediate union. They depend essentially and directly upon Him. Being all alike equally impotent, they cannot be in reciprocal dependence upon one another.

God transforms, so to speak, this air into words, into various sounds. He makes you understand these various sounds through the modifications by which you are affected.

Do not fear lest you should meditate too much upon Him and speak of Him in an unworthy way, providing you are led by faith. Do not fear lest you should entertain false opinions of Him so long as they are in conformity with the notion of the infinitely perfect Being.

As our bodies live upon the earth and find sustenance in the fruits which it produces, so our minds feed on the same truths as the intelligible and immutable substance of the divine Word contains.

God joins us together by means of the body, in consequence of the laws of the communication of movements. He affects us with the same feelings in consequence of the laws of the conjunction of body and soul.

Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to conceive.

I beg of you always to dwell upon the necessity of a thorough understanding of principles, in order to stop the vivacity of his mind, and please do not forget to meditate upon the subject of our discussion.

Prejudices are not easily got rid of as an old coat which is no longer thought of.

We see things in this material world, wherein our bodies dwell, only because our mind through its attention lives in another world, only because it contemplates the beauties of the archetypal and intelligible world which Reason contains.

You find yourself in the world, without any power, immovable as a rock, stupid, so to speak, as a log of wood.

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