 Régis was rightly curious about the nature of this union with God. Malebranche had spoken metaphorically of the ‘presence’ of God to the mind, but without ever specifying what he meant. Régis noted that this union cannot be understood on the model of the union of one body with another, for that requires actual physical contact; nor should it be thought to resemble the mind’s union with the body, for that would make the mind and God mutually dependent on each other, and the infinite being depends on nothing. No, Régis argued, the only viable way to understand the God-mind union is on the model of cause to effect, respectively. At this point he uncovers an important objection that he had been anticipating: if mind-God union is to be understood causally, then it is still possible that we perceive bodies by means of ideas that are in us, but caused by bodies themselves, as Descartes himself had taught (SG 1:188; also see Schmaltz 2000, 76–7).