  The philosophy of Malebranche is sometimes portrayed as a synthesis of Descartes and Augustine, but a more precise way to put this relation is that Malebranche used Augustine to rectify shortcomings he perceived in the philosophy of Descartes. Chief among these was Descartes’s theory of ideas, which, according to Malebranche, not only fails to reflect human beings’ proper dependence on God but also leads inevitably to skepticism. Initially, Malebranche thought that he agreed with Descartes’s theory, but in the long debate over the nature of ideas he had with Arnauld, who held a close version of Descartes’s theory, Malebranche came to see a need for a different account.