 Should we take take Leibniz’s word for it? Some commentators are not convinced that Leibniz consistently advocates concurrentism, for if the doctrine of continual creation was taken seriously (that is, that God continuously produces all things), then how can anything but occasionalism be the natural upshot? David Scott puts it this way: “After all, it is a fundamental Leibnizian tenet that the ‘degree of perfection’ of a thing is the extent to which that thing acts. [Discourse on Metaphysics §15] Thus, if a thing’s perfection or action is ‘due to God’ (as opposed to itself) then we have a de facto occasionalism in which God does all the work. The question here is what sense can be made of the idea that God’s conservation is a ‘support’ for the ‘natural permanence of a thing which comes into existence’” (Scott §4). Scott continues to claim that “the notion of God supporting the natural permanence of things is a contradiction in Leibnizian terms, resolvable only if a greater, occasionalist-like dependence of nature upon God is admitted.” The problem, however, is that Leibniz certainly does reject occasionalism and specifically tries to show (unsuccessfully, according to Scott) that continual creation is consistent with the genuine causal activity of created substances. Perhaps it is inescapably philosophically untenable, but Leibniz’s view is that “[God’s action] cannot be general or indeterminate. … Conservation by God consists in the perpetual immediate influence which the dependence of creatures demands” (Theodicy §27).