  The difference in the way that they conceive of occasional causation is in how they understand the content of the “all-powerful command” that introduces motion into the system. On Malebranche’s view, a true cause is one where we can perceive a necessary connection between it and its effect. The only candidate for such a connection is between the infinite will as cause, and its effects. Moreover, he seems to also endorse the claim that for a cause to bring out its effect, it must possess the knowledge of how to bring it about. In the case of the relationship between a finite mind and the body to which it is joined, our ignorance of how the mind “causes” the body to move is enough to deny that there is causal connection. In short, only God has the required knowledge to effect these kinds of changes. These arguments undergird the central Malebranchean commitment: the utter dependence of all created things on God. As such, it makes sense, on his system, to deny causal efficacy to anything other than God. Such a denial of causal efficacy entrenches the dependence of created things on their creator.