 The dialectic then at this point can be understood as a debate between two fundamentally different readings of the CCC thesis. On the one hand, there are those, like Malebranche, who take the CCC thesis as a premise toward occasionalism in that the identity in question is one of qualitative identity in the sense that what God does causally speaking at creation ex nihilo is the same as what God does in conservation—let’s call this the “qualitative identity” reading. On the other hand, there are who read the identity as a mere numerical identity, wherein God continuously maintains the creature throughout its existence, but what God does qualitatively at creation is different from what God does in conservation. God does less in conservation than at creation, but the acts comprise one continuous whole—let’s call this the “numerical identity” reading. If the numerical identity reading was more comfortable to those divine concurrents who wanted to both endorse the CCC thesis and allow for genuine causation at the creaturely level, one might think that the contribution of occasionalists like La Forge and Malebranche to the debate was to presenting a strong case as to why the qualitative identity reading ought to be preferred as the correct interpretation of the CCC thesis. Here actually is Malebranche pressing precisely this case: