Secondary causation[1][2][3] is the philosophical proposition that all material and corporeal objects, having been created by God with their own intrinsic potentialities, are subsequently empowered to evolve independently in accordance with natural law.
That the physical universe is consequentially well-ordered, consistent, and knowable, subject to human observation and reason, was a primary theme of Scholasticism and further molded into the philosophy of the western tradition by Augustine of Hippo and later by Thomas Aquinas.
[citation needed] Occasionalism itself was derived from the earlier school of thought of volunteerism emanating from Al-Ash'ari who held that every particle in the universe must be constantly recreated each instant by God's direct intervention.
[citation needed] According to the Kabbalah and in Chasidic philosophy in the Tanya composed by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi at the beginning of the 19th century, the will and desire to create the universe is integral to the creator's very essence and thought this being the source for all the physical and spiritual worlds.
Separating the sanctity of religious revelation from the practical world of physical observation was an attempt to circumvent proscriptions on the discredited rationalist heresy of Muʿtazila, which had heretofore not gained traction in any venue.
"[5]The assignment of intrinsic qualities to objects which can mutate and evolve of their own accord without divine intervention was a crucial step in the transformation of the rational logic of the Greeks into the scientific method[6] in the Western Tradition of the late Middle Ages.
Because man could thus observe and characterize the natural flow of events without impugning the prerogatives of supernatural forces, burgeoning philosopher-scientists became free to experiment and especially to question and debate the results.
[citation needed] In Western Europe this rationale was further strengthened by the motivation that science was uniquely able not only to efficiently manage the world as charged to do so in Genesis but also to be able to distinguish miracles from natural occurrences.