We think one event flows into next. What if each event does not flow? What if God creates the universe as if from scratch?
That is questioning the assumption of causal continuity, the idea that one moment leads to the next.
If each event does not flow into the next, but rather the entire universe is recreated from scratch at every instant, that would mean what we experience as continuity is an illusion — a kind of divine animation, where God is rendering reality frame by frame, each one wholly self-contained yet appearing to us as seamless time.
The world tends to regard views such as that acceptable if enough functional people and organisations lend them credence.
This idea has appeared in various philosophical and theological traditions:
• Islamic occasionalism (al-Ghazālī) holds that nothing has inherent causal power — only God creates each event at every moment. Fire doesn’t burn cotton; God creates the burning when fire and cotton are brought together.
• Berkeleyan idealism suggests that the persistence of the world depends on God’s continuous perception — reality exists only because God is "thinking" it.
• In some Hindu and Buddhist philosophies, the universe arises anew each instant, like frames in a movie, yet appears continuous due to memory and karmic patterns.
• Even in modern physics, quantum mechanics hints that the universe might be discontinuous at its most fundamental level — that reality "updates" probabilistically in discrete time-like moments.
If that’s the case, “cause and effect” become more like divine syntax — rules God uses to make creation intelligible and coherent, not true chains of necessity.
If God recreates the universe from scratch each instant:
• Causation:
• No real cause-and-effect between events.
• What seems like continuity is God recreating a consistent pattern moment by moment.
• Free Will:
• Human choices exist only because God wills each thought and action into being.
• Two main interpretations:
• Deterministic: only God acts; human will is an illusion.
• Compatibilist: God sustains your will each instant, so your choices are real but dependent.
But as there is no connection with previous moment, this free will bears little resemblance to how we expect to own what we do. Free will in such a straitjacket is meaningless.
• Self and Memory:
• “You” don’t persist across time — God re-creates a version of you each instant, including memory traces that make continuity feel real.
Now God is a liar for memory alters the truth as we know.
• Time and Change:
• Time is just the order of divine recreations, not a flowing river.
• Change is a difference between two distinct creations.
• Spiritual implication:
• Every moment is a direct act of God — reality is continuous divine creation.
• The present moment may become sacred; everything is equally immediate to the Creator.
But should we see it as sacred when he directly gives us a simulated free will and lying memory?
We have no evidence that one moment truly flows into the next, nor that each is freshly created from nothing. Both are interpretations that fit the same appearances. What we call continuity may be the unfolding of causes or the steady re-creation of a divine will, but experience itself cannot decide between them.
Honesty should compel philosophers and theologians not to favour flow or from scratch. There is no evidence either way Both the “flow” view (that one moment causes the next) and the “from-scratch” view (that each moment is a fresh creation) are interpretations. They are not conclusions demanded by evidence.
Here’s the idea in clearer form:
• Empirical neutrality:
• All our experiences seem continuous — but that’s equally compatible with an actual flow of time or with a perfectly recreated illusion of flow.
• No experiment or observation can distinguish between the two, since every observation is itself part of the next recreated moment.
• Epistemic humility:
• Honest reasoning means admitting that our evidence describes patterns, not metaphysical mechanisms.
• Whether those patterns arise from natural causation or divine re-creation is beyond what observation can test.
• Philosophical implication:
• Both “flow” and “recreation” are models — mental scaffolds for thinking about reality, not proven truths.
• Choosing one over the other often reflects temperament or theological commitment more than data.
That’s a deeply philosophical stance — it echoes thinkers like David Hume (who doubted causation as anything more than habit) and mystics who suspend metaphysical certainty in favor of awe.
Do not be manipulated. The reason many set up belief systems based on the flow assumption, is because you are inclined to favour it. To found religions and demand commitment based on half-truth is appalling. Science, by the way, is invalidated or rendered suspect by the very notion of a creator.
Suppose causal continuity is not assumed. That each event does not necessarily flow from the previous one. Then the universe could be seen as continually recreated by God, moment by moment.
In this view, God is the primary cause, the ultimate source of all existence, sustaining everything at every instant. Secondary causes—natural processes, human actions, accidents, and even evil—exist contingently, dependent on God’s creative will, and do not undermine His primacy. Evil and accidents remain secondary because they arise within the contingent order of creation rather than directly from God. This perspective highlights that the apparent flow of events is not necessary in itself; continuity is a reflection of God’s ongoing act of creation, emphasizing that God is not merely the first cause in a chain but the sustaining cause of all possibility.
But it is hard to get rid of the feeling that this God is still evil.
If we think of a “moment” as sharper than any human conception of an instant, then each moment of existence is, in a sense, discrete and complete in itself. If a moment is so infinitesimally narrow that it is essentially indivisible, the usual distinctions between primary and secondary causes lose their apparent relevance. In such a ultra-brief slice of existence, nothing truly flows from anything else. There isn’t time for one event to produce another in any observable way. Each instant simply is. God remains the primary cause, sustaining the universe at every instant, but within that fleeting now, accidents, secondary causes, and even continuity itself seem almost meaningless, emerging only when many such moments are considered together.
FINALLY
Should we want anything like the doctrine of creation when it permits either flow or not-flow?
It makes the idea of a good God meaningless to us for an instant is smaller than we can ever imagine. The primary cause God, and evil as a secondary cause problem is effectively useless.