This guy is anonymous because he's an attorney and he says he does not want to lose his job, or get assaulted in the street for his views. It's an excellent video debunking the Western propaganda about the Uyghurs.
We have done it… We have broken down each bit of major Western propaganda on the Uyghur and Xinjiang situation in order to debunk the lies and reveal the truth. For over an hour, Bay takes on a series of propaganda ranging from Adrian Zenz to inconsistent witness testimony to debunking sterilization claims and all major propaganda promoted surrounding this incredibly manufactured issue.
Numuves -
US Col. exposes truth on Uyghur Chinese in 2 min - MSM doesn't want you to see this!
Lawrence Wilkinson -
46 comments:
Utter nonsense -- try reading the Raoul Wallenberg centre's report at https://3y4moi335jqc3hdi6ss66vpc-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/Chinas-Breaches-of-the-GC.pdf
Here is the press release. Looking at the report, if only a fraction of the enormous number of citations or evidence holds (and most of it does in my opinion), then the only conclusion is that the behaviour of the Chinese Government is genocidal. But we knew that anyway, since it refuses to let international journalists investigate freely.
Kaivey is complicit in defending genocide, now.
Here is the press release.
https://www.raoulwallenbergcentre.org/newsfeed/2021/3/9/press-release-global-experts-conclude-china-is-committing-genocide-against-the-uyghurs
Just because the West is using the genocide cynically for its own purposes does not mean that it is not real.
It is.
Might be impossible to settle even in an international court owing to the cognitive affective biases involved along with different world views.
And a sovereign state is never going to let itself be investigated from without.
Canada and even the US do it frequently, and get pilloried by UN rapporteurs for their behaviour in terms of treatment of Indigenous peoples and human rights. One part of the definition of a dictatorship is its interdiction of inquiry and public discussion. Nothing in this website that is critical of the US -- what I like inter alia about Mike Norman Economics -- would be permissible in China -- that is just a fact. So even if the West is enormously violent, the scale of internal despotism in China is immmensely larger.
When I first heard about the Uyghurs, I was reminded of Residential Schools in Canada.
One have to be really desperately and or naive when Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy is the source for information.
Azeem Ibrahim sounds like an Atlanticist.
Does Russian President Vladimir Putin have Scotland's best interests at heart, questions Azeem Ibrahim)
Since coming to power in late 1999, Vladimir Putin has set about rebuilding “Soviet greatness”, by recasting Russia into the “natural opponent” of the “Western world order”.
He has failed miserably at rebuilding Russia internally into the economic and scientific powerhouse it used to be, but he has managed to place Russia into a position of permanent antagonism to everything “Western”, whether or not that makes any sense.
The United Kingdom is the historical progenitor of what we today call the Western world, and remains a key pillar of the Western alliance. To dismantle it is a feverish wet dream for Putin and the deluded revanchist nationalists that surround him in the Kremlin. And the prospect of Scottish independence is the most immediate way in which this may come to pass.
“ Here is the press release. Looking at the report, if only a fraction of the enormous number of citations or evidence holds”
Yeah a youth group had supposedly called them backwards and what not. That is really stuff that should be in “serious” report on genocide.
Unbelievable stupidity.
Azeem Ibrahim says that most of the evidence is already in the public domain, but that has been debunked. Even Adrian Zenz has changed his line from genocide to cultural genocide. Azeem Ibrahim new evidence comes from witnesses, but we've been there before, do you remember the testimonials of North Korean defectors which all got debunked.
Marian Ruccius is getting sloppier for every crusade.
It’s NOT a report from the Raoul Wallenberg centre.
It’s a report from Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy.
“ Since coming to power in late 1999, Vladimir Putin”
LOL! Everybody else drunk?
s400 -- well the Raoul Wallenberg Centre heartily endorses it: “The mass of evidence analyzed in this report by independent experts from around the globe definitively concludes that China is committing genocide against the Uyghurs, in standing breach of the Genocide Convention,” says Yonah Diamond, RWCHR Legal Counsel and principal author of the report. “The report clearly demonstrates that China, as a State, is committing acts of genocide against the Uyghurs with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the group as such, as exemplified by State-orchestrated mass internment, forced birth prevention, and campaigns of eradication, which have a logical consequence— destruction of the group as such.”
Peter Pan: except that the residential schools were reserved for children, whereas Uighur adults are also interned and abused, so it would be more accurate to compare the Chinese treatment to a combination of the residential schools, and, say, the internment and reeducation camps that the US imposed upon the Navajo. Genocide.
“The mass of evidence analyzed in this report by independent experts from around the globe definitively concludes that China is committing genocide against the Uyghurs, in standing breach of the Genocide Convention,”
As always you claim a lot but never ever really show the real evidence.
This report is a report based on the same “reports” and findings that all stem from the same sources, those who is criticized to be not very we’ll founded.
It’s a garbage report which is for suckers to believe.
“ whereas Uighur adults are also interned and abused,”
Here we have one of your claims which you now have an excellent opportunity to prove.
And don’t come with a sweeping report where you try to intimidate by saying that “experts say”. It’s a simple claim you do and it requires hard evidence.
BTW it’s not mass evidence in that report, it’s mass accusations. It’s a huge difference.
S400, if you are not a Chinese government troll, you should be -- i detect a real career opportunity for you.
I think that this Guardian satellite evidence is very compelling:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/24/china-imprisoning-uighurs-satellite-images-xinjiang
Here is a Chinese rebuttal on Xinhua english.
Fact Check: Lies on Xinjiang-related issues versus the truth
I would guess that the facts of the matter lie somewhere between the extremes of the Chinese government propaganda and Western propaganda, much of it provided through Five Eyes. Toward which extreme along the range is not established by fact.
I would add that there are many reports from Xinjiang by Westerners including some journalists that belie the propaganda about the Uyghurs (and Islam) in Xinjiang. Of course there is no way to know the degree of access they had and it can be assumed that that not all areas on limits.
Moreover, the Uyghur population has apparently been growing, which argues against a policy of genocide. And from what I have able to determine about China, there is no cultural suppression either insofar as it is cultural and does not threaten the state, either of Uyghurs culture or other cultural traditions. On the other hand, the Chinese government does act to control and shape culture along with just about everything else.
(BTW, this is not unique to China but is a feature of most traditionalist peoples. This is the basis of the cultural wars in the US, too. As I have said, the present moment in the historical dialectic involves both a conflict between liberalism and traditionalism, and also between imperialism and decolonization. It's going to be with us for some time.)
My take is that it is pretty sure that the Chinese government is suppressing Islamic terrorism and separatism in Xinjiang very forcefully, as it does elsewhere, and Xinjiang has been a hotbed of it, with a history of terrorist violence there. Part of this is "re-education and training," thus the "camps." In the West, they would be incarcerated.
It also pretty likely that this unrest in Xinjiang and HK and to some degree in Tibet, but now mostly through "exiles," is supported by Western intelligence services and NGOs. They would not doing their jobs if they were not.
I think that this Guardian satellite evidence is very compelling
Like the satellite images of Saddam's WMD was convincing? And then satellite image proving the removal of the WMD to Syria, which was to explain why they were not found.
Or the evidence of the shooting down of MH17 that the US never provided.
I could go on.
Once the intel services find something that works, they run with it.
Tom and Kaivey, you are making exactly the same error that Noam Chomsky did as regards the Khmer Rouge/Pol Pot genocide. Because you detest the violence of US intervention, like the genocidal Nixon-Kissinger bombing of Laos and Cambodia, you are closing your mind to the very obvious on-going genocide in Xinjian, just as well-respected lefties poured cold water on the great Khmer Rouge killings in Cambodia (supported by the Chinese Government, by the way).
But the truth is so very powerful, and so much better shown and documented, in pieces such as that presented in the Guardian, that you are abusing the evidential process. There is no contrary evidence really -- no Robert Fisk to visit the Duma bombsite, and no hidden information (as in the MH17 show trial)-- because the fascist Chinese autocracy kills and imprisons anybody who tries for independent commentary. If you do not want to evaluate the evidence honestly (which seems to be the case), I think it is because you hate the run-up to war that you fear the Western press accounts presage. BUT it is one's responsibility to acknowledge Chinese wrongdoing EVEN if it is cynically used to promote negative ends by the West. That is what Assange would do.
May I recommend this piece from the former Encounter magazine. Despite its smug and sanctimonious tone towards the otherwise admirable Chomsky, it really says a lot about how you have both lost your way. https://www.unz.com/print/Encounter-1980jul-00028/
Here is a short sample: "What has happened in Indochina since the "liberation" makes Chomsky's erroneous perspective painful to recollect. His contemptuous dismissal of the "bloodbath myth" as simply invented by "Washington propaganda" sounds singularly hollow today, as does his prediction that "the movement which tries to gain the support of the peasant masses will certainly not resort of a bloodbath of the rural population". ...To rescue his earlier assertions he produces some dazzling semantic footwork, but his efforts only indicate obduracy."
Yo, They’re not ever going to turn over jurisdictional authority of their fresh water sources to a bunch of jihadis...
As I said previously, in my assessment, these issue are undecidable at this point and may never be resolved in way that compels assent base upon agreed upon evidence owing to the respective cognitive-affective biases affecting all the parties.
Cognitive-affective biases, which affect one's values also, as foundational to one world view, which one equates with reality. Those who realize how this works can at least admit their own limitations and may be able to shift some of them even though each of us in trapped in a world view, most of which is acquired but is also influenced by one's disposition.
I may be wrong but that will have to be shown on my terms for me to accept it. This goes for everyone, since the "terms" are one's world view as "reality." This is not to say that world views are static, although for most they are rigid. In fact, studies show that even highly intelligent people by ordinarily accepted standards tend to double down in the face of "facts" that contradict their world view as their reality.
Some people are flexible enough to stand far enough from their world view to see others point of view, and this might even cause one to shift one's world view. But one cannot escape having a world view.
Yo, They’re not ever going to turn over jurisdictional authority of their fresh water sources to a bunch of jihadis...
In this thread the issue at hand is the merit of the charges against China based on alleged human rights abusesthat are being used to sanction China, which I view as essentially a veil for the anti-competitive stance of the US and its British, Canadian, and Australian poodles.
No one with a functioning brain thinks that China would let any of its territory be separated from it other than by war, and that includes Taiwan, let alone Xinjiang, HK or Tibet. China and India are contesting the border in a remote region because both countries regard the area as vital strategically. They fought a war over this in the Sixties. Regarding India, the same with Pakistan. (No one in the West has paid much attention to alleged human rights abuses in Kashmir, which India has essentially taken over and cut off.)
Right now, hot war is brewing in the ME with Iran, in Europe in eastern Ukraine, and on the South Pacific with China. I expect to see hostilities in the ME and Ukraine in the foreseeable future. Hot war with China is possible at any time owing to accident or blunder, and the US has already demonized China and Russia in the public eye to get popular backing for a new world war, which is where this is heading.
As the supposed only superpower and world leader the US should be shouldering the responsibility of ensuring peace rather than fomenting conflict for its own geopolitical and economic interests.
Don't fall for the propaganda smokescreen that has been erected due to cognitive-affective bias and ideology.
“In this thread the issue at hand is the merit of the charges against China based on alleged human rights abuses”
Well maybe they know better how to deal with belligerent jihadis?
Look at US response to 9-11.... pathetic...
same cohort of weak incompetent people criticizing China for cracking down...
Uyghurs would have to win on the battlefield to achieve their independence. This ain't gonna happen.
China is a human rights violator. They should be criticized.
The cold war is a done deal, and a hot war would be the result of stupidity or an accident. Tone policing won't save us from those who hold power and are quite mad.
They are not mad for protecting their fresh water source from jihadis who would probably poison it in 2 seconds ....
Tom: if I am shown to be wrong, I will acknowledge it. You are correct about Canada -- always holding the bully's coat, although recently we have had to start choosing between bullies a little bit (until Meng Wanzhou got/or found herself detained), which we have not had to do since the 1950s.
The biggest threat, except on the China-India border, is in the South China Sea, one place where China is indeed playing the Imperialist. Viet Nam has a far stronger claim, for instance, to the Paracel Islands, and Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, the Philippines and Viet Nam to the Spratley Islands -- but that does not stop China from taking what does not belong to it. And the same goes for Xinjiang, rich in cotton, among other things. Matt Franco is wrong to put it down to Jihadis -- in the end it is about cultural/national resistance to an invader and colonizer. The Jihadis have arisen merely because China has previously so repressed ordinary national self-expression by the Uighurs. It is like what Uri Avnery warned Israelis about: "if you are not willing to deal with the Arab nationalists, you will have to deal with the religious fundamentalists."
I think cognitive-affective biases have little to do with it, just as I feel that micro-aggressions are a ridiculous worry, just because there are so many major aggressions to navigate. Similarly, I believe that it is ideological PREFERENCES rather than any indeliberate biases that guide our public discourse. Judging from my knowledge of myself, I think everyone knows when they are being prejudiced, and almost everyone knows when they are taking a public stance for tactical reasons (including would-be altruistic ones). But I think that appealing to cognitive-affective biases is an excellent tactic for remaining respectful, and moderating arguments and opinions, so there may be significant wisdom in making use of such a frame.
Incidentally, very polite of you all not to correct my spelling -- I accidentally wrote Xinjian rather than Xinjiang, in my initial posts above, and they are not the same things.
They are not mad for protecting their fresh water source from jihadis who would probably poison it in 2 seconds ....
The leaders who are mad are in Washington.
In a Chinese video I was coordinates were given with the satellite images, and so the Chinese were able to check them out, and they were prisons, factories with dormatories (not unusual in China), and schools with dormatories (not unusual in China either). I didn't put the video out here because it was by Chinese state media. Maybe I should.
After Russiagate I don't trust the Guardian at all. I've put out articles on how British intelligence neutralised it, and how it's editors regularly meet with top British diplomats and intelligence to discuss how to present the news.
China colonised Xinjiang centuries ago, so it's complicated. If it got independence the US would fill it with bases. The West, and Japan, has been trying to destroy China for centuries. China holds Xinjiang under internationally recognised agreements, right or wrong.
Texas Secession Movements
Current Supreme Court precedent, in Texas v. White, holds that the states cannot secede from the union by an act of the state, except through revolution or through the expressed consent of the other States.
Wilkepeda
Rozenn Morgat is over 50 years old. She claims that Chinese nurses grabbed her arm and forcebaly sterilized her.
“ factories with dormatories”
You forgot the trapeze nets..
The latest in.
The watchdogs of imperialism and the Uyghur genocide slander
by Steve Gowans at What's Left.
The Chinese regime is repressive but so are other regimes that are US allies, which the US has no problem with, coming across as hypocritical. But being repressive is different from genocide, which is the charge.
The West knew that China was repressive when it opened up to China. Nixon courting of China was in the strategic interest of the US in splitting China from the USSR. That opened the door an economic relationship with under Deng's liberal economic policies. The idea was that liberalization would democratize China, which was wishful thinking.
But in the meanwhile, capitalism took its course, and capital flowed to China, which turned out to be very profitable for all involved other than the workers of China. But this is the same in the rest of the developing world where foreign capital has exploited the cheap labor and lack of regulation and environmental protection. Labor exploitation was and is a feature rather than a bug.
Now the West faces the dilemma of decoupling from China, but unless the West robotizes the manufacturing will just go to less expensive places as it is already doing. Realization is dawning that no amount of "pressure" is going to change the behavior of China, or Russia or Iran, for that matter. Regime change provoked by the West in these countries is magical thinking.
There is no way to interrupt the process that has been taking place for decades without seriously damaging the global economy and Western economies, too. The upside is that former colonies that were undeveloped are now emergent. This threatens Western hegemony unless the former colonies are Westernized and accept a Western "rules based order." Again, wishful thinking when traditional societies are involved.
While the West is focusing on the issue of human rights, a good thing, the West is also in denial that the fundamental problem is capitalism itself. The actual problem that the West has with China is that China is not liberalizing quickly enough in order to prevent the West from taking over the Chinese economy.
The problem with the West and the US in particular is that it is not dealing with reality but instead in utopian "international liberalism," wishful thinking, and good deal of magical thinking to boot.
The West created the problem with China in the first place by colonizing it. Hong Kong today is a remnant of this. China now doesn't intend to be humiliated again, since "loosing face" is a big deal in Asia.
So there is no simple or easy way out. The current direction is leading to open hostility. The current policy has driven Russia and Iran into closer relationship with China, a strategist worst nightmare.
"Human rights" is a now slogan used to politicize the situation. The US and UK have lost their soft power by making a mockery of rights at home and abroad. So all that is left is hard power. The US and UK have forgotten all they knew about diplomacy, making the situation volatile.
We should condemn them all, while being cognizant that even the worse human rights violators have no trouble doing business with the rest of the world.
“America is a shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere”.
Nope.
“China is a shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere”.
Nope.
Marian, IMHO this is defining "genocide" down. "Terrorism" has already been defined down to the degree that political protest risks being labeled "domestic terrorism. If "genocide" is defined down this way, the the West is itself is exposed to the charge and more seriously that the Chinese. "Genocide" used to be thought in terms of the Holocaust and Rwanda. It was also applied to the massacres in Bosnia. In my view that was incorrect. That level has not been reached in China from what I can tell from established fact.
"Genocide" is type of "crime against humanity." It is the most serious one other than illegal aggression. Where I do see crimes against humanity including illegal aggression is on the part of the US leadership since and including Bill Clinton's bombing of Serbia, which incidentally "accidentally" destroyed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. No one in their right mind thinks this was coinidental.
While I agree that human rights is a key issue, the fact is that the terms has been politicized and used selectively as a weapon by the "liberal" West, in a way that highly hypocritical.
Furthermore, this justification of liberal internationalism and its twin liberal interventionism is a excuse for neo-imperialism and neocolonialism.
If America is so intent on punishing China for transgression of human right, then Americans should just boycott goods that are sourced from China in any way. Of course most people are not going to do that since they would have little to purchase but goods from sources as repressive as China, and where worker exploitation is likely worse. So the government would have to cut Chinese goods off. The American government is not going to do that for two reasons. First, there are no readily available substitutes, secondly US firms would not stand for it, and thirdly, if it happened, the US would be mired in depression.
The US and UK should set their own houses in order before attacking others for what they themselves have done and are still doing. Those that live in glass houses should be throwing stones.
I was radicalized while serving in the US military during Vietnam. I was gung ho before I figured it out. Not only was it disingenuous but its was propaganda based on lies. It's been all downhill since then.
Spare me all the liberal concern over the non-white ROW. It smacks of the white-man's burden. Much of the problem today stems from the British Empire, which America succeeded to post WWII. But the fundamental problem is liberalism itself, which is riddled with paradoxes, not the least of which is the antithesis of capitalism, which leads to oligarchy, and democracy as rule of, by, and for the people.
As libertarian of the left, I am a strong advocate of human rights, in contrast to libertarianism of the right. And I am also against politicizing human rights which I regard as low down and a betrayal. The West is guilty of this big-time.
Another one just came online.
‘Independent,’ ‘expert’ report claiming Uyghur genocide brought to you by sham university, neocon ideologues lobbying to “punish” China by Ajit at The Grayzone
From 2015:
Residential schools findings point to 'cultural genocide,' commission chair says
Social Sharing
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/residential-schools-findings-point-to-cultural-genocide-commission-chair-says-1.3093580
So China is no exception to this sort of rhetoric.
Peter Pan: except that China's genocidal behaviour is actually far worse than the residential school and reserve system, absolutely horrendous though they are.
I was already radical before I went to Vietnam and had to deal with some of the things that the US war left behind, unexploded ordinance, agent orange and agent purple forest destruction and aquifer poisoning -- imagine having to decide about helping a drought devastated village put in a water supply system, but one that will only provide water contaminated with agent orange.
SO I am no defender of western imperialism, although I am something of a pragmatist.
China's behaviour in Xinjiang is intended to entirely destroy a culture and force assimilation to Han Chinese life. This is not a criticism of the Han, but of the genocidal behaviour of the government. It is behaviour that goes beyond just cultural genocide, something closer to ethnic cleansing (without deportation); so maybe it does not rise to Rwandan levels, but the abuse is so severe that it fits in a niche all of its own, just adjacent to full-on extermination. I think the cultural genocide part is enough to use the term genocidal.
I also think that debates about the evils of (neo) liberalism are all very well, but essentially immaterial. Whatever the government, the key as we move further into the climate-climate changed era is merely meeting certain basic standards of freedom of speech, belief, movement, association (including the collective rights of ethnic and economic groups, and economic equality. And these can as well be promoted under a left-liberal rubric as under a social democratic or green one, and even under traditional Tory values. What these standards cannot survive IMO is attempts to take sides. The only hope is the power and authority of the state, made subservient to the people by the diminution of rentier influence. Because the only hope is collaborative internationalism, which is a liberal concept. The problem is that so many are party-pris -- we have to be even handed in our assessments, not tactical.
So, I heartily endorse the argument you have posted above, today: 'Our Son of a B***': How US Uses 'Human Rights' Against Its Adversaries, Lets Allies off the Hook: https://sputniknews.com/us/202103171082360037-our-son-of-a-b-how-us-uses-human-rights-against-its-adversaries-lets-allies-off-the-hook/
The world we live in will continue to do business with countries that perpetrate genocide. So what does the terminology accomplish?
The people are not in charge of relations between sovereign states.
The sovereign state model is incompatible with principles of human rights.
The rules-based economic order bestows power according to the size of a state's economy.
I don't see any hope for the future.
The model we have incentivizes what China is doing internally and internationally, along with all the major players, and the struggling smaller players.
When we condemn human rights abuses, it is based on principal, and is symbolic.
We are not being hypocrites, but we are pissing in the wind.
Peter Pan: that is a rational evaluation, but there are examples such as the Montreal protocol or the international sanctions that worked against the former white South African government, where the world can coordinate international action for the benefit of all. So I am more hopeful that you, and the best should not be the enemy of the good.
Marian continue to ride on high horses. A simple moralist. Lots of word but careful not to EVER go into direct rebuttal of what’s been said about the accusations.
It’s all about the accusations, for the reason that propaganda is made for and aimed at _us_ in order to make us accept policy we otherwise wouldn’t accept.
Marion don’t understand that.
Btw the latest Gray Zone piece shows what “experts” Marian is relying on. Not impressive.
Islam is an occasionalist religion, i.e., everything comes from God. As such, it has no theodicy, i.e., the need to explain why evil exists in this world (it doesn't). This from Wikipedia (bold mine):
Occasionalism is a philosophical theory about causation which says that created substances cannot be efficient causes of events. Instead, all events are taken to be caused directly by God. (A related theory, which has been called "occasional causation", also denies a link of efficient causation between mundane events, but may differ as to the identity of the true cause that replaces them. The theory states that the illusion of efficient causation between mundane events arises out of God's causing of one event after another. However, there is no necessary connection between the two: it is not that the first event causes God to cause the second event: rather, God first causes one and then causes the other.
The doctrine first reached prominence in the Islamic theological schools of Iraq, especially in Basra. The ninth century theologian Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari argued that there is no Secondary Causation in the created order. The world is sustained and governed through direct intervention of a divine primary causation. As such the world is in a constant state of recreation by God.
The most famous proponent of the Asharite occasionalist doctrine was Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali, an 11th-century theologian based in Baghdad. In The Incoherence of the Philosophers, Al-Ghazali launched a philosophical critique against Neoplatonic-influenced early Islamic philosophers such as Al-Farabi and Ibn Sina. In response to the philosophers' claim that the created order is governed by secondary efficient causes (God being, as it were, the Primary and Final Cause in an ontological and logical sense), Ghazali argues that what we observe as regularity in nature based presumably upon some natural law is actually a kind of constant and continual regularity. There is no independent necessitation of change and becoming, other than what God has ordained. —Wikipedia
While evil people exist, they hold no power in this world. Everything does the will of God. That includes Chinese and Uyghurs. This because of continuous creation which of course destroys causality.
Oliver Crisp summarizes [Jonathan] Edwards's view: "God creates the world out of nothing, whereupon it momentarily ceases to exist, to be replaced by a facsimile that has incremental differences built into it to account for what appear to be motion and change across time. This, in turn, is annihilated, or ceases to exist, and is replaced by another facsimile world ... and so on."
Here is a bit more on Edwards from Oliver Crisp:
Reformed theology is often associated with a divine determinism, in which God ordains everything, and human freedom is claimed to be consistent with this. This biblically informed approach safeguards absolute divine sovereignty over all creatures while protecting human moral responsibility. In early modern theology the question of divine causation loomed large in light of Newton’s mechanical philosophy and the pantheism of writers like Spinoza. Some fended off these worries with occasionalism, claiming that human actions were merely occasions of divine action. Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) took occasionalism to be a correlate of his uncompromising doctrine of divine sovereignty, ultimately making God the moral and causal explanation of all events—even those that are evil.
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