# Christianity and Nominalism



## Justified (Apr 22, 2015)

What are the implications of nominalism for Christian theology? Is it the majority (or minority) view among the Reformed? And what are your personal thoughts?


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## RamistThomist (Apr 22, 2015)

Justified said:


> What are the implications of nominalism for Christian theology? Is it the majority (or minority) view among the Reformed? And what are your personal thoughts?



Minority view. At best you can find some Reformers using Scotist language, but that's a far cry from saying the Reformed tradition is nominalist. The implications of nominalism are quite terrible: there are no real attributes of God. They are just labels. There is no possibility for communion because everything is simply isolated particulars.


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## MW (Apr 22, 2015)

Justified said:


> What are the implications of nominalism for Christian theology? Is it the majority (or minority) view among the Reformed? And what are your personal thoughts?



Are you thinking of "nominalism" in terms of the "realist" v "nominalist" contentions of the middle ages?


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## Philip (Apr 22, 2015)

ReformedReidian said:


> At best you can find some Reformers using Scotist language


.

Scotism is the classic antithesis of nominalism.



ReformedReidian said:


> The implications of nominalism are quite terrible: there are no real attributes of God.



Not necessarily. Nominalism could be seen as a helpful theory of language in terms of Divine simplicity. Nominalism essentially treats all language as analogical.


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## RamistThomist (Apr 22, 2015)

Philip said:


> ReformedReidian said:
> 
> 
> > At best you can find some Reformers using Scotist language
> ...



Okay. I'll think of that. For some reason I was thinking of Scotus as in the nominalist tradition.


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## Philip (Apr 22, 2015)

ReformedReidian said:


> Okay. I'll think of that. For some reason I was thinking of Scotus as in the nominalist tradition.



No, the _Doctor Subtilis_ has a rather unique and complicated understanding of realism about universals. It's mostly internally consistent, but the fact that he has to make so many subtle distinctions to make it work led Occam to formulate his eponymous razor (Occam isn't a nominalist, technically, but a conceptualist).


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## Justified (Apr 22, 2015)

MW said:


> Justified said:
> 
> 
> > What are the implications of nominalism for Christian theology? Is it the majority (or minority) view among the Reformed? And what are your personal thoughts?
> ...


Yes, and more broadly also. I've been thinking lately about the existence of uncreated abstract entities (e.g., numbers). I realize however that such a position probably has some serious implications on theology.

I haven't read much on the subject, but I'm having a hard time with the Platonic view, and I'm inclined to think a conceptualist position or the nominalist position seems most reasonable, although I'm open to correction.


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## MW (Apr 23, 2015)

Justified said:


> Yes, and more broadly also. I've been thinking lately about the existence of uncreated abstract entities (e.g., numbers). I realize however that such a position probably has some serious implications on theology.



Those who trace the threads of reformed scholasticism back to the middle ages generally see an appropriation of both philosophies. Because of the Creator-creature ontological difference all human concepts are "nominalist" and based on a creationist worldview. This means man cannot know the essence of things, but only their created qualities as revealed by God. However, there is also an appropriation of a realist epistemology in the areas of cognition, perception, etc. True knowledge corresponds to the authentic structures and conditions of human life. Hence the knowledge of things is not arbitrary but rationally and morally binding.

There is a similar appropriation of the voluntarist/necessarian traditions.

As numerical values are applicable to finite things they must be a part of the creation. At the same time, there is such a necessity of them in connection with finite things that they carry rational and ethical value which is binding on men. The same would apply to the laws of logic and scientific principles.


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## Justified (Apr 23, 2015)

MW said:


> Justified said:
> 
> 
> > Yes, and more broadly also. I've been thinking lately about the existence of uncreated abstract entities (e.g., numbers). I realize however that such a position probably has some serious implications on theology.
> ...


 So one can be a nominalist with regard to the existence (or non-existence rather) of uncreated universals and be an epistemological realist, believing that our minds have direct access to the material world, correct?


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## Justified (Apr 23, 2015)

Philip said:


> Nominalism could be seen as a helpful theory of language in terms of Divine simplicity. Nominalism essentially treats all language as analogical.


 Let me know if my thinking is correct: If universals don't exist, divine simplicity would no longer suffer from having to claim the identity of certain attributes of God, because we are speaking of God analogically. God is simple _in se_ but we can ascribe attributes to him by talking about him analogically, as he has revealed himself in his works and revelation. These attributes, however, are not referring to timeless universals.

I see where that helps in thinking about divine simplicity. It seems that the Platonic view of universals would have a hard time reconciling divine simplicity.


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## MW (Apr 23, 2015)

Justified said:


> So one can be a nominalist with regard to the existence (or non-existence rather) of uncreated universals and be an epistemological realist, believing that our minds have direct access to the material world, correct?



Yes; but this solution is only possible because of the presupposed reality of a Sovereign Creator and Governor.


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## Philip (Apr 23, 2015)

Justified said:


> Let me know if my thinking is correct: If universals don't exist, divine simplicity would no longer suffer from having to claim the identity of certain attributes of God, because we are speaking of God analogically. God is simple in se but we can ascribe attributes to him by talking about him analogically, as he has revealed himself in his works and revelation. These attributes, however, are not referring to timeless universals.
> 
> I see where that helps in thinking about divine simplicity. It seems that the Platonic view of universals would have a hard time reconciling divine simplicity.



It's actually why Thomas Aquinas and Johannes Duns Scotus both rejected Platonism.

The one caveat to that explanation is that in this case the analogies are not human analogies but Divinely-authorized one (I have reservations about the language of analogy, but that's for another thread).

One should note the mediating position of William of Occam, conceptualism, which maintains that universals pick out real features of reality, but that this should not be taken to mean that they exist in a subsistent sort of way.


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## Justified (Apr 23, 2015)

Does this mean that the Good itself is concrete, i.e., that God himself is goodness? And morality then is based on how, in some way, we imitate the character of our Creator. Also this makes sense of how God's goodness, holiness, etc. can be qualitatively different from ours. If there existed a universal of goodness that both man and God must line up to, then God being good and me being good would be qualitatively identical. However, a nominalist position (and perhaps a conceptualist position) thoroughly maintains a Creator-creature distinction, because God himself is wholly unlike anything else he creates.


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## Justified (Apr 24, 2015)

What's the upshot of a moderate realist position (Thomas' position?)? How does it differ from both the conceptualist position and the nominalist position?


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## Philip (Apr 24, 2015)

Justified said:


> What's the upshot of a moderate realist position (Thomas' position?)? How does it differ from both the conceptualist position and the nominalist position?



It maintains that universals are essentially contingent but still subsistent. Johannes Duns Scotus' work is essentially an attempt to make sense of this idea. Basically, for an object, its instantiation of property X is distinguished both from the universal X and the X of another object by a principle of individuation, which is the essence of the ibject in question. If all that seems overly complex to you, then you understand Occam's objection.


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## Justified (Apr 24, 2015)

Philip said:


> Justified said:
> 
> 
> > What's the upshot of a moderate realist position (Thomas' position?)? How does it differ from both the conceptualist position and the nominalist position?
> ...


Is the moderate realist position also the position of Aristotle? By contemplation of an object our mental faculties form universal concepts that, although the product of our thought, have an real correspondence with reality. Conceptualism would say that we have these concepts exist in our mind, but we cannot be sure on whether or not they correspond to reality. 

It seems to me that conceptualism is the middle position between platonic realism and nominalism, while moderate realism is the mediating position toward platonic realism and conceptualism.


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## Philip (Apr 24, 2015)

Justified said:


> Is the moderate realist position also the position of Aristotle?



Maybe. The whole medieval debate on this was within Aristotle's framework. The main point in Aristotle is that the universals arise from the particulars rather than the other way round.



Justified said:


> Conceptualism would say that we have these concepts exist in our mind, but we cannot be sure on whether or not they correspond to reality.



Not quite. The concepts describe real things and do, on the whole, correspond to reality, but they don't have subsistence. Universals exist as concepts rather than as subsistent entities.

My objection to realism is that we don't seem to have a clear understanding of what it would mean for a universal not to exist at all. Subsistent things are either necessary or contingent. Since God is the only entity with necessary existence, universals, if they were subsistent, would be contingent. But part of contingency is that a contingent thing might or might not exist. The problem is that if a universal is possible, then it exists in some sense. So either a) there are necessarily subsistent entities that are not identical with God (false) b) universals are not subsistent but only have conceptual existence.


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## MW (Apr 24, 2015)

With relation to the good, God Himself is the good in both the voluntarist and intellectualist perspectives; there is no external good to which He is bound. The issue is whether God can will something other than that which His intelligence has determined is the highest good. Is His will free or is He necessitated to follow His perfect intelligence?

This issue comes into metaethics in the form of natural law and the divine command theory. Given the structures and conditions of creation there is a natural good. E.g., the digestive system requires food in balance. Does God forbid gluttony because it is sinful in itself or is it sinful because it is forbidden? Scotus developed the concept of "propriety" to show that it is both, but with primacy being given to the divine will. It is sinful because forbidden and it is "appropriate" for God within the existing state of affairs to forbid it. Reformed scholasticism generally follows this via media position.


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## Justified (Apr 24, 2015)

Philip said:


> Justified said:
> 
> 
> > Is the moderate realist position also the position of Aristotle?
> ...


 How would these concepts correspond to reality? Analogically so? And am I right that your charge against realism is that it's inconceivable to think of contingent universals, since if they are conceivable, they ought to exist in some sense apart from whether or not they have any instantiation in reality? I think a solution might be that non-instantiated universals that are possible (and all of them for that matter) exist in the mind of God. Thus we do not have the problem of co-eternal subsistent entities existing apart from God, and we salvage a moderate realism.

My question is: if one takes the moderate realist position, can we still avoid the pitfalls that the platonic realism faces with regards to divine simplicity?


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## Philip (Apr 25, 2015)

Justified said:


> How would these concepts correspond to reality? Analogically so?



I'm not sure that analogy is the best way to describe it. Take the universal, "white." I can talk then about the whiteness of the wall and the whiteness of the whale. Here I perceive a similarity between two objects which leads me to conclude that they each have a property that is similar enough that the same term is appropriate to describe them. I prefer (borrowing from Wittgenstein) to call this a family resemblance.

Another way to put it is that concepts are tools for describing and interacting with reality, and other people. There are certainly more and less proper ways to do this, but we generally go about testing whether a concept corresponds to reality by testing to see if it is instantiated. There are certainly universal concepts that don't correspond to reality, or at least not to any reality that we are capable of perceiving. For example the idea of a colour that could only be perceived by a being who exists in thirteen dimensions is a concept which I am capable of grasping and which may, in fact, be instantiated. However, I have no means by which to prove whether it does or does not correspond to reality, given that my senses are limited to three (possibly four) dimensions.



Justified said:


> I think a solution might be that non-instantiated universals that are possible (and all of them for that matter) exist in the mind of God.



This only works if you don't hold that they are subsistent. God's knowledge is a necessary attribute and therefore ultimately identical with God's being (simplicity), and that includes the knowledge of universals. If universals are subsistent, then they subsist ultimately in the mind of God. And if universals subsist in the mind of God, either a) there are no real distinctions between them b) God is not metaphysically simple.


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