The Flourishing of Nominalism

We must conclude that the Reformation was not so much a reaction to Scholasticism wholesale, but to this “decayed” Scholasticism exhibited in figures like Scotus, Ockham, and Biel, who strayed from patristic commitments….

The Reformation as Renewal: Retrieving the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, by Matthew Barrett

Having previously covered Scotus here, we now turn to Ockham and Biel.  William of Ockham was born about two decades after Duns Scotus, in the late thirteenth century.  He was excommunicated by the pope, and he also accused the pope of heresy.  He is considered a bridge between Scotus and Biel, also defending God’s freedom in absolute terms.

His conclusions would be a major deviation from classical realism’s (Thomistic) epistemology and metaphysics.  Barrett will consider two such examples: Ockham’s nominalism and Ockham’s razor.

Ockham questioned the idea of universals, going further than Scotus.  Universals were illogical, they were merely names given even though there is no shared reference point.  Humanity, after all, is not destroyed when one human dies. 

Yes, two things share certain commonalities.  But a third thing is not necessary to explain this – the two things are similar merely due to common particulars of each.  This commonality exists only because God wills it, but it cannot be explained by universals.

His position would undercut the idea that we can know anything of God from nature because there is no common basis from which to deduce any conclusions.  If knowledge of God came from philosophy, it could be only probable, not certain.  The idea of using philosophical arguments to prove God’s existence or even any attempt to use such arguments to prove God’s existence, as Aquinas would do via his five ways, was rejected by Ockham.

Further: If universals exist, then God’s acts are determined and not free.  His acts must conform to some man-made “universal” concept; God has no choice but to conform. 

A denial of universals was essential to preserving a voluntarist view of God’s absolute power.

I don’t get such a conclusion.  Each time I have come across this idea, I keep falling back to the idea that God created in accord to His will.  The order He created, to include natural law, is according to what He knew would be best for the flourishing of His creation. 

Why, then, would God ever decide to act against that which He created, if His creation was conformed to and designed for the flourishing of His creation?  It makes no sense to me, as if God got it wrong in the first place, and had to (and perhaps continuously has to) keep tinkering with the order which He placed in His creation.

The via moderna [of Scotus, Ockham, and Biel] intentionally parted ways with the intellectualism of Thomas Aquinas, in which the divine intellect held primacy over the divine will.

To be technically correct, Thomas saw will and intellect as identical, in view of divine simplicity.  And I see it as Thomas does.  God created order: why would He then have cause to violate the order He created?  Was God fallible?  If not, then was He arbitrary?  I cannot find my way through to such a concept.

Returning to Barrett: Ockham’s views were considered catastrophic by his critics: without universals, there is no sure footing on which any knowledge can stand.  Human knowledge must have objective reference points, else there is no means available to us to grasp anything.  Consider holiness:

If universals do not exist, then what universal reference point – like an eternal, simple, and infinite God – can substantiate all the temporal, compositional, and finite instances of holiness perceived by the senses in this world?

The priest can be holy, the sanctuary can be holy, a saint can be holy, the Bible is described as holy.  But what is the “holy” that ties these “holies” together?  On what basis do we refer to each as holy?  Without an objective standard of holiness, the definition and meaning of holy is left to an arbitrary whim.  We have seen in our time that man’s arbitrary whim on such matters has no room for God’s involvement.

Ockham would conclude that God can change His moral commands, yet did not conclude that this makes God arbitrary.  It is a difficult distinction for me to grasp, as it is difficult for me to process the idea that objective standards are not necessary in order to conclude the rightness or wrongness of a thing.

Next, to Ockham’s razor: avoid all of the arguments, terms, concepts and theories used in metaphysics to explain a thing.  Once universals had been shredded, all that was left was to find the simplest and shortest line between point A and point B. 

As God did not use universals to order His creation (per Ockham), the idea of using reason to understand God through His creation was lost – the idea of using reason to substantiate the revealed faith was lost, of no use or purpose. 

God need not even extend grace in order to give eternal life – He is free to decide that good works are sufficient if this is His desire:

For Ockham, man’s merit was accepted simply by fiat of the divine will. …no infusion of created grace is strictly necessary for the remission of man’s guilt and punishment.

Yet Ockham would deny that this was a return to Pelagianism; it was merely God exercising His will.

The integration of faith and reason would not survive Ockham – neither his universals nor his razor.  With no basis to stand on anything, and no philosophy to be used to understand and explain anything, what use is reason to faith?

Barrett next comes to Gabriel Biel, who lived in the latter part of the fifteenth century.  He is recognized as the last of the Scholastics, and the one that many of the Reformers would be quite familiar with, given the proximity of time, influence, and teaching. 

Biel also pushes back on this idea that God is bound to some external standard – in other words, this would make the external standard “God.”  But for this, I return to earlier comments: if God set the standard, why would He have cause to change or violate it?

Biel would further put grace in the second place, with man playing the leading role:

Only if man possessed the spiritual ability to “do his very best,” or, literally, “to do that which lies within him,” could reconciliation with his Maker be achievable.

One can see why Luther would react so strongly against “the Schoolmen,” unfortunately not clearly differentiating from the earlier tradition and the understanding among this group.  This idea of Biel’s was certainly contrary to Thomas’s sovereignty of grace, as found in his more mature writing (his early writing would sound more like Biel, but this was corrected by the time he got to the Summa).  It wasn’t even that Thomas or Bonaventure had to address in any meaningful way this notion of God’s grace as foundationally necessary – such a concept was not a contentious issue in their time. 

Biel’s soteriology was what was taught to Luther and the earliest Reformers; it was inherent in Luther’s ardent opponent, Johann Eck. 

According to Biel, “God has established the rule [covenant] that whoever turns to him and does what he can will receive forgiveness of sins from God.  God infuses assisting grace into such a man, who is thus taken back into friendship.”

It is man’s effort that begins the process, not God’s grace.  Moral effort comes first, then the infusion of grace as a reward (perhaps in this, it sheds some light as to why Luther would spend hours in the confessional booth).  This is followed by man’s moral cooperation with God, which leads to eternal life.  But it isn’t Pelagian, according to Biel, because this is the process God established. 

Biel agreed that man was corrupted; all he required to earn or deserve God’s grace was that man does his best.  This raises a couple of difficulties in Biel’s position, one raised by Barrett, and the second my own.  First, what does it mean to say that man offers his best effort?  How does this stand against the perfection of God?  Does man have a “best” to offer to the perfect God?

As to my objection: we see all around us men doing their best.  There are many men doing obviously good works, yet at the same time they avowedly disavow God – seeming to make clear that God has not bestowed His grace on them.  Why not?  I guess as God is seen as motivated solely by His will, with no established standard, this poses no issue for Biel and the like, but it seems an issue to me.

This is where, for me at least, separating the concepts of justification from sanctification is helpful.  Justification is all God’s grace; thereafter, with God’s grace, I grow in sanctification, becoming ever more Christ-like.  I am not intending any doctrinal stand or debate by this statement, merely a means by which I can logically grasp this discussion in a manner that makes sense to me given my understanding.

Returning to Barrett: this is the type of Scholasticism that provoked the Reformers.  Luther was trained by many who were influenced by Biel; it was here that Luther had his struggle.  When Luther was lecturing on the Psalms (1513-1515), he would write “The doctors rightly say that, when people do their best, God infallibly gives grace.”  Not as merit, but because that’s how God set it up.  Luther on this point would obviously change.

As Luther then turned to Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews, he would come to different conclusions.  This was all incompatible with Pauline anthropology and soteriology.  It was here where Luther would write his Disputation against Scholastic Theology.  It was this Scholasticism, not that of Thomas, but of these later Scholastics, especially Biel, that Luther had in his sights.

Conclusion

While we are not there yet in his book, Barrett notes that the Protestant Scholastics would build on the realism of Thomas and stand against the nominalism of the later Scholastics.

…as the Reformation was codified many of the Reformed Orthodox did dispense with nominalism because they connected its consequences from metaphysics and epistemology to theology itself.  Such a transition in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is another reason one should be suspicious of blaming the Reformers or their heirs for the spread of nominalism and with it, modernity’s secularism.