3 Examples of Nominalism
I guess I can’t always talk about Calvinism, seeing as how it’s not the only thing I think about. Today I’m thinking about Nominalism.
Nominalism:
the doctrine that general or abstract words do not stand for objectively existing entities and that universals are no more than names assigned to them1
In short this is in contrast to a metaphysical epistemology which says that reality is bound to form and our knowledge of anything is an internalization of its form. In short, nominalism says ‘It is what I call it’ while metaphysics says, ‘I call it what it is’. Anyone who has traveled or lived overseas should be able to identify with the metaphysical position. When you get in your car in London and drive through the chunnel and come out on the other side to find you’re driving a voiture, are you suddenly no longer in a car? Of course not! The concept of car is tied to its form and matter, not the word assigned to refer to it. The same is true if you were to drive west instead of south and upon crossing the mountains you find you’re driving a cerbyd. Again, what you’re driving hasn’t changed, because the word has no bearing on it’s metaphysical reality.
You might ask if this is the same thing, because ultimately if we call it what it is, then it is what we call it, right? Not necessarily, because according to my Thomist friend, nominalists assert that it is the naming of the thing that creates its essence. Thus by saying something is something, you make it that way.
But let’s get out of the abstract. Let’s get to the concrete. My friend decries nominalism as one of the worst things to plague philosophy and Christianity. I don’t know enough about it to know whether that is true, but I do know three cases in which I have seen nominalism at work and in each case it is dreadfully wrong.
Monergy or Synergy?
Just so you know it may be some time before I get to the Limited Atonement post because I want to be careful with this one. Limited Atonement is the one doctrine of the five points that I am least sure of. Don’t think that means that I deny it. I believe in Limited Atonement, but I have the problem of not understanding it quite as well as I do the others. So I’m going to take some time to research it a little deeper than I’ve researched the others. I’m going to look at this one from both sides, so who knows we may all be surprised by the results.
This is probably the best time of any to mention that I am not writing this blog, and these posts on Calvinism, as a categorical systematic eisegetical defense of my unwavering belief in hardcore 5-point Calvinism. I believe in 5-point Calvinism, but I do not do so without trying to consider and reconcile the objections raised by skeptics. I also do not care if I disagree with any Calvinists on the particulars (most of it is equivocation anyway). I don’t even care if I disagree with Calvin himself. I care only that I represent soteriology accurately as it is in the Bible. I only care that I agree with Christ and his apostles.
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On Whether God Elects Unconditionally
Preemptive Disambiguation
Having looked more in depth at these doctrines over the last year and a half or so, I’ve been surprised by how much variance there is in opinions. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, but it appears that there is a great amount of equivocation on all sides. We each seem to have a different definition of what each term means. So in order to make it plain what I’m talking about, I will define what I mean by Unconditional Election:
In my estimation, the doctrine of Unconditional Election states that God, for no other reason than his own sovereign choice, has chosen who among the race of Adam would be saved.
I’ve decided to tackle this one in Thomistic style: