Theological Ramblings

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.

1. Nominal Christians

One of the major problems with Christianity are the ones who claim to be Christian, but show no evidence of actually being a Christian. The thinking goes like this: ‘I’m going to call myself a Christian, and that will make me a Christian’. But they expect that to be all that is necessary. These people may or may not go to church. They may or may not read the Bible. They may or may not serve. They may or may not pray. But they claim to be Christian as if that is all they need. But the epistemology is wrong. Saying you’re a Christian doesn’t make you a Christian. Being a Christian makes you a Christian and it should cause you to call yourself a Christian.

How do you tell the difference? I have no idea. There seems to be a fine line between nominal/carnal and authentic/struggling. This is not my arena to judge. However, the nominal Christian will have trouble becoming excited about God’s work or God’s truth. He or she will have trouble being motivated to meet with other believers. He or she may very likely do things out of a motive of looking good in front of others who expect a certain level of behavior from believers.

Don’t just say you’re a Christian. Be a Christian.

2. KJV

In my debates about the KJV (the result of which can be found here) I encountered this argument: In many places where the KJV uses the word ‘Hell’, the NIV uses other words like ‘Hades’, ‘Sheol’, ‘The Grave’ or simply ‘Death’. Why would the translators of the NIV want take Hell out of the Bible?

The flaw in this argument is, of course, nominalism. The assumption is that if the word ‘Hell’ isn’t in the Bible, then the reality of ‘Hell’ must not be in the Bible. But this is false. The concept of Hell is not inextricably tied to the word ‘Hell’. In the case of the NIV, there were several good reasons for them to translate it the way they did. I’m not going to get into it here, because that’s not the purpose of this post, but let it be said that I have no problem with it because even though the word is not there, the concept still is plain and clear

3. Baptist?

Finally, in my senior year, for reasons I will not discuss here, my then fiancee (now wife) and I changed the church we attended. This cause a stir with a certain older couple I know because we had been going to Grace Baptist Church and were now going to Grace Covenant Church. Now, aside from a discussion of whether the Baptist denomination is really the best (it clearly is in the mind of this individual), let’s examine this problem. The main objection is ‘if it doesn’t say Baptist, it’s not’. But that’s not true, because being Baptist has nothing to do with the name, but rather what the church is.

Another example of this same debate regarding Baptist took place recently at our current church: Uijongbu Baptist Church. Our constitution states very clearly and strongly that we will in no circumstances accept as a member anyone who has not been baptized in a Baptist church. This was done because our founding pastor (who has recently moved on) was a hard core ‘Big B’ Baptist. Really he is a nominalist. But anyway, it was suggested by our current pastor that we take that out and replace it with ‘a church of like faith’ because at least in this regard he is not a nominalist and realizes that there are Baptist churches that are really quite unlike us and there are other churches (Uijongbu Community Church for example) that are close enough to us that there really is no reason for the name ‘Baptist’ to be any kind of breaking of fellowship. Well the motion didn’t pass because some people don’t understand this. Oh well it’s the world in which we live.

Hope this gives you some food for thought. Any comments?

1. dictionary.com