Theological Ramblings

Essentialism is the philosophy that states that essential characteristics of a thing can be separated from its accidents. What is an accident? It’s not just when you have a car wreck. In metaphysics, an accident is a characteristic of an entity that is not essential to its nature.

For example: I have two trees. They both have roots. They both have a main trunk. they both have branches. They both have leaves of some sort. The one on the left however is generally triangular in shape. It’s leaves stay green all year long and are very thin, hard and sharp. You can guess it is some sort of evergreen tree - pine for example. On the right is a tree that is generally broccoli shaped and has broad flat leaves that are not sharp and change colors and fall off in the fall. It is a deciduous tree - a maple for example.

It should be obvious what the essential characteristics of these trees are, and what the accidents are. The essential characteristic - the things that make them trees - are the trunk, the roots, the branches, the fact that they have some leaves of some sort. If any of these were missing in either case, we would not have a tree. We would have something untreeish. If there was a green shortish stalk that didn’t have any branches, but instead had petals, we would have a flower not a tree. But the accidents - the things that are incidental and not germane to the principal - can change without changing the essence of treeness. A tree can have a triangular shape or a broccoli shape. Or it can have other odd shapes. It can be tall or short. It can be a conifer or deciduous. It can have needles or broad, flat leaves. But in any case, it has roots, a trunk and leaves of some kind.

Now I’ve only touched on a couple of the characteristics of trees. There are perhaps other things that make a tree a tree. These essentials are important to discover about anything we analyze, material or immaterial. The essence of a thing is the very core of what makes it what it is. All things like it have these characteristics. Things unlike it lack these characteristics in some ways. It is in the identification of essential characteristics that we begin to be able to classify things that we see around us.

And we can establish a hierarchy. In science we have the Binomial nomenclature. That’s the ’scientific name’ given to all living organisms. It is made up of the genus and the species. Of course in science there are much larger and broader categories for classification, but the genus and species are important. The genus is a collection of entities with a certain essential set of characteristics. All species in a genus have these characteristics. Species that lack these characteristics are outside the genus. The species, then, would be the group of entities that share a certain set of characteristics that are accidental to the genus - they do not take it outside the genus - but that set them apart from other members of the genus.

So for our trees. Let’s say the genus is tree. In reality, I know, it’s likely that’s actually a phylum, but that’s not the point. The tree has roots, leaves and a trunk. Then the species is conifer or deciduous. Conifers have pointy leaves, make cones and do not change color in the fall. Deciduous trees have broad, flat leaves, make fruit or nuts and do change colors in the fall. The genus is tree, and the species is conifer or deciduous. Of course, the accidents of the species then become essentials of a new sub-genus, which will have sub-species. This is why in science you have kingdoms, phyla, classes, orders, families, etc. We could go on forever.

But we don’t just do this for biology. We do it for everything. In philosophy everything can be classified. Love. What is the genus of love? Love involves willing good for the beloved. What is the species of casual love? It seeks the good of the beloved when it is convenient for the lover. What is the species of unconditional love? It sacrifices whatever is necessary to ensure the good of the beloved, no matter what the beloved is or does. See, we’ve classified something.

What’s the importance of terms? Terms identify the metaphysical realities we observe and set them apart from each other. Terms provide a framework to help us understand what we’re talking about. If we didn’t have terms we’d be like Vizzini in “The Princess Bride” yelling at Inigo, “Hurry up! Move the thing! And that other thing! Move it!!!” Terms - words - are tools to help us understand what we’re saying. Language is a tool. It is subject to reality.

What’s my point? Where am I going with this? Theology is the observation of God. In the observation of God we have created terms - words. These terms have definitions which are attempts to explain the metaphysical reality about God we have observed. Love is one of them. Trinity is another. Sovereign is yet another. They are words. They are tools. They are subject to the reality of God.

Nominalism. Nominalism denies all of this. It says that those two trees I had earlier? They have nothing in common except that I called them trees. Believe it or not. Nominalism is the belief that there is no metaphysical reality. There’s no essence. There’s no form. All we have are terms. Ideas. Expressions.

Idiotic isn’t it? Well, when I build a straw man and talk about trees, of course it seems idiotic. Nominalism, however, is much more invasive than you might think. The most obvious example of nominalism working out in real life is when a person thinks that his attendance at church and performance of certain Christian ‘rites’ makes him a Christian - apart from the essential genus of what a Christian is - real life changing faith in Christ.

But nominalism is far more pervasive than that. I can tell you right now that the heart of the entire Emergent Church issue is all about nominalism. And I’ll show you as I go. I hope that your eyes and ears are open.