Occam’s Razor: Faith, Reason, and Nominalism
The Key Problem of Medieval Philosophy
The key problem of medieval philosophy and scholasticism had been the relationship between faith and reason. The latter was never regarded as the handmaid of theology. The crisis of scholasticism in the 14th century is a revision of previous centuries. The 16th century represents a breakdown of the major philosophical and religious synthesis of the previous century and poses a definite duality and the clear separation between reason and theology.
Until the 14th century, faith and reason revolved around each other, without clear differentiation. Some considered it possible to demonstrate truth, exalting reason against faith, or that it ended with identifying objects of philosophy and theology. Others made a clear distinction between acts and objects of philosophy and theology. It recognizes a common intersection zone between the two and a subordination of reason to theology.
Occam’s Thought
The thought of the 14th century is represented by Occam. He eliminates the area of intersection between reason and faith; they are different in their sources of information and their contents. The two planes are asymmetric. Occam declared unprovable truths of reason; the truths of faith are neither self-evident nor demonstrable and appear as false to those who make use of reason. The field of revealed truths is alien to rational knowledge.
The truths of faith are a free gift of God, and theology is not a science but a set that is held together by faith. Philosophy has areas of expertise and is not a servant of theology. Knowledge, however, has limited capacity. Occam will hold that neither the divine attributes nor the existence of God are demonstrable.
As Saint Thomas said, there’s a need to demonstrate the existence of God, that every effect has its cause. Occam’s observation says it’s only allowed to know the specific cause of a given phenomenon. There is a prime cause from which the universe comes; to God, according to nominalism and Occam, is something that transcends our sensitive experience.
Occam’s Razor and Ontology
Occam’s ontology is based on the principle of metaphysical economy, or Occam’s Razor. He states that entities should not be multiplied more than necessary. For nominalism, only specific individuals exist. Against Thomas, who said that a being is comprised of existence and essence, for Occam, all this is meaningless and not important when explaining a being. The only beings that exist are specific; for example:
How is it possible to know anything? Occam says things are known through intuition, observation of the thing, and concrete uptake of the thing. The understanding is passive in the reception of real things, so that it grasps what things are.
Saint Thomas said that with the aid of the agent, the patient understanding caught the universal concept of sensible things. The problem arose when trying to answer about those universal concepts, if they have independent existence, separate from things in concrete.
Nominalism vs. Realism
In the history of philosophy before Occam, there were two answers: Plato and his ideas, and the moderate realism that holds that universals exist, but in the minds of each individual (Saint Thomas). For Occam, universals do not exist as real entities. Universals are names or terms involving real things. This position is called nominalism.
For Occam, the universal is the name, which is the term we use to define something. Nominalism takes a critical look at the medieval theory of knowledge (Plato and Aristotle). For nominalism, only individual things exist. Universals are only names. Reality is individual.
Divine Omnipotence
Another feature of Occam’s philosophy is the principle of divine omnipotence. Occam’s position is that of theological voluntarism, which advocates for the absolute omnipotence and liberty of God against the *exemplars*. Just as God has willed that the mind is as it is, He might have wanted it any other way. Something is not essentially good or bad, but something is good or bad because He wills it; the only limit is the principle of non-contradiction.
This leads to some consequences:
- Contingency of all things: the world is a contingent work of God’s creative freedom.
- No necessity in nature.
- Skepticism in human knowledge: if things are as contingent as stated, then we can never be sure of anything.
- An absolute impossibility of connection between God Almighty and the multiplicity of finite individuals created by any other link than that which comes from the pure act of creative will of God, impossible to analyze with a finite understanding like ours.