Question on nominalism/realism and salvation

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Polanus1561

Puritan Board Junior
1. I understand both concepts but why is one more disposed to prevenient grace (nominalism per Ockham as I have read)? Is it because virtue is more of a real entity in an individual?
2. How does Reformed theology assess both concepts?
 
Can you clarify what meaning of prevenient grace you have in mind?

Because I think this is an important subject, this will be a rather long response. Apologies in advance. For brief background as to why I think it is important, some 10-15 years ago, I used to debate Roman Catholics on facebook quite a bit. During one debate on justification, I quoted J. V. Fesko's book on the subject, and a Roman Catholic pointed out that the quote I cited implied a nominalist view of justification. They were right, and I recognized it as a problem. This led me to have a longstanding interest in how Reformed theologians have viewed realism and nominalism.

Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox apologists often argue Reformed theology is voluntarist or nominalist (examples: link; link - this latter link, by the way, is the same Roman Catholic who pointed out Fesko's nominalist implications). Their arguments do apply to some Reformed theologians such as Fesko, and it is a real problem for them. Additionally, Fesko does not, in some cases, do justice to Reformed theologians who hold to a realist position (link), which perpetuates the problem.

All of these are reasons I find myself more on the side of WTS regarding the relationship between union with Christ and justification. As such, I have tried to discuss this very topic with members of the Reformed Forum discord. Unfortunately, I think their strong affinity for Geerhardus Vos has made it difficult to make inroads on the importance of a consistent, traditional, Reformed anthropology and soteriology. I think a broader rediscovery of this would change the apologetic landscape, and I am hoping that happens in the near future.

With that background in mind, since you are looking for a Reformed assessment on the subject, I highly recommend Samuel Baird (link, link). For any who are looking for an introduction to this topic, on pages 148-151 of The Elohim Revealed, Baird usefully contrasts nominalism (the first theory outlined below), Platonic realism, (second theory) and Aristotelian realism (third theory):

The word, nature, is that by which we designate the permanent forces, which were, at the beginning, incorporated in the constitution of Adam and the creatures; and which, by their severalty, determine and define the several species of the living things. The word is sometimes defined inaccurately, as the name of a mere abstraction, which has no real existence; — as the designation applied to our conception of the mere aggregate of characteristics belonging to a given substance. The opinion to be adopted on this point depends upon that which we accept respecting the reality of the existence of the objects of such general conceptions as those expressed by nature, genera, species, &c. On this, — the question agitated between the Nominalists and Realists of the mediaeval schools,—there are three several theories embraced by different classes of philosophers. According to the first of these, such conceptions are the mere products of the imaginative faculty, — results of logical deduction from the observation of many like individuals. A second theory represents universal as being realities which have an actual objective subsistence of their own, distinct from and independent of that of the particulars and individuals. A third holds that universals are, in a certain sense, realities in nature, but that the general conceptions are merely logical, — the universals not having an existence of their own separate from the individuals through which they are manifested. The first of these is the theory of a certain class of skeptical naturalists, who reject the whole teachings of the Scriptures on the subject. The second would seem to involve the idea that each several species is endowed with a diffusive substance, out of which the individuals of the species derive existence and attributes, in which they live and move. The third is the scriptural doctrine; according to which the substances were at the beginning endowed with forces, which are distinctive and abiding; and which, in organic nature, flow distributively, in continuous order, to the successive generations of the creatures. Of these forces, the word, nature, is the expression. In its proper use, it conveys the distinct idea of permanent in-dwelling force. It expresses the sum of the essential qualities or efficient principles of a given thing, viewed in their relation to its substance, as that in which they reside and from whence they operate. Such is the sense in which the word is constantly employed in the Scriptures. Thus, — Rom. ii. 14, 15, — "When the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves : which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness." Here, the apostle, by the word, nature, indicates a force within, which he otherwise calls "the law written in their hearts," the minist of which is conscience, testifying against sin and in behalf of holiness and God. Again: "If thou wert cut out of the olive-tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive-tree, how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive-tree!" — Rom. xi, 24. Here the idea of propagated and continuous force is conspicuous. So in Eph. ii. 3: — "Ye were by nature children of wrath," — "nature," is the designation of a force which Paul elsewhere calls "the law of sin and death," (Rom. viii. 2,) which, by its perverse energy, is the cause of transgression and the curse. The word is not, therefore, expressive of a mere abstraction, but designates an actual thing, an objective reality. Thus, the human nature consists in the whole sum of the forces, which, original in Adam, are perpetuated and flow in generation to his seed. And our oneness of nature, does not express the fact, merely, that we and Adam are alike; but that we are thus alike, because the forces which are in us and make us what we are, were in him, and are numerically the same which in him constituted his nature and gave him his likeness. The body which is impelled by two diverse forces, x and y, moves in the direction of neither of them; but in that of a different force, z, the resultant of the two. Yet is neither of the forces lost; but merely modified, each by contact with the other. The new force, z, is simply x, modified by y. So, in the successive generations of the human race, so far as their traits are the result of propagation, so far as they are the offspring of their parents, theirs are but the same identical forces which were in those parents, only appearing under new forms. The alternative is, that the generation of creatures is a creative act; that the relation between parents and children is a mere fantasy, the former sustaining no causative relation to the latter. The word, nature, is used in the sense here stated, by Augustine, by Calvin, and generally by the old standard writers.

Baird argues that this third theory is the consistent, Reformed position. On pages 25-26 of The Elohim Revealed, he connects the rise of nominalism to the rise of a false view of the doctrine of original sin:

About the beginning of the twelfth century, the Nominal philosophy, introduced by Rosceline and extensively adopted, combined with other causes to give a powerful impulse to Pelagian tendencies. According to the philosophy which prevailed prior to the rise of this sect, such universal conceptions as those of species, genera, and nature have, as their ground, some kind of objective realities. They are not the mere result of thought, but have, in some proper sense, a real existence, and lie, as essences, at the base of the existence of all individuals and particulars. From the Stoical philosophy, Rosceline introduced the opposite doctrine, — that only individuals have any real existence. General conceptions are the mere result of logical combinations of thought. They are but abstractions, which have no objective significance. They are mere names, and not things. Hence the designation of Nominalists, by which this sect of philosophers is distinguished. In Rosceline himself the skeptical tendency of the Nominal theory developed itself in questions and controversies respecting the personality of the Three who subsist in the divine Essence, and the nature of that Essence, — which do not fall within our present inquiry. His most eminent disciple, Abelard, who was also the great expositor of the new philosophy, illustrates, in his writings, its bearing upon the subject of original sin. Rejecting the Augustinian doctrine of a universal human nature which was in the first man, he was constrained to reject with it the whole doctrine of original sin peculiar to that system. Hence, he expounds Romans v. 12 as meaning no more than that the sin of Adam involves his children in the punishment, but not in the guilt; and by the word, sin, understands that, not the crime, but the penalty, is, by metonymy, designated.

Note the parts that are underlined and italicized. This is an extremely important point I will return to below when I bring up Charles Hodge, on whom Fesko relies on and whom 18th century Presbyterian writers like Samuel Baird, W. G. T. Shedd, and Robert Landis took to task for taking this exact, wrong position. Before I get into that, I'll quote pages 344-345 of Robert Landis' The Doctrine of Original Sin, which agrees with what Baird has said up to this point:

During the earlier period of the Reformation, the Protestant divines, though remarkably clear and accurate in the delineation of the doctrine of original sin and justification by faith alone, and of the other salient doctrines of Protestantism, made no attempt to refine upon the Scripture announcements respecting our union with the first and second Adam, or to trace out through the aid of philosophy the principle of our possible identification with either, or on any such ground to explain the relation which our sin and corrupt nature bear to the one, or our righteousness and sanctification to the other; but simply received and inculcated the whole revealed truth on these subjects, without assaying either to establish or defend it by philosophical speculation. The Nominalistic principle had been applied in its most offensive form to the doctrine of original sin by Pighius and Catharinus, and asserted even to the extent of representing Adam's merely personal sin, through a forensic imputation, as causal of the moral corruption and misery of the race, and thus carrying forward the previously asserted notion of the Arminians, and then of Ocham (the founder of Nominalism), and others of the scholastics, that original sin is "reatus alieni peccati sine aliquo vitio hoerente in nobis" i. e., as the ground of its imputation to us. These persons did not deny, but on the contrary emphatically affirmed that moral corruption was the punishment or penal consequence of the imputation of this reatus alieni peccati; but by original sin they meant peccatum originaus simply, that is, the sin which thus, as its procuring cause, originated the moral corruption of the race; and they affirmed that that sin was Adam's personal sin alone, in the sense that his posterity did not participate therein, but whose moral corruption and misery resulted from it alone as a peccatum alienum. This notion, as will appear in the sequel, the Protestant divines to a man opposed and rejected; not, however, by verging to the opposite standpoint of philosophical Realism, but by maintaining alike that Adam's sin was imputed to his posterity on account of their participation therein, and that they were subjectively guilty on that account. In other words, they adopted not the Realistic philosophy, or rather I should say philosophical Realism, but the Realism of Augustine, whose views should never be regarded as identical with the speculations of the later schools of Realists. He was a Realist in the sense of maintaining that we really and actually sinned in Adam, and that his sin was imputed to us as participants; but not in the sense of adopting (as the later Realists did) the dicta of a mere human philosophy as sufficient to explain either the modus of this our sinning in Adam, or the principle of our asserted moral identity with the first and second Adam.

W. G. T. Shedd, in Dogmatic Theology on pages 738-739 (link), basically says that although Turretin was not a nominalist, his acceptance of creationism and Adamic representation marked a turning point in Reformed history away from an realist, Augustinian anthropology:

Turretin was not willing to adopt Augustine's statement in full and that he departed in some degree from the Augustinian anthropology. He denies what Augustine affirms, namely, that all men were in Adam by both a specific and a numerical unity...

To impute Adam's first sin to his posterity merely and only because Adam sinned as a representative in their room and place makes the imputation an arbitrary act of sovereignty, not a righteous judicial act which carries in it an intrinsic morality and justice. This, Turretin seems to have been unwilling to maintain; and therefore, in connection with representative union, he also asserted to some extent the old Augustinian doctrine of a union of nature and substance. Yet, adopting creationism as he did, this substantial union, in his system, could be only physical ("in a physical sense and in a seminal way"; 9.9.23), not psychical.

Turretin marks the transition from the elder to the later Calvinism, from the theory of the Adamic union to that of the Adamic representation. Both theories are found in his system and are found in conflict. He vibrates from one to the other in his discussion of the subject of imputation.

Shedd here somewhat overstates the case insofar as Augustinian realism is not, in my mind (nor in the mind of Baird), mutually exclusive with Adamic representation. But the primary point is that Shedd argues that the logical implication of Turretin's emphasis on creationism is that the grounding of our union with the first Adam - that is, our natural relationship to Adam - is merely physical. This is what will ultimately lead later Reformed theologians, like Charles Hodge, to reject that we participated in Adam's sin. For how could we really have participated in Adam's sin if we are only physically related to him? Our sinfulness has nothing to do with our being physical creatures per se, contra gnosticism.

I think Charles Hodge, followed by fellow Princeton theologians, popularized the nominalistic trend in the Reformed landscape. Landis numbers Hodge among nominalists (pg. 67 of The Doctrine of Original Sin), for Hodge argues that "imputation does not imply a participation of the criminality of the sin imputed" (Theological Essays, pg. 181, link). Recall Abelard from above. Hodge's nominalistic tendencies can be seen in the subsequent line of Princeton theologians such as Geerhardus Vos, who writes (link):

The legal basis for all grace lies in being reckoned in Christ by the judgment of God. This actual relationship in the justice of God is reflected in the consciousness of the sinner when he believes, for by faith he acknowledges that there is no righteousness in himself, and that the righteousness by which he stands righteous before God is transmitted to him by imputation. Now as far as what is judicial is concerned, it could have remained at this. Without effecting a life-union between Christ and believers, God still could have transmitted His righteousness to them.

I was stunned when I first read this, as it is a fairly clear affirmation of nominalism. If anything, it does provide some historical context, say, for what led leaders at WSC (Horton, Fesko, etc.) to believe regarding union with Christ, viz. "The mystical is based on the forensic, not the forensic on the mystical" (Vos, “The Alleged Legalism in Paul’s Doctrine of Justification,” The Princeton Theological Review 1:161-179). I just think that this position is not only logically problematic but also stands in contrast to the Westminster Larger Catechism:

WLC Q. 66. What is that union which the elect have with Christ?

A. The union which the elect have with Christ is the work of God’s grace, whereby they are spiritually and mystically, yet really and inseparably, joined to Christ as their head and husband; which is done in their effectual calling.

This effectual calling logically precedes justification, not proceeds from it (I am aware of and unpersuaded by attempts to suggest the precedence in view is chronological rather than logical). Anyways, turning to an assessment of Reformed soteriology, I'll quote Baird a few more times on how and why I think a consistent, Reformed, realist soteriology can and should be maintained. On page 429 of The Elohim Revealed, he writes:

As there is condemnation to all who are in Adam; so, there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ. Here two things are to be observed. The first is, that, as must be admitted, the case of our condemnation in Adam is cited, with express design to illustrate how we are justified in Christ. 'As by one man condemnation, so by one man justification." Or, as the apostle elsewhere says, "As in Adam all die, even so in Jesus Christ shall all be made alive." — 1 Cor. XV. 22. The second is, that, by being "in Christ," is unquestionably meant, a substantial, and not a merely constructive, relation to him. "To be in Christ Jesus signifies to be intimately united to him in the way in which the Scriptures teach us this union is effected ; viz., by having his Spirit dwelling in us. — Rom. viii. 9. The phrase is never used for a merely external or nominal union. 'If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.'* — 2 Cor. v. 17. See John xv. 4, &c.; 1 John ii. 6, iii. 6."* In the new birth, "by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body," "the body of Christ."— 1 Cor. xii. 13, 27. The conclusion is therefore inevitable, that, as inbeing in Christ is expressive of a real oneness, wrought by the communication of the Holy Spirit, the incorruptible seed, imparting a new life and nature; so, inbeing in Adam, by which the other is illustrated and set forth by Paul, expresses a real union with him, consequent upon the generative derivation of life and nature from him.

On pages 447-448, Baird contrasts Paul's analogy between Adam and Christ to "our expositor," i.e. "Dr. H." Charles Hodge... and then shows that Hodge himself also had realist tendencies in soteriology!

The parallel which Paul draws between Adam and Christ, is irreconcilable with the doctrine set forth by our expositor. That parallel, as we have already seen, is stated distinctly, in its several elements, with the points of difference defined. Briefly, to our present purpose, it comprehends the following points. Through Adam, death flows to all his seed; through Christ, the gift, eternal life. (v. 12-15 ; ch. vi. 23.) This death, in Adam, results from a judicial sentence of condemnation; and the life in Christ, from one of justification. (v. 18.) The ground of these sentences, Paul states distinctly, introducing it by the particle "for," expressive of the judicial reasons of the proceeding thus stated. ''For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." All this implies a real and substantial union between these several heads and their representative bodies, which, accordingly, the apostle asserts. "Adam, in whom all sinned." — v. 12. "In Adam all die." — 1 Cor. XV. 22. "There is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." — Rom. viii. 1. Dr. H. denies any "mysterious oneness" between us and Adam, by which his sin is really and criminally ours. By parity of reasoning, a similar denial should be made in the case of Christ and his people. But, here, the professor takes the opposite position: — "To be in Christ Jesus signifies to be intimately united to him in the way in which the Scriptures teach us this union is effected, viz., by having his Spirit dwelling in us. The phrase is never expressive of a merely external or nominal union."* Thus we are justified, not by Christ's righteousness extrinsic to us and only nominally ours, but the "law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." — Rom. viii. 1, 2. The power of the Spirit of Christ was the law or principle of holiness in him, the cause of the righteousness of the Mediator; and that Spirit, given to us, and uniting us to him, conveys a title in that righteousness thus wrought in him. Thus are we made righteous, hot only as we are created unto holiness, nor by a constructive process merely; but by a real property in the righteousness of our Head. But all this involves the conclusion that our inbeing in Adam, the type of Christ, is neither external nor nominal, any more than is the other. As, in Christ, we are really endowed with his righteousness and in it are justified; so, in Adam, we are truly sinners, and, therefore, justly condemned.

Hodge wrote a response to Baird's The Elohim Revealed, which in turn led Baird to write a final rejoinder. On pages 33-34 of this rejoinder (link), I think Baird nicely summarizes the Reformed, realist position - clearly distinct and powerfully opposed to "the Romish heresy of justification by virtue of infused righteousness" - as follows:

According to our understanding of the Scriptures, it was provided in the eternal covenant that the elect should be actually ingrafted into Christ by his Spirit, and their acceptance and justification is by virtue of this their actual union to him. "This principle is not to be so understood as though the character thus conveyed were the meritorious cause of the relations predicated; as if the believer were justified by the personal righteousness which he receives through the power of Christ's Spirit given to him. On the contrary, the union, which is constituted by virtue of the transmission of the nature, itself conveys a proprietary title in the moral and legal relations of the head; whilst the efficient principle which thus unites, is also fruitful in effects appropriate to the nature whence it flows. Thus, the sin of Adam, and the righteousness of Christ are severally imputed to their seed, by virtue of the union, constituted in the one case by the principle of natural generation, and in the other, by 'the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,' the Holy Spirit, the principle of regeneration. At the same time, the power by which the union is in these cases severally wrought produces likeness to the head. This view is not only stated in specific terms, again and again, but is wrought into the whole texture of the book, to wit:—that "the matter of justification is that very, whole and entire righteousness which the Lord Jesus wrought by his obedience and suffering;" and that "the ground of the justification of the elect, the cause of the imputation to them of the righteousness of Christ, is their actual inbeing in Christ. They are ' accepted in the Beloved,'—Eph. i. 6, because they really are in Him." This doctrine, our reviewer persists in representing as undistinguishable from the Romish heresy of justification by virtue of infused righteousness, the subjective holiness of the believer; and it is in opposition to it that he postulates the statement above cited, of a ''constituted" headship and " federal union." Whatever, therefore, is comprehended in the meaning of these terms, they do not embrace but exclude the mystical union in its relation to justification.

How important this point is to the questions involved between us is evident. If the imputation of Christ's righteousness be founded in a real inbeing in him, wrought by the uniting power of his Spirit in regeneration,—if it is thus that we are brought within the provisions of the covenant of grace to our justification, it follows, (we will venture the word,) incontestably, that the imputation to us of Adam's sin, is founded in a real inbeing in him, by natural generation, by virtue of which we come under the provisions of the covenant of works, to our condemnation. But this, according to our reviewer, is "simply a physiological theory," involving " a mysterious identity," which he cannot admit. Hence the necessity of ignoring the doctrine, in its relation to justification.

For those interested in further reading, I showed in a recent post that G. K. Beale's recent book on union with Christ seems to indicate he leans toward a realist soteriology (link).

Oliver Crisp has also written quite a bit in defense of a realist soteriology. I have not yet had time to fully read his works; although I am aware of points at which I would disagree with him, parts of what I have read - I am in the middle of reading his book, An American Augustinian, a book on revitalizing the theology of W. G. T. Shedd - have been extremely stimulating.

I also recommend George P. Hutchinson's book The Problem of Original Sin in American Presbyterianism, which gives a solid, historical view of the Reformed landscape on the subject of original sin (which usually coincides with distinctive soteriological views).
 
I don't think it's wise to view theology through the lens of a particular theory of universals.
When Protestants say justification is by imputation that has nothing to do with nominalism. Completely unrelated. Nor were Protestants even thinking in those categories. Almost no Protestants wrote about the problem of universals. Schoock is the only one I'm aware of, and he calls it unimportant, before endorsing the Scotist position. Protestants, when they write on justification, tell you what they're concerned about. They're concerned that it is understood to be through faith, by imputation of Christ's righteousness. I can't think of one that distresses into medieval philosophy.
 
I don't think it's wise to view theology through the lens of a particular theory of universals.
When Protestants say justification is by imputation that has nothing to do with nominalism. Completely unrelated. Nor were Protestants even thinking in those categories. Almost no Protestants wrote about the problem of universals. Schoock is the only one I'm aware of, and he calls it unimportant, before endorsing the Scotist position. Protestants, when they write on justification, tell you what they're concerned about. They're concerned that it is understood to be through faith, by imputation of Christ's righteousness. I can't think of one that distresses into medieval philosophy.
I was reading some historical theologies and some saw that the realism/nominalism debate helped pave the way for Reformation forensic justification. Whether the historical theologians were right or wrong, I was wondering why the concepts would lead to be so.
 
Can you clarify what meaning of prevenient grace you have in mind?

Because I think this is an important subject, this will be a rather long response. Apologies in advance. For brief background as to why I think it is important, some 10-15 years ago, I used to debate Roman Catholics on facebook quite a bit. During one debate on justification, I quoted J. V. Fesko's book on the subject, and a Roman Catholic pointed out that the quote I cited implied a nominalist view of justification. They were right, and I recognized it as a problem. This led me to have a longstanding interest in how Reformed theologians have viewed realism and nominalism.

Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox apologists often argue Reformed theology is voluntarist or nominalist (examples: link; link - this latter link, by the way, is the same Roman Catholic who pointed out Fesko's nominalist implications). Their arguments do apply to some Reformed theologians such as Fesko, and it is a real problem for them. Additionally, Fesko does not, in some cases, do justice to Reformed theologians who hold to a realist position (link), which perpetuates the problem.

All of these are reasons I find myself more on the side of WTS regarding the relationship between union with Christ and justification. As such, I have tried to discuss this very topic with members of the Reformed Forum discord. Unfortunately, I think their strong affinity for Geerhardus Vos has made it difficult to make inroads on the importance of a consistent, traditional, Reformed anthropology and soteriology. I think a broader rediscovery of this would change the apologetic landscape, and I am hoping that happens in the near future.

With that background in mind, since you are looking for a Reformed assessment on the subject, I highly recommend Samuel Baird (link, link). For any who are looking for an introduction to this topic, on pages 148-151 of The Elohim Revealed, Baird usefully contrasts nominalism (the first theory outlined below), Platonic realism, (second theory) and Aristotelian realism (third theory):



Baird argues that this third theory is the consistent, Reformed position. On pages 25-26 of The Elohim Revealed, he connects the rise of nominalism to the rise of a false view of the doctrine of original sin:



Note the parts that are underlined and italicized. This is an extremely important point I will return to below when I bring up Charles Hodge, on whom Fesko relies on and whom 18th century Presbyterian writers like Samuel Baird, W. G. T. Shedd, and Robert Landis took to task for taking this exact, wrong position. Before I get into that, I'll quote pages 344-345 of Robert Landis' The Doctrine of Original Sin, which agrees with what Baird has said up to this point:



W. G. T. Shedd, in Dogmatic Theology on pages 738-739 (link), basically says that although Turretin was not a nominalist, his acceptance of creationism and Adamic representation marked a turning point in Reformed history away from an realist, Augustinian anthropology:



Shedd here somewhat overstates the case insofar as Augustinian realism is not, in my mind (nor in the mind of Baird), mutually exclusive with Adamic representation. But the primary point is that Shedd argues that the logical implication of Turretin's emphasis on creationism is that the grounding of our union with the first Adam - that is, our natural relationship to Adam - is merely physical. This is what will ultimately lead later Reformed theologians, like Charles Hodge, to reject that we participated in Adam's sin. For how could we really have participated in Adam's sin if we are only physically related to him? Our sinfulness has nothing to do with our being physical creatures per se, contra gnosticism.

I think Charles Hodge, followed by fellow Princeton theologians, popularized the nominalistic trend in the Reformed landscape. Landis numbers Hodge among nominalists (pg. 67 of The Doctrine of Original Sin), for Hodge argues that "imputation does not imply a participation of the criminality of the sin imputed" (Theological Essays, pg. 181, link). Recall Abelard from above. Hodge's nominalistic tendencies can be seen in the subsequent line of Princeton theologians such as Geerhardus Vos, who writes (link):



I was stunned when I first read this, as it is a fairly clear affirmation of nominalism. If anything, it does provide some historical context, say, for what led leaders at WSC (Horton, Fesko, etc.) to believe regarding union with Christ, viz. "The mystical is based on the forensic, not the forensic on the mystical" (Vos, “The Alleged Legalism in Paul’s Doctrine of Justification,” The Princeton Theological Review 1:161-179). I just think that this position is not only logically problematic but also stands in contrast to the Westminster Larger Catechism:



This effectual calling logically precedes justification, not proceeds from it (I am aware of and unpersuaded by attempts to suggest the precedence in view is chronological rather than logical). Anyways, turning to an assessment of Reformed soteriology, I'll quote Baird a few more times on how and why I think a consistent, Reformed, realist soteriology can and should be maintained. On page 429 of The Elohim Revealed, he writes:



On pages 447-448, Baird contrasts Paul's analogy between Adam and Christ to "our expositor," i.e. "Dr. H." Charles Hodge... and then shows that Hodge himself also had realist tendencies in soteriology!



Hodge wrote a response to Baird's The Elohim Revealed, which in turn led Baird to write a final rejoinder. On pages 33-34 of this rejoinder (link), I think Baird nicely summarizes the Reformed, realist position - clearly distinct and powerfully opposed to "the Romish heresy of justification by virtue of infused righteousness" - as follows:



For those interested in further reading, I showed in a recent post that G. K. Beale's recent book on union with Christ seems to indicate he leans toward a realist soteriology (link).

Oliver Crisp has also written quite a bit in defense of a realist soteriology. I have not yet had time to fully read his works; although I am aware of points at which I would disagree with him, parts of what I have read - I am in the middle of reading his book, An American Augustinian, a book on revitalizing the theology of W. G. T. Shedd - have been extremely stimulating.

I also recommend George P. Hutchinson's book The Problem of Original Sin in American Presbyterianism, which gives a solid, historical view of the Reformed landscape on the subject of original sin (which usually coincides with distinctive soteriological views).
Its amazing you rightly detected my question stemmed from reading Fesko's assessment.
 
Its amazing you rightly detected my question stemmed from reading Fesko's assessment.

You give me too much credit. I did not suspect your question stemmed from Fesko. I only used my own experience from apologetic discussions. I am not surprised by the coincidence, however.

Let me add that I think Fesko is a brilliant theologian. I believe he used to intern at my church before I was a member. I heard him lecture at RTS Atlanta in my early 20s, and he opened my eyes to typology through reading his book, Last Things First.

But I am quite confident, as I mention in one of the links above, he does not - or that he did not, at least, when he wrote Adam and the Covenant of Works - understand the realist view within the Reformed tradition. In that book, he represents realists as having a position distinct from immediate imputation, which is certainly not true.

I don't think it's wise to view theology through the lens of a particular theory of universals.
When Protestants say justification is by imputation that has nothing to do with nominalism. Completely unrelated. Nor were Protestants even thinking in those categories. Almost no Protestants wrote about the problem of universals. Schoock is the only one I'm aware of, and he calls it unimportant, before endorsing the Scotist position. Protestants, when they write on justification, tell you what they're concerned about. They're concerned that it is understood to be through faith, by imputation of Christ's righteousness. I can't think of one that distresses into medieval philosophy.

A theory of universals is unavoidable, and I mentioned three Protestant theologians in the 19th century who discussed the problem and its relevance to the doctrine of original sin. A friend of mine once said that a fish swims in water, whether he acknowledges it or not. Just so, any meaty theology will deal with a theory of universals. Either Seth's likeness to Adam has grounding in substantial reality or not. Either our speaking of Adam and ourselves as having a common nature - a nature both real and really distinct from our individual persons - is literal truth or a (so-called useful) fiction. One's answer has definite bearing on why one thinks God can justly reckon Adam's progeny as sinners from conception. Just so with justification. Either we really are righteous in Christ - but not due to any works we have done! - or only viewed as if we are righteous.
 
Its amazing you rightly detected my question stemmed from reading Fesko's assessment.

By the way, for more on Fesko regarding this subject, I recommend a few posts from a friend of mine:

https://theforgottenrealist.blog/20...v-feskos-death-in-adam-life-in-Christ-part-1/
https://theforgottenrealist.blog/20...v-feskos-death-in-adam-life-in-Christ-part-2/
 
You give me too much credit. I did not suspect your question stemmed from Fesko. I only used my own experience from apologetic discussions. I am not surprised by the coincidence, however.

Let me add that I think Fesko is a brilliant theologian. I believe he used to intern at my church before I was a member. I heard him lecture at RTS Atlanta in my early 20s, and he opened my eyes to typology through reading his book, Last Things First.

But I am quite confident, as I mention in one of the links above, he does not - or that he did not, at least, when he wrote Adam and the Covenant of Works - understand the realist view within the Reformed tradition. In that book, he represents realists as having a position distinct from immediate imputation, which is certainly not true.



A theory of universals is unavoidable, and I mentioned three Protestant theologians in the 19th century who discussed the problem and its relevance to the doctrine of original sin. A friend of mine once said that a fish swims in water, whether he acknowledges it or not. Just so, any meaty theology will deal with a theory of universals. Either Seth's likeness to Adam has grounding in substantial reality or not. Either our speaking of Adam and ourselves as having a common nature - a nature both real and really distinct from our individual persons - is literal truth or a (so-called useful) fiction. One's answer has definite bearing on why one thinks God can justly reckon Adam's progeny as sinners from conception. Just so with justification. Either we really are righteous in Christ - but not due to any works we have done! - or only viewed as if we are righteous.
Can you name any protestant theologians from the 16th, 17th, or 18th centuries that interact with the Thomist, Scotist, and Ockhamist theories of universals and give their judgment on which is correct?
You say "any meaty theologian will deal with a theory of universals," so either those centuries had no meaty theologians, or it should be pretty easy to find an example. (And Schoock doesn't count, because he 1) treats it in a philosophical, not theological work, and 2) says it's not important.)
And since this theory is, in your view, essential to good theology, and the bible teaches everything necessary to good theology, I would be interested in seeing where the bible teaches a detailed theory of universals.
 
Can you name any protestant theologians from the 16th, 17th, or 18th centuries that interact with the Thomist, Scotist, and Ockhamist theories of universals and give their judgment on which is correct?
You say "any meaty theologian will deal with a theory of universals," so either those centuries had no meaty theologians, or it should be pretty easy to find an example. (And Schoock doesn't count, because he 1) treats it in a philosophical, not theological work, and 2) says it's not important.)
And since this theory is, in your view, essential to good theology, and the bible teaches everything necessary to good theology, I would be interested in seeing where the bible teaches a detailed theory of universals.

If you read the very first quote in my very first post, that is what I consider to be a biblical argument for a specific theory of universals. I also mentioned an argument pertaining to human nature in the very post you replied to - did you not read it, or did you not think it was biblical? Gordon Clark once wrote, "nominalism provides no basis for the imputation of righteousness and justification by faith. Or even for talking about the human race" (link). Do you disagree with this?

Another argument against nominalism is that it is incompatible with Trinitarianism. If only particulars or individuals exist, the Father, Son, and Spirit - who are really distinct from each other and the divine essence - would not really be consubstantial (cf. Roscellinus's tritheism). On the other hand, the common nature in virtue of which the members of the Trinity are said to be consubstantial does not itself exist independently of said members a la Platonism. While this argument could be elaborated, I think it is clear enough. This leaves only the third option mentioned by Baird.

If you are interested in Protestant theologians who discuss the problem of universals, I recommend consulting Richard Muller's Post Reformation Reformed Dogmatics. For example, the following is found on page 107 of Volume 3:

Suarez, Molina, and the new metaphysics of modified Thomism. The decade following 1590 was as crucial for the development of the scholastic Protestant doctrine of God as it was for the development of theological prolegomena - and for much the same reason. The rise of prolegomena, as evidenced by Junius’ magisterial treatise De vera theologia, signaled an interest among Protestants in the clear and precise definition of theology and in the identification of specifically Protestant theology as a legitimate scientia in the classic Aristotelian sense, in and for its study in the universities. Directly related to this development was the beginning of a Protestant interest in prolegomena, the enunciation of principia, and specifically in some of the preliminary questions of the nature of the discipline itself—notably as found in an earlier form in the older scholasticism and, indeed, in the tradition of Christian Aristotelianism. By way of example, we now see discussion of theology as a scientia or study of first principles and of the conclusions that can be drawn from them. We also see the establishment of a Protestant, indeed a Reformed, discussion of metaphysics, as evidenced by the appearance of the first Protestant textbooks on the subject. Indeed, the Protestant theologians and philosophers of this generation viewed Aristotelian metaphysics as a crucial source for definitions and arguments needed in the construction and defense of their theological systems. And there is certainly evidence that Protestant theologians and philosophers were aware of the trajectories of thought that flowed out of the later Middle Ages into the Renaissance and Reformation eras—whether the Thomistic, Scotistic, or the nominalistic lines of argument.
 
If you are interested in Protestant theologians who discuss the problem of universals, I recommend consulting Richard Muller's Post Reformation Reformed Dogmatics. For example, the following is found on page 107 of Volume 3:
Suarez and Molina are Roman Catholic, as I'm sure you're aware.
Are you able to name any protestant theologians from those centuries that, as I said, give a judgment on universals? If not, and Suarez and Molina give a judgment on it and Junius, Turretin, Polanus, etc do not, it seems to me it primarily belongs to Roman Catholic philosophical theology. Thus my admonition to view protestant doctrines in their own light and not that of a particular theory of universals.
As far as your comment on the Trinity, it is not correct to relate the Trinity to a theory of universals, because metaphysical categories do not properly apply to God, as any Reformed Orthodox theologian will tell you. See their discussions of divine simplicity, where they explain that God does not have a species or genus, substance and accidents, etc. If you read Aristotle's On Categories, which is where the idea of universals comes from, the universal is the second substance, and it's essentially a species. But God does not belong to a species. God is entirely unique. So the idea of first and second substances there really only applies to creatures.
 
From Volume 1 of Michael Horton's work on Justification:

The Nature of the Union​

Robert Preus notes that Roman Catholic scholar George Tavard wonders how to square imputation with the great exchange. “How do we coordinate these two motifs in Luther’s theology?” Tavard chalks this up to Luther’s love of “dialectical contrasts.” However, Preus counters, the mixing of metaphors is precisely what the great exchange encourages. Imputation is grounded in the great exchange.28 “Rome did not discard the righteousness of Christ as playing no role in our justification,” Preus observes. “Neither did Rome reject or object to the term ‘impute,’ which was a very common term in the vocabulary of scholastic theology. What Rome rejected was the joining of the two concepts.”29 According to Trent, Preus notes, Christ’s righteousness is the “meritorious cause” (causa meritoria). “Essentially, that means that Christ’s atoning work makes justification and sanctification by grace possible. Second, the righteousness of Christ’s doing and suffering is not the righteousness by which we become righteous.” What constitutes our justification (the unica causa formalis) “is not the imputed obedience and righteousness of Christ . . . but that by which He makes us righteous (nos justos facit), namely, that with which we being endowed by Him and are renewed in the spirit of our mind (Eph 4:23).”30 There is thus “the divorce of any real, formal connection between Christ’s work of redemption and the sinner’s justification.”31 Preus’s point is crucial, especially in displaying the fact that, ironically, it is Trent’s position that severs the real ontological connection between Christ and the believer’s salvation.

According to Preus, Trent followed the scholastic theology exemplified by Bonaventure, who taught that “neither to the resurrection nor passion [of Christ] can be attributed properly (proprie) the causality of justification or the remission of guilt,” since justification is in a different category (modo) from Christ’s passion and resurrection. It is obvious that Bonaventure did not consider the active obedience of Christ (Rom 5:15), His obedience to the Law and under the Law (which is clearly commensurate with man’s disobedience to the Law), as a part of His righteousness and atonement. The scholastics made little of the active obedience of Christ as part of Christ’s atoning work, and they restricted the merits of Christ to His death (Anselm; so also the Catholic Catechism, 1992).32

Luther’s student Martin Chemnitz pointed this out against Diogo de Payva de Andrada (the Jesuit commentator on the Council of Trent): it is not a legal fiction because Christ’s active obedience is actually imputed.33 This again refutes the charge that the Reformers adopted nominalism’s notion of an arbitrary decision of God. On the contrary, the righteousness imputed is real—that of Christ himself. Quenstedt argued, “For certainly our sins were extrinsic to Christ, and yet they could be imputed for punishment and guilt to Him and reckoned to Him.”34 In addition it is worth observing that Rome never denied that our sins were imputed to Christ at the cross. Consequently, the same question could be put to Rome: Is this imputation a legal fiction as well?

The great exchange provides the proper context in which to understand faith, then, as neither a meritorious virtue nor a general existential or voluntaristic stance but as a very specific act of clinging to Christ. On this point Preus comments, “Again in Romans 3:25 we are told that these great benefits are received through faith in His blood,” faith being “the one means by which we receive Christ’s righteousness, forgiveness, and the grace of God, the one means through which we are justified (pistei: Romans 3:28; Acts 26:18; ek pisteōs: Romans 3:30, 5:1; Galatians 2:16, 3:7–9, 11–12; dia tēs pisteōs: Romans 3:31).”35 He appeals to the Formula of Concord:

Faith is a gift of God whereby we rightly learn to know Christ as our Redeemer in the Word of the Gospel and to trust in Him, but solely for the sake of His obedience we have forgiveness of sins by grace, are accounted righteous and holy by God the Father, and are saved forever. . . . For faith does not justify because it is so good a work and so God-pleasing a virtue, but because it lays hold of and accepts the merit of Christ and the promise of the Holy Gospel.36

We have noted the remarkable number of times that the phrase “faith alone” appears in the church fathers—in direct connection with justification and over against works and merits. Even Origen inserted “alone” in Romans 3:28. Besides, as Melanchthon noted in the Apology, “If they dislike the exclusive particle ‘alone,’ let them remove the other exclusive terms from Paul, too, like ‘freely,’ ‘not of works,’ ‘it is a gift,’ etc., for these terms are also exclusive.”37 In short, works are opposed not only to grace or to gift in general, but to the gift of Christ in particular. United to Christ, we have all that we need in order to be justified before God.

The great exchange or union with Christ also attains a major place in Calvin’s understanding of the gifts of salvation.38 Calvin observes, “that mystical union” is “accorded by us the highest degree of importance, so that Christ, having been made ours, makes us sharers with him in the gifts with which he has been endowed.” While our righteousness is indeed external to us—an alien righteousness that belongs properly to Christ rather than to us—Christ does not remain alien but joins himself to us and us to him. “We do not, therefore, contemplate him outside ourselves from afar in order that his righteousness may be imputed to us but because we put on Christ and are engrafted into his body—in short, because he deigns to make us one with him.”39 He rhapsodizes,

This is the wonderful exchange which, out of His measureless benevolence, Jesus Christ has made with us; that, becoming Son of man with us, He has made us sons of God with Him; that, by His descent to earth, He has prepared an ascent to heaven for us; that, by taking on our mortality, He has conferred His immortality upon us; that, accepting our weakness, He has strengthened us by His power; that, receiving our poverty unto Himself, He has transferred His wealth to us; that, taking the weight of our iniquity upon Himself, He has clothed us with His righteousness.40

For Calvin as well as Luther, therefore, union with Christ and the marvelous exchange were interchangeable terms for the same reality. Earlier in the Institutes Calvin supplies one of the richest summaries:

When we see that the whole sum of our salvation, and every single part of it, are comprehended in Christ, we must beware of deriving even the minutest portion of it from any other quarter. If we seek salvation, we are taught by the very name of Jesus that he possesses it; if we seek . . . purity in his conception . . . if we seek redemption, we shall find it in his passion; acquittal in his condemnation; remission of the curse in his cross; satisfaction in his sacrifice; purification in his blood; reconciliation in his descent to hell; mortification of the flesh in his tomb; newness of life in his resurrection; the inheritance of a celestial kingdom in his entrance into heaven; protection, security, and the abundant supply of all blessings, in his kingdom.41

Notice how not only justification but every aspect of our salvation is “comprehended in Christ,” underscoring the point that it is the solo Christo that lies at the heart of the Reformers’ concerns. In fact, he concludes the preceding statement, “In summary, since in him all kinds of blessings are treasured up, let us draw a full supply from him, and from no other quarter.”42

Calvin’s judicial emphasis with respect to justification is complemented by the organic imagery of union and ingrafting in relation to the inner renewal and communion with Christ, including his holiness. To be sure, justification is exclusively extrinsic—the imputation of Christ’s alien righteousness—but, more generally, salvation also includes transformation. Yet here too, such sanctifying transformation rests on Christ and our union with him through faith rather than on an inner movement of the soul that makes union with God possible for all who cooperate meritoriously. For the magisterial Reformers, union with Christ is no longer conceived as the goal but as the source of sanctification.

Thus, commenting on John 17, Calvin explains, “Having been ingrafted into the body of Christ, we are made partakers of the Divine adoption, and heirs of heaven.”43 “This is the purpose of the gospel,” he says, “that Christ should become ours, and that we should be ingrafted into his body.”44 (Hence, union has an intrinsically corporate, ecclesial dimension.) We are not first united to Christ and then justified on the basis of his indwelling righteousness, but justified through faith by the imputation of Christ’s alien righteousness. Nevertheless, one cannot grasp Christ without receiving all his benefits. Those who are justified are united to Christ and become fruit-bearing branches. Continuing this emphasis, John Owen writes, “There is no contemplation of the glory of Christ that ought more to affect the hearts of them that do believe with delight and joy than this, of the recapitulation of all things in him.”45

According to critics like John Milbank, the Reformers’ doctrine of justification resulted from an absolute “extrinsicism” in their view of the God-world relationship. Consequently, nominalism does not allow for what the church fathers considered the ultimate end of salvation: deification. This, according to Milbank, is the test of nominalist soteriology: whether it allows for the ontological glorification of the saints, and the Reformers, following Scotus and Ockham, fail the test.46 However, for the Reformers extrinsic justification does not eliminate analogical participation in God as creatures, and the former becomes the secure basis for an exact identity between Christ’s and our humanity. No one is united to God directly and immediately, the Reformers emphasized, but through faith believers are united to the God-human through his humanity, in the power of the Spirit working through the gospel. Thus, the intimate participation of the believer in Christ—even to the point of affirming “deification” as the greatest of all benefits (Calvin)—refutes the charge of nominalism.47

Calvin’s understanding of union with Christ, then, is the same as the federal theology that followed in his wake, with Christ replacing Adam as our federal or covenantal head. It is not an abstract participation in being, says Owen, “as if it had been implanted in them by nature,” but a personal union with the mediator of the covenant: “But Christ dwells principally on this, that the vital sap—that is, all life and strength—proceeds from himself alone.”48 Given the Trinitarian emphasis of his doctrine of union, including a high view of the Spirit’s role in uniting us to Christ, it is not surprising that his treatment suggests a more dynamic understanding. Whereas justification is a once-and-for-all and definitive verdict rendered at the moment that one embraces Christ through the gospel, we grow “more and more” into Christ and his body.

On the legal basis of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, believers can be united to Christ, confident that everything that belongs properly to him is given freely to us. In this marvelous exchange, all of our debts become his, and all of his riches become ours. And in our union with Christ, we actually receive these benefits to which his imputed righteousness entitles us. Not even in our sanctification, therefore, can we lodge confidence in our inherent holiness. “If you contemplate yourself, that is sure damnation.”49 In the Institutes, Calvin adds,

Although we may distinguish [justification and sanctification], Christ contains both of them inseparably in himself. Do you wish, then, to attain righteousness in Christ? You must first possess Christ; but you cannot possess him without being made partaker in his sanctification, because he cannot be divided into pieces [1 Cor 1:13]. Since, therefore, it is solely by expending himself that the Lord gives us these benefits to enjoy, he bestows both of them at the same time, the one never without the other. Thus it is clear how true it is that we are justified not without works yet not through works, since in our sharing in Christ, which justifies us, sanctification is just as much included as righteousness.50

When discussing justification, Calvin cautions emphatically, “The question is not how we may become righteous but how, being unrighteous and unworthy, we may be reckoned righteous. If consciences wish to attain any certainty in this matter, they ought to give no place to the law.”51 Calvin recognizes here that justification need not be confused with sanctification by means of an all-encompassing ontology of union in order to recognize the inseparability of both legal (forensic) and organic (effective) aspects of that union. Possess Christ and you will have both the perfect righteousness of justification and the beginning of sanctification in this life.

Book 2 of the Institutes concentrates on “The Knowledge of God the Redeemer,” elucidating all that God in Christ has accomplished for us extra nos—outside of ourselves. Christ’s perfect person and work cannot be extended, completed, augmented, or improved. Our righteousness before God is alien: extrinsic, not inherent; perfect, not progressive. Yet “as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value for us. Therefore, to share with us what he has received from the Father, he had to become ours and dwell within us. For this reason, he is called ‘our Head’ [Eph. 4:15], and ‘the first-born among many brethren’ [Rom. 8:29].”52

As is often the case in church history, erroneous views provide an occasion for greater refinement and clarity. Andreas Osiander is a case in point. Although the influence of Origen is evident, the more direct influence on his thinking was the Theologia Germanica. Luther had slowly extricated himself from this influence, but some of his early colleagues—many of whom became Anabaptist leaders—did not. Although Osiander’s views were roundly condemned by his fellow Lutherans, it was perhaps Calvin who drew the sharpest attention to them and in refuting them helped to define critical aspects of the Reformation consensus on justification. So concerned was Calvin with Osiander’s views that he added eight sections of refutation to the 1559 edition of the Institutes (3.11.5–12).

It made little difference in Calvin’s view to say that one was justified by cooperation with an infused righteousness or by the “essential righteousness” of Christ indwelling the believer. In either case the ground of justification would be an internal act of making righteous, rather than the imputation of an alien righteousness. “We too speak a great deal of mystical union,” says Calvin. In fact, he complained that Erasmus’s rendering of koinōnia as societas and consortium fell far short of the mystical union, so he chose communio.53 “But Osiander has introduced some strange monster of ‘essential’ righteousness by which, although not intending to abolish freely given righteousness, he has still enveloped it in such a fog as to darken pious minds and deprive them of a lively experience of Christ’s grace.”54 Besides indulging in “speculation” and “feeble curiosity,” Osiander is faulted for “something bordering on Manichaeism, in his desire to transfuse the essence of God into men,” with the additional speculation “that Adam was formed to the image of God because Christ had already been destined as the prototype of human nature before the Fall.”55

Calvin accuses Osiander of several fatal conflations. First, he conflates Christ’s divine essential righteousness with our righteousness, as if it were not “that righteousness which has been acquired for us by Christ,” but rather “that we are substantially righteous in God by the infusion both of his essence and of his quality.” Second, he conflates the believer’s substance with God’s, not only introducing a Creator-creature confusion but failing to recognize that “it comes about through the power of the Holy Spirit that we grow together with Christ, and he becomes our Head and we his members.” The upshot is that justification is confused with regeneration and the believer is confused with the divine essence. We can still affirm a communion with Christ’s person, Calvin counters, without surrendering the doctrine of forensic justification.56 In Osiander’s treatment, “To be justified is not only to be reconciled to God through free pardon but also to be made righteous, and righteousness is not a free imputation but the holiness and uprightness that the essence of God, dwelling in us, inspires.”57

Justification and rebirth, Calvin counters, must be joined but never confused.58 In addition, he criticizes Osiander’s view that “faith is Christ” rather than an empty vessel that receives Christ.59 Faith is the instrument through which we receive Christ, not to be confused with Christ (the material cause) himself.60

In addition to these conflations, Osiander separates the two natures of Christ, Calvin judges, leading to a Nestorian Christology and an atonement doctrine that eliminates the saving humanity of Christ as mediator.61 Calvin counters that not even Christ was justified by his essential righteousness as divine but by his obedience as a servant under the law.62 Consequently, there can be no saving deity of Christ apart from the covenantal obedience that he rendered in his humanity as the Second Adam. “For if we ask how we have been justified, Paul answers, ‘By Christ’s obedience’ [Rom. 5:19]. But did he obey in any other way than when he took upon himself the form of a servant [Phil. 2:7]? From this we conclude that in his flesh, righteousness has been manifested to us.”63 It is not surprising that the new Finnish interpretation of Luther presents an essentially “Osiandrian” Luther, following the usual modern path of creating a false choice between participation and forensic imputation and identifying justification with deification. Calvin already noted this: “Osiander laughs at those who teach that ‘to be justified’ is a legal term; because we must actually be righteous. Also, he despises nothing more than that we are justified by free imputation. Well then, if God does not justify us by acquittal and pardon, what does Paul’s statement mean: ‘God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing men’s trespasses against them’ [2 Cor 5:19]? ‘For our sake he made him to be sin who had done no sin so that we might be the righteousness of God in him’ [v 21]?” Calvin compares several New Testament texts to ordinary legal usage and then concludes, “Osiander objects that it would be insulting to God and contrary to his nature that he should justify those who actually remain wicked.” To this Calvin replies with the familiar simul iustus et peccator (at the same time just and sinful), reminding Osiander that “they are always liable to the judgment of death before his tribunal” according to their own righteousness. The key, Calvin says, is to distinguish justification and inward renewal without divorcing them. Sanctification is always partial in this life. “But [God] does not justify in part but liberally, so that they may appear in heaven as if endowed with the purity of Christ. No portion of righteousness sets our consciences at peace until it has been determined that we are pleasing to God, because we are entirely righteous before him.”64

According to Calvin, Osiander, no less than Rome, denies this comfort to believers.65 Only because justification is constituted by an imputed rather than an inherent righteousness are believers able “not to tremble at the judgment they deserve, and while they rightly condemn themselves, they should be accounted righteous outside themselves.”66 So we discern complementary emphases in Calvin’s account: the righteousness of Christ that justifies us is “outside of us,” although, by virtue of the mystical union, Christ himself—including his righteousness—cannot remain outside of us.
 
Suarez and Molina are Roman Catholic, as I'm sure you're aware.
Are you able to name any protestant theologians from those centuries that, as I said, give a judgment on universals? If not, and Suarez and Molina give a judgment on it and Junius, Turretin, Polanus, etc do not, it seems to me it primarily belongs to Roman Catholic philosophical theology. Thus my admonition to view protestant doctrines in their own light and not that of a particular theory of universals.
As far as your comment on the Trinity, it is not correct to relate the Trinity to a theory of universals, because metaphysical categories do not properly apply to God, as any Reformed Orthodox theologian will tell you. See their discussions of divine simplicity, where they explain that God does not have a species or genus, substance and accidents, etc. If you read Aristotle's On Categories, which is where the idea of universals comes from, the universal is the second substance, and it's essentially a species. But God does not belong to a species. God is entirely unique. So the idea of first and second substances there really only applies to creatures.

In honor of the OP, Muller writes (Post Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 1, pages 162-163):

Polanus’ rational arguments draw on points made in Junius’ definition and on arguments like those stated by Scharpius. They are, however, stated more formally and logically:

1. If God exists, it is necessary that theology exist: the antecedent is true, therefore also the consequence. A related proof: if God is wise (sapiens), it is necessary that there be theology: but if God is, he is wise. Therefore if God exists, it is necessary that theology exist.
2. If God is the source (principium) of all that is good in nature, it is necessary that there be theology. The former is so, therefore also the latter.
3. If God speaks not only of singular things (res singulares), but truly of universals pertaining to the right knowledge of himself; then it is necessary that there be theology. That which precedes is true: therefore also that which follows.
4. If God is active, as God, toward all creatures, imprinting on some things obscure vestiges of his majesty, on others a clear image; then it is necessary that there be theology. The former is so, therefore the latter.

At the very least these “proofs” provide a formal synopsis of the argument for the existence of theology and, as is frequently said of Anselm’s so-called ontological argument for the existence of God, they stand as exercises of faith going in search of understanding even if they fall short of being proofs.

Considered as presuppositional statements, the proofs simply declare that God exists, that for God to be God he must be wise, that God is the source of all created good, that God speaks concerning himself in a revelatory manner, and that God in the acts of creation and providence leaves evidence of himself in his handiwork. Such truths are, and must be, the basis for the construction of a body of doctrine concerning God—and, granting these truths, a body of doctrine will be forthcoming. One of these presuppositions—“God speaks not only of singular things, but truly of universals pertaining to the right knowledge of himself”—demands further explanation. This point reflects the barriers to systematic knowing—to wisdom—set in the path of theology by nominalism. If knowledge is merely the perception of particulars, no relationships can exist and no overarching cohesion of ideas can be expressed. For there to be theology, revelation must be a revelation of true concepts, of universals, capable of providing a framework for knowledge. Here, as in the other “proofs,” Polanus does not so much prove a point as set aside an objection at a presuppositional level.

I'll withdraw my Trinitarian argument. Do you have a response to Baird and myself regarding human nature? In Volume 4, pages 180ff., Muller mentions Moses Amyraut, Thomas Ridgley, Edward Leigh, and Marcus Wendelin as theologians who agree with this reasoning:

By individual, Wendelin comments, is meant a singular thing, res singularis, inasmuch as universals, such as indicate genus and species, cannot be persons. The term "subsistence" indicates, moreover, and independent individuum, inasmuch as it is distinct from an "accident," which has no independent subsistence, but inheres in something else. In short, a person must be an individual "substance" or "subsistence" insofar as "accidents are not persons" but "inhere in another thing: ... a person must subsist." Even so, "living" must be added to the definition, inasmuch as "inanimate individual," like a stone of a statue, is not a person - similarly, "intelligent," since brute creatures are not persons.

This "lively and intelligent substance endued with reason and will," must also be "determinate and singular, for mankind is not a person, but John and Peter." The attribute of incommunicability, thus, indicates that "a person is not an essence, which is capable of being communicated to many individuals," while the qualifier that a person is not part of another being sets persons apart from entities such as souls, which are part of a human being. Human nature, thus, is not a person insofar as it is "communicable to every particular man," while the individual or particular recipient of that nature is a person, incapable of communicating his nature as he has it in its particularized form to any other. A person is not directly or immediately sustained by another but is an independent subsistence - in scholastic terms, a suppositum: "The human nature of Christ is not a person, because it is sustained by his deity; nor is the soul in man a person, because it is a part of the whole."

Compare this to earlier in the same volume, page 98-99:

It was, certainly, after 1660 that the spread of Socinianism did have its greatest impact on England, as witnessed by the publication of Crell's Two Books... touching one God the Father in 1665. The "two books" of the work derive from the structure of its argument: in the first book, Crell mounts a scriptural refutation of the doctrine of the Trinity, and in the second he argues that the doctrine cannot be sustained by reason but is in fact rationally unsupportable: following out the view of the Racovian Catechism, Crell insisted a "person is in vain distinguished from his own essence," with the result that a distinction of person implies a distinction of essence. What is notable here, beyond the attack on orthodoxy, is the shift in meaning of the terms - and it is difficult to determine which term has shifted the most, given that in traditional Christian Aristotelian philosophy, all individual human person have the same "essence." Crell's language, like Socinius' and Biddle's, has strong affinities with nominalism and with the trinitarian difficulties encountered by medieval nominalism in the person of Roscellin.
 
Semper Fidelis said:
From Volume 1 of Michael Horton's work on Justification:

Thanks for the chapter. Horton seems to have come down from certain statements I heard on a few Reformed Forum podcasts in the early 2010's. I see quite a bit of agreement between what he says and what a realist would say: "On the contrary, the righteousness imputed is real—that of Christ himself." Exactly! The same friend of mine - a fellow realist - who wrote on Fesko also wrote the following post a few weeks ago on Calvin and Osiander, and I see similar remarks:


A Realist’s Review of Calvin on Osiander​


John Calvin devoted an entire chapter of his Institutes[1] to refuting Andreas Osiander.[2] Osiander, a Lutheran theologian and professor at Königsberg University, stirred up quite a controversy in the 1550’s by teaching that men are justified neither by “mere imputation” nor by the human righteousness of Christ, but only by His “essential” (divine) righteousness, which becomes ours through a substantial union with the divine nature.[3] Calvin calls this a “monstrosity” and a “delerious dream”[4] and has much to say about it.

Calvin states, “[…]a man will be justified by faith when, excluded from the righteousness of works, he by faith lays hold of the righteousness of Christ, and clothed in it appears in the sight of God not as a sinner, but as righteous.” As a proponent of the consistent Realist view,[5] I must point out that we are clothed not merely with the righteousness of Christ, but with Christ Himself (Rom. 13:14). Realism sees the need for justice and moral union to be grounded in a real union of being. Osiander seems to have had this truth in view, but missed the mark badly by discounting Christ’s human righteousness and denying the unity of Christ’s natures in redeeming us.

Unfortunately, the consistent Realist view is commonly portrayed by opponents as having already been rejected by the Church it its rejection of Osiander–and his error is erroneously portrayed as justification by union with Christ’s life in lieu of imputation. An example of such a mischaracterization is found in Camden Bucey’s statement in a Reformed Forum podcast in 2012 (bold mine):

And another issue—problem—we have with justification comes in the form of the New Perspective on Paul and there we end up where certain versions of the doctrine of union with Christ can basically trump everything else. Sometimes it looks very similar to what we get with Osiander. But you can end up with a justification that is given based on inclusion into the group as the church—or in the case of Osiander that your justification is on the basis of having Christ’s righteousness by virtue of being bound up with His life rather than the imputed righteousness of Christ alone which is the forensic declaration—a forensic transaction so to speak.[6]
Part of the misunderstanding comes from the term, impute. It is usually understood by Representationists (the main opponents to Realism) to mean the transfer of moral status from one who earned that status to those who did not earn it–a reckoning of that status to their account as if they had earned it. Realists insist that this is only a secondary usage, and that the primary usage and meaning is to reckon things as they are in reality. God imputed Adam’s sin first to Adam because it belonged to him, and God imputed the righteousness of Christ first to Christ because God accounted to Him what was His.

As humans, we need a human righteousness. We are not divine, so a divine righteousness cannot be applied to our nature and does not fit our need when we are to be judged for all our human deeds. Osiander was wrong. Furthermore, in addition to the Law’s requirement for lifelong, perfect human deeds and heart attitudes, the Law also requires us as guilty humans to have suffered the complete wrath of God against sin. Christ became incarnate not only to suffer and die in our place as a man, but also, to live in our place in perfect righteousness as a man.

Realists contends that God imputes the sin of Adam to us in this primary sense of the term, because his sin belongs to us by our spiritual union in him and–as the early Reformers called it–our sin of participation. In a similar way, God imputes the righteousness of Christ to us because He “sends the Spirit of His Son into our hearts,” joining us in spiritual union so that the two become one new man in Christ. Rather than God imputing the righteousness of one person to a different person, God makes the two into one so that the believer now shares in Christ’s identity at the bar of judgment and has a rightful ownership of all of Christ’s human deeds–and God imputes by accounting what is rightfully ours as ours (the righteousness of Christ). Therefore, the consistent Realist view does not deny that Christ’s righteousness is “forensically” imputed to us for our justification. We simply recognize the substance and ground of that imputation that goes unnoticed by Representationists.

Christ’s divine righteousness, which comes from His divine nature, had to be manifested and expressed in human works, deeds and heart attitudes in a real, daily, human life lived out on earth as a man. Only when His righteousness is worked out in this way by living as a man and making human, moral choices and performing human, righteous acts, etc., can He earn the kind of obedience that will fulfill the Law’s requirements on us. And only when He suffers as a man and dies under our penalty can His suffering answer the Law’s requirements on us. It is His Person who has done all these things, and to that Person inseparably belongs both His divinity and His humanity. He is the Mediator between God and man, and we need all that He is for our salvation. On this, too, Osiander was wrong.

Calvin states:

To justify, therefore, is nothing else than to acquit from the charge of guilt, as if innocence were proved. Hence, when God justifies us through the intercession of Christ, he does not acquit us on a proof of our own innocence, but by an imputation of righteousness, so that though not righteous in ourselves, we are deemed righteous in Christ.[7]
Christ does not intercede for us in heaven apart from us; but, He intercedes from within us–standing in us on earth and yet reaching to the heavens. His intercession there is grounded on His presence in us here. Only by being in Christ are we truly righteous, and only by Christ being in us are we truly in Christ.

Calvin states of Osiander:

He, indeed, heaps together many passages of Scripture showing that Christ is one with us, and we likewise one with him, a point which needs no proof; but he entangles himself by not attending to the bond of this unity. The explanation of all difficulties is easy to us, who hold that we are united to Christ by the secret agency of his Spirit, but he had formed some idea akin to that of the Manichees, desiring to transfuse the divine essence into men. [fn: “–that is, that the soul is of the essence of God.”] […] He says, that we are one with Christ. This we admit, but still we deny that the essence of Christ is confounded with ours. Then we say that he absurdly endeavors to support his delusions by means of this principle: that Christ is our righteousness, because he is the eternal God, the fountain of righteousness, the very righteousness of God. […] But although he pretends that, by the term essential righteousness, he merely means to oppose the sentiment that we are reputed righteous on account of Christ, he however clearly shows, that not contented with that righteousness, which was procured for us by the obedience and sacrificial death of Christ, he maintains that we are substantially righteous in God by an infused essence as well as quality.[8]
The obedience and sacrificial death of Christ were righteous acts in time performed as a man and not part of the eternal righteousness of the essence of God. The eternal righteousness was the source for all of Christ’s righteous human acts, but Osiander was severely mistaken to think that the human acts could be bypassed or discarded due to our supposed need for only the eternal, divine righteousness of Christ. Calvin is correct in his critique of such a poor theology. It is Osiander’s misguided focus on our supposed need for the divine righteousness that sent him down the disastrous path of transfusing the divine essence into men and confounding that essence with ours.

We are spiritually joined to Christ, and that is through the Holy Spirit’s indwelling; but our spirit and His are not confounded. Nevertheless, we are made one with a union of being that results in a new man who has ownership of all of Christ’s human deeds–not a co-mingling or confounding, but a joint ownership and joint identity as a single human life. Once we are joined to Christ, viewing us in distinction from Him is within the purview of God’s knowledge, but it is not within the purview of justice. The only righteousness by which we are righteous is the obedience and sacrificial death of Jesus, and not any righteousness of our own when viewed in distinction from Him; but justice no longer has a warrant or license to view us in any way that is distinct from Him. Justice must view us according to reality, and we are joined as one in that reality–and ever shall we be.

Calvin states:

Had he only said, that Christ by justifying us becomes ours by an essential union, and that he is our head not only insofar as he is man, but that as the essence of the divine nature is diffused into us, he might indulge his dreams with less harm, and, perhaps, it were less necessary to contest the matter with him; but since this principle is like a cuttlefish, which, by the ejection of dark and inky blood, conceals its many tails, if we would not knowingly and willingly allow ourselves to be robbed of that righteousness which alone gives us full assurance of our salvation, we must strenuously resist.[9]
Osiander’s unique and erroneous view of union with Christ was not his only problem. Heresies tend to multiply as they are developed and their ramifications considered. Osiander also confused the meaning of justification and imputed righteousness with being made just and the righteousness to which union with the divine essence inspires us. Calvin continues:

For, in the whole of this discussion, the noun righteousness and the verb to justify are extended by Osiander to two parts; to be justified being not only to be reconciled to God by a free pardon, but also to be made just; and righteousness being not a free imputation, but the holiness and integrity which the divine essence dwelling in us inspires. And he vehemently asserts […] that Christ is himself our righteousness, not insofar as he, by expiating sins, appeased the Father, but because he is the eternal God and life.[10]
The divine essence alone, in and of itself without the fait accompli of Christ’s human life and atoning death, if it is united with us, cannot bring righteousness to us. This is why the Old Testament saints had their sins “passed over…” “…in… divine forbearance” rather than having them remitted in the same way that justification after the cross provides for us. Their sins were forgiven but justice remained to be satisfied–Christ still needed to be incarnated, live as a righteous man and die a sacrificial death. Until that was accomplished, any union between the Holy Spirit and men brought only the divine nature and was without ownership of the human nature of Christ and all of the human experiences of His life and death. Without these, there was no realistic union of identity possible, and so there was no righteousness and atonement that could be savingly applied by the Holy Spirit to a sinner’s life through the joint ownership that would result from a union of two human lives (creating the new man in Christ).

But, make no mistake, Realism agrees that to justify is to forensically declare to be righteous. But Realism posits that the ground of this forensic declaration is found in the concrete reality of the union of Christ and the believer (whether at present or at a point in the future as certain as God’s immutability). But if it is grounded on a future reality, then it does not actually become reality until that future reality becomes a present reality; nonetheless, it is as certain as the God who guarantees it. As for justification making us righteous, it is strictly, precisely and only the righteousness that Christ Jesus lived out and earned in His life as a man, fulfilling all the Law’s requirements in heart and deeds. This is the only righteousness that accrues to our account at justification and afterward. Whatever righteousness grows out of us due to our union with Christ and the indwelling Holy Spirit is a sanctifying effect, but is never perfect in this life. Osiander was wrong again and again; but his error is not the error of proper, biblical Realism–and that which is sound and biblical and illuminating in Realism is utterly missing from the Federal or Covenant theology of our day (except for the worn shadows of the ancient realistic terms whose use is still cherished but whose meaning is long forgotten).

Calvin states:

Osiander will have it, that as Christ is God and man, he was made our righteousness in respect not of his human but of his divine nature.[11]
Calvin answers well, in the next section:

For although Christ could neither purify our souls by his own blood, nor appease the Father by his sacrifice, nor acquit us from the charge of guilt, nor, in short, perform the office of priest, unless he had been very God, because no human ability was equal to such a burden, it is however certain, that he performed all these things in his human nature. If it is asked, in what way we are justified? Paul answers, by the obedience of Christ. Did he obey in any other way than by assuming the form of a servant? We infer, therefore, that righteousness was manifested to us in his flesh.[12]
If we, as humans, had any righteousness, what kind of righteousness would it be? Would it be divine or human? It would be human because we are human. So then, as sinners, what kind of righteousness are we lacking? We are lacking the kind of righteousness that would be expected of us by the God who created us. He created us human, and He expects us to have human righteousness. If we lack that human righteousness, then we cannot expect the blessing of a holy God or to gain entrance to His heaven. But we could no more gain a divine righteousness–even with the help and intention of God to give it to us–than we could gain His omnipresence or His omnipotence or His omniscience. We are mere men, so we need a mere human righteousness--the kind earned by a man named Jesus. Osiander failed to understand this; but any who think the Realistic view falls in with Osiander’s error fail as badly as Osiander in their misunderstanding.

Calvin states:

[…] I acknowledge that we are devoid of this incomparable gift until Christ become ours. Therefore, to that union of the head and members, the residence of Christ in our hearts, in fine, the mystical union, we assign the highest rank, Christ when he becomes ours making us partners with him in the gifts with which he was endued. Hence we do not view him as at a distance and without us, but as we have put him on, and been engrafted into his body, he deigns to make us one with himself, and, therefore, we glory in having a fellowship of righteousness with him. This disposes of Osiander’s calumny, that we regard faith as righteousness […][13]
The mystical union makes us more than mere “partners with him in the gifts with which he was endued.” We are made one with Him. Having been “engrafted into his body,” we share in more than a “fellowship of righteousness with him”–we share in His righteousness as if it were earned by us–a full “proprietary title” to the ownership of His human deeds–as if we were He. In another Reformed Forum podcast, Dr. Lane Tipton says,

[The] forensic is always a function of the solidaric [… We] receive forensic benefits. What do forensic benefits do? They change your status. Justification involves remission of sins and reckoning of righteous[ness]–a change in judicial status. Adoption involves a change in your filial status–you become a child of God. And whether we’re dealing with predestinarian union and all the benefits that God has decreed to us, past historical union–all the benefits Christ has accomplished on our behalf in His death and resurrection by which He is justified, adopted, sanctified and glorified, or whether we’re talking about the Ordo Salutis and the application of those redemptive benefits to us, the forensic is always a function of the solidaric, and never precedes or comes before it. […] If we want to talk about the gospel proclaimed, it is you in Christ, represented by Christ in the past historical event of His death, by which your sins are pardoned–the basis for pardon is given, the basis for the mortification of sin’s power over you is given. Romans 3:24-25; Romans 6:5-6. [… The] forensic does not exist apart from or prior to union with a federal head. So if we’re asking the question, what grounds the Ordo Salutis and the justification that we have by virtue of Spirit-wrought faith-union with Christ realized in our effectual calling, what grounds that is the past historical death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, by which the basis for our pardoning of sin and the mortification of the old man is provided in an objective, concrete, redemptive-historical way in the Historia Salutis; so that the forensic reality of Jesus’ death as a propitiation and expiation and redemption and reconciliation–that provides the Historia Salutis ground (forensic ground) for what we receive in the Ordo Salutis. […] What I’m concerned about is positing that some forensic feature like declaration of justification precedes and grounds the Ordo Salutis, because justification of sinners is always and only by virtue of Spirit-wrought faith-union.[14]
In spite of the realistic sound of Dr. Tipton’s arguments, he is, in fact, not an admitted Realist. He may describe “union with a federal head” as “solidaric,” and use realistic arguments such as, “the forensic is always a function of the solidaric,” which is true enough in a realistic sense, but all the substance is missing from the meaning of “solidaric” when a nominalistic, representationism has commandeered realistic terms and even realistic arguments, but intends nothing realistic by them. For if Dr. Tipton really has a substantial union in mind for the “solidaric” union with Christ, then he cannot avoid the same degree of solidarity in the union with Adam. He would have a foot in the door of Realism, and if that’s the case, I invite him to step on through.

Samuel J. Baird, pastor of the Presbyterian Church, Woodbury, NJ, from 1849-1865, and author of The Elohim Revealed, saw that “a real inbeing” in Christ was the ground of imputed righteousness, just as “a real inbeing” in Adam was the ground of imputed sin. He also understood why the idea of a shared identity through spiritual union with Christ is so consistently ignored. He states:

If the imputation of Christ’s righteousness be founded in a real inbeing in him, wrought by the uniting power of his Spirit in regeneration,—if it is thus that we are brought within the provisions of the covenant of grace to our justification, it follows, (we will venture the word,) incontestably, that the imputation to us of Adam’s sin, is founded in a real inbeing in him, by natural generation, by virtue of which we come under the provisions of the covenant of works, to our condemnation. But this, according to our reviewer [Charles Hodge], is “simply a physiological theory,” involving “a mysterious identity,” which he cannot admit. Hence the necessity of ignoring the doctrine, in its relation to justification.[15]
Baird also states:

We have seen the zeal with which the position is maintained, that the doctrine of imputation “does not include the idea of a mysterious identity of Adam and his race.” By parity of reason it should not include the idea of a mysterious identity between Christ and his people. And accordingly, in the system presented in the review [by Charles Hodge, of Baird’s book, The Elohim Revealed], the relation which in the Scriptures and our standards, the mystical union sustains to justification is ignored, and the doctrine represented as complete without it, and to the exclusion of it. “Christ in the covenant of redemption, is constituted the head and representative of his people; and, in virtue of this federal union, and agreeably to the terms of the eternal covenant, they are regarded and treated as having done what he did and suffered what he suffered in their name and in their behalf.” According to our understanding of the Scriptures, it was provided in the eternal covenant that the elect should be actually ingrafted into Christ by his Spirit, and their acceptance and justification is by virtue of this their actual union to him. “This principle is not to be so understood as though the character thus conveyed were the meritorious cause of the relations predicated; as if the believer were justified by the personal righteousness which he receives through the power of Christ’s Spirit given to him. On the contrary, the union, which is constituted by virtue of the transmission of the nature, itself conveys a proprietary title in the moral and legal relations of the head; whilst the efficient principle which thus unites, is also fruitful in effects appropriate to the nature whence it flows. Thus, the sin of Adam, and the righteousness of Christ are severally imputed to their seed, by virtue of the union, constituted in the one case by the principle of natural generation, and in the other, by ‘the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,’ the Holy Spirit, the principle of regeneration. At the same time, the power by which the union is in these cases severally wrought produces likeness to the head.” [The Elohim Revealed, p. 317][16]


When Christ spiritually indwells me and we become one, it is–in the eyes of justice which sees all things according to substantial reality–as if it had been me who was taken outside Jerusalem two thousand years ago and crucified by Roman soldiers and bore the full weight of the complete wrath of God against sin. It was not me. It was Christ. But who I now am includes Him who accomplished all those things necessary for my salvation–and accomplished them in a nature fitting for union with my own. What a marvelous plan and a wonderful redemption! Osiander was wrong, but Realism is right.

Ken Hamrick


[1] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2021), Translated by Henry Beveridge.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Osiander

[3] Timothy J. Wengert, Defending Faith (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), p. 10.

[4] Calvin, p. 477.

[5] See “What is Realism in Plain Language?” at https://theforgottenrealist.blog/2023/04/12/what-is-realism-in-plain-language/ , “The Role of the Holy Spirit in Justification,” at https://theforgottenrealist.blog/2018/12/22/the-role-of-the-holy-spirit-in-justification/ , “A Strong Argument for Traducianism,” at https://theforgottenrealist.blog/2020/04/02/a-strong-argument-for-traducianism/ and “It’s Time for New Thinking on Atonement,” at https://theforgottenrealist.blog/tag/series-its-time-for-new-thinking-on-atonement/ .

[6] https://reformedforum.org/podcasts/ctc207/

[7] Calvin, p. 476.

[8] Ibid., pp. 477-478.

[9] Ibid., p. 478.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid., p. 480.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid., pp. 481-482.

[14] Justification and Union with Christ – Reformed Forum

[15] Samuel J. Baird, A Rejoinder to The Princeton Review, upon The Elohim Revealed, (Phila.: Joseph M. Wilson, 1860), p. 34. Baird also authored The First Adam and the Second: The Elohim Revealed in the Creation and Redemption of Man, (Phila.: Parry & McMillan, 1860).

[16] Ibid., pp. 32-33.
 
Thanks for the chapter. Horton seems to have come down from certain statements I heard on a few Reformed Forum podcasts in the early 2010's
I think it's always important to take the issue based on whether or not one is dealing with the ideas in exactly the parameters you want all to fall within.

The issue of realism in the RC/Protestant debate devolves around the issue of whether or not one is really just in the RCC schema. As Horton points out, it is actually the Roman Catholics who can be charged with nominalism because they rest their infused righteousness on congruent merit. They are not righteous, in reality, but God treats their righteousness as if they are. Union with Christ provides us with real righteousness based on our Covenantal union with our Head.

Personally, I think Scriptural ideas of Covenant and union are far more useful than philosophical ideas that are, at best, feint analogies of the reality. I would prefer a believer rest on what is clearly revealed and apprehended rather than engage in philosophical language to attempt to scaffold some human understanding of things as profound as mystical union.
 
I think it's always important to take the issue based on whether or not one is dealing with the ideas in exactly the parameters you want all to fall within.

The issue of realism in the RC/Protestant debate devolves around the issue of whether or not one is really just in the RCC schema. As Horton points out, it is actually the Roman Catholics who can be charged with nominalism because they rest their infused righteousness on congruent merit. They are not righteous, in reality, but God treats their righteousness as if they are. Union with Christ provides us with real righteousness based on our Covenantal union with our Head.

Personally, I think Scriptural ideas of Covenant and union are far more useful than philosophical ideas that are, at best, feint analogies of the reality. I would prefer a believer rest on what is clearly revealed and apprehended rather than engage in philosophical language to attempt to scaffold some human understanding of things as profound as mystical union.

I've used a similar argument against RCs based on their supposition that justification is a process: if the ground of justification were a process culminating in infused righteousness – that is, in our being perfectly, intrinsically, subjectively righteous – no one in this lifetime would be justified (or else, as you point out, such a declaration would be nominalistic). Christians would by necessity be required to live perfectly according to the law following so-called “initial” justification.

I understand your perspective. Certainly, divine revelation should anchor our thinking, not speculative philosophy. I think we can agree about this yet affirm, with Baird, that words like "nature" are Scriptural and have implications which help guard against vain philosophies.
 
@Knight a lot of this is going over my head so I charitably ask for a summary. Is the realist conception slightly leaning towards the federal and imputative forensic categories of Reformed theology because we can partake of the universal (righteousness of Christ); we do not depend then on the nominalist's "we investigate objects and not universals" i.e we do not look at inherent subjective righteousness ala RCC.
 
@Knight a lot of this is going over my head so I charitably ask for a summary. Is the realist conception slightly leaning towards the federal and imputative forensic categories of Reformed theology because we can partake of the universal (righteousness of Christ); we do not depend then on the nominalist's "we investigate objects and not universals" i.e we do not look at inherent subjective righteousness ala RCC.

I'll try to address what I think is the spirit of your question, and you can tell me if I am unclear.

Have you heard of nominal Christians? These are people who say they are Christians but are Christians in name only (Matthew 7:21-22). They are not really Christians. Similarly, a nominalist regarding universals may say you and I are human, but in making such ascriptions or predications, they would nevertheless deny that there really is such a thing as a common, human nature. Such ascriptions and predications nominalists make are done in name only. As Shedd says (Dogmatic Theology, page 768, link):

A species or specific nature then, though an invisible principle, is a real entity, not a mere idea. When God creates a primordial substance which is to be individualized by propagation, that which is created is not a mental abstraction or general term having no objective correspondent. A specific nature has a real existence, not a nominal.

Given the above, one might wonder why nominalists would ascribe or predicate the same term of different individuals. I am trying to keep this summary somewhat short, but you or others interested can follow up here: link.

With this background in mind, let's turn to soteriology. Every Reformed realist believes in "forensic" categories. This just means that there is a divine court of law before which men are judged. God, the Judge, "justifies" believers. This means He declares them righteous. They are acquitted of the charge of sin. This declaration is based upon God's imputing, charging, reckoning, regarding, assigning, attributing, or judging the believer as righteous. God considers us righteous and, therefore, declares us righteous. All Reformed Christians accepts these truths. The question is how a just Judge can declare righteous those who are sinners.

A Reformed realist argues that these "forensic" categories have grounding in reality. God's consideration and declaration that believers are righteous are true. More on this in a moment.

Now, in this lifetime, believers are not subjectively, intrinsically, or inherently righteous. Therefore, Reformed Christians reject that divine imputation or justification of sinners could be on such grounds. That would be a Roman Catholic view. The problem with the Roman Catholic view is that we are not, in this life, really subjectively, intrinsically, or inherently righteous. Thus, the Roman Catholic who thinks God considers and declares believers subjectively, intrinsically, or inherently righteous is implicitly promoting nominalism; that is, we are subjectively, intrinsically, or inherently righteous in name only.

This is ironic, since, as I mentioned in my first post, Roman Catholic apologists often argue that Reformed Christians are nominalists. It is further ironic that the point of the Roman Catholic theory of infused righteousness is, as I understand it, an attempt to avoid nominalism. That is, Roman Catholics try to answer the question of how a just Judge can declare righteous those who are sinners by grounding justification on [progressive] sanctification. But when confronted with the reality that believers are not subjectively, intrinsically, or inherently righteous or sanctified in this life, their insistence that God justifies believers in this life collapses their theory into nominalism.

Turning back to the Reformed view, there may indeed be some Reformed Christians who are nominalists. There may be some Reformed Christians who think God considers and declares believers righteous in name only. Indeed, like the nominalist about universals - or, perhaps, as people who are nominalists about universals - they may have well-intentioned reasons for doing so. One reason might be because they fear the only alternative to their position is the Roman Catholic view. I think the final quote of Baird in my first post puts this fear to rest.

A Reformed realist argues that God's consideration and declaration of believers as righteous is not a legal fiction (nominalism). For God considers and declares believers as righteous in Christ. The answer to the question of how a just Judge can declare righteous those who are sinners is that the sinners who are also believers are really in union with Christ by His Spirit.

I am encouraged by Horton's recognition that Calvin affirmed, “as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value for us." I am encouraged when I read G. K. Beale write (Union with the Resurrected Christ, pages 179-180, 189):

The text that I see as the strongest affirmation of the positive imputation of Christ's righteousness to believers is 1 Corinthians 1:30: "But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification [or "holiness"], and redemption." Believers' identification and union with Christ means that "in him" they are considered to have the same (perfect) wisdom, righteousness, holiness, and redemption that Christ had. This does not mean that believers perfectly possess these attributes in their personal existence on earth; rather, they are represented by Christ as having perfectly become these things for them because of their positional identification of unity with him (i.e., they "are in Christ"). The "for us" (hemin) refers to their position "in Christ Jesus" and identification with his attributes being on their behalf or for their benefit. Believers are considered to have the same (perfect) wisdom, righteousness, holiness, and redemption that Christ had... people come into union with Christ through regeneration.

Statements such as these suggest that God's consideration and declaration of a believer's righteousness has grounding in reality - indeed, in the very reality God foreordained and then brought to pass by the work of His Son being applied by His Spirit. Recent statements such as these from prominent, Reformed authors suggest the need for a reinvigorated interest in the role of realism in soteriology (and, I should add, anthropology, hamartiology, and apologetics, some of which I touched on in earlier posts). I hope this becomes more explicit as time goes on and that more people become aware that there is a tradition of Reformed thought on these points.
 
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In honor of the OP, Muller writes (Post Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 1, pages 162-163):



I'll withdraw my Trinitarian argument. Do you have a response to Baird and myself regarding human nature? In Volume 4, pages 180ff., Muller mentions Moses Amyraut, Thomas Ridgley, Edward Leigh, and Marcus Wendelin as theologians who agree with this reasoning:



Compare this to earlier in the same volume, page 98-99:
Knight, none of these are examples of early modern Reformed writers getting into the different positions on universals as expressed by Scotus, Thomas, Ockham, and their various commentators and endorsing one position over another.
I'm not claiming that they did not believe in categories like individuals, species, genus, universals, etc. Of course they did. Aristotle's Organon was the fundamental logical text for that era of Protestants.
I'm claiming that they did not care much to go beyond Aristotle in explaining how a universal is in particulars, as the medievals did, in order to endorse one of their theories.
Remember that Scotus, Thomas, and Ockham all believed in universals. Whether universals exist is not the point of distinction between those positions.
And, because the Reformed, didn't care to get into that, we should not read their statements on justification, human nature, etc in light of those medieval debates.
However, we can, and should, read the Reformed Orthodox in light of Aristotle's categories and description of logic, because they reference him constantly, and if one doesn't pick up on the reference, what they are saying can become very unclear.
I have included quite a few notes referencing Aristotle in a recent translation of mine from the Reformed Orthodox for example.
 
Knight, none of these are examples of early modern Reformed writers getting into the different positions on universals as expressed by Scotus, Thomas, Ockham, and their various commentators and endorsing one position over another.
I'm not claiming that they did not believe in categories like individuals, species, genus, universals, etc. Of course they did. Aristotle's Organon was the fundamental logical text for that era of Protestants.
I'm claiming that they did not care much to go beyond Aristotle in explaining how a universal is in particulars, as the medievals did, in order to endorse one of their theories.
Remember that Scotus, Thomas, and Ockham all believed in universals. Whether universals exist is not the point of distinction between those positions.
And, because the Reformed, didn't care to get into that, we should not read their statements on justification, human nature, etc in light of those medieval debates.
However, we can, and should, read the Reformed Orthodox in light of Aristotle's categories and description of logic, because they reference him constantly, and if one doesn't pick up on the reference, what they are saying can become very unclear.
I have included quite a few notes referencing Aristotle in a recent translation of mine from the Reformed Orthodox for example.

The examples I provided clearly show Reformed theologians whose positions are distinct from [Ockham's] nominalism. You are incorrect: Ockham did not believe in universals. From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (link):

Ockham was a nominalist, indeed he is the person whose name is perhaps most famously associated with nominalism. But nominalism means many different things:

  • A denial of metaphysical universals. Ockham was emphatically a nominalist in this sense.
  • An emphasis on reducing one’s ontology to a bare minimum, on paring down the supply of fundamental ontological categories. Ockham was likewise a nominalist in this sense.
  • A denial of “abstract” entities. Depending on what one means, Ockham was or was not a nominalist in this sense. He believed in “abstractions” such as whiteness and humanity, for instance, although he did not believe they were universals. (On the contrary, there are at least as many distinct whitenesses as there are white things.) He certainly believed in immaterial entities such as God and angels. He did not believe in mathematical (“quantitative”) entities of any kind.
The first two kinds of nominalism listed above are independent of one another. Historically, there have been philosophers who denied metaphysical universals, but allowed (individual) entities in more ontological categories than Ockham does. Conversely, one might reduce the number of ontological categories, and yet hold that universal entities are needed in the categories that remain.

Similarly, Gordon Clark wrote, "nominalists such as Roscellinus and Occam assert that concepts refer to no reality whatever, that they are mere sounds in the air without meaning, and thus make philosophy and ordinary conversation both impossible" (link).
 
Knight, none of these are examples of early modern Reformed writers getting into the different positions on universals as expressed by Scotus, Thomas, Ockham, and their various commentators and endorsing one position over another.
I'm not claiming that they did not believe in categories like individuals, species, genus, universals, etc. Of course they did. Aristotle's Organon was the fundamental logical text for that era of Protestants.
I'm claiming that they did not care much to go beyond Aristotle in explaining how a universal is in particulars, as the medievals did, in order to endorse one of their theories.
Remember that Scotus, Thomas, and Ockham all believed in universals. Whether universals exist is not the point of distinction between those positions.
And, because the Reformed, didn't care to get into that, we should not read their statements on justification, human nature, etc in light of those medieval debates.
However, we can, and should, read the Reformed Orthodox in light of Aristotle's categories and description of logic, because they reference him constantly, and if one doesn't pick up on the reference, what they are saying can become very unclear.
I have included quite a few notes referencing Aristotle in a recent translation of mine from the Reformed Orthodox for example.
It can be tricky as Luther was from the school of Ockham and Lutheran theology is heavily influenced by nominalism so many of the Romanist attacks on "Protestantism" as being nominalist are really attacks on pre-Reformation Ockhamism in Romanism. So it is in many ways a circular case of guilt-by-association: because Luther held to Ockham/nominalism (prior to his coming out of Romanism), Romanists assume that all "Protestants" must similarly deny realism/universalism.

I see no problem in Reformed writers taking the time to show that our views in many areas are not unorthodox and that much of what we believe is the original doctrine of the Church that was largely, until Trent, also held by Rome. As the WCF (25.5) communicates, the Roman church has not always been so heavily full of mixture and error as to become a synagogue of Satan - it has "degenerated" to become so. As Ryan has demonstrated, this (having a right understanding of realism vs. nominalism in justification) has evangelistic implications with our Roman friends.

There are many issues and angles our forefathers did not parse out as fully as possible (such as the nature of the covenants) that we continue to explore ("go beyond") theologically, so I have no issue with more modern Reformed writers picking up issues and going further with them than before.
 
You are incorrect: Ockham did not believe in universals. From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (link):
Brother, the Stanford Encyclopedia is not the only interpreter of Ockham (or even an interpreter at all, as a tertiary source), and there is by no means a consensus that Ockham denied universals.
Ockham was a Franciscan, so it shouldn't surprise us to learn that it is modern Franciscans that have the most interest in his work, they having been responsible for the only modern edition of his work.

And in an article titled GUALTERI DE CHATTON ET GUILLELMI DE OCKHAM CONTROVERSIA DE NATURA CONCEPTUS UNIVERSALIS, by Gedeon Gal, published in Franciscan Studies, vol. 27, he writes, "Problema quod nostra hic interest, quodque inter hos duos auctores in controversia versatur, non est utrum universale quocunque modo extra animam exsistat vel in rerum natura fundamentum habeat, sed agitur potius de natura seu realitate conceptus universalis in ipsa anima: quid scilicet sit conceptus communis seu universalis et quaenam realitas vel modus essendi ei conveniat."
That is, Ockham does believe in universals, just in a different way than Scotists. I think that point would be clear to you if you were to read Ockham himself. But alas, his major works are not in English.
But none of that is particularly germane to my point, which is that, again, the reformers were not interested in these sorts of metaphysical speculations. Some of them, particularly Calvin, Ramus, and the Ramists (Ames, Polanus, Ursinus, Piscator, Perkins) particularly detested metaphysics as a discipline, and it's ahistorical to read these matters into their writings. If we want to understand the Westminster Confession, or Turretin, or Polanus, on justification, we can just read them, without trying to read between the lines as to what theory of universals they would have endorsed (the answer being, for the most part, none of them.)
And just as a side note, since you cited Muller earlier, Muller associates Musculus with nominalism. Now, as I've pointed out, I don't think that he or any other reformer cared about this problem; they were focused on other things; but even if we go along with Muller on this matter, he doesn't support your point that realism is essential to protestant doctrine, because Musculus was clearly an orthodox protestant.
 
Can you be a consistent nominalist and still believe in/hold to natural law?

Isn't nominalism the seminal thinking/philosophy and foundation that ultimately led to the deconstructionalism of the likes of Marx and then Derrida and then the current men and women calling themselves women and men?

I don't think that he or any other reformer cared about this problem
You can be an orthodox Christian and still have error in your theology - I'm sure I am both presently, as I have been in the past. Just because I am ignorant of my current errors or preoccupied with working through some other problem does not mean the former is not or will not become important. And it is obviously important, given Ryan's testimony, when dealing with Romanist critics - at the least it is worth the time to distinguish Reformed theology from Lutheran in this area.
 
Isn't nominalism the seminal thinking/philosophy and foundation that ultimately led to the deconstructionalism of the likes of Marx and then Derrida and then the current men and women calling themselves women and men?

That's the common narrative. There might be some truth to it, but if it is true, it is removed several degrees. Marx and Derrida probably rejected that essences and universals exist, but they would not have seen themselves as "in the school of nominalism."
 
Isn't nominalism the seminal thinking/philosophy and foundation that ultimately led to the deconstructionalism of the likes of Marx and then Derrida and then the current men and women calling themselves women and men?
I think the more immediate villain would be Nietzsche rather than Occam.
 
Brother, the Stanford Encyclopedia is not the only interpreter of Ockham (or even an interpreter at all, as a tertiary source), and there is by no means a consensus that Ockham denied universals.
Ockham was a Franciscan, so it shouldn't surprise us to learn that it is modern Franciscans that have the most interest in his work, they having been responsible for the only modern edition of his work.

And in an article titled GUALTERI DE CHATTON ET GUILLELMI DE OCKHAM CONTROVERSIA DE NATURA CONCEPTUS UNIVERSALIS, by Gedeon Gal, published in Franciscan Studies, vol. 27, he writes, "Problema quod nostra hic interest, quodque inter hos duos auctores in controversia versatur, non est utrum universale quocunque modo extra animam exsistat vel in rerum natura fundamentum habeat, sed agitur potius de natura seu realitate conceptus universalis in ipsa anima: quid scilicet sit conceptus communis seu universalis et quaenam realitas vel modus essendi ei conveniat."
That is, Ockham does believe in universals, just in a different way than Scotists. I think that point would be clear to you if you were to read Ockham himself. But alas, his major works are not in English.
But none of that is particularly germane to my point, which is that, again, the reformers were not interested in these sorts of metaphysical speculations. Some of them, particularly Calvin, Ramus, and the Ramists (Ames, Polanus, Ursinus, Piscator, Perkins) particularly detested metaphysics as a discipline, and it's ahistorical to read these matters into their writings. If we want to understand the Westminster Confession, or Turretin, or Polanus, on justification, we can just read them, without trying to read between the lines as to what theory of universals they would have endorsed (the answer being, for the most part, none of them.)
And just as a side note, since you cited Muller earlier, Muller associates Musculus with nominalism. Now, as I've pointed out, I don't think that he or any other reformer cared about this problem; they were focused on other things; but even if we go along with Muller on this matter, he doesn't support your point that realism is essential to protestant doctrine, because Musculus was clearly an orthodox protestant.

I have not denied some Reformed Christians are nominalists.

I echo Andrew's above sentiments.

I consider what I have cited by Muller on the subject of the Reformers and universals to suffice, so I have little more to say on that subject. I had thought you would have answered whether you consider human nature a universal by now. My fish in water analogy stands.

I read as much of the article you cited as I could with the help of google translate. I would just like to point out that the very next sentence after the one you cited says,

"Quantum ad primum aspectum universalium spectat, Venerabilis Inceptor constanter firmiterque unam propugnat opinionem: nihil nisi singularia in rerum natura exsistunt."

Keeping in mind that the Venerabilis Inceptor is Ockham, this translation reads: "As regards the first aspect of universals, the Venerable Initiator constantly and firmly defends one opinion: nothing but particulars exist in the nature of things."

Later in the article:

Ockham in sua Ordinatione, I, d. 2, q. 8 A—P8 de natura seu quidditate conceptus universalis in anima primo quatuor opiniones recenset. Iuxta primam universale est conceptus mentis qui in rei veritate nihil aliud est nisi ipsa intellectio, et iuxta hoc universale est 'intellectio confusa' rei. Dicitur autem 'confusa' eo quod confuse seu indeterminate supponit pro suis singularibus. Secunda tenet universale esse spedem aliquam, quae licet in essendo singularis sit, dicitur tarnen universale quia universauter omnia singularia respicit. Tertia asserit universale esse aliquam veram rem quae actum intelligendi sequitur et est similitudo rei, aequaliter seu universaliter omnia singularia respiciens. Secundum quartam 'nihil est universale ex natura rei sed tantum ex institutione , eo modo quo vox est universalis'.

Nulla ex his quatuor opinionibus — eo saltern tempore — favorem ante Guillelmum invenit, etiamsi tres priores non consideret omnino improbabiles nec evidenter falsas. Itaque quintam, ut magis probabilem proponit. Iuxta hanc opinionem universale "non est aliquid reale habens esse subjectivum, nec in anima nec extra animam, sed, tantum habet esse objectivum in anima, et est quoddam fictum, habens esse tale in esse objectivo quale habet rest extra in esse subjectivo". Iste conceptus universalis, ab intellectu ad similitudinem rerum extra animam fictus seu productus cuiusque esse est obici seu intelligi, est objectum ad intellectu immediate cognitum; est similiter terminus propositionis, supponens pro omnibus illis singularibus quorum est imago seu similitudo.

Ockham in his Ordination, I, d. 2, q. 8 A-P8 first lists four opinions about the nature or quiddity of the universal concept in the soul. According to the first, universal is the concept of the mind, which in the truth of a thing is nothing else than the understanding itself, and according to this universal is the 'confused understanding' of the thing. But it is said that it is 'confused' because it assumes confusedly or indeterminately for its particulars. The second holds that there is some hope that is universal, which although it is singular in being, is said to be universal because it universally regards all singulars. The third asserts that the universal is some true thing which follows the act of understanding and is the similitude of the thing, looking equally or universally at all particulars. According to the fourth, 'nothing is universal from the nature of a thing, but only from its institution, in the same way that a word is universal'.

None of these four opinions - at least at that time - found favor before William, even if he did not consider the first three to be completely improbable or obviously false. And so he proposes the fifth, as more probable. According to this universal opinion, "there is no real thing having a subjective being, neither in the soul nor outside the soul, but it only has an objective being in the soul, and it is a kind of fiction, having such a being in the objective being as the rest has outside in the subjective being." This universal concept, fabricated or produced by the intellect in the likeness of things outside the soul, is to be objected to or understood, and is an object immediately known to the intellect; it is likewise the limit of a proposition, supposing for all those particulars of which it is an image or likeness.

That is, Ockham, the Venerable Initiator, denies metaphysical universals, just as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) article on Ockham states. Ockham is saying that any universal concept must be a fiction because there are no metaphysical universals. This is a species of nominalism. The SEP also clarifies that "these “universal” concepts are singular entities like all others."

Finally, that Stanford Encyclopedia article was written by Paul Vincent Spade, Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Indiana University, and later updated by Claude Panaccio, Professor Emeritus of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Quebec in Montreal. The former wrote The Cambridge Companion to Ockham (Cambridge University Press). The latter has written two books on Ockham, one of which is entitled, Occam's Nominalism (Oxford University Press). The summary is quite reputable.
 
I have not denied some Reformed Christians are nominalists.

I echo Andrew's above sentiments.

I consider what I have cited by Muller on the subject of the Reformers and universals to suffice, so I have little more to say on that subject. I had thought you would have answered whether you consider human nature a universal by now. My fish in water analogy stands.

I read as much of the article you cited as I could with the help of google translate. I would just like to point out that the very next sentence after the one you cited says,

"Quantum ad primum aspectum universalium spectat, Venerabilis Inceptor constanter firmiterque unam propugnat opinionem: nihil nisi singularia in rerum natura exsistunt."

Keeping in mind that the Venerabilis Inceptor is Ockham, this translation reads: "As regards the first aspect of universals, the Venerable Initiator constantly and firmly defends one opinion: nothing but particulars exist in the nature of things."

Later in the article:





That is, Ockham, the Venerable Initiator, denies metaphysical universals, just as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) article on Ockham states. Ockham is saying that any universal concept must be a fiction because there are no metaphysical universals. This is a species of nominalism. The SEP also clarifies that "these “universal” concepts are singular entities like all others."

Finally, that Stanford Encyclopedia article was written by Paul Vincent Spade, Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Indiana University, and later updated by Claude Panaccio, Professor Emeritus of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Quebec in Montreal. The former wrote The Cambridge Companion to Ockham (Cambridge University Press). The latter has written two books on Ockham, one of which is entitled, Occam's Nominalism (Oxford University Press). The summary is quite reputable.
Right, nothing but particulars exists in the nature of things. That's a qualifier. He doesn't say they don't exist; only that they don't exist in the nature of things.
The Stanford article is saying that, according to Ockham, they don't exist at all. A very different claim indeed.
Here is an actual quote from Ockham where he explains how he understands universals:
"Sic intentio animae dicitur universalis, quia est signum praedicabile de pluribus."
"In this way, the concept of the soul [i.e. mind] is called universal, because it is a sign that is predicable of many things."
And he backs this up with a quote from Avicenna: "Una forma apud intellectum est relata ad multitudinem, et secundum hunc respectum est universale..."
"A form in the intellect is related to a multitude, and according to this respect it is universal..."
See p. 48-49 of Summa Logicae, in vol. 1 of Ockham's Opera Philosophica.
 
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I never denied that Ockham is a nominalist. I denied the he rejected the existence of universals, or that that is a tenet of nominalism.
It appears then that we have different definitions of nominalism. My understanding is that a nominalist (at least of the variety that emerged during the Middle Ages) does not believe that universals actually exist. What is your definition of nominalism?
 
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