Nominalism and the Problem of Meaning as Illustrated by Pierre D'Ailly on Predestination and Justification

Abstract

It is difficult in our day to understand the appeal of late medieval nominalism for it seems almost schizophrenic in the way it alternates between opposing emphases. It looked at every theological problem from two radically different points of view: from the perspective of God's absolute power, and from the viewpoint of what he has in fact ordained. In the first context, nominalism relied completely on the power of philosophy and logic to define (though not to prove) omnipotence, and insisted on the radically individualistic isolation of man before a God of absolute and arbitrary power; but in the second context, these emphases are in effect reversed and stress is laid on fideism, the community and its authority, and, in the case of many nominalists, on the moral autonomy of man vis à vis God. Furthermore, the reconciliation of these contrary tendencies is primarily logical, or even verbal. Yet nominalism so captivated the minds of many theologians that they were quite content with what seems to us a purely external and artificial unity and consistency.