www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Was Guillaume de Ockam responsable?

I have a question about philosophy, there are many things that I find complex and that I don't understand well, but for those who know better about this, do you think that William of Ockahm was partialy responsable for the debacle of the Christian faith in the West, the Protestant Reformation, Liberalism in the Church, Humanism?

It is my understanding that he was the one who inspired Luther and Rousseau and the freethinkers to start their political movements.

Thanks

Philosophically I think one has to hold him somewhat responsible. Nominalism does not support any notion of natural law. Without natural law, that truth in some sense can be known through reason, Realism and scholasticism cannot exist. Ones attention is naturally drawn only to the conclusions that may be reached from observations based upon the five senses only thus limiting knowledge to physical perception. The great weekness of such a limit is that it places too much reliance upon what many call a sixth sense or sense perception. One must trust that what we think we see we can actually describe without reference to reality. Pope Benedict XVI rightly says that secularism is a form of reason without any roots. I describe it as a second floor condominium which lacks a first floor.

CDL

Ockam was a conceptualist scholastic, not a true nominalist. The failure of scholasticsm is nominalism, the Reformation, and secular humanism. Eastern Realism is not dependant on so-called "natural law". Revelation and mystical experience can provide knowlege that is otherwise "not logical".