6
Occams thought effectively caused a split within medieval scholarship and
precipitated a new school of philosophy which emphasized the freedom of the will of
God in creation more than its predecessors. In other words, the nominalists/voluntarists
said that the universe exists in its present form simply because God wills it to be that
way, in accordance with Gods own nature. And it was this idea which attracted a young
Augustinian monk named Martin Luther, and, perhaps in a more indirect way, a French
humanist named John Calvin. How do we know what the world is all about? We must
go to the will of God. And how do we know the will of God? By reading Aristotle? The
Church Fathers? St. Thomas? To the contrary, God reveals his will to those whom he
wills, and he does this most preeminently in his Word. Only by the grace of God do we
understand the full truth about ourselves and about the world. In the spirit of Pauls words
to the Corinthians, the Christian worldview seems like foolishness to the worldly wise
and nonsense to many religionists (1 Cor. 1:18-25). As Luther declaimed in his own
inimitable way at the Heidelberg Disputation, "one cannot philosophize well unless he is
a fool, that is, a Christian." And, "He who wishes to philosophize by using Aristotle
without danger to his soul must first become thoroughly foolish in Christ."
8
For his part,
Calvin headed off the notion that a study of the particulars could be an end in and of
themselves. The creation should be studied in consonance with what is revealed in
Scripture if we want to understand the world in which we live. For as Calvin
commented, "Therefore, however fitting it may be for man seriously to turn his eyes to
8
Martin Luther, Luther's Basic Theological Writings ed. Timothy F. Lull (Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 1989, 32.