William of Ockham ‘The first Protestant’

William of Ockham  ‘The first Protestant’

by Russell Grigg

William of Ockham (c. 1287–1347), a.k.a. simply Ockham (sometimes spelled ‘Occam’),

was a Bible-believing 14th-century English philosopher. He opposed the church lead

ership of his day because they had abandoned clear Bible teaching and instead sought power, influence, and wealth. However, he is better known today for the problem-solving logical prin

ciple known as ‘Ockham’s razor’. Even though he did not invent this idea, he used it so effectively that it came to bear his name.

Ockham’s razor

Ockham’s razor is a phrase that in Latin is usually rendered Entia non sunt multiplicanda sine necessitate, which translates as: ‘Entities [of explanation] should not be multiplied beyond necessity’. This concept has been inappropriately restated as ‘All things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be the right one.’1 However, Ockham was not claiming that nature always follows the simplest course, nor that a simple explanation trumps a better, more complex one; nor yet that simplicity should overrule the need to explain all the data. Rather, he was advocating that one should not propose any more causes than are necessary to account for any phenomenon.

Why ‘razor’?

The term ‘Ockham’s razor’ first occurred long after Ockham’s time, in 1852 in the work of British mathematician William Hamilton.1 Some claim that it is called a ‘razor’ because it refers to the ‘shaving away’ of unnecessary explanations. But that may be a modern-day explanation after the fact. Others point out that before erasers were in use, writing was corrected by scraping ink away with a razor. It could thus well be that this principle became associated with ‘razor’ not because of its subject matter but because it was a corrective to thought—‘Ockham’s eraser’ as it were.

• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy; iep.utm.edu/ockham

He wrote (translated):

“Nothing ought to be posited without a reason given, unless it is self-evident or known by experience or proved by the authority of Sacred Scripture.”2

Skeptics and atheists using Ockham’s razor today inevitably leave out the last bit, and in doing so they misuse the concept. For example, atheists like to claim their disbelief in God is superior to theism because it involves one less entity and so is simpler. But Ockham was not giving the world a 14th-century equivalent of ‘Keep it simple, stupid’. Rather, he was stating his belief in the overriding authority of the Word of God, while advocating the use of reason and perception in evaluating the cause of anything.

Ockham’s education

It is believed that Ockham was born in the English village of Ockham in Surrey, and that as a youngster he entered and received his early schooling at the Order of St Francis in London (the Franciscans), followed by theological studies at the University of Oxford. His education included the study of logic, which he regarded as indispensable for evaluating all assertions. Indeed, in all the disputes he came to be involved in, “logic was destined to serve as his chief weapon against adversaries.”3

Ockham on trial

At Oxford, students were required to write a commentary on the official textbook of theology, the Sentences of Peter Lombard. Ockham’s opinions on this subject (known as the Ordinatio) were deemed to be insufficiently orthodox by the university theological faculty, so that he left the university without obtaining his master’s degree in theology. Church authorities also disapproved of his views, and in 1324 Pope John XXII summonsed Ockham to the papal court at Avignon in France to appear before a commission of six theologians there. However, his Ordinatio was never officially declared to be heretical.3

Ockham vs Pope John XXII

“Nothing ought to be posited without a reason given, unless it is self-evident or known by experience or proved by the authority of Sacred Scripture.”

While in Avignon, Ockham resided at the local Franciscan priory. Here, in 1327, he met the chief administrative officer of the Franciscans, Michael of Cesena, who was in dispute with Pope John over the issue of property. Believing that they were following the example of Christ and the Apostles, the Franciscans lived in absolute poverty, which was the antithesis of the opulence of the papal palace at Avignon. Pope John sought great wealth for the Church, and the lifestyle of the Franciscans was an implicit rebuke rather than a help in achieving this.

Michael asked Ockham to study three papal bulls4 showing what Pope John XXII had previously written on the use of property. From these, Ockham concluded that Pope John was not just mistakenly wrong, but was stubbornly and heretically wrong, and so had forfeited his mandate. In short, Ockham protested that John was a pseudo-pope. Indeed, Ockham has the distinction of being designated ‘the first Protestant’—by no less an authority on this subject than the Catholic Encyclopedia.5

Ockham, a Bible-believing Christian, asserted that God was the one and only first cause and authority—facts which God had revealed to mankind in His Word, the Bible. This appeal to Scripture as authority was taken up and restated by Martin Luther in the Protestant Reformation a little less than two centuries later as the doctrine of Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone). That is to say, the Bible is the supreme authority in all it teaches. All else, and particularly human conjecture, is subordinate to and corrected by the written Word of God.

Ockham has the distinction of being designated ‘the first Protestant’—by no less an authority on this subject than the Catholic Encyclopedia.

Relationships between the parties deteriorated and in May 1328 Michael, Ockham, and some Franciscan sympathizers fled Avignon to the protection of the Holy Roman Emperor, Louis IV (Ludwig) of Bavaria, who became Ockham’s patron. Pope John promptly excommunicated Ockham and his companions, not for heresy but for defiance of his authority (i.e. leaving Avignon without his permission). He had previously excommunicated Louis in 1324 and denied him all rights of Empire, so Louis welcomed the moral and literary support of Ockham. Ockham spent the rest of his life in Munich writing on various issues, one of which was that the papacy did not have right of control over imperial authorities. Ockham was thus an early advocate of the separation of church and state.

Applying Ockham’s razor to creation/evolution

Today, the preeminent version of the ‘big bang’ hypothesis for the origin of the universe is that the singularity which allegedly then ‘banged’ came into existence from nothing6 by means of a ‘quantum fluctuation’. This then supposedly expanded rapidly, and ultimately produced everything that exists. But this theory must presuppose that there is something to fluctuate.7 Where and when could any such alleged quantum fluctuation occur before there was any space or time for it to take place in?

Applying Ockham’s assessment to the ‘big bang’ scenario, we see that multiple causes are proposed (e.g. quantum fluctuation from nothing, sudden expansion, reduction of the expansion, most of the universe made up of ‘dark’ matter and ‘dark’ energy that cannot be detected, etc.). None of these are self-evident, known by experience, or proven by the authority of Sacred Scripture. Recall that self-evidence was an essential part of Ockham’s logical evaluation of all assertions. The ‘big bang’ fails Ockham’s razor totally.

Furthermore, the universe exhibits intelligent design, especially in the biological world but it is also true among the heavenly bodies.8 Big-bang proponents deny this, thereby avoiding the need to explain it. However, an explanation for all the data, including the design and intelligence clearly seen in the universe, is that the universe was created by an intelligent Designer who had the power, the ability, and the penchant to do so.

Opponents of this ‘creation’ concept claim that invoking ‘God’ was merely primitive man’s attempt to explain things before science. However, a corollary to the idea of an intelligent Designer is that such a Being should also have the necessary intelligence to be able to communicate to us what He has done. And this is in fact what we find in the Bible, in the account of origins in Genesis, which Ockham believed.

Conclusion

Although he was certainly not the first person persecuted for biblically orthodox beliefs, Ockham thoroughly deserves his accolade as ‘the first Protestant’. What he wrote in the 14th century not only rebuked the religious corruption of his day, but his philosophical razor can be used today as a condemnation of the atheists’ refusal to acknowledge God in every aspect of life. For God is not only our Creator, He is also our Lawgiver, our Judge, and for those who wish to be forgiven of their sins, our Saviour.

References and notes

1. E.g. by Carl Sagan’s fictitious SETI scientist Ellie Arroway in his sci-fi film Contact. Return to text
2. William of Ockham, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy; see plato.stanford.edu/entries/ockham, p. 9. The reference given therein is “Sent. I, dist. 30, q.1.” Return to text
3. William of Ockham, Encyclopaedia Britannica; britannica.com/biography/William-of-Ockham. Return to text
4. A papal bull is a legal publication issued by a pope of the Catholic Church. It is named after the lead seal (bulla) that was appended to the end in order to authenticate it. Return to text
5. Catholic Encyclopedia: William of Ockham. Return to text
6. E.g. as claimed by Krauss, L.M. in A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing, Free Press 2012. See review: Reynolds, D.W. Godless universe untenable, J. Creation 27(1):30–35; creation.com/krauss-review. Return to text
7. Sometimes said to be a quantum vacuum, which is equally not ‘nothing’; see Sarfati, J., In the beginning God created—or was it a quantum fluctuation?; creation.com/krauss. Return to text
8. Sarfati, J., By Design, Creation Book Publishers, Georgia, USA, 2008; creation.com/s/10-2-524. Return to text

Related Articles

• Ockham’s Razor and creation/evolution
• Has ‘dark matter’ really been proven?
• Answering Grandma Mildred

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What does the Bible say about dinosaurs?

Question: “What does the Bible say about dinosaurs? Are there dinosaurs in the Bible?”

Answer: The topic of dinosaurs in the Bible is part of a larger ongoing debate within the Christian community over the age of the earth, the proper interpretation of Genesis, and how to interpret the physical evidences we find all around us. Those who believe in an older age for the earth tend to agree that the Bible does not mention dinosaurs, because, according to their paradigm, dinosaurs died out millions of years before the first man ever walked the earth. The men who wrote the Bible could not have seen living dinosaurs.

Those who believe in a younger age for the earth tend to agree that the Bible does mention dinosaurs, though it never actually uses the word “dinosaur.” Instead, it uses the Hebrew word tanniyn, which is translated a few different ways in our English Bibles. Sometimes it’s “sea monster,” and sometimes it’s “serpent.” It is most commonly translated “dragon.” The tanniyn appear to have been some sort of giant reptile. These creatures are mentioned nearly thirty times in the Old Testament and were found both on land and in the water.

In addition to mentioning these giant reptiles, the Bible describes a couple of creatures in such a way that some scholars believe the writers may have been describing dinosaurs. The behemoth is said to be the mightiest of all God’s creatures, a giant whose tail is likened to a cedar tree (Job 40:15). Some scholars have tried to identify the behemoth as either an elephant or a hippopotamus. Others point out that elephants and hippopotamuses have very thin tails, nothing comparable to a cedar tree. Dinosaurs like the brachiosaurus and the diplodocus, on the other hand, had huge tails which could easily be compared to a cedar tree.

Nearly every ancient civilization has some sort of art depicting giant reptilian creatures. Petroglyphs, artifacts, and even little clay figurines found in North America resemble modern depictions of dinosaurs. Rock carvings in South America depict men riding diplodocus-like creatures and, amazingly, bear the familiar images of triceratops-like, pterodactyl-like, and tyrannosaurus rex-like creatures. Roman mosaics, Mayan pottery, and Babylonian city walls all testify to man’s trans-cultural, geographically unbounded fascination with these creatures. Sober accounts like those of Marco Polo’s Il Milione mingle with fantastic tales of treasure-hoarding beasts. In addition to the substantial amount of anthropic and historical evidences for the coexistence of dinosaurs and man, there are physical evidences, like the fossilized footprints of humans and dinosaurs found together at places in North America and West-Central Asia.

So, are there dinosaurs in the Bible? The matter is far from settled. It depends on how you interpret the available evidences and how you view the world around you. If the Bible is interpreted literally, a young earth interpretation will result, and the idea that dinosaurs and man coexisted can be accepted. If dinosaurs and human beings coexisted, what happened to the dinosaurs? While the Bible does not discuss the issue, dinosaurs likely died out sometime after the flood due to a combination of dramatic environmental shifts and the fact that they were relentlessly hunted to extinction by man.

https://www.gotquestions.org/dinosaurs-Bible.html

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Where Did We Come From?

DNA, Information, and the Signature in the Cell

Where Did We Come From?

Where did we come from? A simple question, but not an easy answer. Darwin addressed this question in his book, On the Origin of Species. Although he never really answered how the universal common ancestor first came to life, he implied that it was from natural causes. In this article, we are going to look at Darwin’s method of deducing occurrences in the past based on observations we see today. This is now referred to as the historical or origins science method. We will find that purely naturalistic causes fall short of explaining what we know about DNA, but intelligent design seems to be a promising alternative. Then we will look at scripture and see how Christians can use these evidences for design to talk about who that designer is. We will be using Stephen Meyer’s new book,Signature in the Cell, to guide us on the science and method of approaching this question.

Charles Darwin’s book, On the Origin of Species discusses his theory on how natural selection acts on living things so that the fittest organisms for a particular environment survive, and how this process eventually leads to novel species and body plans. Implied in his work is the notion that all living things came from nature and from natural causes. So his presupposition is that life must have first come from impersonal things like matter and energy. Because of this, origin-of-life scientists have been trying for years to demonstrate how life may have come from non-life.

Let’s try to figure out how a cell could form from purely naturalistic processes. Better yet, since we now know that natural selection acts on random mutations within the genome, let’s focus in on DNA, the instruction booklet for the cell. Without DNA, cells would not function.

DNA is part of a complex information-processing systems{1} DNA is a long, helical structure found inside the nucleus and mitochondria of the cell. It is made of a four-molecule alphabet arranged in a very specific order. This sequence is like an instruction book telling the cell what parts to use to build a protein. But this instruction book needs to be de-coded with other proteins. The difficult thing is that proteins are needed to make more DNA, but DNA is needed to make proteins. And the cell cannot function without proteins. This means that the first DNA molecule must have been made differently than how it is made today.

DNA is a very complex information processing system. In fact, Bill Gates has compared it to a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created.{2} DNA is more than just an improbable sequence of bases; it is functional. It tells the cells what to do. So the question we really need to answer is, how can this kind of information arise in the first place?

Origins and Operations Science

We are investigating what science can tell us about the origin of life. Did we just come out of a chemical soup, or was it something else? First, we need to answer this question: How did DNA, the body’s instruction book, first get here? In order to answer the question, we need to decide what method to use to investigate this question. Since we are looking at the science, we should use the scientific method. However, we need to make a distinction between approaching something that is a re-occurring, testable phenomenon, and a singular event in the past.

As a scientist, I usually work in the area of operations science. This is the type of science we learn in school. You start with a hypothesis, then you conduct an experiment to test your hypothesis. Repeat your experiment several times, collect data, and make conclusions about your hypothesis. Operations science deals with regular, repeatable things that can usually be described by mathematical formulas. Oftentimes, operations science is looking at some kind of naturally occurring process.

But there is another type of science that forensics experts and archeologists use. It is called origins science. Origins science determines what caused a singular event in the past. The role of origins science is to first determine if something was caused by chance, natural laws, or intelligence. For example, one could find a rock formation that looks very similar to a human head. Was this formation caused by chance and natural laws, such as wind and rain wearing away the rock? Or was it caused by intelligence? Did someone carve the rock to look this way?

Origins science operates under a different set of rules than operations science because the event in question has already happened, and it is not a reoccurring, observable phenomenon. The best that we can do is look at clues to give us a reasonable guess as to what might have happened. In Signature in the Cell, Meyer uses origins science to determine if DNA is a result of chance, natural laws, or intelligence:

Thaxton and his colleagues argued that inferring an intelligent cause was legitimate in origins science, because such sciences deal with singular events, and the actions of intelligent agents are usually unique occurrences. On the other hand, they argued that it was not legitimate to invoke intelligent causes in operations science, because such sciences only deal with regular and repeating phenomena. Intelligent agents don’t act in rigidly regular or lawlike ways, and therefore, cannot be described mathematically by laws of nature.{3}

DNA replication happens all of the time, but it requires proteins. But proteins are made by instructions from DNA. So the first DNA molecule must have been made in a special, atypical way, meaning it qualifies as origins science. Origins science allows for singular acts of intelligence to explain certain phenomena.

This means we need to investigate, using origins science, how the first DNA molecule with its information-carrying capacity was produced.

What Are the Possibilities?

DNA is the code for life. If we determine where it came from, then we are one step closer to determining the origin of life. Let’s look at the typical origin of life theories posed by scientists as our first step in our origins science method, and see where theories are lacking or where they are helpful. Two things these theories all have in common is that they presume no designer, but only natural causes, and none of them can explain the origin of information.

The first option is that DNA might have arisen by chance. When scientists talk about chance, they are not saying that some entity called Chance did something. They mean random chemical shuffling, and out of that came DNA. But it’s not good enough to explain how random chemicals came together. Think of scrabble pieces. To say that DNA came about by chance would be similar to saying that someone shook a bag of scrabble pieces and threw them on the floor and it spelled out a sentence. And this would not be just any sentence, but step-by-step instructions on how to build a cellular machine. Chance is not a good explanation for the origin of DNA, because the probability of getting something as specified and complex as DNA is well beyond the accepted probability of zero.

The other option is DNA might have come about because of necessity or natural law. Maybe there is some chemical or natural reason that forced the DNA molecules to form. Two examples of this type of origin of life theory are self-organization and biochemical predestination. The idea behind both of these is that the molecular alphabet in DNA arranged itself because of chemical properties or environmental factors. Unfortunately, scientists have found that the molecules in DNA do not chemically interact with each other because they are stuck to a phosphate backbone, not to each other.{4} On top of that, there isn’t even a chemical attraction between these DNA sequences and the protein parts they code for (known as a codon). Since there is not a self-organizing motivation for this, and there is not an environmental factor that would favor certain combinations over others, necessity seems to fall short of explaining the functional information of DNA.

Some scientists propose that it is a combination of chance and necessity. The most popular origin of life models are based on this theory. However, Stephen Meyer shows in his book that the two most popular models, the RNA-first world and the Oparin model, do not explain how functional information first arose. Ultimately these theories boil down to claiming that random chance causes functional information.

So if all of the naturalistic theories of origin of life fall short, then perhaps we should expand our options to theories that allow for intelligent agents.

What if We Allow Intelligence?

It seems that all of the naturalistic explanations for the origin of life fall short of accounting for the information-rich molecule, DNA. As Meyer points out, apart from DNA and the machinery in cells, such specified information is not found anywhere in the natural world.{5} The only time we see these properties is in human language and writing. So if DNA has the properties of something that was designed, then why not entertain the idea that it was designed?

Today design is not permitted as an explanation in science. However, historically, this has not been the case. In fact, it was a belief in an intelligible and coherent world created by God that motivated early scientists such as Newton, Boyle, and Pascal.{6} However, after the Enlightenment (mid-1700s), many scientists started operating under different assumptions. They assumed that only natural causes, such as chance and necessity, are permitted to explain observations.

Flash forward to Charles Darwin’s time (1860s). Darwin looked at presently acting conditions to extrapolate back to the origin of all living things. He saw that environmental factors select for certain traits, such as beaks on finches. And he saw that things like dog breeding will select for certain desired traits. He therefore concluded that maybe the various animals and body plans came from conditions similar to this. He named this selective force, this breeder, natural selection. This was based on what Darwin knew in the 1850s, and some assumptions about intelligent causes influenced by Enlightenment thinking. At that time Darwin knew nothing about DNA. It would not be discovered until the 1950s.

Stephen Meyer discusses how presently there are no known natural causes for the kind of functional information we see in DNA. The only place we see this is in human language and writing. So perhaps we cannot assume natural causes. Maybe DNA arose by intelligent design. Furthermore, experimental efforts to try to produce DNA or RNA in the lab show that a chemist or a computer programmer must be involved in the experiment in order to obtain functional information. Natural selection cannot act as a breeder, because it does not have the end goal in mind.

Intelligent Design is a strong possibility for explaining the origin of DNA. It is something that we see in operation today. And it is experimentally justified.

What Does This Have to Do with Christianity?

We have been looking at the properties of DNA and how it has all of the characteristics of a written code. Using the methods of origins science that Stephen Meyer used in Signature in the Cell, we can conclude that intelligent design is the best explanation for the origin of DNA. Intelligence is causally adequate to produce a code like DNA. It is observable, in the sense that today intelligent agents produce codes. And any experiments that try to reproduce DNA seem to require the input of information by an intelligent agent to make anything meaningful. This is why Meyer calls DNA the signature in the cell. However, the science alone cannot tell us whose signature it is, so we need to look elsewhere for that. That’s where Christianity comes in.

As Christians we believe that God reveals himself through general and special revelation. General revelation is God revealing things about himself in nature. Think of it like God’s fingerprints on creation. Special revelation is what God has specifically revealed in the Bible. If we want to find out whose signature is in the cell, we need special revelation to inform us on that. And the Bible says this much. Right before Paul says that creation reveals the attributes of God in Romans 1:18-20, he says it is the gospel that brings salvation in verses 16 and 17.

From the science it is reasonable to say DNA first arose by intelligent design. DNA is one of many extra-Biblical clues pointing us to a designer. This evidence, taken with many other extra-biblical evidences such as the fine-tuning of the universe for life, the moral law on our hearts, and even the way that we know gravity works the same today as it did yesterday, makes one suspicious that there must be a designer. Now take the evidences for the authority of Scripture from archeology and the Bible’s internal structure and consistency and we have many reasons to believe that this designer is the God of the Bible. As Paul says in Romans 1, “His invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (v. 20). So, even though the science will not bring someone to a saving knowledge of Christ, they are without excuse because it does reveal God’s attributes. Maybe when someone sees the Signature in the Cell, they will ask, whose signature is it?

Notes

1. “After the early 1960s advances in the field of molecular biology made clear that the digital information in DNA was only part of a complex information-processing system, an advanced form of nanotechnology that mirrors and exceeds our own in its complexity, storage density, and logic of design.” Stephen C. Meyer, Signature in the Cell (HarperOne, 2009), 14.

2. Bill Gates, The Road Ahead (Viking, 1995), 188; quoted in Meyer, Signature, 12.

3. Meyer, Signature, 29.

4. The only time the nucleotides in DNA interact with each other is when they are paired, A-T, C-G, and they do this through hydrogen bonding. However, this pairing is with nucleotides across from each other and serves to protect the DNA molecule. The coding has to do with the sequence of bases next to each other, and there is no chemical reason for one nucleotide to “prefer” being next to another.

5. “Apart from the molecules comprising the gene-expression system and machinery of the cell, sequences of structures exhibiting such specified complexity or specified information are not found anywhere in the natural—that is, the nonhuman—world.” Meyer, Signature, 110.

6. In the radio transcript, I included James Maxwell in this list. While he is among scientists whose belief in God did influence his work, he lived from 1831-1879 which was after the beginning of the Enlightenment. I chose to take his name out here for clarity, although he is a good example of someone who did not hold to the typical presuppositions of the Enlightenment.

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