Volume 15, Issue 2, 2013
Ramified Natural Objects
R. Scott Smith
Pages 365-382
William Lane Craig’s Nominalism, Essences, and Implications for Our Knowledge of Reality
William Lane Craig has claimed that Platonism is incompatible theologically with Christian theism in that it undermines God’s aseity. He develops three main objections to Platonism, as well as his own nominalist theory of reference, for which he draws from philosophy of language. However, I rebut his arguments. I argue that, unlike on Platonism, his view will not preserve a real essence of intentionality. Without that, his view undermines our abilities to know reality. As an implication, I also will highlight the importance methodologically of approaching this issue from the primacy of the ontology of knowledge, not philosophy of language.