The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1725 page)

 
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see
N
DRAMA
.

 
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Nominalism and realism
.

A philosophical debate with implications both for theology and religion. In the West, the debate goes back to Greek philosophy: what is truly real, individuals or universals? Nominalism argued that individuals are real (this particular book before me) and that universals (the idea of ‘books’) are concepts abstracted from our experience of individuals. Realists held that particular books come and go, but that the idea of ‘books’ endures while particular individuals do not; thus the idea is more real than the items illustrating it. Theological nominalism (see e.g.
WILLIAM OF OCKHAM
) held that the pure Being of God is real, and that attributes are equivalent to universals, being conceptual abstractions which organize our limited apprehension of God (enabling us to say
something
, however inadequate), but having no corresponding reality in God. This position reinforces
apophatic
theology. Theological realism accepts the approximate and limited nature of human language, but argues that the perfections of God are revealed in the ways in which God is related to the universe of his creation, and to humans in particular. But for that revealed relatedness not itself to be simply a human construction, the inference must be drawn that the ground for the possibility of God being revealed in that way lies in the nature of God
a se
(in himself, i.e. in his aseity): the perfections endure even when the creatures who dimly apprehend them come and go. In E. religions, the issue arises out of
avidy
, ignorance. Is the appearance of reality something which humans superimpose on that which is the cloak of what alone is truly real, or do the particulars have some enduring reality (see e.g.
ANKARA
;
R
M
NUJA
;
MADHVA
)? Is there some reality in the particulars of this (albeit transitory) cosmos, or is every manifestation devoid of characteristics, being simply a manifestation of the only nature that there is, i.e. the buddha-nature (see
NYAT
)?

 
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