In the course of time the limits were extended in favour of
imperfect knowledge (but the character of the unknowable was
problematised and questioned). While Thomas was still convinced of the
possibility of proving the existence of a God by the power of the human
intellect, Duns Scotus removed the problem of the existence of a God and
the immortality of the soul from the domain of science, and made both
propositions a matter of faith. William of Occam, more uncompromising
than Duns Scotus, maintained the absolute impossibility of acquiring
knowledge of supernatural things, and taught--on this point, too,
anticipating Kant--that objective knowledge acquired through the senses
should precede abstract knowledge. The last conclusion of nominalism was
thus arrived at, the existence of universal conceptions, or universals,
supposed to exist outside material things--the curse of the Platonic
inheritance--declared to be impossible, and reality conceded to the
individual only. Roscellinus, the founder of this doctrine, had still
been content to deny the existence of the conception of "deity," leaving
the individual persons, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, as real individuals,
untouched.
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