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Examined Doctrine

William of Ockham on Divine plurality & the unseen realm

C. 1287 – 1347 · SCHOLASTIC
STANDARD SCHOLARLY ACCOUNTQUESTION NOT FRAMED°
STANCE

Never posed as a question in these terms

THE POSITION

Not framed. The divine-council question belongs to a much later reading of the Hebrew Bible and does not arise in his work.

WHY THERE IS NO QUOTATIONNo quotations. He died in 1347 and the Latin is public domain, but the usable English translations are modern and in copyright, so these positions are paraphrased from standard scholarly accounts rather than reproduced. Fewer loci are filled for him than for Scotus, and the reason is recorded per cell rather than hidden: the literature on Ockham is dominated by his logic, metaphysics and politics, and his positions on several loci are not reported cell-by-cell in the standard accounts consulted.

5 OTHERS HOLD THIS

ChrysostomSecond London Baptist ConfessionLutherJohn Duns ScotusWestminster Confession
Real created spiritual beings, ranked under Yahweh and holding delegated ruleJONATHAN EDWARDS · M. HEISER
Human judges or rulers addressed as gods by office, not by natureCALVIN
See all 15 figures on divine plurality & the unseen realm →

ABOUT THIS FIGURE

Franciscan, the Venerable Inceptor. Nominalist in metaphysics and voluntarist about God's freedom and the human will; spent his last two decades writing against Pope John XXII from the emperor's court in Munich.

READ ACROSS 15 LOCI, NONE QUOTED
Everything William of Ockham holds →
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"William of Ockham on Divine plurality & the unseen realm", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/ockham/divine-plurality (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/ockham/divine-plurality).

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