Occam's Razor

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by RandyWayne

Occams Razor can and should be applied to all doctrine. If a particular piece of church doctrine relies on only one particular verse, or even several versus in a row AND requires engaging in yoga-like contortions to get it to mean something and your particular denomination has built a large % of its Statement of Faith on it, perhaps it is NOT a heaven or hell issue, or most likely, not an issue at all.

Here is what you stated, Randy. (Or is it Wayne? If you're from the south we can call you Ray-Wayne? Or just Ray-Way? sorry.... lol)

You said it should be 'applied to all doctrine'. This is a misuse of the principle expounded by Occam. It is not 'the simplest explanation is the preferred one.' Look at what Occam's Razor is - "Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily."

The key word is unnecessarily. The doctrine of how to reconcile bible statements that Christ is God, with bible statements that He is man, can be reduced to 'the simplest explanation'. The simplest explanation is that the bible is wrong and contradictory. The correct explanation is hypostatic union (or some variation thereof), which is most certainly not the simplest explanation.

Why did Christ die? The 'simplest' explanation is that he ticked off the government. The correct explanation has to do with sin, atonement, propitiation, justification, the incarnation, prophecy, and a multitude of other things.

Again, Occam's Razor is not to be used to decide between proposed meanings of scripture.

While it is true that a doctrine which relies upon extra-scriptural resources or 'evidence', or which violates fundamental rules of logic and reason (and thus is irrational, illogical, and self-contradictory) should be suspect, as opposed to doctrine which simply and concisely affirms the biblical data, nevertheless that is not Occam's Razor. That is scientific investigation, logic, and common sense.