asaris: the theological definition of nominalism comes from ockham--if you tranpose:
Quote:
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without the need of any reference to an independently existing universal
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into a mideval theological context, you end up with god.
for the christianized platonism of folk like aquinas god is like the container within which the ideas or forms operate--in other words, categories exist because the idea/form exists in god's mind. this framework is why the ontological proof in aquinas at first glance looks bizarre: "that god is is a tautology".....work it out, if you havent already, and you'll see what i mean.
ockham made counterargument, some of which is summarized in the dicto-paragraph you cited above--all you need to do is make the tranposition, and things fit together neat-like.