Editing Occam's razor (section)

=== Religion ===
{{Main| Existence of God}}

In the [[philosophy of religion]], Occam's razor is sometimes applied to the existence of God. William of Ockham himself was a [[Christianity|Christian]]. He believed in God, and in the [[Biblical authority|authority]] of [[Christian scripture]]; he writes that "nothing ought to be posited without a reason given, unless it is self-evident (literally, known through itself) or known by experience or proved by the authority of Sacred Scripture."<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Stanford |access-date=24 February 2016 |contribution-url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ockham/ |contribution=William Ockham |archive-date=7 October 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191007132502/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ockham/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Ockham believed that an explanation has no sufficient basis in reality when it does not harmonize with reason, experience, or the [[Christian Bible|Bible]]. Unlike many theologians of his time, though, Ockham did not believe God could be logically proven with arguments. To Ockham, science was a matter of discovery; [[theology]] was a matter of [[revelation]] and [[faith]]. He states: "Only faith gives us access to theological truths. The ways of God are not open to reason, for God has freely chosen to create a world and establish a way of salvation within it apart from any necessary laws that human logic or rationality can uncover."<ref>Dale T Irvin & Scott W Sunquist. ''History of World Christian Movement Volume, I: Earliest Christianity to 1453'', p. 434. {{ISBN|9781570753961}}.</ref>

[[Thomas Aquinas]], in the ''[[Summa Theologica]]'', uses a formulation of Occam's razor to construct an objection to the idea that God exists, which he refutes directly with a counterargument:<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1002.htm |title=SUMMA THEOLOGICA: The existence of God (Prima Pars, Q. 2) |publisher=Newadvent.org |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130428053715/http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1002.htm |archive-date=28 April 2013 |access-date=26 March 2013}}</ref>

<blockquote>Further, it is superfluous to suppose that what can be accounted for by a few principles has been produced by many. But it seems that everything we see in the world can be accounted for by other principles, supposing God did not exist. For all natural things can be reduced to one principle which is nature; and all voluntary things can be reduced to one principle which is human reason, or will. Therefore there is no need to suppose God's existence.</blockquote>

In turn, Aquinas answers this with the ''[[quinque viae]]'', and addresses the particular objection above with the following answer:

<blockquote>Since nature works for a determinate end under the direction of a higher agent, whatever is done by nature must needs be traced back to God, as to its first cause. So also whatever is done voluntarily must also be traced back to some higher cause other than human reason or will, since these can change or fail; for all things that are changeable and capable of defect must be traced back to an immovable and self-necessary first principle, as was shown in the body of the Article.</blockquote>

Rather than argue for the necessity of a god, some [[Theism|theists]] base their belief upon grounds independent of, or prior to, reason, making Occam's razor irrelevant. This was the stance of [[Søren Kierkegaard]], who viewed belief in God as a [[leap of faith]] that sometimes directly opposed reason.<ref>McDonald 2005.</ref> This is also the doctrine of [[Gordon Clark]]'s [[presuppositional apologetics]], with the exception that Clark never thought the leap of faith was contrary to reason (see also [[Fideism]]).

Various [[Arguments for the existence of God|arguments in favor of God]] establish God as a useful or even necessary assumption. Contrastingly some anti-theists hold firmly to the belief that assuming the existence of God introduces unnecessary complexity (e.g., the [[Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit]] from Dawkins's ''[[The God Delusion]]''<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dawkins |first=Richard |title=The God delusion |date=January 1, 2007 |publisher=Black Swan |isbn=978-0-552-77331-7 |location=London |pages=157–158}}</ref>).<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Schmitt |first1=Carl |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226738901.001.0001 |title=Political Theology |last2=Schwab |first2=George |last3=Strong |first3=Tracy B. |date=2005 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |doi=10.7208/chicago/9780226738901.001.0001 |isbn=978-0-226-73889-5}}</ref>

Another application of the principle is to be found in the work of [[George Berkeley]] (1685–1753). Berkeley was an idealist who believed that all of reality could be explained in terms of the mind alone. He invoked Occam's razor against [[materialism]], stating that matter was not required by his metaphysics and was thus eliminable. One potential problem with this belief{{For whom | date = February 2021 }} is that it's possible, given Berkeley's position, to find [[solipsism]] itself more in line with the razor than a God-mediated world beyond a single thinker.

Occam's razor may also be recognized in the apocryphal story about an exchange between [[Pierre-Simon Laplace]] and [[Napoleon]]. It is said that in praising Laplace for one of his recent publications, the emperor asked how it was that the name of God, which featured so frequently in the writings of [[Lagrange]], appeared nowhere in Laplace's. At that, he is said to have replied, "It's because I had no need of that hypothesis."<ref>p. 282, [https://books.google.com/books?id=88xZAAAAcAAJ ''Mémoires du docteur F. Antommarchi, ou les derniers momens de Napoléon''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160514072842/https://books.google.com/books?id=88xZAAAAcAAJ |date=14 May 2016 }}, vol. 1, 1825, Paris: Barrois L'Ainé</ref> Though some points of this story illustrate Laplace's [[atheism]], more careful consideration suggests that he may instead have intended merely to illustrate the power of [[methodological naturalism]], or even simply that the fewer [[premise|logical premises]] one assumes, the [[List of mathematical jargon#strong|stronger]] is one's conclusion.