You may have heard something along the lines of, “The simplest explanation, the explanation that requires the fewest amount of assumptions, is the best answer.”
Let’s look at an example. For instance, one may wonder how a book gets written. Someone could say magical little elves steal a computer at night and type to their heart’s content until a story emerges. Or perhaps a monkey plugs in keys at random until he produces Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Any author will argue, however, that it takes an author having an idea, plotting that idea, and writing that idea. After all, this explanation requires the fewest amount of assumptions and is the simplest. We also have verifiable proof of authors who have written stories, a testimony to the hypothesis.
Although one can argue that perhaps monkeys or elves play a part, it would require far more assumptions and explanations to justify the same product: A book.
You’ve just learned Ockham’s (or Occam’s) Razor. Named after the 13th century Franciscan Friar Ockham (Occam in some spellings), this ideology believes that the simplest explanation, most often, is the most correct one.
We can probably formulate some counterarguments, which we’ll dive into later. But in this article, we’ll briefly discuss the biography of Ockham, how his principle can help us in defending the Christian faith, some snags the Razor hits, and what we can learn from this principle.
Who Was Ockham?
William of Ockham, born in the late 13th century, entered the Franciscan order at a young age. He pursued theology at Oxford and studied philosophy ardently. Similar to some predecessor Christian apologists such as Aquinas, he had a passion for logic. Just like Aquinas, he had a love of Aristotelian philosophy.
His opinions often drew controversy, but his contributions to mathematics and logic are still studied by philosophers today. Most famously, he devised the principle later known as Ockham’s Razor, the subject of this article.
How Ockham’s Razor Applies to Christianity
One of my favorite arguments for Ockham’s Razor (inadvertently) comes from the book, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek. The book essentially argues that anything from the beginning of the universe and the need for a trinitarian God shows how Christianity is the simplest explanation to life’s most complex problems.
For instance, let’s discuss what an atheist will have to argue when it comes to the beginning of the universe. The second law of thermodynamics and the redshift show that the universe is expanding and has a limited amount of energy. That means it had to start at a singular point. In other words, something had to come out of nothing. And because of the limited energy of the universe, this means it has expanded over a finite amount of time (aka had a beginning).
Nothing comes from nothing. So obviously something had to put the universe into motion. And based on the finite intricacies of it, this being had to be powerful, creative, and knowledgeable.
Christians have an explanation: In the beginning, God created (Genesis 1:1). A simple explanation, very few assumptions needed.
Atheists, on the other hand, have their hands full. Because they have to come up with a way for the universe to come into being without a Being to do so. Some will say the universe spontaneously came into being. But this explanation requires quite a few assumptions and requires us to exercise a suspension of disbelief. After all, we have never seen nothing emerge from nothing.
Or, they can try to argue for infinite universes forming one another, big bang after big bang. But we have no evidence for this. Also, are we to believe that universes have eternally collapsed and reformed?
Any explanation they devise will be far more complicated than “An all-powerful, all-knowing, and creative God created the universe,” and it will require a great deal more assumptions and faith than the Christian answer.
Problems with Ockham’s Razor
No philosophy comes without issues. The simplest explanation isn’t always the right one. Think of any murder mystery. The most obvious choice doesn’t always mean a murderer.
Furthermore, Christianity does have very complicated concepts such as the Trinity or Christ’s incarnation that can’t truly have simple explanations. Because we have finite minds, we cannot always comprehend something of an infinite caliber, such as the very nature of God (Isaiah 55:8).
Nevertheless, Ockham’s Razor can often point out the many hoops opponents to Christianity have to go through to create answers for the same questions.
What We Can Learn from Ockham’s Razor
Ockham’s Razor teaches us that Christianity doesn’t just rely on faith.
We have many strong, logical, and scientific reasons for believing what we believe. Although not foolproof, this principle can show that Christianity often does have the most reliable and simple explanation to a question that requires the least amount of blind faith possible.
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Hope Bolinger is an acquisitions editor at End Game Press, book editor for hire, and the author of almost 30 books. More than 1500 of her works have been featured in various publications. Check out her books at hopebolinger.com for clean books in most genres, great for adults and kids. Check out her editing profile at Reedsy.com to find out about hiring her for your next book project.
