Luther's Salvation Doctrine Required Rejecting That Things Have Essences

What was said

"How could God call you righteous without being a liar? Enter in nominalism and nominalism is able to say, ah, because things don't actually have essences. They just have names. And so if God calls you that, you are that legally, even though in actual fact you're wicked."

Dyer explains that Martin Luther's doctrine of justification depended on nominalism—the idea that things have no inherent nature, only labels. This allowed Luther to argue God could declare someone righteous without them actually being righteous, since righteousness became merely a legal designation rather than an ontological reality.