Parmenides: Change is Impossible
Parmenides, a Greek philosopher from 515 BC, argued that change is impossible. When things appear to change, it can be just an appearance, an illusion, and nothing ever really changes at all.
For change to occur, there needs to be something that at one point doesn’t exist, and then comes into existence. For example:
- A hot coffee will eventually change and become cold, but the cold coffee is currently not there, it doesn’t exist. If something doesn’t exist, it’s nothing. For the coffee to become cold, it must come from nothing.
If something coming from nothing is impossible, then change must be impossible.
Aristotle Argues the Contrary
Aristotle, a Greek philosopher from 384 BC, argued that change doesn’t involve something coming from nothing, but rather something coming from potential, which is not quite the same thing as nothing.
Going back to the hot coffee example, the future coffee isn’t currently present, but it is potentially present. The hot coffee has the potential to become cold, and the parked car has the potential to move forward.
Couldn’t this just be wordplay? The cold coffee still doesn’t actually exist. However, consider something else that doesn’t exist, like a chicken. The coffee is currently not cold, but it’s also not a chicken. The distinction is importantly different because the coffee has the potential to become cold, but it doesn’t have the potential to become a chicken.
What Does It Mean?
- Potential: The possibility for something to become or do something.
- Example: A seed has the potential to grow into a tree.
- Actualization: When that potential becomes real or actual.
- Example: When the seed grows into a tree, its potential to grow has been actualized.
So, actualization of potential is the process of turning possibilities into reality.
The Match Example
Imagine a match:
- Potential: The match can potentially produce fire.
- Actualization: Striking the match brings the fire into reality.
According to Aristotle, the match couldn’t light itself—something (your hand) must actualize its potential.
The Unmoved Mover
So, everything that changes has the potential to change, and something else must cause that change (an “actualizer”). If everything that moves (motion, for Aristotle, didn’t just mean physical movement—it also referred to any change, like growth, decay, or transformation) is caused by something else, you can keep asking:
- “What caused that?” and “What caused that cause?”
- Example: What supports the turtle? Another turtle, and what supports that turtle? Another turtle…etc.
This leads to an infinite regress, which Aristotle thought was impossible—there can’t be an endless chain of causes because it wouldn’t explain why motion exists at all (atheists say, what about numbers going to infinity?). This leads to his famous idea of the “unmoved mover”, the first cause of all change, which itself is purely actual (has no potential).
The Problem with Pure Actuality
However, pure actuality, without any potential, is impossible, due to the potential of any actual thing to remain as it is. A yellow chair can potentially be turned blue or actualized, however, it can also just remain yellow. A key property being it can remain as itself (or the potential to stay as is, at least 1 potential), otherwise it doesn’t exist (and we go back to Parmenides logic). So, God must have at least 1 potential, to remain as He is. The purely actual God may then not actually be able to exist.
Conclusion
The argument from change, also known as the first cause argument, is a philosophical argument that attempts to prove the existence of God. The argument is based on the idea that everything that changes has a cause, and that this cause must be an unchanging, purely actual being. However, the argument is not without its challenges, and the concept of pure actuality is problematic.