Terminology Tuesday: Atomism

Ancient atomists were materialist. (see MATERIALISM) who believed that the universe was made up of pellets of reality. They believed that absolute space (the Void) was filled with these tiny, unsplittable particles. All variety in the universe was explained in terms of different combinations of atoms.

The Atomists were pluralists, as opposed to monists, believing reality is ultimately many, not one (see MONISM; ONE AND MANY, PROBLEM OF; PLURALISM). Ancient atomists included Greek thinkers like Democritus and Leucipus.


Since the Greek word atom means unsplittable, many of the atomists’ hard-core materialistic views fell with the splitting of the atom. Contemporary materialists, however, still believe that all reality is comprised of physical energy which, according to the first law of thermodynamics (see THERMODYNAMICS, LAWS OF), is neither being created nor destroyed.
Other modern pluralists, however, have opted for a more immaterial view of atom-like entities called “monads” (see LEIBNIZ, GOTTFRIED) or eternal objects (see WHITEHEAD, ALFRED NORTH). Thus, atomism lives on in various forms, the materialistic varieties of which are still a challenge to Christianity (see ATHEISM).


There are several serious problems with materialistic atomism in both its ancient and modern forms. First, Atomists do not solve the problem of the one and the many. They have no adequate explanation for how simple things can differ nor how this can be a uni-verse when all that really exists is multiplicity, rather than unity.


Second, the ancient form of atomism has been destroyed by the splitting of the atom. These allegedly irreducibly hard pellets of reality have given way to a softer view of energy.


Third, even in its modern form, the belief in the eternality of matter (physical energy) has yielded to the second law of thermodynamics (see THERMODYNAMICS, LAWS OF), which reveals that the physical universe is not eternal, but is running down (see EVOLUTION, COSMIC).


Fourth, pure materialism is self-defeating. It is an immaterial theory about all matter that claims there is nothing immaterial. The materialist who peers into the microscope, examining all things material fails to reckon with the immaterial self conscious “I” and its mental process that are making the deductions.

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