Wednesday, June 26, 2019

Does Objectivism Deny the Reality of Change?

Most readers here have probably heard the charge that on “the atheist worldview” everything is “matter in motion,” that everything is “in flux,” and that the resulting constant change can only mean a persistence of chaos and absence of constancy. Such an assumption about reality supposedly follows as a result of not believing that an invisible magic being created the universe and calls all the shots. If apologists don’t actually believe this about non-believers and their outlook on reality, many nevertheless want to use such charges to put them on the defensive, regardless of what they in fact do say on behalf of their view on such matters.

Well, some time back, I had an exchange with a presuppositionalist who took a different approach. This individual actually argued precisely the opposite, namely that because of Objectivism’s conception of causality as identity applied to action, there’s no room for change in Objectivism. (I kid you not!)