sheer potentiality

A bit of explanation of the new title. First off, the previous title was too long, so it’s now the subtitle. Secondly, the previous subtitle, while a clever joke, no one ever got, so I removed it. (For the record it was “straight outta compton union building.”)

So what’s with “sheer potentiality”? Well, St. Thomas Aquinas mostly followed the lead of Aristotle, who wrote quite a bit about potentiality and actuality. Like all medieval Christian philosophers, St. Thomas devoted a lot of work to explaining God. According to Aquinas, since God is perfect, he has no potential—to have potential is to have the capacity to change, and as a perfect being, God does not have the capacity to either become less than perfect, nor to improve. He is thus sheer actuality.

Often I have the feeling that at my stage in life, I have yet to become anything. Nonetheless, I have a large amount of potential. At my time and place in life, who knows what will come of me? Thus—sheer potentiality.