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Wellsprings
metaphysics

Becoming

γένεσις

The realm of change and passing-away set against changeless Being — the Parmenidean and Platonic Being-vs-becoming contrast.

Genesis, the Greek term for becoming or coming-to-be, describes the realm of constant change and transformation that characterizes the physical world. The pre-Socratic philosophers, especially Heraclitus and later Plato, contrasted genesis with eternal Being—the unchanging, static realm accessible only to reason. For Plato, the world of becoming occupies a middle ground between true existence and non-existence; everything that comes to be does so necessarily through some cause, and this perpetual flux distinguishes the sensible world from the timeless realm of Forms.

The distinction shaped how ancient thinkers approached causation and explanation. If something is always becoming rather than simply being, then it requires constant explanation: what accounts for its existence at each moment? This framework influenced later philosophers' understanding of creation itself—whether the universe's generation serves some purpose beyond itself, a question that resonated through both pagan and Christian metaphysics. The threefold structure of becoming, the medium in which it occurs, and its source became fundamental to how philosophers modeled reality's fundamental layers.

Where this idea shows up

24 Greek sources

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