Beyond Materialism & Idealism 1: The Faith of Materialism – The Unquestioned Assumption

Materialism presents itself as the most rational, scientific, and evidence-based perspective of reality. It claims to reject unfounded beliefs in favor of empirical knowledge. Yet beneath this confident exterior lies an unquestioned assumption: the belief that things come into being and pass away. This belief, which serves as the foundation of materialist thought, is neither proven nor provable—it is an inherited faith disguised as reason.

The Hidden Assumption of Becoming

At the core of materialism is the idea that reality consists solely of physical matter and that all things, including thought and consciousness, emerge from material interactions. But materialism does not merely claim that reality is matter—it assumes that matter becomes. It takes for granted that things arise from nothing and vanish into nothing, treating existence as a transient process rather than an eternal structure.

This assumption is so deeply embedded in contemporary thought that it rarely faces scrutiny. Science, often invoked to justify materialism, does not actually demonstrate the creation or destruction of being—only transformations. The fundamental laws of physics affirm the conservation of matter and energy; they are neither created nor annihilated. What, then, justifies the materialist claim that things truly come into existence and cease to be? The answer is nothing but inherited belief.

The Contradiction of Materialism

If materialism were truly based on evidence, it would acknowledge that something cannot emerge from nothing and cannot be reduced to nothing. Instead, materialism operates on an implicit contradiction: it claims that reality is nothing but material processes, while simultaneously assuming that these processes produce consciousness, meaning, and knowledge. But if thought is merely an accidental byproduct of material conditions, then there is no reason to trust thought’s conclusions—including materialism itself.

This is the fatal flaw: materialism invalidates itself. If the mind is nothing but neurons firing according to blind physical laws, then truth itself is reduced to an illusion. But if truth is an illusion, then materialism, which claims to be true, collapses in contradiction.

The Cultural Influence of Materialism

Materialism is not confined to academic philosophy; it shapes the worldview of modern culture. It manifests in the widespread assumption that science will one day “explain everything” in purely physical terms. It underlies the belief that human beings are merely biological machines, that consciousness is reducible to brain chemistry, and that identity is a fleeting construct rather than an eternal reality.

The materialist paradigm fuels nihilism—the sense that meaning is arbitrary, that life is a temporary accident, and that nothing endures. This assumption seeps into entertainment, where dystopian sci-fi, transhumanist fantasies, and digital escapism reflect a world that sees itself as fundamentally disposable. Even in psychology and medicine, mental health is increasingly treated as a biochemical issue rather than a crisis of meaning, reinforcing the materialist reduction of the self.

The Need for a Deeper Understanding

The belief in becoming—the assumption that things emerge from and return to nothing—is the true “faith” of materialism. And like any faith, it must be examined. Severino demonstrated that this belief is not only unsupported but self-contradictory. The materialist insistence that reality is a process of arising and perishing does not stand up to scrutiny. Instead, what truly exists is necessary—it cannot be reduced to nothingness, nor does it emerge from it. Reality, in its essence, is eternal.

Recognizing this forces a reconsideration of what we take for granted. If the materialist faith in becoming collapses, what remains? The answer is the necessity of being itself—a reality that neither materialism nor its supposed opposite, idealism, has fully grasped. This will be the subject of the next article: why idealism, despite its rejection of materialism, also fails to escape the contradiction of becoming.