actuality and potentiality

The contrast between what is actually, or really, the case, and what could have been or could come to be the case. One of the major problems of scholastic thought is understanding what reason God might have for actualizing a particular possibility rather than none at all, or some alternative. Questions that arise include why there is something and not nothing, and whether this is the best of all possible worlds. See also potentiality; sufficient reason, principle of.