 Rutten (2012, 13–15, see Other Internet Resources) develops an a priori reductio ad absurdum argument for the impossibility of there being nothing. Suppose nothing exists. If nothing exists, then no actual states of affairs exist, and if no actual states of affairs exist, no merely possible states of affairs exist, since (on an Aristotelean model) there is nothing to actualize them or bring them about. Hence, if nothing exists, there are no possible states of affairs, since to be possible, something must either be actual or merely possible. (This is consistent with the theists’ contention that out of nothing nothing can come.) However, one can conceive of a possible world with at least one actual and hence possible state of affairs S, for example, a world with one atom. But, Rutten notes, on the S5 axiom system of modal logic (see the entry on  modal logic),  all possible worlds are connected. Hence, if S is metaphysically possible in one world, S is metaphysically possible in all possible worlds. That is, S is necessarily possible. However, this contradicts the original conclusion that if total nothingness is metaphysically possible, there are no possible states of affairs in that possible world. Hence, there is a reductio against the original thesis that there can be nothingness. One might counter this reductio not only by questioning the principle that what is metaphysically possible in one world is so in every world, but also by contending that the argument trades on a confusion between metaphysical necessity, as evidenced by appeal to an Aristotelian principle regarding the relationship between actuality and possibility, with logical necessity, which in invoking the S5 modal system addresses logical possibility across possible worlds (for this distinction, see Burgess 1999, 81). 