superNatural

I don't like the word supernatural. Or more specifically, I don't like making a distinction between what is "natural" and what is "supernatural." The distinction between the two often goes something like this. The natural world is the one we can perceive with our senses. It is the one where we use science. The supernatural world is all of the things that are not perceivable, or explainable by natural means. But differentiating in this manner raises some problems. People who don't believe in god discount anything that is claimed to be supernatural. There can be nothing other than the natural world. Believers often pull back and conclude that the natural world is the 'less real' world. That the supernatural world is somehow what is really real. Only we cannot perceive it in the normal way.

In my view, there is truth beyond our perception, because our perception is limited. But what makes that truth more real than what we can perceive with our senses. Why would God create us to be able to only sense what is less real? Maybe a better question is this. Why would God create a world that operates on a very strict set of rules that are able to be learned through sensory observation and God given reasoning only to violate them in the name of the supernatural? If God set up the natural order of the universe, why break those very laws. Perhaps there is no such thing as supernatural in the strict definition of beyond the natural order of things. Perhaps there is only supernatural in the sense that we have a limited understanding of the natural world. Supernatural is just unexplained natural.

This is exactly the kind of argument that skeptics will use to disprove God. But I don't use it from that perspective. I'm not arguing that there is no God because there is no supernatural. I am arguing that the idea of God is intrinsically natural. Does this mean that God is provable? Maybe. Or maybe the idea of God is something more metaphysical. That is to say that God is not what we expect. We tend to think of God as a being that is like man, he just happens to know everything and has the power to do anything. But what if God was something very dissimilar from that. What if God was the glue holding the universe together? "He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." (Col 1:17). What if the physical laws of the universe were manifestations of who God is? We can attribute every phenomenon we encounter to God, while simultaneously being able to find a physical reason for why this happened.

One argument, and a reasonable one at that, that skeptics will often employ is the God of the Gaps argument. What happens is that unknown events are attributed to some supernatural force, or to God. Scientists find a physical, naturalistic explanation for said event. Now the domain of God has been reduced. With every scientific achievement, God shrinks. Eventually, science leaves no room for God to hide. But I want to change the subject a bit when tackling this argument, because it is a good point. I think we have to stop attributing the unexplained to something that is unexplainable. For example, people used to believe it was a god that caused the sun to rise each day. Why? Because there was no better way to explain it. Now we know that there is not some god actually causing the sun to rise. Science has given us a much better explanation. Except I submit that God is causing the sun to rise each day. God uses natural causes to keep the universe in order. Why wouldn't he? Why wouldn't everything about the universe be explainable by science? Science reveals the glory of God and the wonders of his creation. It does not cause God to shrink but rather to expand.