Re: supernatural?

Jim Armstrong wrote:

"...Is there anything [besides mere] belief that requires us to assert two differing categories of natural and supernatural, and a dividing line between?"

"Supernatural" simply refers to events or entities that don't obey the laws of nature. Perhaps it's better to talk about the spirit-matter dichotomy. We believe that spirits don't obey the laws that constrain material entities, so spirits are supernatural. But they are much more than just that. We also believe that God (except as incarnate in Christ) is spirit. Hence there is no way to erase completely the spirit-matter dividing line.

As you indicate, people once explained many events in terms of spirits that we now know have natural causes. But nature originates in Spirit, so to a degree the spiritual explanation was always appropriate. Ultimately your question asks whether all spiritual events and entities are really just manifestations of nature. When put this way the answer is obvious: it's really the other way around. However, exactly which events down through time violated laws of nature are not obvious.

Don

PS - Sorry, will be away and unable to defend this.

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Jim Armstrong<mailto:jarmstro@qwest.net>
  Cc: ASA<mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
  Sent: Friday, May 06, 2005 5:40 PM
  Subject: supernatural?

  I have for some time had a growing suspicion regarding the "natural" vs "supernatural" dividing line. It is man-made notion with a history of transmigration from supernatural to natural. Very few migrations (none?) seem to go the other way (despite ID's best efforts).

  At the same time, there are things like the electron for which we have a wave description that models some behaviors, and a particle description that models others. Two descriptions, yet the electron itself is presumeably a single entity (best guess today, I think). Missing at this point is a satisfactory integrated description of the real thing. We have as yet no single descriptive model because we do not as yet (and may never?) have a full, or at least sufficient understanding of the reality that is an electron. Could we be experiencing two manifestations of a thing which is actually yet a third thing that has particle and wave manifestations? Probably.

  Astronomers are experiencing the same sort of puzzle in the heavens where matter/energy as we know seems to make up less than 5% of what appears to be out there, resulting in the notions of dark force, energy and matter. We know (or think we know) it's out there, but it remains enigmatic. Is it just its own separate thing, which we have overlooked until lately? Or is it just another previously unrecognized manifestation of that which we are already familiar with? Or is it a "projection" of something else still, part of which lies forever inaccessible to us as humans?

  So, I ask myself if there is any reason to think that something identified as as natural might not be an aspect, expression, reflection, or extension (or?) of something which may actually exists simultaneously in both domains we separately call natural and supernatural.

  Muddying the water, of course, is that history of calling things supernatural one day, and then the next reassigning them to the natural world as a plausible explanation emerges. And there are certainly other things that will follow tomorrow or the next day, becoming "natural" for the same reason.

  But just to play this out, assuming that there stubbornly remains something real that will never be accessible to us, is there any reason nevertheless to think that what remains is not still part of one integrated "system" only part of which we are privy to?

  I guess I am talking about something like a monist perspective (I'm certainly not that well versed in such things, unlike some of y'all!!). But the distinction seems important because the "override" notion of supernatural action might not be meaningful. On the other hand, the orderly, "lawful", and creative and (dare I say?) fruitful behavior of nature could be quite full of implication with respect to that which remains inaccessible to us, including our creator. This also perhaps places the second book of revelation in a somewhat different light because of its intimate connection in system fashion to the inaccessible, making it a more credible witness to what lies beyond our reach than many might otherwise suppose. [Oh dear, this is beginning to sound like, "Everything is connected!"]

  I guess the bottom line question is, is there anything beyond belief that requires us to assert two differing categories of natural and supernatural, and a dividing line between?

  I guess it would come as no surprise that I am similarly suspicious about other subdividing categorizations (i.e., physical and biological). JimA
Received on Sat May 7 05:11:38 2005