Is Your God Organic or Supernatural?
How do we distinguish the supernatural from the natural?
To know that an event or presence was supernatural would seem to require that we know all there is to know about nature. Otherwise, however unusual the experience was, how could we be certain that it was not a rare natural occurrence? Perhaps bleeding statues, miracle cures, communications from the dead, and so forth, don’t exist in defiance of nature’s laws, but express footnotes and exception clauses.
Going from minor supernatural events and entities to the major one: what about God? Let’s emphasize the possibility of a completely supernatural deity by viewing God as the radically Other creator of creation and not as a divine principle or animating energy.
Wouldn’t the Entity that generated all creation be intimately connected to it? What would make such a God supernatural rather than the supremely vital Force of Nature?
To know that an event or presence was supernatural would seem to require that we know all there is to know about nature. Otherwise, however unusual the experience was, how could we be certain that it was not a rare natural occurrence? Perhaps bleeding statues, miracle cures, communications from the dead, and so forth, don’t exist in defiance of nature’s laws, but express footnotes and exception clauses.
Going from minor supernatural events and entities to the major one: what about God? Let’s emphasize the possibility of a completely supernatural deity by viewing God as the radically Other creator of creation and not as a divine principle or animating energy.
Wouldn’t the Entity that generated all creation be intimately connected to it? What would make such a God supernatural rather than the supremely vital Force of Nature?
Posted by Paul at 10:13 PM Permalink
34 Comments:
Maybe the supernatural only seems that way because we don't understand it.
now i have realised about "terrorists"...
Also, I'm thinking that the idea of causality is an important linkage within nature, making us see things as connected in an organic way. As soon as you introduce God as "first cause", doesn't this immediately blur the supernatural/natural distinction?
JACOB H-M: Ha ha – I like the quote. From my perspective that makes pretty much all technology beyond the the wheel magic! I don't understand my vacuum cleaner.
But seriously, that’s a good point. I suppose if you went back far enough in time, thunder and lightening, for example, were probably widely viewed as supernatural.
VISHESH: Terrorists sure do lack that sense of the unity of things. So do oppressors and exploiters of entire populations. That kind of indifference to the well being of large groups of people is a factor that encourages mindless hatred on the part of a minority within those populations.
LISA: I’ve stumped myself too. I’ve started wondering about the concept of “supernatural”; maybe the natural/supernatural is a false or at least a problematic distinction. I wonder if any version of that word actually occurs in the Bible, Koran or other scriptures.
Great essay. I recently thought a lot about this while writing a paper on panentheism. Here, the question of what is natural and supernatural is a real struggle.
My personal conclusion was that I intuit the sacred in the world. Whether that's natural or supernatural, I don't know. I think when we feel forced to make such distinctions, we fall into an unnecessary dualism. Why do we always do that??
Just because the Naturalist believes nothing but Nature exists, the word Nature means to him merely 'everything' or 'the whole show' or 'whatever there is'. And if that is what we mean by Nature, then of course, nothing else exists. The real question between him and the Supernaturalist has evaded us ...
This is accurate. Greeks thought the lighting and thunder were caused by gods, specifically Zeus. Weather, without understanding, was supernatural. Eventually humans figured out what weather was...
I believe that the difference between supernatural and natural is a lack of understanding. What if god came to earth and was infact aliens from another planet? Would people believe it? Probably not, most people couldn't deal with the fact that god was really an alien from the alpha quadrant. But why did a being have to create the universe? If the universe is in constant flux, expanding and then retracting to its limits, why does it need a being to do that. That in turn begs the question,is the universe alive? If so is the universe itself God? Did God create itself? Is the universe alive? That's where we need to start. Is that a question with an answer? So the universe retracts to the size of a dime with unimaginable mass, then it explodes in brilliance and expands until the energy that we know as the expanding universe, starts to retract. Until the process repeats itself. If that is the case, what does the universe expand into? Does it expand into another universe? Another dimension? Realm? maybe a 4th dimension or an unexplained space or void we do not know of yet.
Thanks for getting the thought flowing again.
KARIN: That’s interesting - to think of natural/supernatural as one form of dualism. Am I correct that panentheism is the idea that the divine inhabits nature as an indwelling presence, whereas pantheism equates all-nature or being itself with God or the divine? If so, sounds like pantheism would be the least dualistic approach.
CRYSTAL: J.S. Mill brought out a similar idea in an essay titled, I think, “On Nature.” It was in the context of pointing out that to argue against something on the basis of it being “unnatural” was meaningless since, going along with the thought you cite... what ISN’T natural?
A couple other things strike me though. I don’t think that the tendency to view everything that exists as being natural or belonging to nature is just a definition thing.
For one thing, the world as we know it is interconnected, interdependent, and interrelated by cause and effect. They don’t call it a universe for nothing... If God participates in that whole, it raises the question of whether God might not be a part of that whole. If not, how so?
The other thing – but here I think I’m getting in over my philosophical head – is that everything that is shares in the property of being. It’s hard to imagine something with that property where the very having of it wouldn’t give it enough in common with the rest of WHAT IS to make it part of that same one and only system of isness, so to speak.
But obviously – and here’s where maybe a philosophy major could help – “being” is not a property or characteristic in the same sense that hardness, softness, blueness, roundness and so forth are properties or characteristics.
This is why Kermit the frog didn’t sing “It’s Not Easy Being Being…” It would have been a much more complicated song. Or a much simpler one.
One of those.
I told you I needed help…
HISTORICAL WIT: If I’m remembering the right theological term/spelling, you’re referring to “aseity” – the characteristic of self-causation, which is traditionally assigned to God. But as you’re pointing out, it’s no more or less logical to conceive of the universe or all-nature itself as self-caused than to assign self-causation to another entity that was the cause of the universe.
This is the first time I've been on your site--enjoyed reading here, although I probably don't agree with it all. But then, sometimes I don't even agree with myself. :) interesting post
I think there's a difference between pantheism and panentheism that comes up here .... I think you're arguing for pantheism and me for panentheism, maybe?
I saw this on another blog and I think it explains what I mean better than I can ...
Pantheism is the view that God is wholly immanent. God IS the universe. The pantheist God is not at all personal, and is often little more than a "metaphor" for nature, or "the ground of being", etc. Some famous pantheists include Einstein, Spinoza, Joseph Campbell, and the followers of many Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Taoism.
Panentheism, while affirming with the pantheists that the universe is included in God, distinguish
themselves from pantheists in their belief that God is also personal and transcendent (or more than) the
universe. God for the panentheists is more than a metaphor for being or for nature, but a personal
transcendent deity.
If the works of God are supernatural, then this would make nature supernatural.
Thanks for dropping in, and I know what you mean about maybe not even agreeing with yourself sometimes! This particular post could be an example of that. I’ve never focused on the two words “natural” and “supernatural” like this before and I'm mostly thinking out loud.
RIMSHOT: You write: “How can a being/deity/entity/power be considered part of a system that It/He created? To simplify, if I spit on the floor, I am not that spit, though it came from me.”
Don’t take it personally, lol, but you’d definitely be part of the “spit system” you just described! You don’t have to be the spit to be part of the spit system.
And sea animals that make shells are part of the shell-making system – essential parts of it, even though they are not their shells. And the founder/CEO of a business is an important part of the system he/she creates even though he/she is not identical to his/her business, not even in legal terms. So to me, it’s easy to conceive of God, in creating nature, as an important piece, very arguably the most important, in the system of all-nature.
It’s true that if you define God as being outside of nature then you don’t consider God as part of nature. But this is exactly what’s under discussion – whether the natural/supernatural distinction implicit to such a definition makes sense.
CRYSTAL: I’m pretty sure about that part – that panentheists, unlike pantheists, don’t identify nature and God as the same thing. I’m not so sure whether panentheists necessarily or usually view God as personal. Sometimes you hear people avoid the word God and speak of “the divine” more as a kind of energy or animating force. Wouldn’t they be panentheists too?
Where’s Matthew? He might have some thoughts on this too, maybe I’ll try his door…
read this story by dj....
click here
the story is about the fifth truth...it is one of the best stories i have ever read..
The truth of the matter is that this question is unanswerable.
We, the collective kind, have only scratched the surface of discovering the W5 and How the universe and it's inhabitants came into existance.
As for all of the quasi-historical images of the Force cloaking itself in Human form..sheesh kapeesh, our surrogate image of the Force is so anthropomorphic that it borders the ridiculous.
One would have to assume, judging by our dismal track record, that either we as a species are a prototype, like the first amphibian reptiles, for something much better, or the Prime Mover is like a kid with a secret chemistry set who is hiding in his room at night staring at his bacteria collection and hoping for a miracle of his own.
GOD has to be 100% supernatural or we are in even more trouble than I could ever have imagined.
HOMOESCAPEONS, then I’d ask you and Rimshot: how do you distinguish a supernatural power from a natural one – especially if it’s the originator of the natural world? If it participates that critically in the life of the natural world – gives birth to it – doesn’t this introduce the possibility that the supernatural designation could be incorrect or meaningless?
Why, necessarily, would we “all be in trouble unless God is 100% supernatural?” If an organic God made the world why couldn’t an organic God save it?
Besides, that “100% organic” label carries a lot of weight these days…
Also, I agree with you about panentheism ... one need not think of God as Personal to be a panentheist. The general panentheistic claim is that God trancends and subsumes the universe. In other words, while everything is made out of God (the pantheist claim) God also transcends the things we see. This turns the supernatural claim on its head, because God is not made out of "different stuff" than you and I . Instead, there is only one substance, "God", and everything we experience is made out of that substance.
I don’t see the “square peg in a round hole” analogy as applying. It’s usually made in relation to situations where you’re dealing with a limited number of categories and have to pick one of them even though the thing you’re dealing with isn’t a good match for any of the available categories.
Even good analogies can't demonstrate or prove a point. They assert “It’s like this!” or “It works like this!” But it may not. Analogies are most useful as illustrations to help with understanding things that are already known to be true but hard to get across.
Notice that your response to Matthew is also an analogy; this one leads to a rhetorical question. It may be just me, but I don’t follow either. If you’d directly state what you mean it would make it easier for me to understand.
It sounds like you may be assuming that Matthew is defending pantheism and/or panentheism, but he’s just responding to my request for clarification on what these terms mean.
MATTHEW: Sounds like both pantheism and panentheism would fail to see the natural/supernatural distinction.
If I follow, isn’t the line between pantheism and panentheism pretty fine? Each identifies God with being itself. Wouldn’t the difference more or less amount to this:
Panentheists overtly state “and there’s an aspect of being-itself that is beyond the world as we know or perceive it – or of which we receive no more than imperfect glimpses (‘through a glass darkly…’).”
While pantheists may not overtly state this, isn't it assumed? Anyone with the slightest familiarity with recent developments in particle physics or cosmology, for example, would figure that being-itself or nature undoubtedly has aspects beyond those that we’re presently aware of. Wouldn’t it be assumed that this includes some aspect or dimension - or Aspect or Dimension - in relation to which faith is justified?
I'm still not sure about morality but there is something empty about looking at it that way which doesn't quite fit with my experience. Although I don't believe in a separate God either.So I suppose my answer is both!
I've been away from this discussion for a while, and boy have some things happened. I'd like to recommend this book on panentheism:
In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God’s Presence in a Scientific World. Philip Clayton and Arthur Peacocke, eds. William B. Eerdsman Publishing Company (Grand Rapids: 2004).
It's a great set of essays, with a dizzying array of views on panentheism. It may really screw up your metaphysics (if you have one). I loved it, although it simultaneously left me depressed for a couple of days because of the metaphysics thing. But it's very thought provoking!
I've been thinking about posting sections of a paper I wrote about it on my blog. You've convinced me to do it!
Thanks.
HAZZBUZZ: People’s comments are so interesting lately that I keep turning them into posts. I think I may do this with yours even though I’d planned something else. If I decide not to and forget, please remind me to get back to this comment –
KARIN: Thanks for this information, which tends to confirm my growing suspicion that panentheism takes any number of forms. Ha! Like your reference to metaphysics “if you have one.”
I eschew metaphysics, plus I like the word "eschew" which I rarely use in polite conversation; it's just so darned emphatic...
And I’m frankly suspicious of others' metaphysics. I overdosed on metaphysics when forced against my will in div school to read a book by Alfred North Whitehead, mathematician turned theologian. I had to read it or risk failing the exam. The only other way I would have read those like seven hundred pages would have been if someone had tied me to a chair and held me hostage and read it to me.
The George Bush interrogation center or whatever ought to consider this. They could start a secret program where they send people to divinity school basements and read them Whitehead till they crack. Very unusual punishment yet not that cruel in any bodily sense. Might win the approval of constitutional scholars, the UN, plus Whitehead's publisher would be bound to sell a lot more copies than they do now.
Aside from being a particular fan of Whitehead, I always liked God’s question to Job from out of the whirlwind: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” – i.e., who do you think you are and what do you think you know about how the world and all-reality works and is put together? Personally, I can’t take with full seriousness anybody's claims to know the detailed structure of the universe (universes) and the intricacies of God’s mind.
KARIN, BTW, WHERE IS YOUR BLOG? I've clicked on your name on both your comments but don’t find the URL. And please let me know when you do that post –
Your comments about Whitehead cracked me up. I took a class on process theology/philosophy at seminary. I hate to tell you this, but I loved it, even after reading much of Process and Reality.
A guy name Thomas Hosinksi wrote a great book translating process thought. It is infinitely more accessible than Whitehead. Although, I must say, I've read some essays by Whitehead in which the style is much easier, and actually quite beautiful. Check out "Religion in the Making."
I admit, however, I am sort of a theological geek.
My blog is gospelofkarin.wordpress.com. You left a really nice comment on an essay a few days ago that I really appreciated. Will let you know when I post the stuff on panentheism.
I really enjoy your blog!
Great resource. Thanks!
The thing I happened to read by him was this one huge tome several hundred pages in length. It read less like process than like his detailed description of the plan of the universe in which he literally tried to account for everything from subatomic particles to the mind of God.
Worst was that he pretty much hit all the stuff in between...
Thanks for the info and your URL. I sometimes click on blogs from other blogs so without the link I can't find them again.
CRYSTAL, thanks for the link. Seems like a topic N2 would be interested in too.
Organic and supernatural . . .
Within me and beyond me . . .
Here and there . . .
Everywhere . . .
Everything . . .
Yes, Whitehead didn't actually call it Process philosophy. That phrase was coined later, though I don't recall by who. But process thought in its many current variations is based on Whitehead's Process and Reality, which sounds like the tome you read. It's tough stuff to read, no doubt. But, I like you, really like process thought. It's a good thing there are patient people out there who are willing to translate! :-)
I think the view of God as supernatural is all good as long as you don't start questioning the nature of the void. It's one of those mysterious areas where science and God intersect. If we believe the universe is expanding and contracting, that suggests there is something for that movement to occur in. It's one of the problems with naming something. The very act of naming seems to imply finiteness of some sort. So maybe the idea of not naming God has some validity.
KARIN: And it's the only theology I've run into where "the problem of evil" doesn't exist.
ROSIE: I've always liked that idea of God being beyond naming and beyond words. But is it a supernatural God that is beyond words or is being itself essentially mysterious?
"If we believe the universe is expanding and contracting, that suggests there is something for that movement to occur in."
I'm pretty sure cosmologists would say no to that idea - that prior to the big bang, there was no space-time for movement to occur in. Uh, no, I definitely can't picture that either! But as I understand it, space-time itself would have been created with the big bang.
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