Those who define everything that exists as the natural haven’t told us anything of significance. I could just as easily define everything as hablabadaba. It would mean the same thing and deliver the same informational content. Customarily, the word natural is invoked to describe a realm of energy, space, time, and matter, and any other conceivable or unknown physical entity, whether it be a part of this universe, or a detached natural realm outside the spatio-temporal universe we inhabit. Anything outside the natural realm, as commonly thought, would be supernatural, preternatural, extranatural, or the like.

But perhaps those who do this are not offering a definition. Instead, maybe they are making a claim about the way things really are, as in nothing exists outside of the natural. Here, however, we receive a check. The closest one could ever approach the soundness of this claim would be to arrive at it inductively, as far as I’m aware. I’d be delighted if someone could demonstrate me wrong. Until that moment, an inductive argument would proceed along these lines:

N: I have never observed anything non-natural, nor have I encountered a compelling argument for anything non-natural.

N2: I have never observed anything non-natural, nor have I encountered a compelling argument for anything non-natural.

N3: I have never observed anything non-natural, nor have I encountered a compelling argument for anything non-natural.

N4-Nx…

Therefore, everything that exists is natural.

Where does this leave our non-omniscient naturalist? In a state of agnosticism, presumably, though many will call it atheism.  We will hope, nevertheless, that our non-omniscient naturalist is aware that at any moment the non-natural could manifest itself, or that upon death the non-natural could be readily apparent in all its non-naturalness. It also leaves her, obviously, in an epistemologically unwarranted state with regard to what I may know or may have experienced of the supernatural. This is for another time, however, with all the flinging about of warrant around the internet recently, I throw it out there for your consideration.

So what? Well, some dislike the natural/supernatural dichotomy, so let’s offer a construct that may satisfy all participants: The natural realm could be part of a larger realm we might call the world. The world would comprise the natural realm, whether it be ours or another, and all other realms not adequately described by the term natural. Examples of the latter might be a realm of abstract objects and perhaps a spirit realm inhabited by God and other spiritual beings. These would not be explained adequately by what we normally think of as natural, that is, energy, matter, space, time and the like. (writer’s note: the phrase energy, matter, space, and time is directly attributable to cl, as far as my employment of the phrase goes)

Now, most people, certainly skeptics, consider what we apprehend with our senses as the real. I have certainly endured some criticism for The Dark Man in which reviewers and readers have been put off by its supposed lack of realism, its dream sequences, and its blurred perception between the real and surreal, or the superreal, as the case may be. This post, in a very real sense, is a precursor to an author’s note I intend to attach to my new novel, which may actually outdo The Dark Man with regard to coloring outside the lines of the real as it is commonly thought.  

In one sense, I agree with most folks, as I do not consider the natural realm mind-dependent, at least not our minds, with regard to its essence. However, I believe ultimately, that what we consider real is going to turn out to be less real than we think, and more real than we want. Here’s what I mean, and for those of you who read TDM (thank you), I hope this sheds some light beneath and around the physical medium of ink and paper the novel is delivered upon, and the story delivered therein, for what I am about to say is really no different…

This is not a polemic on empiricism. After all, we were created in the image of God with senses intended as gates through which reliable data may be transmitted to our minds inside of a physical world. Nevertheless, it is my contention that a strict empiricism does not convey the world as it really is. Merely apprehending the physical world leaves us thinking the natural realm is more than it really is, or, better put, I think, the natural realm is less real than we think it is.

Forgive me, I’ll need to back up a bit first. To say that God exists is, technically, an impossibility. We all use the phrase conventionally, but it’s truly misleading. Take a quick look at the etymology of the word exist: Latin exsistere to come into being, exist, from ex- + sistere to stand, stop; akin to Latin stare to stand (care of Merriam-Webster). To exist means, literally, to stand out of. God does not stand out of anything. He does not rely upon anything to sustain Him; He does not  rely upon anything for His being. To describe God accurately, we should say, simply, He is. He possesses the power of being. His essence is to be. That is the very reason He is called I am that I am. He does not exist, He is.

So then, whatever is truly real must have the power of being. It must not merely exist, but it must be, of its own power and accord. Everything else that exists, and I genuinely mean everything, would subsist under and be sustained by that that possesses the power of being. We too often look at the natural and assume it is the real, but why would we ascribe the power of being to energy, matter, time, or space? In fact, I believe it is much less real than we think it is. There are very good reasons to think that the universe, the natural, exists, and very good reasons to think that it does not have the power of being. These reasons are ubiquitous, and I’ll leave these as homework for your own thoughts, or for future posts for mine, because the point I wish to emphasize is something must be, and that something will be the real. Aim your skepticism at the natural and ask yourself honestly if the natural possesses the power of being. Vanity of vanities…

The real, then, in my view, will be something more real than we want. I say more than we want with our fallen nature in mind. Certainly many want the real to be a purposeful, meaningful, sustaining power, but at what cost? At the dread of constant surveillance? With the notion that the sustaining of all entities lacking the power of being–all entities that exist, mind you–requires an ordering of all events and the entities composing those events? With the notion that the real to be purposeful and meaningful would require the real by its nature to be the grounding of right and wrong, and to issue forth commands in accordance with that nature?

And here we approach the tension between our existence and that which must be. Is there any doubt on Christianity that fallen man desires the real to be less than it is and more than it is not?