A thorough analysis of supernaturalism and its implications

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What is supernaturalism?

Part I of the exploration of supernaturalism: defining the terms

Supernaturalism is most commonly the vague notion that the world of our perception is not all there is. There is strong evidence that supports this view. For example, visible light is only a small fraction of the large electromagnetic spectrum. Most of this spectrum cannot be directly observed by us; we need specifically engineered apparatus to translate it to the visible spectrum. We cannot perceive radio waves, radar, radioactivity, etc. directly. But this view is completely incorporated into naturalism, the scientific view, because science detected this spectrum beyond the visible, directly perceivable, and through our senses observable world.

Metaphysical supernaturalism is the philosophical view that this is not enough; there exists a world beyond the natural world that naturalism cannot account for. There are supernatural causes and supernatural agents like gods, angels, demons, souls, and so on. These do not belong to the natural world that we experience through our senses directly or indirectly. Supernatural forces and agents do not consist of material objects, they are immaterial. These do not follow the physical laws of the natural world. Whenever a supernatural force is active, this can violate the laws of the natural world that we have detected using mostly science. Another term for this is non-natural or non-physical. Some even claim that science is in principle not able to detect such supernatural forces.

Theological supernaturalism (as I call it) deals with another type of supernaturalism. Here the opposition is that the supernatural realm is God or god-like. Because God is a personal being, and that the intentions of intentional agents are beyond the scope of naturalism, this is the real conflict between supernaturalism and naturalism. This view is bound to monotheism, the view that there is a creator of the physical world that is good, all-knowledgeable, all-powerful and can intervene in this (natural) world. The claim includes that naturalism denies the existence of such a God. Some of the attributes mentioned might be denied by some believers, complicating the matter.

What is naturalism?

There are different strands of naturalism. In most cases, the claim is not that everything is natural or belongs to the natural world. The claim is humbler: Everything we can potentially know belongs to the natural world.

Metaphysical naturalism is the view that everything we can possibly know comes from natural entities in the natural world that interact with our senses or our instruments. This is our only source of fallible knowledge.

Physicalism consists of the claim that everything that exists is physical in nature (made of material objects). This is often related to logical positivism, a worldview that has been refuted. For example, moral laws are not physical entities, they are not made of matter, and still considered existing. Physical laws are descriptive models of how the material world interacts or how matter behaves and are in itself non-material.

Materialism is an outdated term often used as a synonym for naturalism. But it often repeats the error of logical positivism when it tries to even bind moral laws to the physical world. When naturalism as a broader framework is confused with materialism, this makes naturalism an easier target for counter-arguments. There is another definition of materialism which is often linked to the definition I gave: the idea that in the realm of our values, only money or material goods have any value. Both definitions might overlap for some people, but this weak link is used as a polemic against naturalists, even those that reject materialism.

Methodological naturalism is the view that all our practical more or less useful knowledge comes from studying and exploring the natural world. It does acknowledge that some things like moral laws are out of scope of this type of naturalism. The main interest of methodological naturalism lies in observing the world and explaining natural phenomenon and predicting the outcome of physical interaction. This is the main base for our technology. One of the key features of this strand of naturalism is that all hypothesis we build about how the world works must be falsifiable. I will later explain why this is crucial to naturalism.

Strong naturalism is the view that the natural world is all that exists. Weak naturalism does not claim that, instead it claims that the natural world is all we can know about. Strong naturalism is a more philosophical claim, whereas the weaker claim is linked to the natural sciences.

You might look at the main differences with the claim that the natural world is the sum of all facts. We clearly do not know all facts. We do not know if we can even potentially know all facts. Some observations in recent cosmology strongly suggest that the visible universe is only part of the universe. Because light can only travel with the speed of light, and some galaxies moving away from us due to the expansion of spacetime with a greater speed of light, we cannot observe these galaxies. Notice that when it is claimed that nothing can move faster than light in a vacuum, this does not contradict the theory that some galaxies move away from us with a speed beyond that. The expansion of the universe is not bound to any speed limits, and it seems that it expands faster than light speed.

The difference lies in the definition what a fact is. Is a fact only something we can empirical proof to exist, or are abstractions like 1 + 1 = 2 facts, too? There is no broad consensus amongst naturalists concerning the answer to this question.

Things we do not know

Yes, there are things we don't know, but from this does not follow that the cause of these feelings is some supernatural realm. All of these feelings can be at least partly explained by reasoning based on naturalism. Supernaturalism overreaches the goal to explain anything, because it can explain everything. That seems at first like an advantage over naturalism which demonstrably cannot explain everything. But I will argue later in this series that this is not an advantage.

This is tied to the view that naturalism is incapable of detecting the world beyond the natural world and that we require different means to access these worlds beyond. For example, we require a revelation from God to access the whole truth about the world. This means that supernaturalism makes truth claims founded on an epistemology¹ different from the naturalistic approach.

In contrast to this view, some supernaturalistic claims have been tested by scientists or by using scientific methods. This was even endorsed by some supernaturalists, so not every supernaturalist claims that science is in principle not able to detect supernatural forces. So far, all results of these tests were negative.

I will argue in this series that supernaturalism is based not on a valid or sound epistemology but rather a confusion of terms. The term supernaturalism is either a contradiction in terms and is therefore meaningless or a synonym for the unknown. Which, in sum, means that supernaturalism cannot provide meaningful explanations or predictions, cannot add to our knowledge, and should be abandoned entirely. There is no supernatural epistemology other than old stories, traditions, authority, intuition, dreams, and unsubstantiated claims. Supernaturalism makes truth claims but does not have a valid truth criterion or a falsification criterion. Ultimately, all claims about the supernatural are based on old stories with dubious content or intuition.

It is possible to come closer to the truth without a truth criterion when you use falsification. You don't know what is right, but at least you can deduce what is wrong. We lack a truth criterion², which makes gaining knowledge so difficult. This hits both naturalism and supernaturalism.

There are different ways to gain knowledge. First, there is some internal knowledge: I know at least partly what I'm thinking right now, and what thought yesterday though I told nobody. This seems to us as a reliable form of knowledge, though cognitive psychology has shown again and again that this is not the case. This is a complex topic and only partly relevant to this topic, so I will reserve that to some future article.

Then there is external knowledge, which is linked to our senses. It seems to be intuitively clear to us which is which, but that is not so clear, which again is a topic linked to cognitive science and therefore not treated here.

Another source of knowledge for us seems to be intuition, which is relevant to this treatise.

Intuition fails

When we can learn one thing from physics, it is this: basing your ideas about the world of physics or probability on intuition will fail almost with certainty. Why should this be any different when it comes to realms further away from our experience? Yet, most supernaturalists are convinced that they know some aspects of this realm.

Our intuition is extremely unreliable. It operates within the very limited framework of our ancestors’ experience, to the extent that it was important for their survival. Even there, it leads us to believe that intentional agents without bodies exist, because a false alarm is not as harmful as failing to notice a predator creeping up on us. Once we step outside this framework, our intuition fails almost completely. Scientific research shows, see [Kahneman 2012], that decisions made intuitively are of lower quality than those made through rational deliberation, even if our intuition tells us otherwise. Even our intuition about our intuition is wrong. There are only a few examples where intuition performs better. These include expert intuition, extreme danger situations that require quick decisions, or the behavior of mothers toward infants, which is statistically better because it has been optimized through a long evolutionary process.

This is not evidence against supernaturalism. However, the weakness of our intuition is coped with in the natural sciences, which therefore relies heavily on mathematics to overcome these challenges.

Still, some consultants make considerable profits by giving the bad advice that you should make all your decisions based on your intuition. Yes, you should listen to your emotions and your intuition, but take that as a starting point for rational decision-making.

Because monotheism is founded on supernaturalism and can hardly exist without this worldview, the idea of God, or supernatural agents or causes, must be rejected if you take a strictly strong naturalistic stance. Additionally, we must reject the common misconceptions of naturalism, like arguing that naturalism is the same as materialism or physicalism, which is not the case.

Weak and methodological naturalism is not generally opposed to the view that there is a God. Strong naturalism is, which is exploited by apologists, who suggest that all naturalists are strong naturalists, because they think that this makes naturalism an easier target for counterarguments.

Not all religions are based on supernaturalism

Notice that not all religions are based on supernaturalism. Paganism was never based on supernaturalism; it holds the view that all gods are part of nature or are myths. Therefore, paganism is compatible with a pure naturalistic worldview. The Unitarian religion fully embraces scientific naturalism and most Unitarians are even atheists. Some strands of Christianity even reject God and a supernatural worldview. See for example [Altizer 2002].

On the other hand, there is Buddhism, a worldview based on supernatural causes named karma. Buddhism does not generally embrace gods but is compatible with the view that there are gods, though they are not necessarily supernatural (more like pagan gods).  Tibetan Buddhists like the Dalai Lama are sometimes atheists. Jainism, another old religion, rejects the claim that there are gods of any kind

Notice that Buddhists might reject the claim that karma is a supernatural force.

These are only a few examples and are only mentioned because some people think that being anti-supernaturalism means the same as being anti-religion, which is not always the case.

An analytical approach to supernaturalism

The words we use and how we use them tell us a lot about our ways of thinking and will even shape the way we are looking at the world. This is the reason why we have to define words and explain their usage. Without that, we do not know what we are talking about.

The branch of philosophy that deals with words and their meaning is called analytical philosophy. Wittgenstein noticed that philosophy uses words and examines thinking, but the tool for this, the words, are often not examined at all.

I come from a naturalistic worldview and therefore, have another outlook as people supporting supernaturalism. Wittgenstein started his work Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [Wittgenstein 1998] with the words:

The world is everything that is the case.
–Wittgenstein

A similar wording from a naturalistic worldview that expresses this would be:

The natural world is the sum of all facts.

What do we mean when we use the word nature as a synonym for natural world? This can be viewed in different ways. First as the philosophical claim that the natural world is all that exists. Second, as the claim that the natural world is all we know about. Third, as the claim that nature is a broad term that covers all we know and can potentially know.

If we use it in the second or third meaning, all we know is part of nature by definition. The opposite of nature in commonly used language is culture, though culture is part of nature. Culture is the sum of all things manipulated or manufactured by humans. Therefore, in everyday language, nature is all that is not manipulated or manufactured by humans. But everything that is part of culture must have been part of nature before we humans messed with it. Humans are, of course, part of nature.

In this meaning of the words, everything supernatural does not belong to nature. But because everything that exists is a fact and therefore, part of nature, anything supernatural cannot be a fact and cannot be a part of nature. It can be part of culture. In our culture, we speak about things that do not exist. Almost all people know what a unicorn is. But we agree that unicorns do not exist as part of nature. Unicorns exist as a cultural idea that does not reference a fact³. It points to nothing but an abstract idea. The same is true for God. God, at least, exists as a part of our culture, but he does not exist as an independent being. The word itself does not point to any existing fact in the world. In this view, unicorns and gods and fire-breathing dragons etc. are not a fact, they do not exist. They are ideas that reference nothing but other ideas that might or might not reference other facts or other cultural ideas.

Be careful, though, language can be tricky. In a pure naturalistic worldview, by definition, God does not exist. The supernatural realm does not exist, because both do not belong to the realm that we know or can possibly or potentially know. The natural world is limited by what we know, not by what we believe. We can believe anything, like that unicorns exist, Santa Claus, or anything including counterfactual ideas. We can believe in all of it. No truth theory can therefore be dependent on belief, because we can believe anything and its opposite, though, a sane mind cannot believe both at once. Knowledge is defined as rational justified belief. I believe that 1 plus 1 equals 2, I can justify that belief, so I know that 1 + 1 = 2 and that 1 + 1 = 3 is false, given the mathematic axioms. That is an example of a true idea that does not reference a fact of the world. But we do not say that 1 + 1 = 2 exists. For anything existing, it must reference a part of the natural world independent of our own thoughts.

Metaphysical and theological supernaturalism differ from this. When, for example, a naturalist like me hears the phrase God exists outside of time and space, we think that outsode of time and space has the same meaning as does not exist. Because outside of space means something like north from the North Pole. And whatever is outside of time must be static, because to act on something, you need time.

What you see here is part of the Wittgenstein confusion. We assume that if we use a word like time, space, universe, randomness, nothing, God, soul etc. that we all mean the same. But that is seldom the case. That is another reason to define the words you use. Otherwise, you might agree to something that you really disagree with and vice versa.

The logical game with God

From a pure analytical point of view, most analytical philosophers⁴ agree that words like God or supernatural do not contain any sense. It does not make any sense to even discuss the existence of something that does not make sense. The same with logical contradictions: if the definition of something contains logical contradiction, that thing does not and cannot exist. For example, in no logical possible universe a married bachelor exists. Someone is, by definition, either a bachelor or he is married. If we say that God is a creator who created everything except himself, and claim he is outside of time, this God cannot create. Every creation process needs time, and without time, God had no time to create time, or space, or anything else. So the definition of a creator-God who exists outside of time is self-contradictory, and therefore, such a God cannot exist.

Believers try to fix this problem with adding ad-hoc assumptions to the definition. Such as: God does not depend on logic, or does not have to comply to logic. Or that logical rules do not govern God, or something like this. This opens a new can of worms. Without presupposing logical existing rules, there is no rule that grants that whenever God wants something to happen, this happens. Without logic, there is no reason or possibility that God can create logic. With every fixed problem, new problems and new contradictions arise. This game of inventing ad-hoc new assumptions about God to fix a problem and then generate a new problem can go on in a cycle forever. Notice that with every assumption added, the likelihood of something existing will shrink. If there are no rules (logic cannot be applied to God), everything is possible and nothing is likely⁵.

If a definition contains a logical contradiction, or does not make sense, adding new assumptions to fix a problem will create new problems, because the base problem is not fixed. But without a definition of God, nobody can know what he is talking about! When a believer tries to fix this problem, he admits that neither he nor any human can know anything about God. Adding any new assumption is no more than a wild guessing game, and there is no reason for any assumption. Even if you believe that a god exists, anything you have to say about him does not make any sense., has no reason, does not fix any logical problem. That are the consequences of a God outside of logic.

Interesting is that if you invoke the old question of: can God create a stone that is too heavy for him to lift?, the definition of all powerful is ad-hoc changed again. Now it is claimed that God cannot do anything that violates logical rules. But what is it with the earlier assumption that logic cannot be applied to God? Is that still true, or was that invention or guess wrong right from the start?

If everything has a reason, that presupposes logical rules. Without such rules, nothing has a reason, nothing has a meaning. Without a definition, no word makes any sense. If you believe in a God without rules, you just admit that you believe nonsense. You cannot know nonsense, but you can believe nonsense. And you have to ask yourself a question: Might it be that the reason you need to believe in God and cannot know him points to the fact that such a belief is nonsense? Knowledge cannot be based on nonsense or logical contradictions, but clearly, belief can. But if you can give a good logical justification for the existence of any god, we talk about knowledge, not belief. If you claim that somehow God does not want to be known but believed in, you must admit that God, when he tries to sabotage our knowledge, that each and every logical proof of God must be a failure! Otherwise, God would have failed to sabotage⁶ our knowledge, and we could know him, though he does not want us to.

That God sabotages our knowledge so that we can't know about him, contradicts another claim: God is hiding from our knowledge, but he wants us to believe in him. Belief is very unreliable when it comes to truth. God hides, whoever hides, does not want to be found. This contradicts the claim that God wants us to believe in him, because you can believe everything and its opposite. He wants us to believe, but does everything that makes this as hard as possible, right to the point where it becomes impossible. Right here the believers invent other ad-hoc claims to overcome this objection.

This cycle can go on and on forever. For every objection raised, another assumption is presented as if it is a fact, known only to the believer. The God constructed in this way does not resemble the God worshiped in any religion. It is a God that hides and does not intervene in this world. Or he does it in a way that you cannot link it to God.

This permanent invention of new ad-hoc claims makes it so hard to debate supernaturalists. They will question every single claim with scrutiny that you as an opponent make, but will produce claims in such rapid succession that you can hardly address all of them. All their justification for their claims boil down to the fact that the new claim supports their conclusion. And if their opponent tries the same, they call him out on this. This is called claiming a privileged epistemology. Because that is what supernaturalists do: they claim to know what they don't know. This, of course, will be shown later.

Continue reading: Supernaturalism II (next chapter)

Reports of the supernatural are not evidence of the supernatural—rather, they are evidence of how easily people can be deceived.
–Volker Dittmar