The True Christian Concept of The Super Natural (part 1)

Rose Window Notre Dome de Paris

The Rose was a symbol of heaven in Dante where the Paradisio
is structured on concentric circles like a great rose. Of course God
at the center.





The New atheists constantly mock the SN as though they know what it is. When the discuss it they include anything not naturalistic. The modern conception is that SN is everything from Bigfoot to the resurrection, include g ghosts, UFOs and Psychic Powers. It never occurs to them Christians were using the term before the modern concept of naturalism so it can't just mean everything that[s not naturalistic. Jerry Coyne is an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago. He is also an apologist for atheism. Coyne says something more interesting than than Dawkins does, however, he says that SN could be studied by science.[1] Although, I'm sure Dawkins probably agrees with his reasoning. If SN could not be so studied it would be unreasonable to fault the notion for not having scientific evidence. Coyne asserts that modern science's tendency to set religion aside as belonging to a different order of reality (magisteria) thus being unsuitable is “accomodationist dogma.” [2]

If you’ve frequented this site, you’ll know that I disagree with this stand. I adamantly maintain that science can indeed test the supernatural—at least those claims about the supernatural that involve its interaction with the real world. Indeed, you’ll be familiar with several claims about the supernatural that have already been tested, and refuted : the Genesis story of creation, the story of Adam and Eve, a 6,000-year-old earth, and the efficacy of intercessory prayer, as well as paranormal phenomena like near-death experiences, telepathy, and precognition. If you invoke a form of the supernatural that claims to have real-world consequences, then those consequences necessarily fall within the ambit of science. This means that any type of theistic faith involves hypotheses that are “scientific”.[3]

Of course he wrongly assumes that theistic faith per se includes young earth creationism, healing and the occult. Most versions of faith based upon modern liberal protestant theology would be immune. He also says, “In other words, we can provisionally accept that there is no god because we don’t see the kind of evidence that we should see if god were present (answered prayers, conformable miracles at Lourdes, and so on….)” Keep reading, we are about to see it.


Ironically, I agree with him on one thing, science can test those aspects of the SN that affect our lives, the only problem is the things he names are not SN. He also does a slippery slope by stating we can test those aspects of SN that overlap with nature then asserting we can go all the way and deny the reality of God based upon that. In this chapter I explore the nature of the original Christian concept. Secientistic thinking writes SN out of reality as unscientific, and as superstition. They justify this, as we just saw Coyne do, by pointing to the ability of science to amass a huge fortress of facts while no facts can be found that prove the existence of a Supernatural realm or any Supernatural events, or beings. Yet the problem is that the original concept of the SN was not about any of these things (witches and six day creation), but about human nature and it's relation to divine nature, plus a set of experiences that issue from that relationship. Those experiences are empirical and have been easily documented to exist and to have effects that make them unique. SN is the tendency of divine encounter to raise human nature to a higher level. Here we can understand human nature as both behavioral tendencies as well as consciousness. This means the scientific fortress of facts is predicated upon a concept of an order of nature that did not exist when the term “supernatural” came into being. Therefore, scientistic skepticism is ideological and not scientific; it uses the mystique of science (the illusion of Technique) to interject its own metaphysical assumptions while triumphing over the assumption of a straw man argument.


Anthropologist Benson Saler quotes the great Emile Durkheim in pointing out that the idea of a bifurcated reality made up of an upper real of “supernatural” and a lower real of “natural” is a modern Western concept that begins with modern science. “[the mysterious world of supernatural above the natural] is not of primitive origin….it is science and not religion that has taught men that things are complex and difficult to understand.” [4] Saler points out that this concept of the realm above nature presupposes a ream of nature bound together by natural laws. This is a modern concept brought to us by science. He also draws upon Durkheim, Hallowell, and Richard in support' the use of the term “supernatural” has a long history that proceeds this modern scientific concept. [5]


Therefore, this separation and divison of natural law from that something beyond it can't be the original Christian concept.

The Original Concept of Supernature


All of these objections assume a certain version of the SN. It has become a catch-all for anything non materialistic or naturalistic that scientistic types want to snub without really having to disprove it. Supernatural today means anything from ghosts, Bigfoot, UFO to psychic powers, and angels and demons and God in heaven. Not so with the original concept. In the early centuries of Christian philosophy the original Greek fathers thought of God as transcendent but they did not necessarily conceive of that as “supernatural.” The Church fathers took their notions from the Greeks. “The term 'supernatural' and cognate words in various European languages were employed Long before the rise of modern natural sciences. [6] The school of Miletus (Ionian Greeks) are generally credited with being the first school of critical philosophy. Their use of the term Phusis (roughly translated “nature;” from this term we derive our word Physics.) caused them to be deemed a “physicists” [7] The Stoics had a concept of natural law and materialism. Their natural order would not have been based upon supernatural design. Aristotle viewed the universe working in a rational manner out of necessity rather than design. Ultimately he grounded everything (motion) in the prime mover, but his prime mover was not anthropomorphic and did not design a higher order but worked by necessity. Many ancients had a notion of natural order without a contrasting notion of a supernatural order. “For some the most interesting opposition was conceptualized as a contrast between nature and art...Christian thinkers through the fifth century did not develop theologically significant uses of supernatural” [8]


Saler points out that St. Cyril of Alexandria is a significant exception, using the Greek huper phusin to describe theology of God's grace in elevation of humanity above nature though Christ. He was writing in 444AD around the same time as pseudo Dionysius (500A.D.) who is credited as having coined the term “Supernatural.”. Dionysius was in Syria. Before this time there is found no word that could be rendered “supernatural” used of God's transcendence in the New Testament or in the Patristics. [9] They saw the primary ontological distinction as pertaining to God and creation. Thus while we would classify angels and demons as supernatural in the category with God, apart from natural things, they would classify angels and demons with the created order, blew the level of God as creator. [10]Leading up to the period in which began to emerge terms that would be understood as SN, used by Christian mystics such as Cyril and Dionysius, from the end pf the Apostolic age, the Church faced certain struggles over doctrines with a variety of groups all labeled under the same stigma as “Gnostic.” There was confusion over Chrisatian identity, confussion over the Christianity of Gnostic ideas of dualism between matter and spirit. The Orthodox Church emerged in dialectical relation to the gnostics. Even though they rejected the notion of the evil nature of matter that most such groups taught they created their own dualism with the moral superiority and ontological exaltation of spirit over matter. This forged the way for Neoplatonic Christianity.


Neoplatonism began with Plotinus who died around 270A.D.. Another major figure in the school was Proclus (d.485). that the notion of supernatural really begins to emerge. Neoplatonism is a variation on Platonic thinking that posited a totally transcendent origin of all things. This was a principle, not a personal god. They called it “the one” (a term used by Plato –sort of the “form of the forms”). The one did not create the world dirctly but the world emerged from it through a series of emanations, much like the particulars from the realm of the forms. For that reason the physical realm is not separated out from the one completely and thus the one is emanate within the world. Christian Platonists used hierarchies of angels and what we would call “supernatural beings” in place of emendations. [11] In names such hierarchies Dionysius used, among other things, the term huper hamousios. Hamousios was an important term in the Chronological disputes and the Trinitarian controversy it means “substance” or “being.” God is three persona in one substance. It could be translated essence. [12] Huper might be translated “superior.” It might be “above.” That plays into the notion of a realm above nature. Higher nature. Eugene R. Fairweather concures with Dionysius' use of the term and also points out that John of Damascus (676-749) also used it in the same way (speaking of God in the adverbial form Supernaturaliter). [13]


When various works of Dionysius were translated into Latin by John Scotus Erigena, he rendered it supernaturalis, from which we derive our term “supernatural.” [14]The term was given the Neoplatonic implication of superior substance. Thomas Aquinas preserved the Neoplatonic aspects of the word. God is the first cause who actively and purposefully creates all things, as opposed to the unmoved mover which works unconsciously and of necessity. Moreover, God endows the creatures with their own necessity so that morally each one is an end in itself. [15]Scholastic theology developed the dichotomy of the realm of SN above the realm of nature based upon the distinction between nature and Grace. The centerpiece of that theology is God's free gift of Grace to man in the redemptive act of Christ. This is a gratuity added to human nature and enables a new relationship between creature and creator. That relationship consists of adoptive showmanship and culminates in the elevation of human nature.[16]


The Trace of God, by Joseph Hinman, on Amazon. The 200 studies in this book prove that Mystical experience is real, this article just proved that the original concept of SN is mystical experiemce. Therefore, SN is real.


Part 2

Sources

[1] Jerry Coyne, “Can Science Test The Supernaural, Yes!,” Why Evolution is True. (6/27/2012) URL:

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/can-science-test-the-supernatural-yes/ (accessed 1/26/2016)

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Emil Durkheim quoted in Benson Saler, “Supernatural as a Western Category,” Ethos, Vol. 5, issue 1, first published online 28 Oct., 2009, 31-53 35. PDF URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/eth.1977.5.1.02a00040/pdf (accessed 1/25/2016).

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid., 36

[7] Ibid., 39 Saler draws upon Jeager (1947) in trying to define this complex term, phusis.Basically it means “growth and emergence”

[8] Ibid., 38-39.

[9] Ibid., 43

[10] Ibid. 44.

[11] Henry de Lubecl , Remarques sur l'Hisoire du mot “Surnaturale.” Nouvelle Revue Theologique, (1934) 61: 225-249, 226.

[12] Saler, Op. Cit., 47.

[13] Eugene R. Fairweather, “Christianity and the Supernatural,” in New Theology no.1. New York: Macmillian, Martin E. Marty and Dean G. Peerman ed. 1964. 235-256, 239.

[14] Ibid. see also Fairweather, 239.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid., 48.

Atheists Hide in the Gaps 2

 The epistemic gap that will always exist in miracle hunting is the same gap that will always exist in any sort of causation. As Hume says we do not see the causes. We don't see the causation at work. All we see is one billiard ball stop and the other start up. We infer cause and effects from the correlation. That's exactly what is being done, we are inferring cause form a correlation. Of cousre we can't always infer cause form correlation, it has to be a really tight correlation and there has to be a mechanism to explain it. Even a mechanism is established through correlation. In miracle hunting the gap is always going to be that we can't see God at work.  We must have a reason to infer a miracle. Because this gap always exists the atheist is always going to claim the miracle can't be proved, there's always a gap to hid in. The best we can do is to eliminate all other possibilities and have a really good reason for inferring that God is involved. At Lourdes the rules are set up to do this.

They don't take Lukemia cases for ten years. Lukeimia has a high rate of remission. In ten years it's most likely a remission will have reversed itself and the patient will be sick again. Another way the rules are set up to achieve is is that the patent can't have taken a drug and the only factor different from the ordinary situation is the prayer. That way the only possible alternate cause is the prayer, that we know of. It's never going to be fool proof but few things are and it's probably as good as most things we pretend to understand that we really don't understand, like the origin of the universe.

Miracles are not the only issue involved in this point of hiding in the gaps. Here are some more things atheists have said in the thread:

A New version of Sherlock Holmes in the Twenty First Century on PBS "Mystery," the Watson character says "no one has arch enemies in real life." Watson has never been on an apologetics message board. On message boards we do have them. This one is mine, HRG on CARM.

Originally Posted by HRG

Not at all. It is a fact that some people think that miracles at Lourdes have been confirmed statistically. It is also a fact that their method (not counting the "failures" at Lourdes, and not counting the "successes" elsewhere) is invalid.

 It doesn't matter what people think. The fact is Lourdes miracle are not judged by statistics.

 Meta:

that is entirely ludicrous. how it possibly be invalid? it's the only valid method there is you saying that just proves to me you don't know anything about any of this. nothing could be more valid than before x-ray shows broken leg, after x-ray shows no trace of broken leg, and one day apart. what could be better proof? No Lourdes is not statistical. Statistical method would not prove crap about healing.

statical assumes God is like a drug and must work automatically. it does not allow for will. God is not a drug he's not an automatic process. So your study design is totally invalid..That's because you don't care about truth you are not trying to understand belief, you want to show your great ego and how brilliant you are.

HRG:

I have never supported liberal politics because I thought it was true; that would be like thinking that Schubert's Trout Quintet (which gave me a few transcendental seconds this morning ) is "true". I support liberal politics because of my secular humanism. 

Meta:

right, you don't have the sense or the honesty to see that that is ideological. nothing more than sheer ideology! But if you don't think humanism is true what do you do you think? It flatters your ego. your only truth is your ego. total selfishness then you are too deaf to hear God saying "hey that's not right, that's going to land you in trouble." you don't listen.

Stunning admission that he doesn't believe liberal politics are "true," but I do. Calling  political stands "true" or "false" is a bit problematic, but I do think my political views are based upon what I feel I feel is true. He grounds his politics in what he feels is true, although he doesn't believe in truth, so this is just more obfuscation on his part, for which he is famous.


HRG:

But your God cannot be proven beyond a substantial doubt either. And when I believe something for which there is no proof beyond any rational doubt, I'm aware that the proof is not 100% - and that I may be wrong (this is not even a humbling thought). 

 Look at how nuanced his answer, so that for his burden the requirement is not 100%, even though he claims to be humble about it, but for my belief the burden is 100% in his view. Why can't mine be less than that too since my argument only claims Rational Warrant and not proof!??

My answer in the thread:

That's not the point! you are hiding in the gap. that's so funny you do exactly what i predict you will do then you act like it's big triumphal gesture.

you are basically admitting to the whole concept. you can't furnish 100% for your world view either, but with that you don't care. you use that as a deceptive device to foster disconnect with bleief but you don't care how hypocritical your argument is.

HRG:

Just like you may be wrong about the existence of your God.

 Meta:

that's what hiding in the gap is. you are hiding. I say "I have to make a leap of faith." like any leap it could go wrong. But I have ot make it.you want to pretend you don't have leap to make and yous ay "O any kind of leap is no good, we can't ever leap" but you are just living a pretense because you have to make one for your own views.

HRG:

BTW, I firmly believe in the truth that there are infinitely many primes, and that the Earth is not flat.

Meta:

That's just another guilt by association fallacy. I don't believe the world is flat either and you know that. but you try to evoke the pretense of all knowing scinece verses backward superstition. when the reality is you work by bait and switch, bad fallacious arguments, egotism and hiding in the gap.

He accepts mathematical truth but can't apply it to anything else. While accepting mathematical truth proves my argument about hte transcendental signifier so his view is still supporting a God argument but he doesn't understand that. Perhaps because he didn't think of it.


Originally Posted by Penguin_Factory

The problem here is that the answer you're proposing doesn't work,

 Meta:

Yes sure does. that's what the 200 studies document.

there's a brilliant argument, "it doesn't work." why didn't I think of that?

PF:

nor does it fit any criteria by which we judge reality.

Meta:

yup does that too:

regular
consistent
inter-subjective
navigation

those are the criteria why which we judge reality, I can demonstrate every one.

PF:

Assuming some basic facts about the nature of reality- eg that it exists in a state separate from our subjective impressions and operates according to a set of rules that can be uncovered and which do not vary - is necessary not only to understand the Universe, but to interact with it in any sane way. 

Meta:

How do we know when we have that? When it fits the criteria. Most of my criteria are in the things you just named: "Assuming some basic facts about the nature of reality-" That is epistemic judgment. that's my basic assumption about the criteria, that it can't prove reality, we have to use it instead of proof because you can't get proof. so we use that criteria that enable epistemic judgment. What said confirms my point.

PF's criteria:
operates according to a set of rules that can be uncovered and which do not vary -

My answer
you mean like "regular" and "consistent?" that's why I said. that''s my criteria!

but to interact with it in any sane way

in other words. to make an epistemic judgment. that's why I call my argument "argument form epsitemic Judgment."

I just showed that all the criteria he uses fit the criteria I lay out in my argument. All he's done is prove my argument.

PF:

A deity, on the other hand, is a different assumption completely. When you add an undetectable supernatural aspect to the universe you are simply piling on complexity with no additional explanatory power. 

Meta:

We are not doing that. It's not undetectable. that's what the studies prove. we can tell the presence of God by our experience of the divine (mystical experience) and we know it works due to the M scale so we can detect it. We cant' control it, which is what scinece really wants to do. but we don't have to control we can prove we can trust it. That's what faith is. Faith is not believing things without evidence, it's confidence in trust. We can prove we can trust God, because the experiences have postiive effects and do so time and time again (200 studies).

Because we can detect it by it's effects using the M scale, it's not undetectable. We can sort out phony from true mystical experience, and by effect it can be demonstrated. Super natural is the experience. That's what term the originally meant. The experience of God's presence, the sense of the numinous and mystical experience

PF:

Assuming that reality is as it appears to be acts as a springboard to further understanding, while assuming the existence of God either achieves nothing or (as most often seems to be the case) retards understanding by attempting to posit God as the ultimate explanation for everything. 

Meta

that's nothing more than ideological slogaism. it's been disproved by the empirical studies. let's break it down:

PF

Assuming that reality is as it appears to be acts as a springboard to further understanding,

Meta

200 studies show that reality appears to be divine, that's the basis of mystical experience, it's all one thing,undifferentiated unity. You have 0 studies on the other hand none at all that disprove god or show there's no God.

Notice how selective he's being about what it means to say "assuming reality is as it appears." Reality appears to be divine to the mystic. He's assuming that's not true appearance so he's actually not wiling to willing to assume reality is as it appears when it doesn't appear as we wants it to!



PF

while assuming the existence of God either achieves nothing

Meta:

since the 200 studies demonstrate that God makes your life better that disprove what you said. That also disproves the earlier statement by paradoxical that just having your life made better isn't proof. If we are supposed to hide in the gap by assuming belief doesn't do anything for us, and yet that's disproved empirically, then obviously it does matter if it makes your life better. Your idea of a negative argument contradicts that dictum anyway because you are truth upon how it affects your life.

PF

"or (as most often seems to be the case) retards understanding by attempting to posit God as the ultimate explanation for everything..."

Meta:

Right like Newton was held back from his theories about the universe because he believed in God or like the whole Royal society who were all Christians, every single one of the, didn't contribute to modern scinece because their religious belief got in the way, learn some history of scinece! what you are saying is obviously empirically disproved by history. Belief in God has spurred scinece, invention, exploration, higher thinking all the way through human history.

My commentary upon PF's over all approach:

this what I said before, a selective self serving mythology based upon slogans and ideology. That's atheism.

That is exactly hiding in the gap!

PF

By way of an analogy, let's say come across a red cube and decide to study it. It could be that my perception is completely jacked up and the cube really has 10 sides instead of 6, or it's actually blue and not red. However, in the absence of any compelling reason to think either of those things assuming that the red cube is in fact a red cube is a fairly rational thing to believe. 

 Meta:

 But of cousre when the mystic's red cube is found, in the form of the sense of the Holy or the sesne of the numinous it's exactly the same. The world appears to be based upon the divine to me because that's' the way ti strikes me in my experience of God's presence. The content of the experience is the sense of the divine just as the content of the experience of finding a red cube is seeing a red cube. With the cube that he likes it's rational to assume the world is as it appears. When the cube is not the cube he wants its' irrational to proceed with appearances.

PF

What's not rational is assuming that the cube possesses some sort of extra quality which cannot be detected or interacted with in any way but which is, for some reason, vital to understanding and interacting with it. 

 If that's the way it appears why is that any less rational than yours?


Meta

Analogies are not proof. The proper use of analogy is to clarify concepts. Your analogy obscures concepts because it's based upon begging the question by assuming your ideologically driven prejudices about religion. The evidence disproves those prejudices.

At every hand's turn they basically confirm what I'm saying. They see hiding in the gap as a virtue. Atheists world view is based upon the idea of talking only the surface of being, thins exist as one dimensional things on the surface, what appears is all there is and even that has to be selected for the appearance we like. It's a shallow and hypocritical view. If one says "there's more to reality that that" they say, that's just philosophy and philosophy is stupid." Why is philosophy stupid? Primarily because it doesn't give them the appearance they want. Philosophy is the antithesis of hiding in the gap. Philosophy says "dig deeper." The Atheism says "give me an appearance I like and I'll stick with it because anything else requires traversing the gap in knowledge," they don't want to traverse the gap.

see third and final segment on friday