Nature/Supernature

Verhey has a nice discussion of the nature/supernatural distinction that locates the difference in eschatology. He points out, for starters, that “the regularities of the world we name as ‘natural laws” are not regularities of a self-contained machine but rather then ways God ordinarily works. As God acted freely and purposefully in creating the world, bringing things into existence and endowing them with causal powers of their own, so God acts freely and purposefully in sustaining the creation, sustaining things and their powers of causation, concurring in their existence and in the exercise of their own powers, their fertile free otherness.” Nicely said.

He also notes the differences that have arisen over the centuries in the understanding of the nature/supernatural distinction.

Until the seventeenth century, “supernatural” was used “to describe some change in the powers of people and things beyond their ‘natural’ powers, beyond the powers that they ordinarily displayed.” This didn’t necessarily involve magic or miracle: “a farmer could fatten a pig to an extent that the pig would not have reached on its own; such a pig could then be said to be ‘supernaturally’ fat, fat beyond its ‘nature.’” The theological usage of the term was consistent with this more common use, indicating “some change in the powers of people or things wrought by God.” Balaam’s ass can speak “supernaturally,” since it is beyond his normal powers to do so; but then Scrooge becomes “supernaturally” generous, with or without the intervention of ghosts, since misers don’t “naturally” give. For this earlier view, “the one thing that would not be, and could not be, described as ‘supernatural’ would be God.”

Beginning in the seventeenth century, “supernatural” comes to describe beings outside of “nature.” Scrooge’s ghosts, not his generosity, is “supernatural,” and so is God. By this definition, “‘nature’ is autonomous and independent of God, a closed system of cause and effect, and God, if God exists at all, exists in some ‘other’ world.” This is the common notion both of “nature” and the supernatural in the modern world.

In the modern view, miracles, if believed at all, are the paradigmatic “supernatural” events. Verhey suggests that we should think of miracles “not as violations of nature but as the eschatological fulfillment, completion, and perfection of nature. In these works of power the creation itself is being made new, not violated. In these works of power the Word that was present at the creation summons nature to its own perfection.” When Jesus exorcises a demon, he does not violate nature but liberates it and brings it to fulfillment. When he calms the storm, He is bringing the sea to eschatological peace. And by healing He brings damaged human beings to their restoration: “The healing miracles of Jesus demonstrate that God’s cause is life, not death, that God’s cause is human flourishing, including the human flourishing we call health, not disease . . . . And the nature miracles make it plain that God’s cause is the blessing upon nature that calms the waters of chaos and restores nature itself to what God intends.”

God is not identified with natural processes, nor with supernatural miraculous processes. In miracles, we have warrant for altering nature, but altering it in the direction of God’s kingdom, to serve His purposes. Altering nature to heal, Verhey says, is consistent with Jesus’ purposes, as is altering nature to bring freedom and blessing to the poor. These works are “supernatural” not in the modern sense, but in the sense that by God’s work in His people, He is bringing creation to its telos .