Buddhism<\/a> is a metaphysic searching for a religion, Christianity is a religion searching for a metaphysic. If not he, his followers (\u201cprocess theologians\u201d) have attempted to use his process metaphysic to give Christianity what Whitehead thought was lacking.<\/p>\nMy argument, in Essentials of Christian Thought<\/em>, is that Whitehead was wrong. Yes, of course Christianity has always learned some things from pagan and secular metaphysics\u2014to fill in the \u201cgaps,\u201d so to speak. But embedded within the biblical story is an implicit metaphysic that should not be replaced<\/em> with another one. And that has always been a problem for Christian thought\u2014people replacing the implicit biblical metaphysic with some version of Platonism (e.g., \u201cmiddle\u201d or \u201cneo-\u201c Platonism) or Aristotelianism or Hegel\u2019s panentheism or Whitehead\u2019s process philosophy.<\/p>\nOne anecdote I tell in the book comes from an experience I had about fifteen years ago. I went to hear a well-known and influential Christian minister and theologian speak. I don\u2019t remember the advertised topic, but his talk was about \u201cBuddhist Christianity.\u201d He said that, as a Christian, he had found in a particular form of Japanese Buddhism what is missing in Christianity\u2014a life and world philosophy. He articulated a blatantly syncretistic version of Christianity that I did not recognize as Christian at all. The lecture hall was filled with eager young Christian students hoping, I\u2019m sure, to be enlightened and inspired by this \u201cBuddhist Christian.\u201d I was shocked and left the event dismayed.<\/p>\n
*Sidebar: The opinions expressed here are my own (or those of the guest writer); I do not speak for any other person, group or organization; nor do I imply that the opinions expressed here reflect those of any other person, group or organization unless I say so specifically. Before commenting read the entire post and the \u201cNote to commenters\u201d at its end.*<\/em><\/p>\nOne element of the \u201cnarrative biblical metaphysic\u201d that I believe many, perhaps most modern American Christians have great difficulty with is the supernatural<\/em>. In The Essentials of Christian Thought<\/em> I do not shy away from it and even aver that it is essential to the Christian story and its underlying metaphysical vision of reality. I acknowledge in the book, of course, that the word \u201csupernatural\u201d is controversial and causes much confusion because popular culture\u2014at least in America\u2014has distorted and misused it to the point of making it almost useless\u2014for Christian philosophy and theology.<\/p>\nGo to almost any secular bookstore and you will find a section labeled either \u201cmetaphysical\u201d or \u201csupernatural.\u201d Both tend to mean \u201cesoteric\u201d and\/or \u201coccult.\u201d Americans have come to identify the word \u201csupernatural\u201d with anything occult, esoteric, mystical and most of it has little if anything to do with Christianity. Somehow we have handed over the word \u201csupernatural\u201d to things like the so-called New Age Movement or perhaps some versions of Christianity that specialize in manufactured miracles (e.g., \u201cleg lengthening\u201d or routine \u201cexorcisms\u201d even of born-again Christians who struggle with some besetting sin or psychological problem).<\/p>\n
In The Essentials of Christian Thought<\/em> I define \u201csupernatural\u201d differently. But this is nothing new; theology almost always uses words differently than they are used in popular culture and even in churches (where popular culture has largely determined the meanings).<\/p>\nHere is the definition I borrow from Cambridge University philosophical theologian John Oman (d. 1939): \u201cThe Supernatural means the world which manifests more than natural values, the world which has values which stir the sense of the holy and demand to be esteemed as sacred.\u201d Oman added that the supernatural is \u201cthe higher environment\u201d that provokes a sense of sacredness in all people, \u201cthe holy\u201d that grounds \u201cAll absoluteness, without which truth is mere useful information, morals mere expedient actions, beauty mere pleasing of the senses.\u201d For Oman all this \u201cis from the Supernatural.\u201d (The Natural and the Supernatural<\/em>, p. 71)<\/p>\nIn my opinion, following philosophers and theologians such as Thomas Reid and Horace Bushnell but also C. S. Lewis, the \u201csupernatural\u201d is not over against nature but intermingled with it. It is to nature what the mind is to the brain and the will is to the physical body. These are only analogies, of course, but they point to a dimension of reality that is not reducible to the natural and the material.<\/p>\n
With Bushnell I believe, and argue, that every act of genuine free will<\/em> is supernatural insofar as it is not caused or controlled by laws of nature alone. Denial of anything supernatural\u2014\u201cabove nature\u201d\u2014leads inevitably to determinism unless one simply chooses to believe in some kind of spontaneity within nature which is not the same as genuine free will. With the disappearance of genuine free will goes real responsibility and even evil itself.<\/p>\nNone of this directly addresses the questions of a \u201csupernatural world of spiritual beings\u201d or miracles, but it opens the door to answering them in a certain way\u2014as possible and even real.<\/p>\n
In sum, then, I could say that the word \u201csupernatural\u201d is, at least, a necessary way of naming a reality that is \u201cmore\u201d than the closed causal nexus of nature, \u201cmore\u201d than what science studies, \u201cmore\u201d than what we observe\u2014even if we do observe its effects (which I think we do in every act of genuine responsible free will).<\/p>\n
*Note to commenters:<\/em> This blog is not a discussion board; please respond with a question or comment solely to me. If you do not share my evangelical Christian perspective (very broadly defined), feel free to ask a question for clarification, but know that this is not a space for debating incommensurate perspectives\/worldviews. In any case, know that there is no guarantee that your question or comment will be posted by the moderator or answered by the writer. If you hope for your question or comment to appear here and be answered or responded to, make sure it is civil, respectful, and \u201con topic.\u201d Do not comment if you have not read the entire post and do not misrepresent what it says. Keep any comment (including questions) to minimal length; do not post essays, sermons or testimonies here. Do not post links to internet sites here. This is a space for expressions of the blogger\u2019s (or guest writers\u2019) opinions and constructive dialogue among evangelical Christians (very broadly defined).<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What Do I Mean by the \u201cSupernatural?\u201d My new book The Essentials of Christian Thought mentions throughout the necessity of the dimension of the \u201csupernatural\u201d for Christianity. To my way of thinking, a Christianity without the supernatural is not authentic. The book is an exposition of what I call \u201cnarrative biblical metaphysics\u201d\u2014an attempted archaeology of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n