Natural or supernatural event?
In several of the biblical stories, we modern readers, want to know whether an event was a natural or supernatural one. For many, if they can find a ‘natural’ explanation, it allows them to dismiss the Bible’s claim that God has acted. Others are reassured if science can back the Bible up because then its events cannot be dismissed so easily as a superstitious account of gullible people. On the flipside of the same coin, yet others want to emphasise the supernatural aspect in the events of the Bible because they feel that God’s power is called into doubt if the event can be scientifically accounted for.
Underlying all of these positions is a basic assumption that those of us in the West have grown up with, a view that developed in the Enlightenment period from about the 18th century onward. Namely, we divide the world implicitly into two spheres: the natural world governed by scientific laws and the supernatural world that is the domain of God, angels, demons and the like. In other words, behind the inquiry about the natural/supernatural is the question of God’s involvement. This kind of thinking assumes that the natural world is self-contained and happily operates without interference from the ‘supernatural’. Therefore, if something can be explained by science, it has nothing to do with God. He then becomes the explanation for anything that we otherwise cannot understand, i.e. He becomes ‘the God of the gaps’ (in our knowledge). The trouble is that the more we discover about how the material world works, the less we need God as an explanation, until He mostly disappears from view!
It is important to remember that this split perspective of the world is faulty. God has created everything, including the natural world, and has established the rules that govern its workings. Neither did God remove Himself from the physical world. This is in contrast to the view that God is like a clockmaker who sets the universe in motion but retires and lets it operate itself with the occasional divine ‘inbreaking’ to make some corrections. Rather, the biblical perspective is that God continues to be present in His creation and continuously upholds and sustains the world by His power (Acts 17:25, 28; Col 1:17; Heb 1:3). Seen this way, the question about natural or supernatural makes little sense. God operates through the natural processes that He has created just as much as through ways that we cannot scientifically explain and neither possibility increases or diminishes His power.
It is difficult for us, of course, to get away from the way of seeing the world that is so ingrained in our cultures, so I do occasionally comment on this in connection with stories that seem ‘supernatural’ to us. However, it is important to affirm that whether events look ‘supernatural’ or ‘natural’, God is actively involved in the world. Perhaps one area where we are able to hold these two together is the miracle of babies. We recognise the physical processes involved in conception yet can affirm that God has created us. It is this recognition of both-and perspectives and a wonder about the mystery and intricacy of the world God has created that we need to cultivate.
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