History of The Supernatural

The category of the supernatural and its relation to cognitive sciences of religion and secularity.

Religions are associated with the supernatural while secularity is not. The American series, Supernatural, follows the “two brothers as they hunt demons, ghosts, monsters, and other supernatural beings”. In meta-ethics, theories of moral naturalism are often contrasted with supernatural foundations for morality i.e. Divine Command Theory. According to The Catholic Encyclopedia the supernatural is described as:

The Supernatural Order is the ensemble of effects exceeding the powers of the created world gratuitously produced by God for the purpose of raising the rational creature above its native sphere to a God-like life and destiny. The meaning of the phrase fluctuates with that of its antithesis, the natural order.

So with all these variegated uses, what does the term “supernatural” even refer to?

Just as the discursive category of religion is controversially applied to cultures that lack this explicit category, the same troubles belie the deployment of the category of the supernatural. So it is unsurprising that talk of the supernatural should crop up whenever the topic of religion surfaces. It is obvious—at least to anyone who is exposed to religiosity outside of a Euro-American setting—that religion is peculiar in being considered a distinct domain from categories such as culture, politics, and morality—collectively known as secularity. Scholar of religion, Daniel Boyarin makes an excellent case for why the religious/secular dichotomy should not be imposed on cultures which lack this division by tracing the history of how religion emerged as a discursive formation only in relation to secularity. But we won’t talk abou that today, instead we will be focusing on the work of another scholar of religion, the late Benson Saler, who directs our attention to another joint at which Westerners carve up reality in ways we take for granted: the natural/supernatural dichotomy.

Benson Saler was an anthropologist who critiqued the Western concept of the ‘supernatural’ and its application in the study of religion. He argued that the category of the supernatural is anachronistic, anatopistic, and anacultural—a product of a distinctly Western cultural and historical context and is not universally applicable or even meaningful in other cultural and historical settings. In arguing for his case, Saler takes a historical approach to outline the origins as well as the shifts in meaning that the term and referent of the ‘supernatural’ has undergone. In doing so, Saler makes salient the anachronism of the analytical category of the ‘supernatural’ for pre-modern Western cultures in a way that I intuit is true for contemporary non-Western ones.

supra natura

Many present-day Western academic scholars of religion misattribute “supernatural beliefs” to other human populations without considering whether such beliefs are actually regarded by them as “supernatural”. Alfred Irving Hallowell, claims that the Northern Ojibwa lack a category of the “natural” and hence can have no category of the “supernatural”. Lacking those categories, however, does not mean that they lack a theory of causation. They suppose some if not most causation is purposive: that whatever happens in the universe happens because of human or human-like will or purpose, not because of impersonal laws. Since they lack an explicit classificatory niche equivalent to our “supernatural”, according to Dale Martin, “the category of ‘the supernatural’ did not exist in ancient culture as a category.”

Indeed, supernatural is a Euro-American category in origin and development. Benson Saler warns against imposing a natural/supernatural opposition on the ideations of peoples who may not entertain that distinction. Natural is the quality or condition of pertaining to nature. But ontological conceptions of nature abound. Many a naturalist scientist presupposes nature as a realm governed by impersonal laws—a distinctly deteleologized conception of reality. The natural order is without purpose. Reality is ordered without reason. Philosopher Scott Sehon characterizes this type of naturalism as a causalist type of naturalism and contrasts this with a purpose-friendly naturalism he dubs teleological realism—an idea which has affinity with Aristotle’s concept of an inherent telos to existence. It is not obvious that cognitive science should privilege one of these sets of ontological notions over the other even though some ontological theorizations about nature must be inescapably presupposed.

Without going into the esoteric metaphysics, of it all, Saler leaves us with this sage advice on the supernatural: the category should be reserved for cases where a natural/supernatural opposition is actually entertained by the people studied.

The Ancient Greeks

Prior to Christianity, no such concept of supernatural creatures existed for the Greeks. There was no being that existed above or beyond nature. Even the gods of Olympus, immortal though they may be, were part of the natural order. The Greeks—save one exception—did not split reality into natural and supernatural. It was not until Thomas Aquinas (a towering figure in Christian theology) that the term supernaturalis becomes more widespread.

Instead, in the ancient Greek records, we find a variety of entities such as gods, spirits, ghosts, prodigies, monsters, oracles and mysterious events and forces which we would—from our modern secular sensibilities—count as supernatural. However, did the ancient Greeks actually see these beings as supernatural?

In order to understand how our notion of the supernatural emerged, we must understand how the ancient Greeks understand their natural world and what it consists of. Phúsis or nature in ancient Greek is a view of reality in which beings like the gods are not excluded. The Greeks—with one and only one exception—did not share in our understanding of a category of the supernatural (hyper phúsis) as something existing ‘beyond’ or ‘above’ the natural order. The Greek gods were not thought of as acting ‘above’ nature but rather in accordance with it. Here, it is worth contrasting that our view of nature which excludes actions of the divine with the Greek view of nature which is more all-encompassing of their deities actions. Anthropomorphic gods—Zeus, Athena, and so on—are often collectively referred to as hoi athanatoi (the deathless ones). Deathless and immortal, yes; but not supernatural. Nevertheless, these hoi athanatoi were natural beings who existed in accordance with the same natural laws that governed humans. Regardless of how the ancient Greeks actually classified their gods, however, contemporary Euro-Americans may term those gods “supernatural” as a result of entertaining an untested generalization: that most gods in most religions are “supernatural”. So if the ancient Greeks lacked a category of the supernatural, then where did it come from?

Thomas Aquinas

It is hard to overstate the influence that St Thomas Aquinas has had on the entirety of Western culture. Therefore, no historicization of the concept of the ‘supernatural’ is complete without him. However, even Thomas uses the term supernaturalis to refer to a narrower concept of the supernatural than we would. For Aquinas, only God is beyond nature, thus, the supernatural is reserved only for God. Thomas would perhaps be shocked by the American television series “Supernatural” where a large diversity of sentient and non-sentient objects that have nothing to do with God are credited with supernatural powers and identities. This exclusively theistic conception of the supernatural contrasts with non-theistic meanings of the supernatural which we are perhaps more familiar with.

Magical or demonic creatures did not have supernatural powers according to Aquinas, instead their power was effected “through some forces of natural things, although hidden from us, such as the miracles of demons, which are performed by magic arts”. The demonic and the magical should be categorized as natural rather than supernatural according to Thomas. Stuart Clark in his work Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (1997) asserts that demonology was believed by early modern Europeans to be a form of natural knowledge and that it is a mistake to associate the witchcraft beliefs of early modern Europeans with “supernaturalism”.

Five uses of the term Supernatural by Aquinas

Thomas uses the term ‘supernatural’ only 336 times in his entire corpus, or on average once in every twenty-six thousand words. Aquinas deploys the term ‘supernatural’ in one of five ways: he uses it to refer to causes or ends that are determined by God.

The first instance of the term ‘supernatural’ in Thomas’ work has to do with the generation and nature of Christ, who, according to faith, was both divine and human. In Christ’s conception, Thomas distinguishes a supernatural mode, in which Christ was begotten by “the supernatural power of God” in contrast to a natural mode according to which “the matter from which Christ’s body was conceived is similar to the matter which other women supply for the conception of their offspring”. The second use of ‘supernatural’ has to do with the Eucharist, in which bread is changed into the body of Christ. “This change”, Thomas says, “is not like natural changes, but is entirely supernatural, and effected by God’s power alone.” The changing of bread into the body of Christ is not a mere transformation but a transubstantiation—one whole substance is changed into another whole substance without a change in form. Since this change is caused by God, it is said to be a supernatural change. The third topic is that of grace. Thomas calls grace “a supernatural gift”. To have God’s grace is to be subject to the effects of God’s gratuitous will. ‘Gratuitous’ here maintains the double meaning of pertaining to grace and being beyond necessity. Grace, in other words is a supererogatory gift that comes from a supernatural source: God. This can happen, says Thomas, in two ways. God can cause a human being to act in a certain way, or God can infuse habits in people that allow them to pursue and to achieve supernatural goods, especially eternal life. The infused habits are explained by a supernatural cause: divine grace. The purpose of this grace is twofold: first, to heal the corruption of nature through sin; and second, to allow actions that exceed nature, such as love of God, and so to gain supernatural merit. Therefore, ‘supernatural’ also refers to an end which is eternal life; in this way, the ‘supernatural’ is also a teleological concept. Thirdly, Aquinas takes prophecy as a gift of the Holy Spirit promised in the New Testament. He defines prophecy as “a kind of supernatural knowledge” of things “far away” and thereby “far beyond our ordinary knowledge”. It applies to “all those things the knowledge of which can be useful for salvation […] whether they are past, or future, or even eternal, or necessary, or contingent”. In other words, supernatural knowledge is soteriological (pertaining to the purpose of salvation) knowledge that is acquired through the Holy Spirit. Supernatural knowledge originates from the Holy Spirit and serves the purpose of salvation. Fourthly, Aquinas uses the term ‘supernatural’ to describe miracles. He defines miracles as “works done by God outside the order usually observed in things”. Miracles, although may be effected through intermediaries, are done by the power of God alone. The purpose of miracles is to confirm the Word and to make it credible through sensible effects.

Thomas uses the concept of the supernatural to explain a number of Christian beliefs. The category of the supernatural is useful for explaining the specific miracle of Christ’s virgin birth specifically but also extends this to explain the origins of miracles more generally. It is invoked to explain and properly interpret the doctrine of the transubstantiation of wine and bread into the blood and body of Christ. The supernatural is used to justify the authority of epistemic practices such as prophecy. And finally, supernatural is used to describe ends that are decided by God; in other words divinely ordained teleology.

The Greek Exception: Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover

Now, the Greeks did have one exception. That exception was the First Mover in Aristotelian philosophy. Unlike the gods of Olympus, the First Mover exists above and beyond nature. The First Mover is supernatural. In order to appreciate the supernaturalness of the First Mover, we must first understand that Aristotle’s theory of nature is fundamentally a theory of motion. Nature is the source of the movement of all natural things. Aristotle wants to account for all motion in the universe, including potentiality becoming actuality, and to do so by avoiding infinite regress. He attempts to do so by postulating a mover that is outside of the natural order, the order of things that actually or potentially move. That outsider inspires movement but is itself unmoved. Here is the only instance of something being considered supernatural in Aristotelian worldview. The natural order is another way of referring to the laws of nature. A model of cause and effect that may be considered normal according to our expectations of the world. Aristotle recognized only one entity that could transcend the laws of nature which is the Unmoved Mover itself. It is this notion of a primum movens (first mover) that would later become the basis of Thomas Aquinas’ understanding of the supernatural. All five uses of the term supernatural by Aquinas can be seen as a reworking of Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover. Aquinas not only borrows the notion of the Unmoved Mover from Aristotle, he also incorporates Aristotle’s theory of explanations —the four aitia—into his own theory of explanation—the four causa. According to Aquinas, the First Mover is identified with the Christian God. The Christian God is seen as the first cause but also the final cause of all existence. The First Mover was therefore, reworked in Thomist theology to provide a teleological explanation for the five things that needed supernatural explanation in Christian worldview. Note that the term final cause is less confusing if you understand it to mean teleological explanation and first cause to mean (antecedently) causal explanation.

According to Thomistic teleology, every agent acts for an end; and that every created being is ordered to one end, which is God. In humans, this purpose is called “man’s last end” or “the nature of ultimate happiness” or “man’s supernatural end”. Thomas further claims that there is a natural desire in all human beings to know causes. This desire will not be satisfied until it finds the first cause, which is God. Thomas associates this view with that of Aristotle’s telos in Ethics X.

Since all agents have god as their supernatural end, the venn diagram of teleological explanations and supernatural explanations was effectively a circle from the time of Aquinas. In taking over and reinterpreting Aristotle’s four aitia, Thomas recast explanations in Christian philosophy in such a way that supernaturalized all teleological explanations. So, insofar as the category of the supernatural is a concept we inherited from Thomists, there is a sense of the term that excludes things like vampires and werewolves but includes things like purpose and functions. During the positivist revolution, nature became desupernatulized. But in throwing out the bathwater of supernatural explanation, the baby of teleological explanation was consigned into the dustbin of superstition as well. This will be relevant to our discussion of CSR and its treatments of purpose, agency and the supernatural.

supernatural agents

Earlier, I noted that the supernatural is a Euro-American category in origin and development and invoke Benson Saler warning against imposing a natural/supernatural opposition on the ideations of peoples who may not entertain that distinction.

In the cognitive science of religion, it is rare to see such warnings cited, let alone discussed. The term “natural” is often strongly foregrounded with very little attention paid to the causalist versus purposivist distinctions of naturalism. The term “supernatural agents” is sometimes employed in CSR as a gloss for for “unreal”. It is typically applied to imaginary entities or forces that combine intuitive and counterintuitive elements, the latter denoting what modern Westerners take to be supernatural (Barrett 2011; Boyer, 2001; van Leeuwen, 2009).

the invisible hand

Boyer makes the postulation of supernatural agents central to his conceptualization of religion. These agents are claimed to conform to intuitive ontologies and expectations (Boyer 2001). Supernatural agents, Boyer writes, are “defined as violations of intuitions about agents”. However he fails to register that intuitions about agency differ between cultures. For instance, secular versions of supernatural agents such as the invisible hand of markets, corporate personhood, and the notion of an oft-anthropomorphized nature doing a selecting of the fittest members of a species to survive, all represent forms of agency that are not cross-culturally intuitive. Therefore, the question of why these forms of agency are considered natural while other sorts of agents which are not considered supernatural by non-Western peoples points to an inconsistency. Furthermore, agency is also conceived of differently. Non-Western as well as pre-modern cultures may hold different presuppositions in how agency relates to intentions, purpose, and teleology. These distinctions in how agency are conceptualized often go unremarked in CSR treatments of supernatural agents.

Conclusion

Scholars of religions such as Boyarin and Saler stress the need for anthropologists and scholars of religion to approach their studies with cultural sensitivity and to avoid imposing Western categories onto non-Western contexts. Saler argued that the term "supernatural" can be problematic because it tends to position non-Western beliefs and practices as "other" or "exotic," and it may not accurately capture the complex ways in which people from various cultures understand and engage with the sacred or spiritual dimensions of life. Therefore, the term supernatural should only be applied after a correct assessment of the ontological presuppositions of a given culture match the descriptions that the category of the supernatural entail.