43%
Confidence
Belief overview
Rejection of explanatory supernatural
Supernatural explanations are not accepted as necessary theoretical resource.
2
Supportive
2
Contrary
0
Neutral
What it is: Many forms of naturalism reject recourse to the supernatural as explanation of phenomena.
How the position understands it: Even when something is not yet fully understood, investigation should seek natural causes and mechanisms, not suspend analysis in supernatural entities.
Basis and context: This posture grew with confidence in scientific methods and critiques of explanations by miracle or invisible intervention.
Debates and variations: Some limit this to scientific method; others expand the rejection to the general metaphysical plane.
Documentary evidence
Supportive
Auguste Comte, Course of Positive Philosophy
The priority of positive and scientific knowledge.
Reference: Auguste Comte, Course of Positive Philosophy.
Content: Comte privileges positive and scientific explanations over traditional theological or metaphysical ultimate causes.
Use in debate: It is important for the valorization of empirical science and for criticism of the explanatory supernatural.
Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker
A naturalistic explanation of biological complexity.
Reference: Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker.
Content: Natural selection is presented as a mechanism capable of explaining complexity without an interventionist supernatural designer.
Use in debate: It is important for rejecting the explanatory supernatural in biology.
Contrary
C. S. Lewis, Miracles
A classic critique of closed naturalism.
Reference: C. S. Lewis, Miracles.
Content: Lewis argues that strict naturalism has difficulty grounding reason, freedom, and transcendence.
Use in debate: It is a classic critique of philosophical naturalism.
Romans 1:20
A passage used to defend a theistic reading of creation.
Reference: Romans 1:20.
Content: The text states that God's invisible attributes can be perceived in created things.
Use in debate: It is often used against forms of naturalism that dispense with reference to God.