Throughout all of recorded history, man has pondered the question of a god, or gods.  We have sought the supernatural and looked to it for answers to many of life’s mysteries.  The advance of science has progressively removed the credit that has historically been attributed to the supernatural and placed it in the realm of natural, explainable phenomena.

So where does that leave us as followers of Jesus?  Our foundational doctrines demand that we believe that the supernatural exists.  Some reject science in favor of faith.  Some just don’t deal with the questions that arise.

I intend to argue, from science, that the supernatural does exist.

I think the right way to start would be to first understand what is meant by the words “nature” and “supernatural”.

Nature:
I did a little research and found many different definitions of “nature” ranging from: “the material world, especially as surrounding humankind and existing independently of human activities” on one end of the range, to: “the entire universe with all its phenomena” on the other end.

Supernatural:
This one is a little easier once we agree on what “nature” is.  Webster defines it:
1: of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe; especially: of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil
2 a : departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature
b : attributed to an invisible agent (as a ghost or spirit)

I suspect those definitions added nothing to your understanding of those words, however it is important to have a frame of reference as we go forward.  It is also important to understand that words are a way to describe the things that exist so that we can communicate and think about them.  But the things themselves are not bound by the words we use to describe them.  There are physical things that exist that cannot be visualized or graphically comprehended (as I will explain below), but we know through other means that they exist.  In the same way, there are aspects of nature and the supernatural that go beyond the words we use to describe them.  I intend to blur the line between these two words.

Blurring the line:
Lets look at some natural things.  We’ll start with something simple like a rock.  A rock is very obviously something we would consider natural.  A geologist or paleontologist can give you all sorts of information about how it was formed, what minerals and other matter it contains, it’s history, etc.

Lets take a quantum leap forward and look at something much more complex, like a tree.  We need to employ much more science to understand what happens with a tree.  We can talk about it from biology, chemistry, physics, etc.  A tree is considered to be alive, so maybe even some philosophy is required.  Even still, we know quite a bit about trees and they still fall comfortably into our definition of nature.

Lets take another giant leap forward and look at gravity.  Is gravity natural?  General Relativity, which is all about gravity, is called the “the most tested theory in physics” (proven to beyond 15 decimal places).  We know a lot about gravity, yet it begins to take us into a somewhat metaphysical realm.  We know about gravity from its effects, but we can’t really touch or hold gravity itself.

One more giant leap, this one takes us to realms that we cannot observe. How do we know they exist if we cannot observe them?  This may stretch your brain a little, but read on and I’ll explain.  It’ll be fun.  An example of something that must exist, but cannot be directly observed, would be the extra dimensions predicted by string theory.  I’m not a physicist, but in my limited understanding I would explain it like this: Scientists have tried to unify the theories of general relativity and quantum mechanics and were not able to.  They began to add spatial dimensions and things began to come together mathematically.  It is now clear that there are at least 6 more spatial dimensions in addition to the 3 that our universe functions in.  In other words, it appeared that either general relativity was wrong, or quantum mechanics was wrong.  Since we know they are both necessary for our universe to exist as it does, they had to find out what was missing.  The extra dimensions were the answer, and they have now demonstrated those extra dimensions through other experiments, although there is still much to learn.  But we know they exist, and cannot visualize them.  Do you want to try?  Okay, you asked for it.  It may make your head hurt.  If you add only one dimension to the three we function in, you could turn a basketball inside out without puncturing it.  Can you visualize that?  Me neither.

Are these extra dimensions part of nature?  If we say, “yes” because they are testable and provable, then that implies that our ability to test something is the litmus test for what nature is, and that doesn’t seem to work because our ability to test is constantly increasing, and that would infer that nature is increasing with it.  According to our range of definitions above for “nature”, we would definitely have to say that they are not part of nature according to the first definition.  It seems they may fit into the second definition, however it is so broad that it seems to loose its meaning.  Essentially that definition means “everything”.  So, we will stick with the definitions more like the first one.  In that case, at least, I have successfully blurred the line separating nature from super-nature.  And it is possible (and more reasonable I think) that the answer is “no”, these extra dimensions are not part of nature.  They sure seem to fit the definition above for “supernatural”.  If that is the case, then I have sufficiently shown that there are things that exist that are supernatural.

In my next blog I will expand this train of thought and show, once again through science, that it is most reasonable to believe in not only the supernatural, but in a god of some sort.