Natural v. Supernatural

Space Trilogy (2) 

November 15, 2016 

“The distinction between natural and supernatural, in fact, broke down; and when it had done so, one realized how great a comfort it had been – how it had eased the burden of intolerable strangeness which this universe imposes on us by dividing it into two halves and encouraging the mind never to think of both in the same context. What price we may have paid for this comfort in the way of false security and accepted confusion of thought is another matter.” – Perelandra, p.11

The difference between the natural and the supernatural at first glance seems to be a clear one. The natural is the concrete while the supernatural is the abstract. Natural is factual while supernatural requires a faith or belief. Natural is human while supernatural is somehow superhuman. In Miracles, Lewis writes about the distinction between the natural and the supernatural claiming that a miracle is when the supernatural interferes with the natural. The common example of this being, of course, the resurrection of Jesus – it is unnatural for man to be dead for three days and then to come back to life, resurrecting bodily. What I find is interesting is that Lewis distinguishes between naturalists, who believe that nothing exists except nature, and supernaturalists, who believe in the existence of “something else.” This is a way of life, this breakdown between the supernatural and the natural. There is neatness in dividing the supernatural and natural into two halves of existence but perhaps they are two overlaying wholes, completely interwoven, in the same way that the heart and mind are interwoven. The conclusion about a supernatural God that is drawn from this is that he is consistently displaying himself in the natural, both human beings and the world, as supernatural, as holy, as able to break the laws of nature because he created the laws of nature.