Not sure what you mean by "make empirical use of". I guess what I'm asking is whether there are mutually coherent and consistent definitions for 'physical', 'natural', 'exist', 'real', and 'supernatural'.
ISTM that what is real is what exists; what is physical is what has material reality (as opposed to being conceptual or abstract); what is natural is the physical world (in this context)... but I don't see how or where 'supernatural' fits in, beyond conceptual or abstract existence.
Well, there's math. It has material representations, but not material reality. There're many unfalsifiable things we count on every day. But, true, those are not what you mean to talk about by 'supernatural'.
But a sort of a parallel is seen in our descriptions of quantum physics, where we sound more philosophical than scientific, but insist it is scientific. If the claims are in fact valid, then what is conceptual and abstract is valid. And again, granted, I don't put those on the same level with what we are talking about, so maybe this isn't fair.
I'm a bit hamstrung in my arguments because something that I think is altogether valid, I can't prove to someone who claims to need empirical proof. To me, the empirical evidence of the fact that there IS fact, and existence, is proof of God, through the simple logic I tried to describe below, and several other ways, but I am told repeatedly that if they are sufficiently explained by naturalism, (and apparently they are happy with that for absolute origin), there is no need for a supernatural explanation. So they like infinite regression and I like first cause.
Mark Quayle said:
One of the simplest logics is that everything we see came from something else. While it may be an awkward way to put it, that something else is therefore more REAL than what we see.
I don't think this is a useful or coherent idea - unless you think your parents are more real than you, a house is less real than the concrete and bricks that made it, and uranium is more real than lead... But perhaps I misunderstand what you meant?
I continued the point below, in the two categories —what IS and what is BECOMING. Many things that are becoming come from other things that are also becoming, but in the long run it all begins with what is not Becoming, but IS. This ("IS") may sound like stasis, but it is the only source of NEW. This "IS" can be the only brute fact, therefore of a reality beyond what we are familiar with.
So, to me, anyway, this first cause, that IS, is the default fact, and as a result, our very thoughts are subject to its causation, whether they result from concepts or empiricism. And this, to me, at least, demonstrates a similarity between what what we see and what we don't see. It all comes from God. God need not be measured by us. It is we who are measured. We like "objective existence", but we are not the only ones looking. I can imagine angels having the discussion of whether the universe, and particularly, humanity, exists!
Mark Quayle said:
The fact it is not based on our notion of reality (empirical, or, falsifiable) doesn't mean it is less real, or, at least, less "fact".
So what is this reality that is not based on our notion of reality? What does that even mean?
It sounds like a contradiction - our notion of reality defines what we call real. Can you give a coherent definition of what you think our notion of reality ought to be?
The fact we call something real doesn't make it real. It only means we think it is. It is real TO US. But there is more than just us, to observe fact, if there is this default self-existent First Cause, and its view of fact is more full and accurate.
Mark Quayle said:
I'm not going to spend time here defending the idea that everything we see came from something else, except to mention that "Everything that is BECOMING, comes from something that IS."
That's not at issue here.
I think it is very much at issue.
Physical influence implies physical existence, i.e. material reality.
That can't be proven. But we trust and use it for fact every day. But we have no explanation for existence. We don't know why it is trustworthy fact.
I don't recall suggesting that - there are plenty of unusual things that I consider to be natural, i.e. part of the physical world. My point is that 'supernatural' or 'beyond natural' seems to me ill-defined, incoherent, and unsupported.
I don't mean that "unusual" implies supernatural, but that, if God (first cause) exists, then whether supernatural or material, the separation seems to me to be a point-of-view thing —our categorization— but both being of one source makes them both natural, or if you wish to say that all that descends causally from first cause is supernatural, then everything is supernatural. I'm just saying that where what we call supernatural intrudes on what we call natural, which intrusion we call 'miracle' or such, maybe is only SEEN as such by us, but in fact is more accurately merely unusual.