Proof that the supernatural exists

[duordi]

Natural laws are physical laws that are understood.
Supernatural laws are laws which are not understood.

As an example:

Suppose you were introduced to someone called Fred.
Fred lived his life in a remote area and has never seen a match before.
A simple demonstration awes Fred as the match bursts into flame.
Because the match is not understood by Fred, to Fred the match seems like magic, it seems illogical.

To Fred the match is supernatural.

We send Fred to school and he learns about chemistry and eventually Fred becomes an explosive expert.
The match is no longer magic, illogical or supernatural for Fred.

To Fred the match changed from Illogical and magic to logical and predictable following orderly principles.

For Fred the match follows natural laws and is no longer supernatural.

Everything that happens is governed by natural laws.

For God there is no supernatural law because God knows everything and to God all laws are natural laws that are explainable predictable and logical.

Refusal to accept that super natural laws exist is an arrogant clam that an individual is like God and knows everything.

Each generation clams “nothing exists that is supernatural” and then proves the previous generations identical calm was false by discovering new natural laws that govern previously unknown sciences.

Duane

 

[Dark_Lite]

Numerous problems with this:

Natural laws are physical laws that are understood.
Supernatural laws are laws which are not understood.

Completely incorrect. Aside from it being impossible to make this statement as an absolute "all-cases" statement, these definitions do not stay true to the definitions of the words. Supernatural, in the context of theology, is used to describe something that is transcendent and beyond the natural world. Just because you don't understand something does not mean it is beyond the natural world.

You then base your entire argument on subjective experience. Logic is not subjective. It is absolute in all cases.

 

[duordi]

Completely incorrect. Aside from it being impossible to make this statement as an absolute "all-cases" statement,

What rule says that I can not do this?
It works as far as I can test it, and you can not prove it wrong any more then I can prove it right?
I can prove the supernatural laws ( unknown laws ) exist and are defined to become natural laws continually.
Based on this trend I can state this is always the case.

these definitions do not stay true to the definitions of the words. Supernatural, in the context of theology, is used to describe something that is transcendent and beyond the natural world.

How do you define beyond the natural world? There are only two categories we place occurrences in the natural or the supernatural. The natural world is the part you understand, can predict or control. Anything remaining must be supernatural by default.

If you are saying the the supernatural must always be supernatural and never can never be understood as part of the natural world by someone then you are saying that because you do not understand it that it can never be understood.

Duane

 

[That Canadian Guy]

Natural laws are physical laws that are understood.
Supernatural laws are laws which are not understood.

As an example:

Suppose you were introduced to someone called Fred.
Fred lived his life in a remote area and has never seen a match before.
A simple demonstration awes Fred as the match bursts into flame.
Because the match is not understood by Fred, to Fred the match seems like magic, it seems illogical.

To Fred the match is supernatural.

We send Fred to school and he learns about chemistry and eventually Fred becomes an explosive expert.
The match is no longer magic, illogical or supernatural for Fred.

To Fred the match changed from Illogical and magic to logical and predictable following orderly principles.

For Fred the match follows natural laws and is no longer supernatural.

Everything that happens is governed by natural laws.

For God there is no supernatural law because God knows everything and to God all laws are natural laws that are explainable predictable and logical.

Refusal to accept that super natural laws exist is an arrogant clam that an individual is like God and knows everything.

Each generation clams “nothing exists that is supernatural” and then proves the previous generations identical calm was false by discovering new natural laws that govern previously unknown sciences.

Duane

I love this post, great stuff

One must wonder why the super natural needs to be proven on christianforums.com, however

 

[shernren]

But if you define "the natural" as "stuff we understand", the moment we understood anything "supernatural" it would de facto cease to be supernatural.

 

[philadiddle]

Natural laws are physical laws that are understood.
Supernatural laws are laws which are not understood.

So since we don't completely understand why gravity is a weak force in physics does that means it is supernatural?

 

[duordi]

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shernren

But if you define "the natural" as "stuff we understand", the moment we understood anything "supernatural" it would de facto cease to be supernatural.
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You are getting it.
God is all knowing so for God there is no supernatural. Everything is logical predictable and orderly. For God only natural laws exist.

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philadiddle

So since we don't completely understand why gravity is a weak force in physics does that means it is supernatural?
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We can't group things together but must only go as far as our knowledge does.

We understand how gravity works ( It is predictable ). The part we understand would be defined by Einstein's laws which are natural laws.

What causes gravity? Curved space is undefined ( magic ). It is obviously "something" as opposed to "nothing" because space has different properties in different places. At the same time we can not explain what gravity is or all of the methods which may be used to modify gravity.

Suppose someone was able to determine the properties of space and because of their understanding were able to manipulate gravity easily.

Turning gravity on and off would allow an infinite source of electrical power with no fuel source. By causing the right half of a generator to experience gravity and the left half to experience no gravity the generator would turn with no fuel.

Cars, bussed and trains by manipulating gravitational force to be in the direction you wish to move, would cause the vehicle to "fall" toward any direction you wished to go using no fuel.

This would all be supernatural to us by definition. I would expect that understanding will come on this subject and as soon as it does it will be part of the natural laws. Of course I do not know if my suggestions are possible because I do not understand space.

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Guy

I love this post, great stuff

One must wonder why the super natural needs to be proven on christianforums.com, however
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Interesting question.
I have had several discussions about the supernatural on the forum but without a definition it is impossible to prove it exists or talk about it.

After several failed tries the definition for supernatural in the first post was developed.

The interesting thing is to look at some the the unexpected results of the definition.

1. For God the supernatural does not exist.
2. To say the supernatural does not exist is equivalent to saying you are God.
3. I can determine what is supernatural and what is not supernatural.
4. The same item may follow supernatural laws for one individual and follow natural laws for another depending on their knowledge base.
5. Because supernatural laws become natural laws without modification we can know supernatural laws are as logical, predictable, and orderly as natural laws are.
6. We will never be all knowing and therefore the supernatural will always exist for us.
7. If the universe is remade then the supernatural laws must change with the natural laws.
8. If you feel comfortable with asking God to handle manipulation of the supernatural it is possible to change something without understanding it by understanding a "higher law". God cares about me and is willing to modify his universe for my benefit.
( My definition may fall apart here, what do you think?)


So which of these items are surprising or unacceptable, or need more discussion.

Feel free to add to the above list as I have not thought through all of the ramifications yet.

Duane

 

[philadiddle]

It seems to me that rather than trying show that the supernatural exists in the traditional sense that it is understood, you are simply trying to redefine supernatural so that it has to be a part of this natural universe, and therefore exists. Of course, that contradicts what is meant by supernatural so you are really just playing a word game here. Stick with it if you want, but you will never get anywhere with this as a witnessing tool.

 

[duordi]

No fair sending a statement like that and quitting.

So what is your definition of supernatural that is so much better and how will your definition convert souls?

How am I contradicting the "traditional" definition?

Duane

 

[Mr.Waffles]

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shernren

But if you define "the natural" as "stuff we understand", the moment we understood anything "supernatural" it would de facto cease to be supernatural.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You are getting it.
God is all knowing so for God there is no supernatural. Everything is logical predictable and orderly. For God only natural laws exist.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
philadiddle

So since we don't completely understand why gravity is a weak force in physics does that means it is supernatural?
---------------------------------------------------------------------

We can't group things together but must only go as far as our knowledge does.

We understand how gravity works ( It is predictable ). The part we understand would be defined by Einstein's laws which are natural laws.

What causes gravity? Curved space is undefined ( magic ). It is obviously "something" as opposed to "nothing" because space has different properties in different places. At the same time we can not explain what gravity is or all of the methods which may be used to modify gravity.

Suppose someone was able to determine the properties of space and because of their understanding were able to manipulate gravity easily.

Turning gravity on and off would allow an infinite source of electrical power with no fuel source. By causing the right half of a generator to experience gravity and the left half to experience no gravity the generator would turn with no fuel.

Cars, bussed and trains by manipulating gravitational force to be in the direction you wish to move, would cause the vehicle to "fall" toward any direction you wished to go using no fuel.

This would all be supernatural to us by definition. I would expect that understanding will come on this subject and as soon as it does it will be part of the natural laws. Of course I do not know if my suggestions are possible because I do not understand space.

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Guy

I love this post, great stuff

One must wonder why the super natural needs to be proven on christianforums.com, however
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Interesting question.
I have had several discussions about the supernatural on the forum but without a definition it is impossible to prove it exists or talk about it.

After several failed tries the definition for supernatural in the first post was developed.

The interesting thing is to look at some the the unexpected results of the definition.

1. For God the supernatural does not exist.
2. To say the supernatural does not exist is equivalent to saying you are God.
3. I can determine what is supernatural and what is not supernatural.
4. The same item may follow supernatural laws for one individual and follow natural laws for another depending on their knowledge base.
5. Because supernatural laws become natural laws without modification we can know supernatural laws are as logical, predictable, and orderly as natural laws are.
6. We will never be all knowing and therefore the supernatural will always exist for us.
7. If the universe is remade then the supernatural laws must change with the natural laws.
8. If you feel comfortable with asking God to handle manipulation of the supernatural it is possible to change something without understanding it by understanding a "higher law". God cares about me and is willing to modify his universe for my benefit.
( My definition may fall apart here, what do you think?)


So which of these items are surprising or unacceptable, or need more discussion.

Feel free to add to the above list as I have not thought through all of the ramifications yet.

Duane

Super-natural is simply a default term used to reference that which is above or transcends the natural. If you cannot understand this premise, how can you claim to be saved, or even know who God is at all? That was my point.

 

[philadiddle]

No fair sending a statement like that and quitting.

So what is your definition of supernatural that is so much better and how will your definition convert souls?

How am I contradicting the "traditional" definition?

Duane

The supernatural or supranatural (Latin: super, supra "above" + natura "nature") is anything above or beyond what one holds to be natural or exists outside natural law and the Observable universe.
-wikipedia

That is what people understand supernatural to mean. You are saying that even natural parts of the observable universe are supernatural if we don't understand them. That is simply incorrect, nobody will accept your argument because you have redefined "supernatural" in order to make it have to exist as part of the natural world.

 

[duordi]

I agree so did you have any problems with the eight conclsions listed in my post repeated below.

1. For God the supernatural does not exist.
2. To say the supernatural does not exist is equivalent to saying you are God.
3. I can determine what is supernatural and what is not supernatural.
4. The same item may follow supernatural laws for one individual and follow natural laws for another depending on their knowledge base.
5. Because supernatural laws become natural laws without modification we can know supernatural laws are as logical, predictable, and orderly as natural laws are.
6. We will never be all knowing and therefore the supernatural will always exist for us.
7. If the universe is remade then the supernatural laws must change with the natural laws.
8. If you feel comfortable with asking God to handle manipulation of the supernatural it is possible to change something without understanding it by understanding a "higher law". God cares about me and is willing to modify his universe for my benefit.
( My definition may fall apart here, what do you think?)

Duane

 

[duordi]

My point was that as we discover things we take something that was supernatural "outside the natural laws" and include it as part of the natural laws.

If you define supernatural as something that will never be understood what do I call all of the things which will be understood but are not understood yet?

Are you saying we need another term?

Duane

 

[philadiddle]

I agree so did you have any problems with the eight conclsions listed in my post repeated below.

1. For God the supernatural does not exist.

If God exists then something outside this physical universe exists, and since by definition that is what supernatural is, then the supernatural exists for God.

2. To say the supernatural does not exist is equivalent to saying you are God.

No, it means you don't believe in anything beyond this physical universe, that's all.

3. I can determine what is supernatural and what is not supernatural.

Based on a false definition?

4. The same item may follow supernatural laws for one individual and follow natural laws for another depending on their knowledge base.

Like I said, you are just playing with semantics. The world may seem less supernatural to us than to the ancient greeks, but it's still the same, our understanding changed, not the amount of supernatural occurrences in the world.

5. Because supernatural laws become natural laws without modification we can know supernatural laws are as logical, predictable, and orderly as natural laws are.

Again, this is based on a misunderstanding of what supernatural means.

6. We will never be all knowing and therefore the supernatural will always exist for us.

Sigh...

7. If the universe is remade then the supernatural laws must change with the natural laws.

This doesn't mean anything.

8. If you feel comfortable with asking God to handle manipulation of the supernatural it is possible to change something without understanding it by understanding a "higher law". God cares about me and is willing to modify his universe for my benefit.

Not quite sure if this is an argument or if it is supposed to follow from the other points but it seems to be its own thing...I'm not sure what your point is.

 

[philadiddle]

If you define supernatural as something that will never be understood what do I call all of the things which will be understood but are not understood yet?

I wouldn't define the supernatural simply as something that won't be understood. We may never fully understand quantum mechanics, but that doesn't make it supernatural.

And to answer the question, if something will be understood that we don't currently understand that is a part of this universe then it is a natural phenomenon. If we will somehow understand something that is currently not understood that is not a part of this universe then it is supernatural.

The meaning of the word "supernatural" doesn't hinge on whether or not we understand it, it hinges on whether it is a part of the natural universe or not.

 

[duordi]

Thanks for the honest response.
Looks like you disagree with just about everything because you reject the definition.

Care to submit a definition of your own?

Duane

 

[duordi]

philadiddle
And to answer the question, if something will be understood that we don't currently understand that is a part of this universe then it is a natural phenomenon.

If we will somehow understand something that is currently not understood that is not a part of this universe then it is supernatural.
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If you read the first post about Fred it is clear that supernatural is a perception that Fred has. It is not a Bible term. No where does the Bible say God did this supernaturally or this is supernatural to God.

You are trying to force an absolute definition based on your perception on everyone else.

What if "Fred" my example from the first post said the illogical event of the match lighting is supernatural to him so it must be supernatural to everyone and the cause of the match lighting is not part of this universe because it seems that way for him.

Fred's error is that Fred thinks the universe must be defined from his perspective alone.

Even Fred will change his mind about the match as he learns about it.

An absolute definition for supernatural does not logically hold for two people with different intelligences.

There can be no supernatural to God because God understands everything. There is no magic match that can mystify God. Which universe it is in is unimportant.

Thank you for your posts.
Although we do not agree on many things it has been fun to compare notes.

Duane

 

[philadiddle]

Thanks for the honest response.
Looks like you disagree with just about everything because you reject the definition.

Care to submit a definition of your own?

Duane

I did submit the proper definition in post #11. You can also look it up in the many online dictionaries to confirm that that is the correct definition. I'm not gonna go any further with this though, if you want to stick to playing semantic games you are free to do so. If you want to ignore the meaning of a word and you want to give it your own meaning then you are free to do so. Just don't expect to get anywhere in a conversation with anyone while you do this.

 

[lucaspa]

Natural laws are physical laws that are understood.
Supernatural laws are laws which are not understood.

The premise here is wrong. What you have done is base "supernatural" entirely on the fallacy of the Argument from Ignorance.

But we don't use "supernatural" that way. Something that is "supernatural" is beyond "physical laws". Also, "physical laws" represent things that regularly happen within the physical universe.

When we reference supernatural, we are referring to something that is not bound to the physical universe nor is consistent with the regularly happening "physical laws". Creation ex nihilo is an example. In this case there are no "physical laws" because there is no physical universe yet.

What you have done is semantic slight of hand. If your physical abilities are equal to your verbal abilities, you should be able to run a profitable shell game.

 

[lucaspa]

I agree so did you have any problems with the eight conclsions listed in my post repeated below.

1. For God the supernatural does not exist.

Again, based on the fallacy of the Argument from Ignorance. God knows what operates within the physical universe. When He does something that does not use those processes, for God it is still supernatural. It's just that He is able to do it and we can't.

3. I can determine what is supernatural and what is not supernatural.

That is possible, BUT it is also possible under the definition Philadiddle provided.

4. The same item may follow supernatural laws for one individual and follow natural laws for another depending on their knowledge base.

And right here you explicitly state that "supernatural" is just the Argument from Ignorance. And that's the flaw in your premise.

5. Because supernatural laws become natural laws without modification we can know supernatural laws are as logical, predictable, and orderly as natural laws are.

This contradicts with #1. Because supernatural laws depend upon the will of God, they would not be predictable for us. Why? Because God is not predictable.

6. We will never be all knowing and therefore the supernatural will always exist for us.

LOL! That's a non-sequitor. Why do you think we can't accumulate enough knowledge to understand the supernatural?