Nature and Supernature

Big idea

Summary

Having argued that reason points to something beyond a purely Naturalist Nature, Lewis turns to what that 'something beyond' might be, and how it could relate to Nature at all. He first considers, and sets aside, more abstract candidates — an impersonal 'Absolute' or 'Ground of Being' of the kind found in some philosophies — on the grounds that such a Being, being static and impersonal, could not really originate the dynamic, active, willing kind of reason we actually find in ourselves. What is needed, Lewis argues, is a concrete, rational, active Spirit: in short, God, understood along fairly traditional theistic lines.

He then addresses the natural worry that any 'interference' by such a Being would violate Nature's own integrity, turning it into chaos. Lewis's answer is that God's relationship to Nature is better pictured as an artist's relation to the material he shapes, or a diver's relation to the water he enters, than as one billiard ball's relation to another it strikes. A miracle, on this picture, does not break Nature's laws so much as introduce a new event which those same laws then take up, absorb, and weave seamlessly into the ongoing fabric — much as new content introduced into a story is still developed according to the story's own grammar and logic from that point on.

Lewis closes the chapter by insisting that Nature, though dependent on something beyond herself, is not thereby made less real, less orderly, or less worth studying; the scientist's ordinary work continues unaffected. What changes is only the philosophical claim that Nature is the whole of reality with nothing behind or beyond her — a claim Lewis has now offered positive reason, not just logical possibility, to reject.

Key points

• An impersonal 'Absolute' or 'Ground of Being' cannot account for active, personal reason; what is needed is a concrete, rational, willing Spirit — God, in the traditional theistic sense.
• God's relation to Nature is better pictured as an artist shaping material, or a diver entering water, than as one physical object colliding with another.
• On this picture, a miracle does not wreck Nature's order; it introduces a new event which Nature's own laws then take up and weave into the ongoing pattern from that point forward.
• Accepting that Nature depends on something beyond herself does not make Nature less real or less worth studying scientifically; it only denies that Nature is the whole of reality.

Illustrations & analogies

• A diver entering a pool disturbs the water without ceasing to be himself or destroying the pool's own nature as water; likewise God's action within Nature does not have to erase Nature's own order to be real.
• An author is not one more character inside the story, yet nothing in the story happens without the author; this pictures how God can be the source of Nature's events without being simply one more event within Nature.

For reflection and discussion

1. How does picturing God as an artist entering his material, rather than a force colliding with another force, change the way you imagine a miracle actually happening?
2. Does accepting that Nature depends on something beyond itself threaten the value of ordinary scientific study, in your view? Why or why not?