What is Supernatural?

What is Supernatural?Merriam-Webster gives us: My experience has been that Creationists and ID proponents critisize science's strictly "materialistic" or "naturalistic" worldview.This is taken from Uncommon Descent, a well known ID blog: Of course we know what the dictionary definition is for supernatural, but I would like to discuss and examine a philisophical view of what it means for something to be supernatural. I'll give my two cents.It seems to me that we file all observed phenomena into two "filing cabnets", either cabnet "N" for natural or cabnet "S" for super Natural. Before the 18th century, and the practice of modern science, the two cabnets may have been more or less equal in terms of files. However, scientists began digging through the "S" cabnet and found that many phenomena were mistakenly observed as supernatural. We can use germ theory as an example; after germ theory became accepted the file "Pathologies" was stamped "natural" and moved to the N-Cabnet.But what criteria does our mind use to decide which phenomena get filed in which cabnet? The asnwer is predictability. If a phenomena becomes predictable, reliable, and constant, it is considered natural. We don't have to know exactly how something works to consider it natural so long as its predictable. Therefor, by definition, supernatural is a classification of phenomena for which no descernable pattern has been disovered. So, In the end, there is no "S-Cabnet"; it was conjured out of neccessity in order to explain the unexplainable, but now there is nothing unexplainable.This is the fundemental problem with the ID movement's attack on "materialism" or "naturalism" in science. They posit that science does not take into account the supernatural. ID proponents claim a degree of sophistication because they do take into account the supernatural, but how can science attempt to explain that which, by definition, is unexplainable?I hope that made sense,
Austin

I tend to Agree with Ibilis: Remember, we are tackling the definition of supernatural from an ID perspective. ID proponents assert that "materialist" science does not take into account the supernatural. This argument would be acceptable if ID was not claimed to be science. However, since ID proponents do claim ID to be science, then its arguments are subject to scientific scrutiny. Honostly, I think this is where they F themselves. In anycase, if ID proponents claim ID to be a legitimate science then they are also arguing that the supernatural is scientifically knowable. I guess I'm asserting that this position is contradictory. The supernatural by definition is the unknowable and therefor can not be scientifically studied. Furthermore, I argue that the supernatural is simpally a "filing cabnet" for phenomena until they can be tested, repeated, and described scientifically. At which point, the phenomena is then moved to the "natural" filing cabnet.-Austin

Again, I agree with you Ibilis.I really thing this is an interesting conversation and I'm glad to see others make the same arguments I have constructed in my own mind. I really do think "supernatural" is a concept created out of neccessity, but, in reality, has no meaning.Lets assume a Diety exists for a moment. When the Deity uses her devine power to cure a follower, for example, how does this work? Even if the healing mode of action is beyond this reality's laws, the mode of action must still conform to some law. If this is true, then the mode of action is scientifically knowable and thus not supernatural. Does this make sense? Or am I a complete nut?I guess then we could define supernatural as describing any phenomena that does not conform to a given reality's known laws.