Praeternatural: why we need to resurrect an old word

13/09/2025

Naturalism (or “metaphysical naturalism”) is a metaphysical view that everything happening in reality can be reduced to (or explained in terms of) the laws of nature (including laws we are yet to discover). Naturalism is logically entailed by materialism (all materialists are naturalists) but the reverse is not true (some naturalists aren’t materialists). If the material world is the only thing that exists, then there is no theoretical or conceptual space for anything else that could affect it (an agent of free will, for example, or God) so naturalism is logically entailed. Naturalism differs from determinism in that it can accommodate objective randomness – the future does not have to be fully determined, but anything not determined must be random (really random in every case, not just apparently so or only in some cases).     

Some people use the terms “laws of physics” and “laws of nature” interchangeably, but they have slightly different meanings. The meaning of “laws of physics” is straightforward enough. “Laws of nature” is broader and encompasses all natural phenomena, including not just physical laws, but also biological, chemical, and maybe even some aspects of social or psychological phenomena that are considered “natural” in a broad sense. The laws of nature can include principles like natural selection in biology or chemical reaction rates in chemistry, in addition to the laws of physics.

Why “supernatural” must be carefully defined

Given the above definition of naturalism, one might think it is straightforward to define supernatural as an opposing term: the belief that naturalism is false – the belief in forms of causality (or something resembling causality) that can’t be reduced to laws of nature; the belief that something else is going on. Relatively mild examples include free will, karma and synchronicity. More extreme examples are YEC and most of the miracles in the gospels, such as the Resurrection and the Feeding of the 5,000.     

Not so long ago this definition would have been perfectly adequate. For the whole period between Newton and Einstein (inclusive) physics made absolute predictions about future observations. The laws of classical physics and relativity leave no wiggle room for anything else. In a world where those are our best theories of physics then supernaturalism necessarily involves a breach of laws – it has to involve something that intervenes in the clockwork causality of the material world to produce effects that are inconsistent with the laws of physics. This would be true of everything listed above as supernatural – the mild examples are as incompatible with Newtonian-Einsteinian physics as the extreme ones.      

This situation began to change over a century ago. Modern physics is quantum physics, and quantum physics differs from what went before in several important ways. One of these is that the predictions made by quantum physics are probabilistic rather than absolute. This element of probability provides enough wiggle room to render the straightforward definition of supernaturalism useless.     

There are multiple competing metaphysical interpretations of the scientific core of quantum theory. Strictly speaking, these interpretations aren’t part of science – they are metaphysical because they are attempts to explain what the scientific part of quantum theory actually means. They are theories about what is really going on, underneath the observations themselves, and about what exactly the words observationor measurement shouldrefer to (if anything at all). They are about the context in which we are to understand quantum theory.      

One interpretation in particular will help to demonstrate the implications of the probabilistic nature of quantum theory. In most interpretations there is only one outcome – a set of probabilities (the wave function) becomes just one observed outcome. This is known as “the collapse of the wave function” or just “observation” or “measurement”, and each interpretation involves a different explanation of what that should be taken to mean. The problem they are all attempting to solve is called “the measurement problem”. The Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI) proposes a truly radical solution: it gets rid of wave function collapse altogether, by claiming that every possible outcome of quantum events occurs simultaneously in diverging timelines. The entire cosmos is continually splitting along these lines, but we’re only ever aware of one timeline because once they have diverged then there is no further interaction between them. Hence there is no need for any observation or measurement, but there are multiple versions of ourselves, living lives which continually diverge.     

Even though most timelines in an MWI multiverse are “normal”, there will always be a small minority where all manner of strange things happen, including not just occasional improbable events but what appear to be co-ordinated sequences of them. The point I am making is this:

1. As far as we know, according to science and reason, the MWI might be true. We cannot justify ruling it out on those grounds.            
2. If MWI is true then there are timelines where sequences of exceptionally improbable events actually occur, without breaches of physical laws. Another way to say this is that it is physically possible that such things could happen in any timeline, but extraordinarily improbable.

The reason this matters is that the alleged supernatural phenomena on the “mild” list are consistent with the laws of physics: they require nothing more than events, or sequences of events, which are extraordinarily improbable. Take synchronicity for example. Carl Gustav Jung defined synchronicity as “an acausal connecting principle”. He equated it with the Tao, and connected it to Taoism’s divinatory system of the I Ching. Synchronicity manifests as combinations of events that are both exceptionally improbable and meaningful in some way, particularly but not always associated with personal psychological or spiritual development. Jung’s best known example occurred during a therapy session with a rational and highly educated woman who had been resisting dealing with her emotions. She was telling him about a dream in which she had been given a piece of jewellery in the form of an Egyptian golden scarab beetle – a symbol of rebirth and transformation. Jung heard a tapping on the closed window behind him and saw a flying insect knocking against the window from outside. He opened the window and caught the creature, which turned out to be a beetle virtually identical to the golden scarab, rarely found at that latitude, especially trying to get into dark rooms during the day. The improbability of such an event occurring at precisely that time allowed the woman to stop intellectualising matters and from that moment she began to make progress.     

Science can give us no reason to believe in any such thing, because it gives us no way to distinguish between synchronicity and objectively random chance. But neither does it give us any reason to rule it out as impossible. It can’t do, because the MWI is consistent with science, and if it is true then there are timelines where events that fit the description of synchronicity happen to everybody, all the time.In fact in this case it would not actually be synchronicity, because there would be no need to posit an acausal connecting principle as the explanation. The point is that such events are physically possible even if the MWI is false. 

Now contrast this with the things on the “extreme list”. There are no MWI timelines where YEC happened and none where it is possible to adequately feed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fishes. Even in the unimaginably vast MWI multiverse there are no events which breach the laws of physics.     

Among the other metaphysical interpretations of quantum theory is one that has become known as “consciousness causes collapse”, which removes the observer from the physical system. The earliest version was proposed by John von Neumann in 1932. His motivation was to escape from an infinite series of arbitrary physical observers (what observes the observer?) In Mindful Universe: Quantum Mechanics and the Participating Observer (2007), American physicist Henry Stapp extended von Neumann’s theory and explained the implications for a causal mechanism for free will. This is among the most controversial of the interpretations, not least because of certain questions it raises about evolution. If consciousness collapses the wave function then how can it possibly be a product of evolution? What collapsed the wave function before the first appearance of conscious organisms? If something else was collapsing it before that point in evolutionary history, then did it stop doing so afterwards, or does it still do so now? This does have something of a can-of-worms look about it.     

Given the level of uncertainty regarding the interpretations of quantum theory, the definition of supernaturalism given above is not adequate. The phenomena on the extreme list still fit the old definition (they require a suspension of the laws of physics) but the phenomena on the mild list no longer belong in that category. It is not obvious how we should categorise these “mild” supernatural phenomena. On the one hand they do not contradict the laws of physics, but on the other they are not explained by those laws or reducible to them. There is a conceptual space and need here for two categories where currently there is only one. The first we might call contra-scientific supernaturalism. These are forms of causality that require an outright suspension of the laws of nature/physics, belief in which is not reconcilable with ecocivilisation. A person who truly believes that 5,000 people can be adequately fed with two fishes and five loaves cannot be expected to accept the epistemic authority of science, including its applications in ecology. This presents serious challenges when attempting to incorporate mainstream Christianity – or any other worldview that involves belief in contra-scientific supernatural phenomena – into an epistemic framework capable of sustaining an ecocivilisation. If this type of supernaturalism were possible, why wouldn’t God fix our world right now? If you can feed 5,000 people like that, then you can feed eight billion. Why doesn’t He conjure up another planet for us? The second we might call probabilistic supernaturalism: forms of causality involving exceptionally improbable events that are consistent with the laws of physics but that are not explained by them or reducible to them. There is no obvious reason why this should be irreconcilable with ecocivilisation.

Paranormal

The term paranormal is sometimes considered a subset of the supernatural. “Supernatural” is an older term and historically associated with religion, whereas “paranormal” refers to alleged oddities that are beyond current scientific understanding but might not always be. Perhaps we could use it to refer to probabilistic supernaturalism, but I fear that might encourage people to attempt to use scientific methods to investigate, prove or disprove these probabilistic phenomena, which I believe to be a mistake. If the phenomena in question exist at all, and they are fully amenable to scientific investigation, then why didn’t incontrovertible evidence emerge long ago? What has actually happened is an endless dispute about how to interpret borderline results which seem clear enough to people who already believe in such things but not clear enough to convince the skeptics. The believers accuse the skeptics of repeatedly raising the bar to ensure that all positive evidence is rejected as inadequate. The skeptics say the bar needs to be high because if you are making extra-ordinary claims then you need extra-ordinary evidence (the “Sagan standard”). I doubt this situation is going to change any time soon. I think the way forwards is for people to agree to disagree (at least for now), accept that the alleged empirical evidence is too borderline to convince the skeptics, and give up trying to resolve the unresolvable. If probabilistic supernatural phenomena are real then they involve causality (or something that resembles it) which is fundamentally different to anything science has ever successfully demystified. Jung didn't even try to invoke synchronicity under laboratory conditions, and to suggest such a thing is possible is to misunderstand the nature of the alleged phenomena. By definition, these are things that happen to people for a reason, and the reason is never that they are taking part in a scientific experiment designed to prove or disprove the existence of the phenomena themselves. I have no use for the term “paranormal”.

Praeternatural and hypernatural

There is another term available, which might be more appropriate than “probabilistic supernaturalism”. St Thomas Aquinas (c1225-1274) was the greatest of Catholic philosophers, and from his time onwards he was considered the only philosopher to have got Catholic Christianity “correct” – officially so since the rescript of 1879 by Pope Leo XIII. Aquinas claimed that God sometimes works miracles, but nobody else can – that magic is possible, with the help of demons, but is not properly miraculous. This distinction can strike modern people as odd, but from the time of St Thomas until the 16^th century people had a different set of causal categories to us. We think of magic and miracles as synonymous – both are supernatural as opposed to natural causality. They had three categories instead of two – “supernatural” and “miracle” were terms reserved for acts of God involving a suspension of the natural order.  Magic was categorised as praeternatural (or preternatural), which means “beyond nature”. Even though demons were involved, this was a manipulation of the natural order rather than its outright suspension. Praeternatural phenomena could have been entirely the result of natural causality, but aren’t. Magic – aka witchcraft or sorcery – was considered very real and most evil, hence this period is well known for the widespread persecution of alleged witches (of both sexes, but more frequently women). By the mid-18^th century the term “praeternatural” had fallen out of use, and it eventually gained a modern non-metaphysical meaning of “so talented it’s spooky”. I don’t like the term “contra-scientific supernaturalism” – it is too cumbersome. “Probabilistic supernaturalism” isn’t quite right either. “Probabilistic” is fine, but anything “supernatural” sounds like it involves a suspension of the laws of physics. I therefore use “hypernaturalism” rather than “contra-scientific supernaturalism” and “praeternaturalism” for “probabilistic supernaturalism”. The term “supernatural” thereby disappears with the old paradigm, which will make very clear in any context whether we are talking about the old concept of supernatural, or the new concepts I am suggesting should replace it.

So my proposal for a new terminological standard is this:

“Naturalism” is belief in a causal order in which everything that happens can be reduced to (or explained in terms of) the laws of nature.

“Hypernaturalism” is belief in a causal order in which there are events or processes that require a suspension or breach of the laws of nature.

“Praeternaturalism” is belief in a causal order in which there are no events that require a suspension or breach of the laws of nature, but there are exceptionally improbable events that aren’t reducible to those laws, and aren’t random either. Praeternatural phenomena could have been entirely the result of natural causality, but aren’t.

“Supernaturalism” is a quaint, outdated concept, which failed to distinguish between hypernatural and praeternatural.

“Woo”is useless in any sort of technical debate, because it basically means anything you don't like.

“Paranormal” and “PSI” should probably be phased out too.