Source: “The Death of Supernaturalism: The Case For Process Naturalism”, Copyright © 2025 by Chad Bahl, First Edition.
This conclusion argues that the modern decline in theism is driven by the intellectual failures of supernaturalism, which creates irreconcilable conflicts with science, the problem of evil, and the hiddenness of God. The author proposes a metamodern move toward process naturalism, a framework that maintains a belief in God while discarding the necessity of miracles or the subversion of natural laws. By drawing on reconstructive postmodernism and the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and David Ray Griffin, the work seeks to integrate religion and reason into a single, coherent worldview. Ultimately, the text advocates for a transition from a distant, omnipotent "God the enemy" to a naturally present "God the companion" whose existence is defined by interconnectivity and shared experience rather than supernatural intervention.
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We are witnessing the slow-motion collapse of a metaphysical era. Recent Gallup polling indicates that belief in God has plummeted from a ubiquitous 98% in the 1960s to 81% today. While some dismiss this as a mere statistical fluctuation, a theological futurist recognizes it as an existential crisis for Western culture. One in five Americans has not simply "lost" faith; they have actively rejected a specific, failing model of the Divine. This trend is most aggressive among the youngest and most educated, signaling that the traditional concept of God is no longer just unpersuasive—it is intellectually and morally intolerable. To save the idea of God, we must first allow the "God" of our ancestors to die.
The primary catalyst for this mass exodus is the internal rot of supernaturalism. We have inherited a framework where God is an omnipotent interloper who possesses the power to intervene in natural laws but chooses silence in the face of genocide, child abuse, and systemic tragedy. This creates an impossible theodicy. A God who could stop a cancer or a war and doesn't is not a savior; he is a bystander.