Source: “The Death of Supernaturalism: The Case For Process Naturalism”, Copyright © 2025 by Chad Bahl, First Edition.
The traditional concept of supernaturalism, the belief in an all-controlling deity who occasionally interrupts natural causal processes, creates severe intellectual and theological barriers to faith. Specifically, supernaturalism struggles to reconcile an omnipotent God with the persistence of evil, fundamentally conflicts with scientific discovery, fails to explain divine hiddenness, and demands intellectually unsustainable defenses of biblical inerrancy.
To preserve theism in a modern context, belief in God must be completely divorced from supernaturalism. The foundation for this shift lies in prioritizing human experience. By grounding religion in an immediate, inner feeling of dependence on the divine, the focus of faith moves inward rather than looking for external, miraculous interventions.
A comprehensive solution is found in process naturalism. This worldview redefines reality as fundamentally interconnected and experiential. It proposes a panentheistic model where God is intimately integrated into the natural order rather than ruling from outside it. Crucially, in this framework, God operates exclusively through persuasive love rather than coercive control. Because God cannot unilaterally determine outcomes or override free will, the existence of evil is no longer a contradiction of divine goodness. Furthermore, since God acts entirely within natural laws without ever suspending them, religion and science can harmoniously coexist. By viewing divine revelation as a cooperative, experiential process rather than unilateral dictation, issues of divine hiddenness and biblical contradictions are also naturally resolved. Ultimately, discarding supernaturalism allows for a philosophically coherent, scientifically compatible, and relationally vibrant understanding of God.
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