Natural Supernaturalism

rdf:langString Natural Supernaturalism

rdf:langString Natural Supernaturalism is one of Thomas Carlyle's philosophical concepts. It derives from the name of a chapter in his novel Sartor Resartus (1833–34) in which it is a central tenet of Diogenes Teufelsdröckh's "Philosophy of Clothes". Natural Supernaturalism holds that "existence itself is miraculous, that life contains elements of wonder that can never be defined or eradicated by physical science." Carlyle conceived of Natural Supernaturalism as a "new Mythus" consistent with the discoveries of modern science. Rather than regarding a miracle as "simply a violation of the Laws of Nature", Natural Supernaturalism is based on the idea that nature (and its laws) is itself miraculous, being "of quite infinite depth, of quite infinite expansion". Rodger L. Tarr writes that "According to natural supernaturalism, miracles are an extension of truth, not a corruption of it; mysteries are dimensions of science, not a repudiation of it; and wonder is the foundation of logic, not its antagonist." In The Nuttall Encyclopaedia, Natural Supernaturalism is interpreted as "the supernatural found latent in the natural, and manifesting itself in it, or of the miraculous in the common and everyday course of things . . . a recognition at bottom, as the Hegelian philosophy teaches, and the life of Christ certifies, of the finiting of the infinite in the transitory forms of space and time."