Posted: May 23, 2011 12:54 pm
andrewk wrote:
Sadly, politeness and tact prevent me from finding many opportunities to quiz religious people about this but, on the rare occasions I have managed to ask, the answer is usually some form of:
“the natural world is all matter and energy, including all the matter and energy in other universes, if there is a multiverse”.
Yes, the natural world is the matter-energy-space-time world, or, if there is more than one such world, the natural worlds are the matter-energy-space-time worlds.
(According to this definition and according to theism, we are not part of the natural world, because we are God-made immaterial souls.)
andrewk wrote:If this is indeed what theists believe, then how does it keep gods out of the natural world? As gods can create mass-energy, they are a form of potential energy, and so would be part of the natural world under this definition.
Divine or any other supernatural causes are not part of the natural world. God is said to have magical spiritual powers, but as an immaterial spirit he doesn't possess any energy in the physical sense, which is the relevant sense in the definition of the natural world.