Definition
Supernaturalism is the belief that reality includes beings, forces, or events that lie beyond the natural, physical order — and that are not bound by, or fully explained by, natural law. Gods, spirits, souls, miracles, and an afterlife are typical supernatural elements. What unites them is the claim that they transcend the ordinary causal fabric studied by the natural sciences.
Supernaturalism stands in contrast to naturalism, which holds that only the natural world exists. The two represent broad and competing positions on the basic furniture of reality, and most religious traditions are supernaturalist in some respect.
Why it matters
How it works
A supernaturalist worldview treats the natural world as embedded in, or dependent on, something beyond it. Miracles, on this view, are events in which a supernatural agent acts outside the usual causal order; the soul is a non-physical aspect of a person; the afterlife is existence beyond physical death.
Dawkins's position is that whenever a supernatural cause is said to produce a worldly effect — a healing, a creation event, a revelation — that effect can in principle be examined. He therefore resists treating supernatural claims as a protected category. Critics counter that the supernatural is precisely what exceeds natural explanation, and that demanding natural evidence for it begs the question against the position.