Abstract

Alvin Plantinga, Phillip Johnson, and many others, following C. S. Lewis, take their definition of naturalism to mean rejection of the supernatural (and with it, theism). A better definition of contemporary naturalism is proposed: naturalism thinks in terms of reality as understood by the sciences, and the natural is composed of systems demarcated from the rest of the world; those systems have states, and a state is an unambiguous function of time. Naturalism abstracts these from all other features of the things it knows. Action is interpreted as an efficient cause making a change in the trajectory of a natural system. Methodological naturalism merely applies these definitions to this world for purposes of science. Comprehensive naturalism insists that all things whatsoever are exhaustively intelligible on naturalistic terms. Dualistic naturalism (commonly known as supernaturalism) would locate naturalistic efficient causes (including divine causes) in a dual world where they are invisible, but keep their effects in this world. On this analysis, Plantinga and Johnson are as naturalistic as their opponents in conceiving divine action, but because they are dualists, they are not naturalistic in quite the same way