There’s No Such Thing as a Naturalist – apologeticspress.org

The McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms defines “natural science” as, “Collectively, the branches of science dealing with objectively measurable phenomena…” (2003, p. 1402). A naturalist, then, is a person who believes everything in the Universe must be able to be explained through purely naturalistic processes—with no supernatural help. Everything believed must be based on empirical evidence that is “measurable.” According to the National Academy of Sciences, “The statements of science must invoke only natural things and processes. The statements of science are those that emerge from the application of human intelligence to data obtained from observation and experiment” (Teaching About Evolution…, 1998, p. 42, emp. added). With this definition in place, any supernatural event from the past or the supernatural Entity that caused it is “off the table” as a possibility for scientific discussion (even if such a Being exists and such events happened—i.e., even if the truth is being ignored). There is no doubt that naturalists have hijacked modern science today in spite of the fact that many of the fathers of scientific disciplines were in fact supernaturalists (cf. Morris, 1990), and in spite of the mounds of evidence against naturalism (cf. Miller, 2013b). What is perhaps most ironic is the fact that naturalists actually believe in miracles, which are, by definition, supernatural occurrences.

For example, the empirical evidence indicates that the First Law of Thermodynamics is a natural law that governs, and has always governed, the Universe. “[M]atter and energy can be neither created nor destroyed” in nature (Jastrow, 1977, p. 32). One thermodynamics textbook, Fundamentals of Thermodynamics, says, “Many different experiments have been conducted on the first law, and every one thus far has verified it either directly or indirectly. The first law has never been disproved” (Borgnakke and Sonntag, 2009, p. 116). So, it would be unnatural (i.e., supernatural) for matter or energy to create itself. But the naturalist believes that that very thing happened in order for the Universe to exist. He believes in the miraculous. [NOTE: See Miller, 2013a for more on naturalism and the Laws of Thermodynamics.]

Another example: the laws of nature exist. Renowned naturalist, theoretical physicist, and cosmologist of Cambridge Universe, Stephen Hawking, said: