Five Healthy Meanings of the Word Supernatural
1. Supernatural as the Depth of the Natural
“The supernatural is not remote or abstruse; it is a matter of daily and hourly experience, as intimate as breathing.”
— C.S. Lewis, Miracles
Healthy Use: In process thought, reality is composed of moment-by-moment experiences, each one infused with feeling, relationality, and potential for novelty. From this view, the "natural" is already alive with depth. To call something supernatural is not to place it outside the natural but to recognize the hidden interiority and intensity that process philosophy sees as present in all things. Lewis’s idea resonates with Whitehead’s notion that every actual occasion prehends the world and responds with subjective feeling. The supernatural, then, is not a layer added to reality, but the depth dimension already within it.
2. Supernatural as the Mystery That Animates All Beings
“To pray is to take notice of the wonder, to regain a sense of the mystery that animates all beings, the divine margin in all attainments.”
— Abraham Joshua Heschel, Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity
Healthy Use (Process Perspective): Process theology holds that every being is animated by God’s initial aim—God's invitation toward becoming, beauty, and wholeness. Heschel’s "divine margin" aligns with this: it names the mysterious divine lure present in every event, even if unnoticed. Rather than supernaturalism as interruption, this is super-naturalism as deep animation—where God's presence is the very condition of aliveness and meaningful becoming. The mystery isn't beyond the world, but within each act of self-creation, each relational moment.
3. Supernatural as Humanity's Highest Possibility
“The supernatural is not abnormal but supernormal—it is humanity’s highest possibility.”
— Evelyn Underhill, Practical Mysticism
Healthy Use (Process Perspective): For Whitehead, reality includes the lure toward greater intensity and harmony of experience. Human beings, as highly complex centers of experience, are capable of reaching toward spiritual fulfillment—what Underhill calls "supernormal." This doesn’t mean breaking natural laws, but realizing the highest potentials inherent in them through cooperation with the divine lure. The supernatural here is our unfolding potential to participate in divine creativity—to live in harmony with God’s aims and embody love, justice, and beauty more fully.
4. Supernatural as the Interior Light of Grace
“Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him.”
— Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude
Healthy Use: In process theology, God's grace is understood not as a sporadic gift bestowed arbitrarily, but as a constant divine offering—present in each moment's potential for becoming. Merton's words evoke this vision: the grace we receive is the initial aim given to every actual entity, luring it toward its best possible realization. It is “supernatural” not because it interrupts the world but because it undergirds it—an intimate grace that works with freedom, moment by moment, never coercive but always real.
5. Supernatural as the Natural Raised to a Higher Pitch“The supernatural is simply the natural, raised to a higher pitch.”
— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Healthy Use: This is classic process thought: continuity, not rupture. Teilhard's vision of spiritual evolution resonates with Whitehead’s cosmology, where complexity and consciousness emerge over time from simpler forms. The world is not static but on a creative trajectory. The “supernatural,” in this context, is the emergence of deeper consciousness and love—the natural world becoming ever more richly relational, more responsive to divine aims. It's nature growing toward divinity, not being bypassed by it.
“The supernatural is not remote or abstruse; it is a matter of daily and hourly experience, as intimate as breathing.”
— C.S. Lewis, Miracles
Healthy Use: In process thought, reality is composed of moment-by-moment experiences, each one infused with feeling, relationality, and potential for novelty. From this view, the "natural" is already alive with depth. To call something supernatural is not to place it outside the natural but to recognize the hidden interiority and intensity that process philosophy sees as present in all things. Lewis’s idea resonates with Whitehead’s notion that every actual occasion prehends the world and responds with subjective feeling. The supernatural, then, is not a layer added to reality, but the depth dimension already within it.
2. Supernatural as the Mystery That Animates All Beings
“To pray is to take notice of the wonder, to regain a sense of the mystery that animates all beings, the divine margin in all attainments.”
— Abraham Joshua Heschel, Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity
Healthy Use (Process Perspective): Process theology holds that every being is animated by God’s initial aim—God's invitation toward becoming, beauty, and wholeness. Heschel’s "divine margin" aligns with this: it names the mysterious divine lure present in every event, even if unnoticed. Rather than supernaturalism as interruption, this is super-naturalism as deep animation—where God's presence is the very condition of aliveness and meaningful becoming. The mystery isn't beyond the world, but within each act of self-creation, each relational moment.
3. Supernatural as Humanity's Highest Possibility
“The supernatural is not abnormal but supernormal—it is humanity’s highest possibility.”
— Evelyn Underhill, Practical Mysticism
Healthy Use (Process Perspective): For Whitehead, reality includes the lure toward greater intensity and harmony of experience. Human beings, as highly complex centers of experience, are capable of reaching toward spiritual fulfillment—what Underhill calls "supernormal." This doesn’t mean breaking natural laws, but realizing the highest potentials inherent in them through cooperation with the divine lure. The supernatural here is our unfolding potential to participate in divine creativity—to live in harmony with God’s aims and embody love, justice, and beauty more fully.
4. Supernatural as the Interior Light of Grace
“Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him.”
— Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude
Healthy Use: In process theology, God's grace is understood not as a sporadic gift bestowed arbitrarily, but as a constant divine offering—present in each moment's potential for becoming. Merton's words evoke this vision: the grace we receive is the initial aim given to every actual entity, luring it toward its best possible realization. It is “supernatural” not because it interrupts the world but because it undergirds it—an intimate grace that works with freedom, moment by moment, never coercive but always real.
5. Supernatural as the Natural Raised to a Higher Pitch“The supernatural is simply the natural, raised to a higher pitch.”
— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Healthy Use: This is classic process thought: continuity, not rupture. Teilhard's vision of spiritual evolution resonates with Whitehead’s cosmology, where complexity and consciousness emerge over time from simpler forms. The world is not static but on a creative trajectory. The “supernatural,” in this context, is the emergence of deeper consciousness and love—the natural world becoming ever more richly relational, more responsive to divine aims. It's nature growing toward divinity, not being bypassed by it.