Pierre-Simon de Laplace

The idea that all things can be explained by natural laws is as ancient as philosophy itself. Naturalism and Supernaturalism comprise a divide between the two most fundamental ways of looking at reality. If you don’t believe in Gods or an immaterial soul, then you are a naturalist. There are areas where the lines are blurred, and non-theists may hold on to specific non-naturalistic beliefs, but in general the division between the two ways of looking at reality holds good. The practice of rejecting supernatural claims was found among the Carvaka of ancient India and the materialist philosophers of ancient Greece. This tradition has continued down to the present day and has been analyzed and codified into different forms. The one that is the simplest to understand is the philosophical definition of naturalism. So let’s begin with this.

Philosophical Naturalism is the idea that nature is all there is. Also known as metaphysical naturalism, it is an outright rejection of all supernatural. Even in the presence of a seemingly supernatural situation, metaphysical naturalism will claim that there is a natural explanation underlying it. All human knowledge comes from such a naturalistic understanding. When philosophical naturalism is compromised, knowledge hits a wall.

A good example is Newton and the problem of planetary orbits. After spectacular work in the Principia Mathematica, describing previously undiscovered forces in the universe and a good many laws of physics than were known at that time, Newton reached an impasse. His model of the solar system could not explain why the planets did not spiral down into the sun. After asking naturalistic questions and answering them, providing humanity with some of the greatest inspirations in science, Newton finally proposed a supernaturalistic ‘explanation’. He theorized that God must intervene with the motion of the planets to set things right (notice that this is not really an explanation; saying “God did it” is like saying it happens by magic). Newton, after all that brilliant thinking, could not solve the problem because he evoked the nonexistent supernatural. A 100 years later, Laplace famously solved the problem by asking only naturalistic questions. Read more about this here. Read the full story