This post resulted from a post in BSA/Nerds that mentioned the author, Charles Bledsoe, believed in a “theism without supernaturalism. That idea intrigued me, and I commented that the concept would make a great thread/conversation. So, he started one, and that post is pasted below as the last part of this post. His perception of this matter, and especially his vocabulary for expressing himself, is beyond my ability to grasp what I believe is a great insight. So, I sent his text to Claude.ai and ChatGPT. I like Claude’s response the most, so it is pasted first, then ChatGPT’s. This post is like all the others at this site; i.e. for my personal use. Charles has NOT approved the ai summaries. But, he deserves full credit for the work you like, and I take full responsibility for anything you do not like. You are welcome to your opinion.
From Claude.ai
What I Mean by “Supernatural”
I define supernatural as anything that exists completely outside of nature – a separate reality that’s fundamentally different from the natural world. Think of it as something “alien” to nature that operates by completely different rules.
My View of Nature
I see nature very differently from the standard materialist view that says everything is just dead matter following mechanical laws. Instead, I believe nature is made up of basic building blocks that are:
- Creative – they actively make things happen
- Experiential – they have some form of inner experience or feeling
- Relational – they exist in connection with each other
- Purposive – they have direction and aim
Everything in nature – from the smallest particles to the largest systems – is part of this creative, interconnected process. Nothing exists in isolation. Everything is creating itself together with everything else. This is similar to Buddhist ideas about how all things arise together through mutual dependence.
Why I Don’t Need the Supernatural
If nature itself is made of these creative, experiencing, purposeful building blocks, we don’t need to invent something outside nature to explain how nature works. That would be adding unnecessary extra entities, which violates the principle of Occam’s razor (preferring simpler explanations).
This view also solves a problem that regular materialism can’t handle: how do you get consciousness and experience from building blocks that supposedly have no experience at all? My approach says experience is built into nature from the ground up.
Where God Fits In
A supernatural God – one who exists completely outside nature – doesn’t fit with this view. Such a being would be unnecessary and redundant.
But a God who is the ultimate expression of nature’s creativity and experience? That’s a different story. This God wouldn’t be an outsider manipulating nature from the outside. Instead, God would be the supreme instance of what nature fundamentally is – the highest embodiment of creativity and experience, intimately connected with everything else in nature.
Not everyone who shares my basic view of nature believes in God, but I’m one who does. I see God as nature’s ultimate creative consciousness, not as a separate supernatural being.
What About the Biblical God?
I’d say the God described in the Bible is roughly 90% myth (some of it quite problematic) and 10% genuine theological insight – an intuition about this ultimate creative consciousness. We can have this intuition precisely because God isn’t separate from nature but is deeply interconnected with it, including with human minds.
Summary
Supernatural means something that exists as a separate reality outside the natural world, not interconnected with it.
Theism doesn’t have to mean belief in a supernatural being. It can mean belief in a supreme, conscious embodiment of what nature fundamentally is – the ultimate instance of nature’s creative, experiential reality.
This is theism without supernaturalism – belief in God as nature’s supreme consciousness rather than as a separate supernatural being.
From ChatGPT
Below is a simplified, plain-language version of the author’s position. Nothing is added or changed—just expressed in everyday vocabulary.
Theism Without Supernaturalism — In Plain Language
I’m trying to explain what I mean when I say that theism without the supernatural is possible. To do that, I need to explain what I mean by “supernatural” and why I don’t think belief in God requires it.
What I Mean by “Supernatural”
By “supernatural,” I mean anything believed to exist outside the natural world—something not shaped by, connected to, or working through the same processes that make up everything in nature. A supernatural being would be completely separate from how the universe normally works and could even override those natural processes.
How I Understand Nature
Different people define nature differently. Some see it as nothing but matter and mechanical laws (“dead-matter materialism”). But I follow a different view—one influenced by process philosophy. In this view:
- The basic “building blocks” of the universe are not lifeless or mechanical.
- They are creative, relational, and have very simple forms of experience or awareness.
- Everything exists in a network of mutual influence and interdependent becoming.
This is similar to the Buddhist idea that everything arises through interdependence.
So in my view, nature isn’t a giant machine. It’s a living, creative process made of countless small centers of experience relating to one another.
Why Supernatural Explanations Are Unnecessary
If the natural world is already made of creative, active, and experience-bearing elements, then we don’t need to imagine a separate supernatural realm to explain consciousness, purpose, or the richness of the world. Nature already contains these qualities at its most basic level.
In fact:
- Adding a supernatural realm adds unnecessary complexity.
- It violates the principle of keeping explanations as simple as possible (Occam’s razor).
- It also struggles to explain how a totally separate supernatural world interacts with ours.
Likewise, the strictly physical view of nature struggles to explain how mind, consciousness, or genuine purpose could emerge from purely non-experiential building blocks.
What This Means for God
In this framework, a supernatural God—someone completely outside nature—is unnecessary. But a God who is the ultimate expression of nature’s own creativity, experience, and purpose is possible.
This kind of God:
- Is not outside nature.
- Is not an external “add-on” to the universe.
- Fits naturally within a world that is already creative and experiential at its deepest level.
Some process thinkers don’t believe in this kind of God, but I do. I see God as the highest expression of the same creative, relational, experiential energy that runs through everything.
What About the Bible’s God?
I see the biblical portrayal of Yahweh as about 90% myth—stories shaped by their time, often in ways that aren’t flattering. But I also think about 10% reflects a real human intuition—an inner sense of an ultimate source of experience, creativity, and purpose. That intuition is possible because God is part of the same natural process we are part of.
What I Mean by “Theism” Here
I’m using a broader meaning of “theism” than usual. In my view:
- Theism does not have to mean belief in a supernatural being outside nature.
- It can mean belief in a supreme personal expression of the same creative, experiential reality that makes up nature itself.
If someone thinks the ultimate reality is impersonal, I would say they’re talking about nature’s basic creative process—not God—and that lands more in pantheism. My view is a form of panentheism: God is within nature and part of it, but also the highest expression of it.
In Short
Theism without supernaturalism is the belief in a God who is not outside or separate from nature, but the supreme personal expression of nature’s own creative and experiential character. That is the kind of theism I hold.
Charles Bledsoe’s original post.
The Theism Without Supernaturalism Option, Oct 22, 2025
In another thread, Tom Davis expressed the hope that I would start a separate thread for a conversation on the topic of my claim that theism without supernaturalism is an option. He also expressed the suspicion that “the common definition for theism” is likely “too narrow and supernaturalism is too broad”, so I’ll elaborate on my claim by defining those two terms.
I would define supernaturalism as any belief that envisions either a power or powers, agency, or order of reality, that is metaphysically alien, other to nature, “nature” defined in the following sense by the OED: “The creative and regulative power which is conceived of as operating in the material world and as the immediate cause of its phenomena.”
For physicalistic naturalism or dead matter materialism this consists of mechanistic material principles and entities, purely physical laws, forces, and objects.
For the panexperientialist and pancreativist process ontology that I subscribe to “the creative and regulative power which is conceived of as operating in the material world” is a creative, experiential, relational, intrinsically teleological, axiologically purposive ontological process. The basic elements, building blocks of the physical world are instances of this process, interrelationally creating themselves. The natural world is a society populated and constituted by such elements. This is something along the lines of Buddhist philosophy’s doctrines of pratītyasamutpāda, and dharmadhātu, its understanding of the nature of nature as a process of interdependent origination, and the universe as the self-creative product of this process.
For me then a supernatural being or mode of being would be one that doesn’t conform to the fundamental creative-(proto)enminded-social-purposive ontological process that I’m positing everything in nature instantiates. That is, a supernatural entity would be ontologically external, ultramundane, a metaphysical outsider vis-a-vis the natural world understood as composed of interdependent-sentient-self-determining creativity. An entity that isn’t interdependently created with the rest of nature.
This last sentence can serve as a short version of what I understand by “supernatural”. The term supernatural would refer to anything that is not interdependently, interrelatedly constituted with the rest of nature. A supernatural reality would be a separate reality. A separate reality that in various beliefs both operates in and explains nature, and can also violate the way nature normally operates.
I would argue from the perspective of my panexperientialist and pancreativist version of naturalism that there’s no need to imagine supernatural realities in order to explain the world, that a natural world composed of intrinsically creative, experiential, relational, and teleological building blocks is sufficiently explanatory of all of its phenomena. A panexperientialist and pancreativist ontology is more parsimonious, abides by Occam’s razor better than a supernaturalism that multiplies entities beyond what’s in nature to explain nature.
I would also argue that it’s a better ontology than a physicalistic naturalism that tries in vain to derive consciousness and mind from building blocks that it takes to be devoid of experientiality; and that futilely endeavors to account for nature’s complexity with non-teleological processes and laws.
As for how theism and God might be viewed through this lens, a supernatural deity would be off the table. It’s unnecessary, unparsimonious, explanatorily superfluous. However, a God who is an ultimate instance of nature’s creative, experiential, relational, and purposive processuality is a different proposition. Such a natural, indigenous-to-nature God, a God that isn’t an external factor of reality isn’t at all problematic for my form of naturalism. Not everyone who subscribes to a panexperientialist-pancreativist perspective envisions a divinity that’s the supreme embodiment of experientiality and creativity, but I number myself among those who have no difficulty doing so.
And what about the Bible’s God, ole Yahweh? I would say that He’s roughly 90% myth, some of which is quite unflattering and unfortunate, and 10% a product of our theological intuition, our inner knowing of an ultimate embodiment of experientiality and creativity. An inner knowing made possible by God’s being an integral, ingredient part of nature, interrelated with all of its entities, including human beings and their minds.
To sum up, I think I’ve provided here a narrower, more exact definition of “supernatural”, as a term that describes a reality, or realm of reality that isn’t an instance of the same ontology I’m attributing to the natural world, that isn’t an ontologically interdependent constituent of the natural world. And theism I would more broadly redefine as belief in a supreme, entitative, subjective instance of the natural world’s ontology, not necessarily a belief in a supernatural supreme being. (Some might prefer to conceive God to be an impersonal supreme instance of natural reality, but I would argue that if you do that then what you’re really talking about is nature’s fundamental experiential creativity itself, not an ultimate individualization of it, not God; you’re making pantheism’s mistake and conflating God with nature rather than taking the more nuanced panentheistic view that God is in and of, not the whole of nature.) All of this fleshes out what I mean by theism without supernaturalism, and the kind of theism that I subscribe to. And now I’ll stop because this post has gotten too long, and too technical. Apologies for that.
