The discussions on "nature" from the scholastic period were diverse and unsettled with some postulating that even miracles are natural and that natural magic was a natural part of the world. Though the phrase "supra naturam" was used since the 4th century AD, it was in the 1200s that Thomas Aquinas used the term "supernaturalis" and despite this, the term had to wait until the end of the medieval period before it became more popularly used. As a result, he had created a dichotomy of sorts of the natural and supernatural. In doing so, he sharpened the distinction between nature and miracles more than the early Church Fathers had done. In the scholastic period, Thomas Aquinas classified miracles into three categories: "above nature", "beyond nature", and "against nature". He used the term praeter naturam in his writings. Peter Lombard, a medieval scholastic in the 12th century, asked about causes that are beyond nature, in that how there could be causes that were God's alone. In the medieval period, "nature" had ten different meanings and "natural" had eleven different meanings. The term nature had existed since antiquity, with Latin authors like Augustine using the word and its cognates at least 600 times in City of God. Dialogues from Neoplatonic philosophy in the third century AD contributed to the development of the concept the supernatural via Christian theology in later centuries. The ancient world had no word that resembled "supernatural". As a noun, the term can mean "a supernatural being", with a particularly strong history of employment in relation to entities from the mythologies of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Obsolete uses include "of, relating to, or dealing with metaphysics". For example, as an adjective, the term can mean "belonging to a realm or system that transcends nature, as that of divine, magical, or ghostly beings attributed to or thought to reveal some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature occult, paranormal" or "more than what is natural or ordinary unnaturally or extraordinarily great abnormal, extraordinary". Originally the term referred exclusively to Christian understandings of the world. The semantic value of the term has shifted over the history of its use. The earliest known appearance of the word in the English language occurs in a Middle English translation of Catherine of Siena's Dialogue ( orcherd of Syon, around 1425 Þei haue not þanne þe supernaturel lyȝt ne þe liȝt of kunnynge, bycause þei vndirstoden it not). Post-classical Latin supernaturalis first occurs in the 6th century, composed of the Latin prefix super- and nātūrālis (see nature). Occurring as both an adjective and a noun, antecedents of the modern English compound supernatural enter the language from two sources: via Middle French ( supernaturel) and directly from the Middle French's term's ancestor, post- Classical Latin ( supernaturalis). It also includes claimed abilities embodied in or provided by such beings, including magic, telekinesis, levitation, precognition, and extrasensory perception.Įtymology and history of the concept The term is attributed to non-physical entities, such as angels, demons, gods, and spirits. The supernatural is featured in folklore and religious contexts, but can also feature as an explanation in more secular contexts, as in the cases of superstitions or belief in the paranormal. Although the corollary term "nature" has had multiple meanings since the ancient world, the term "supernatural" emerged in the Middle Ages and did not exist in the ancient world. The term is derived from Medieval Latin supernaturalis, from Latin super- (above, beyond, or outside of) + natura (nature). Supernatural refers to phenomena or entities that are beyond the laws of nature.
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