SUPERNATURAL, THE. Mysterious occurrences and beings that habitually or occasionally impinge upon one's everyday experience are called "supernatural." It is commonly said that belief in the supernatural characterizes all religions and that belief in the supernatural wanes in modern societies.

Historical Development of the Notion

The term supernatural was given wide currency by Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) and the Scholastics, but it had numerous antecedents in the idiom of the Hellenistic thinkers and church fathers. Neoplatonists in particular accumulated superlatives to speak of the realm of the divine: It was above the highest heaven, beyond the world, and even beyond being. Christians spoke of God as being above nature: He had not grown out of anything but was eternally self-subsistent. They also spoke of Christ as bringing to humankind benefits that were above nature, that is, benefits that were beyond what human beings could reach with their own...