A Naturally Emerging God and the Supernatural

An important part of much religious belief is that God is a supernatural being. Supernatural was originally a religious concept meaning beyond nature, and now refers to something that violates scientific principles and knowledge and includes a wide range of religious phenomena such as gods and immortal souls (\citealt*{Lindeman_2012}). If God were a maximally advanced natural entity there would be no requirement for God to be supernatural and beyond natural explanation. God would instead be an inevitable consequence of the natural forces set out in scientific theories. These forces could include those yet unknown to science, and which could provide a scientific explanation for phenomena which now would be classified as supernatural. Given that we cannot predict the scientific knowledge of the future (\citealt{Popper_1961}) we cannot know yet what these forces might be. The motives or reasons God would have for making our universe and consequently us perhaps need not differ whether God is supernatural or has emerged naturally.
The existence of a naturally emerging God as an alternative to a supernatural God may be satisfying to some as it brings God within the ambit of science. However, many religious believers may insist on a supernatural God because of the strong faith they have in such a God and they see no need for a naturally emerging God. Instead they may want God to be outside and prior to the multiverse, and then to have created it and all things. This would be in accord with the sovereignty thesis that all causal explanations trace back to God and all that exists is under God’s control (\citealt{Adams_2018}). The very existence of time and eternity is debated in both a theological and scientific context (\citealt{Rogers_1994}\citealt{Barbour_1999}). If eternity has no past or future, then the natural emergence of God from a multiverse might not necessarily entail that the multiverse precedes or is prior to the naturally emerging God.