Nonsupernaturalist

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A stance or advocate that refuses to accept any phenomena as stemming from supernatural origins while strictly adhering to natural laws and principles
2. A perspective that denies any existence of phenomena attributed to the supernatural and maintains a strict allegiance to natural theories and explanations
3. An advocate who asserts that all occurrences must be explained through natural laws, rejecting any notion of supernatural influence

Etymology: "Nonsupernaturalist" is built by stacking a prefix onto an existing noun. Its base is "supernaturalist," a person who believes in or defends the reality of supernatural forces, and the prefix "non-" (from Latin "non," meaning "not") reverses it, producing someone who holds that events have only natural causes. The base word itself works the same way. "Supernatural" combines the Latin "super," meaning "above" or "beyond," with "natural," so the supernatural is what lies beyond nature. Adding the agent ending "-ist" turns that idea into a label for a believer. The new word therefore sits at the end of a chain of negations: a nonsupernaturalist denies the beyond that the supernaturalist accepts.

Synonyms: naturalist, materialist, empiricist, skeptic, rationalist

Antonyms: supernaturalist, theist, spiritualist, believer, idealistic