3. Naturalism and Atheism

A Search for Ultimate Reality in Nature Alone Our obligation to survive is owed, not just to ourselves, but also to the Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring. —Carl Sagan, Cosmos [p 108] [p 109] Defining our terms Naturalism, as interpreted by the majority of those who hold it, asserts that Nature is all there is: there is nothing supernatural, nothing outside Nature. The late Carl Sagan expressed this worldview concisely: 'The COSMOS is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be.'88 John H. Randall states it more robustly: naturalism finds itself in thorough­going opposition to all forms of thought which assert the existence of a supernatural or transcendent Realm of Being, and which make knowledge of that realm of fundamental importance to human living.89 Atheism, by its very name, positively asserts what this form of naturalism implies: there is no God. It might seem obvious, therefore, what answers these twin philosophies of naturalism and atheism will give to our double question as to the nature of Ultimate Reality and how we are related to it. But in actual fact the answers that we get nowadays are not all of them so clear-cut as they would have been a few decades ago...