The Coherent Causality Argument

[William]

For years, I've seen Christians argue for a supernatural creator - an entity outside nature, beyond scientific understanding, uncaused and eternal.

But if "supernatural" means beyond understanding and evidence, how does that explain anything rather than simply labeling the unknown as unknowable?

Here is an alternative argument that retains a first cause but removes the incoherence of supernaturalism. I welcome thoughtful engagement, particularly from theistic perspectives, on the following:

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Definitions (Oxford Languages):

Supernatural: (of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.

Supernaturalism: the belief in a supernatural agency that intervenes in the course of natural laws.

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The Coherent Causality Argument

P1: Everything that begins to exist within nature has a natural cause.

P2: It is generally accepted in modern cosmology that this universe (our spacetime reality) had a beginning.

C1: Therefore, this universe has a natural cause.

P3: A “natural cause” means a cause that operates within some framework of consistent laws, is potentially understandable in principle, and is part of a broader causal reality.

P4: A supernatural cause, by definition, is beyond natural laws, understanding, and evidence, thus it cannot function as a causal explanation.

C2: Therefore, the cause of the universe is not supernatural - it is part of a broader natural reality (a “source reality”).

P5: This source reality may be eternal, timeless, or uncreated relative to our universe, but it is still natural in the sense of being coherent, consistent, and conceptually describable.

C3: Since an infinite regress of contingent causes provides no ultimate explanation, the source reality must be eternal (or necessary).

Overall Conclusion:
The universe was caused by an eternal natural entity - not by a supernatural one. This avoids the explanatory dead-end of supernaturalism while still satisfying the demand for a causal origin.
(By “natural,” I mean “operating within some consistent framework of cause and effect, even if outside our observable universe.”)

Note on Consciousness:
If the natural source-entity is intelligent and consciously creative, this would provide a coherent origin for consciousness itself, potentially resolving the "hard problem" by grounding subjective experience in a fundamental, conscious cause. This is not required by my argument, but it is a logically consistent possibility if one accepts both an intelligent source and the principle that consciousness cannot emerge from purely non-conscious substrates.

A Clarification on Terms:

If “supernatural” simply means existing outside our universe but still operating by consistent, higher-level laws, and is not being used in its strong, classical philosophical sense here, then it becomes a subcategory of the natural - understood broadly as any reality operating within a coherent framework of cause and effect.

If, however, “supernatural” means wholly beyond understanding, outside any consistent laws, and intrinsically inexplicable, then it cannot meaningfully explain anything—including the origin of the universe.

This argument proceeds under the second definition, which is both standard in philosophical discourse and necessary for the term “supernatural” to retain any distinct meaning. If you hold the first definition, then your “supernatural” cause aligns with what I term the eternal natural source-entity—and we are largely in agreement on the nature of the first cause, differing only in terminology.

Q1: If a cause is supernatural - beyond understanding and evidence - does it actually explain anything, or does it merely relabel an unknown as unknowable?

Q2: Can a Christian (or any theist) coherently define God as both supernatural (in its strong, classical philosophical sense) and personally interactive without contradiction?

[William]

[Replying to alexxcJRO in post #58]

Alexx's reply is instructive, as it clarifies the foundational disagreement.

On Mithrae's Argument: Alexx labels it "God of the gaps." This is a mischaracterization. Mithrae's argument is one of epistemic priority and parsimony: we know consciousness exists directly; we do not know non-conscious "stuff" as a fundamental reality. Positing it creates the Hard Problem. This isn't filling a gap with "god"; it's questioning the coherence of the default materialist assumption.

On "Evidence": Alexx states he "just go[es] where the evidence points" and that only scientists can find evidence for God. This reveals a philosophical stance: scientism. It assumes that only empirical, physical evidence counts, thereby dismissing the entire project of metaphysical reasoning about necessary grounds and first principles - the very domain of the CCA.

On the Ultimate Terminus: His claim that "God... is part of the material omniverse" is the key. He posits a "material omniverse" as the ultimate, unexplained brute fact. This is not a refutation of the CCA; it is an example of what the CCA critiques. The CCA argues that a "necessary, coherent ground" is a more rational terminus than a "brute material totality."

[William]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #59]

The CCA incorporated with Mithraes Ground Consciousness Argument does not posit consciousness as an "independent" thing added to reality. It posits consciousness as the fundamental substance or ground of reality itself. Other aspects (matter, spacetime, physical laws) are dependent aspects or manifestations of that conscious ground. They are not independent; they are how the ground expresses itself in form allowing for in- form-ation to occur re human brains interacting with consciousness. iow "Reality is not unconscious matter that somehow acquires meaning. It is conscious meaning (information) taking on the appearance of matter."

Mithraes argument is

1 - We know that conscious stuff exists. It is literally the most certain thing we possibly can know; we experience, therefore we are.
2 - We have no legitimate basis for inferring the existence of nonconscious / material stuff.
3 - If we were to introduce that wild speculation that our atoms and so on are nonconscious stuff, it introduces a dramatically harder problem of consciousness.
C1 - Inasmuch as we make any inferences about the nature of reality, our working model should be that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of reality.
4 - Our observations, limited though they may be, suggest that reality exists and behaves in a largely unified, consistent manner.
C2 - A model of a single consciousness from which (or within which) our observable reality emerged is more parsimonious than a model of more numerous, localized or impotent/epiphenomenal consciousnesses.

Integrated, the argument is not "consciousness is fundamental and separate." It's "consciousness is fundamental, therefore everything else is a expression of it." This is why it solves the hard problem: there is no "emergence from non-consciousness" to explain. The problem is dissolved by recognizing that what we call "non-conscious stuff" is just consciousness apprehended in a particular, objectified way.

You will have to explain why an "emergent from non-conscious brute fact" model is superior despite its extra mystery, or concede that the consciousness question points toward a fundamental mind-like reality, undermining the brute-fact cosmology.

[Mithrae]

Nonsense.
I am not a materialist. . . .


Sir even if God exists he is part of the material omniverse. If he exist it will be scientists who find evidence of his existence not theists playing with words.

I'm a bit confused by this. After saying you're not a materialist, you seem to be adamantly insisting that there's nothing in the omniverse which is not 'material' in nature. And also seemingly that nothing exists, or at least nothing discoverable, which is not amenable to scientific methods of enquiry (I suppose unless the focus there is more on the word 'evidence' and simply discounting anything non-scientific as not qualifying).

I am not a theist or any other term u wanna coin.
I just go where is the evidence points. I have no problem with considering god as a hypothesis. I am not a hard atheist.

Also confusing. In your previous post you were utterly dismissive of considering god as a hypothesis - so much so that you apparently missed my actual argument - and went so far as to describe such ideas as a "plague," but now you're insisting that you have no problem with it?

I have simply pointing to a pattern of falsely attributing gods as causes for certain phenomena that seemed unknown at some point.
We know there is no gods behind the function of trees or winds or storms or the sun.

We do not know that. What we know is that our reality exhibits broader patterns of behaviour into which those things fit without being unique or exceptional acts of divinity: We have not ascertained whether those broader patterns of behaviour have a theistic or non-theistic basis.

This is all beside the point anyway. Unless you or someone else has some kind of evidence for the existence of nonconscious stuff, it remains just baseless speculation... whereas the existence of conscious stuff is literally the most certain thing we possibly can know.

[alexxcJRO]

I'm a bit confused by this. After saying you're not a materialist, you seem to be adamantly insisting that there's nothing in the omniverse which is not 'material' in nature. And also seemingly that nothing exists, or at least nothing discoverable, which is not amenable to scientific methods of enquiry (I suppose unless the focus there is more on the word 'evidence' and simply discounting anything non-scientific as not qualifying).

Nonsense.
I believe philosophical terms like "materialism-monism", "idealism", "supernaturalism" are not necessary.
All things, mechanisms\phenomena are part reality-omniverse and have explanations that involve some kind of materials and forces that exist and can be discovered.
It does not matter if we have multiple kinds of universes, multiple dimensions, all kinds of different materials no matter how weird and apparently magical. Worlds like in Star Wars where "Jedi"-like beings manipulate things with the "force"-mind because of the mysterious energy field that resided in all lifeforms binding the universe as a whole.

Also confusing. In your previous post you were utterly dismissive of considering god as a hypothesis - so much so that you apparently missed my actual argument - and went so far as to describe such ideas as a "plague," but now you're insisting that you have no problem with it?

I dismiss illogical gods described by religions as part of some supernatural unnecessary realms.
I am a weak atheist in the sense I am not convinced god/gods exist but I am open to the hypothesis that some extremely powerful being exists.

Q: What argument I missed?

We do not know that. What we know is that our reality exhibits broader patterns of behaviour into which those things fit without being unique or exceptional acts of divinity: We have not ascertained whether those broader patterns of behaviour have a theistic or non-theistic basis.

Nonsense.

1.Animism is debunked by the fact that natural objects are clearly not alive or animated or sentient. Mountain sprites, Water sprites, vegetation deities, and tree spirits clearly do not exist.
Mountain, rocks, rivers are just agglomeration of matter(agglomeration of molecules which are agglomeration of atoms) in different states: solid, liquid, gaz. They do no poses sentience or minds or intentions.

2.Khnum was not the the source of the rive Nile and did not not create bodies of human children from clay and placed in their mothers' wombs at the potter's wheel.
Nile water comes from natural sources: "The Ethiopian Plateau provides 86% of the Nile's flow (Blue Nile 59%, Sobat 14% and Atbara 13%), while the contribution from the Equatorial Lakes region amounts to 14% (White Nile)".
The bodies of humans embryo are developing on their on inside a womb thanks to DNA-Hox genes-Sonic Hedgehog.
Ra did not sailed across the sky in a boat during the day as the sun.
Earth rotates on its axis. When we are on the side of Earth that is facing the Sun we have daylight. When we are not on the side of Earth that is facing the Sun we have night.
Sun is not a god but a incandescent ball of gas emitting light as photons. Just a mere star among billions upon billions of stars present in a unimaginable big universe.

3. Thor is not responsible for thunder, lightning, storms and winds.
These are all natural processes that happen in our atmosphere.
Thunder is the sound caused by lightning. Lightning is a giant spark of electricity in the atmosphere between clouds, the air, or the ground. Storms are disturbed states of the natural of the atmosphere which involves: strong winds and/or tornadoes and/or hail and/or thunder and/or lightning and precipitation.

4. Midgard-middle-earth as in planet Earth was not created from the body of the first created being, the giant Aurgelmir (Ymir).
They clearly did not know Earth is just a small planet among billions upon billions of planets existing in a huge universe.
The Earth formed over 4.6 billion years ago out of a mixture of dust and gas around the Sun.

5. There are no immortals living on the highest mountain(Mount Olympus) in Greece.
On the highest peaks of Mount Olympus we will find mostly desolate rock.

6. The Earth did not rest on on a cosmic ocean called the Varu-Karta. Bellow earth there is not realm of darkness and chaos.
They clearly did not know Earth is just a small planet among billions upon billions of planets existing in a huge universe where underground there lays only the crust, the mantle, the outer core, and the inner core of our planet made of different materials: solid rock, liquid rock, solid metal and so on.

7.The Earth was not created out of the half of the body of goddess Tiamat.
The Earth formed over 4.6 billion years ago out of a mixture of dust and gas around the Sun.
Enlil does not make the world habitable for humans. The Earth being in the Goldilock zone, having a metallic core which creates a magnetic field which offers protection from cosmic/sun radiation and helps maintaining our atmosphere and so on.
There was not global flood that was supposed to exterminate the human race. Geology and many other scientific fields debunk this idea.

8. There is clearly no benevolent being: Vishnu (manifestation or an avatar of Brahman)who protects the universe from evil and restores cosmic order.
Evil and malevolence runs rampart in the world. We have world wars, genocides, serial killers and psychopaths running rampart doing egregious kinds of evil to the innocent, natural disasters/genetic diseases and diseases which indiscriminately affect all people the moral agents(good moral people or evil immoral serial killer and rapists) and the non-moral agents(the innocent).

9.There was no 5 creations and gods becoming stars, the moon or other objects in the sky.
The Earth, Moon and Sun were not created. They formed on their own billions of years ago from gas and dust.

[alexxcJRO]

[Replying to alexxcJRO in post #58]

Alexx's reply is instructive, as it clarifies the foundational disagreement.

On Mithrae's Argument: Alexx labels it "God of the gaps." This is a mischaracterization. Mithrae's argument is one of epistemic priority and parsimony: we know consciousness exists directly; we do not know non-conscious "stuff" as a fundamental reality. Positing it creates the Hard Problem. This isn't filling a gap with "god"; it's questioning the coherence of the default materialist assumption.

On "Evidence": Alexx states he "just go[es] where the evidence points" and that only scientists can find evidence for God. This reveals a philosophical stance: scientism. It assumes that only empirical, physical evidence counts, thereby dismissing the entire project of metaphysical reasoning about necessary grounds and first principles - the very domain of the CCA.

On the Ultimate Terminus: His claim that "God... is part of the material omniverse" is the key. He posits a "material omniverse" as the ultimate, unexplained brute fact. This is not a refutation of the CCA; it is an example of what the CCA critiques. The CCA argues that a "necessary, coherent ground" is a more rational terminus than a "brute material totality."

I know that "I think therefore I exist" is the most certain thing out there.
The solipsism idea all though interesting is most likely not true. You are not some poor figment of my imagination.

It is most likely true then not that the material world exists outside me.
That the material Rocks are part of the material world and do not have consciousness. It is most likely true that consciousness exists in humans because of the PFC.

"Scientism" is the only good gladiator in the whole Ludus, the champion. The "philosophism" is the gladiator that mostly just exists as sparring partner for champion and has not won any match.

If I were you I would have more respect for the champion then for the loser.

[Mithrae]

Q: What argument I missed?

This is all beside the point anyway. Unless you or someone else has some kind of evidence for the existence of nonconscious stuff, it remains just baseless speculation... whereas the existence of conscious stuff is literally the most certain thing we possibly can know.

The fact is that we have no legitimate grounds at all to posit the existence of nonconscious stuff to begin with, whereas the existence of conscious stuff is the most certain thing we can possibly know.

I know that "I think therefore I exist" is the most certain thing out there.
The solipsism idea all though interesting is most likely not true. You are not some poor figment of my imagination.

It is most likely true then not that the material world exists outside me.

Why did you insert the word "material" into that last sentence? The more obvious phrasing would have been "external world" since its meaning is already implied by rejection of solipsism and the world 'existing outside me.' What intentional meaning or unintended biases* is conveyed by use of the extraneous and unsupported term "material"?

* Considering it's the focal point of discussion, it's hard to imagine it anything but intentional.

That the material Rocks are part of the material world and do not have consciousness.

What makes you think that? Can you observe consciousness, and if not how can you infer its absence?

It is most likely true that consciousness exists in humans because of the PFC.

Bacteria possess the sensory organelles and reaction to stimuli which imply some kind of awareness or consciousness. Short of the circular assumption that organisms without a neural network cannot possess consciousness, why on earth would we suppose that bacteria are not conscious?

If you're interested in challenging what for most people are unexamined assumptions on this topic, the post I linked to earlier provides an overview of both why IMO it's such a common and deeply-held assumption, and why as far as I've ever seen there really aren't legitimate grounds for it at all.

[Mithrae]

As far as we can tell, consciousness exists if and only if a physical brain exists.

That's... a little misleading. Even today our best brain-scanning instruments can detect neural impulses or regions of activity or whatever, but we're not observing the feeling of pain or the smell of flowers; we're observing mechanical phenomena, not qualia or consciousness. On the other hand, we knew that consciousness exists in our fellow humans and animals long before - tens of thousands of years before - we had any real understanding of what brains do at all. Obviously therefore our inferences about the presence of consciousness are simply based on similarities in structure and behaviour to ourselves, which is a reasonable inference; if something has a similar body and similar developmental process and similar reactions to circumstances, there's a good chance there are similarities in what we can't observe also. If P then Q. Humans' ability to verbally confirm their conscious experience (a behavioural similarity) clinches it. But that inference from analogy only goes so far, and more to the point that reasoning can't be reversed; not-P therefore not-Q is the logical fallacy of denying the antecedent.

Supposing that consciousness exists only if there's a brain present is simply a misunderstanding of how we infer the presence of consciousness to begin with. And given that bacteria possess the sensory organelles and reactions to stimuli which (absent that neuro-centric bias) would be taken to imply some kind of awareness or consciousness, it's really kind of circular too.

You seem to be arguing against your own position. We have a physical brain as a substrate, which your own bit of evidence is certainly consistent with. It is indubitable to any individual only because the substrate within which it apparently lies provides the mechanism through which we experience the consciousness. We can't experience the consciousness of someone else. That is completely parsimonious with consciousness being a function of the brain in such a way that it can't extend beyond that brain.

It's noteworthy that there are some fairly well-documented cases in which consciousness seemingly persists in the absence of brain activity, one of the more striking being the case of Pam Reynolds. It's not conclusive of course, but nor can it be reasonably dismissed out of hand; if it's a 50/50 toss-up whether her experiences persisted through her period of brain-death, then that case alone sets an upper limit of ~50% plausibility to the "brains alone cause consciousness" idea.

You're claiming foundation and saying it's coherent, but how does it cohere? How does this "continuity of kind" express itself? Is there a distinction between thought, memory, and consciousness? How do those things interact? You're saying that consciousness feels distinct from those things, but what are your criteria? Nobody shares my emotions, because my emotions are products of my physical limbic system. Nobody shares my thoughts, because my thoughts are a product of my physical brain. Nobody shares my memories, because my memories are a product of that same physical brain. It's not a stretch to think that nobody shares my consciousness because it's also a product of my physical being. I'm sure you have an explanation that suits you, but that explanation has to include why consciousness is tied to each of our physical forms despite being, as you assert, a fundamental property of the universe. Considering its similarity and proximity to other things arising from our physical forms, you'll have to be very careful that your explanation avoids too much special pleading.

I don't think anyone could reasonably deny that human consciousness ordinarily corresponds to and is likely caused by human body and particularly brain function. The question is simply:
- Do our brains produce an 'emergent'/magical generation of subjective, qualitative, conscious phenomena from otherwise supposedly objective, quantitative, nonconscious components, or do they merely facilitate a more specific concentration or instantiation of the consciousness which likely pervades of all of reality?

I suppose in light of the questions raised by cases such as Pam Reynolds' we could also ask:
- Is even human consciousness exclusively correlated with functioning brains, or might that be more of an initial, kind of 'gestational' phase?
That's pretty much irrelevant to the argument, but it's worth mentioning purely for the reason that even acknowledging a (scientifically reasonable) causative and perhaps absolute role of human brains for the instantiation of human consciousness doesn't necessarily mean that it is always tied to brains.

[Difflugia]

The CCA incorporated with Mithraes Ground Consciousness Argument does not posit consciousness as an "independent" thing added to reality. It posits consciousness as the fundamental substance or ground of reality itself. Other aspects (matter, spacetime, physical laws) are dependent aspects or manifestations of that conscious ground. They are not independent; they are how the ground expresses itself in form allowing for in- form-ation to occur re human brains interacting with consciousness. iow "Reality is not unconscious matter that somehow acquires meaning. It is conscious meaning (information) taking on the appearance of matter."

OK, but I don't see how that buys you anything. You're just shifting around where the "I don't know" goes. If consciousness is independent of matter and interacting with matter, then you're at least in a place where you might look for evidence that would distinguish it from an emergent form of consciousness. Simply asserting that matter is a function of underlying consciousness doesn't add any information or connect it to anything. It's still just as made-up as leprechauns.

Integrated, the argument is not "consciousness is fundamental and separate." It's "consciousness is fundamental, therefore everything else is a expression of it." This is why it solves the hard problem: there is no "emergence from non-consciousness" to explain.

It's just a different hard problem. Fine. It's fundamental, but that doesn't explain anything. How consciousness is expressed as matter is no less hard than how some configuration of matter can express consciousness. Without evidence, it's just handwaving. It's not impossible, but now you're just trying to talk yourself into a position where your not impossible is better than all of the other made-up not impossibles. Your crux is this:

2 - We have no legitimate basis for inferring the existence of nonconscious / material stuff.

That's obviously false for any reasonable definition of "legitimate." Our probing of the material world offers an increasingly consistent picture of the universe and its matter such that there's no evidence of consciousness in any guise beyond some subset of animal life. Framing it as a premise just turns it into another unresolved "if." Even if you remove the language rendering it false for most English speakers, you're still left with, "We do not infer the existence of non-conscious stuff." The overall argument, then, can only be true if non-conscious stuff doesn't exist. For someone claiming a better answer, that's an awfully large if.

The problem is dissolved by recognizing that what we call "non-conscious stuff" is just consciousness apprehended in a particular, objectified way.

By "dissolved," you mean, "defined away." You can say that, but only if your premise is correct and non-conscious stuff doesn't exist. If our experiences have any relationship with reality, then it's overwhelmingly likely that it does. They might not. It's possible that they don't, but now you're just back to the same conflation of possible and probable upon which Christian apologetics relies.

You will have to explain why an "emergent from non-conscious brute fact" model is superior despite its extra mystery, or concede that the consciousness question points toward a fundamental mind-like reality, undermining the brute-fact cosmology.

What "extra mystery?" You're positing that the universe doesn't actually exist in the way that we experience it and that it's actually some sort of projection from a fundamental consciousness that you haven't otherwise defined. It's a bit myopic to claim that that's somehow less mysterious than consciousness arising from patterns of matter, exactly as it appears to!

If you want to actually investigate this, even with the idea that self-perception of consciousness is the foundation of your evidence, you have to ask how consciousness and matter interact. Experiments work best where you can find boundaries.

[Difflugia]

As far as we can tell, consciousness exists if and only if a physical brain exists.

That's... a little misleading. Even today our best brain-scanning instruments can detect neural impulses or regions of activity or whatever, but we're not observing the feeling of pain or the smell of flowers; we're observing mechanical phenomena, not qualia or consciousness.

Which is why I framed it as I did. As far as we can tell, that is, to the limits of our ability to perceive and express consciousness, what I said is true. It's not misleading. It's still possible it's not true, but even considering the case you mention later on, the evidence is flimsy at best.

But that inference from analogy only goes so far, and more to the point that reasoning can't be reversed; not-P therefore not-Q is the logical fallacy of denying the antecedent.

That would be salient if I were constructing a logical argument that consciousness must be an emergent property of matter or that it cannot be a fundamental property of the universe by logical necessity. Your claim of logical fallacy works just as well on the observation that we've never actually detected a leprechaun when a quantum event occurs. It's a logical fallacy to claim that therefore leprechauns aren't responsible for quantum events.

My claim is that there's no evidence that leprechuns cause quantum state changes or that consciousness exists apart from brains, therefore neither is likely to be true.

Supposing that consciousness exists only if there's a brain present is simply a misunderstanding of how we infer the presence of consciousness to begin with.

What's my misunderstanding?

And given that bacteria possess the sensory organelles and reactions to stimuli which (absent that neuro-centric bias) would be taken to imply some kind of awareness or consciousness, it's really kind of circular too.

Things like phototaxis and chemotaxis are understood at the cellular and chemical level. If you're claiming that bacterial responses are on the same continuum as consciousness, then they're direct evidence that something directly analogous to consciousness can be mediated fully by chemistry. Put another way, the fundamental property of the universe that you're calling consciousness might just be physics.

It's noteworthy that there are some fairly well-documented cases in which consciousness seemingly persists in the absence of brain activity, one of the more striking being the case of Pam Reynolds.

That "seemingly" there is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Even viewed as an experiment, the case is uncontrolled and the results are heavily subject to experimenter bias. There are many, many experiments probing consciousness. If you can find something a little more controlled that puts consciousness outside of a functioning head, I'm here for it.

It's not conclusive of course, but nor can it be reasonably dismissed out of hand; if it's a 50/50 toss-up whether her experiences persisted through her period of brain-death, then that case alone sets an upper limit of ~50% plausibility to the "brains alone cause consciousness" idea.

If that were all we had, maybe you'd be right. I don't think the case is as compelling as you do, nor do I think we're lacking in far, far better information. Still nothing conclusive, but I think we can do a lot better than 50/50.

Do our brains produce an 'emergent'/magical generation of subjective, qualitative, conscious phenomena from otherwise supposedly objective, quantitative, nonconscious components, or do they merely facilitate a more specific concentration or instantiation of the consciousness which likely pervades of all of reality?

I think the evidence is that the former is likely, even though it feels weird. The latter has no experimental support, but is psychologically satisfying. Pick your poison.

it's worth mentioning purely for the reason that even acknowledging a (scientifically reasonable) causative and perhaps absolute role of human brains for the instantiation of human consciousness doesn't necessarily mean that it is always tied to brains.

Yes. It's possible.

[The Tanager]

[Replying to William in post #56]

William,

I'm sorry for the confusion. If I understand you correctly, I'm saying I think the principle is foundational. I also believe a supernatural (in the 'immaterial' sense) cause operates within a framework of consistent causality, so I'm saying it would be a coherent, necessary ground, your C.