Preternatural

The preternatural (or praeternatural) is that which appears outside or beside (Latin: præter) the natural. It is "suspended between the mundane and the miraculous". In theology, the term is often used to distinguish marvels or deceptive trickery, often attributed to witchcraft or demons, from purely divine power of genuinely supernatural origin that transcends the laws of nature. Preternatural is also used to describe gifts such as immortality, possessed by Adam and Eve before the fall of man into original sin, and the power of flight that angels are thought to have. In the early modern period, the term was used by scientists to refer to abnormalities and strange phenomena of various kinds that seemed to depart from the norms of nature. Medieval theologians made a clear distinction between the natural, the preternatural and the supernatural. Thomas Aquinas argued that the supernatural consists in "God’s unmediated actions"; the natural is "what happens always or most of the time"; and the preternatural is "what happens rarely, but nonetheless by the agency of created beings ... Marvels belong, properly speaking, to the realm of the preternatural." Theologians, following Aquinas, argued that only God had the power to disregard the laws of nature that he has created, but that demons could manipulate the laws of nature by a form of trickery, to deceive the unwary into believing they had experienced real miracles. According to historian Lorraine Daston, Although demons, astral intelligences, and other spirits might manipulate natural causes with superhuman dexterity and thereby work marvels, as mere creatures they could never transcend from the preternatural to the supernatural and work genuine miracles. By the 16th century, the term "preternatural" was increasingly used to refer to demonic activity comparable to the use of magic by human adepts: The Devil, "being a natural Magician ... may perform many acts in ways above our knowledge, though not transcending our natural power.