A take on the world in which spiritual forces are embedded within nature.
The animist sees everything as “animated” or “alive” with magical intentions and powers. It’s an enchanted, but closed, take on the world. This type of wonder and mystery about the world is firmly situated within Nature. In fact it draws Nature as its source. Nothing really transcends nature according to this view. Nature may include spirits and gods or even God, but these spiritual forces are embedded within nature rather than transcendent. It views natural things appearing to behave in a certain predictable way as merely following a habit. Heat follows fire and hunger follows a lack of food as a matter of habit, not necessity “just as the king generally rides on horseback through the streets of the city, and is never found departing from this habit; but reason does not find it impossible that he should walk on foot.”1Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed God wills every event and His will is not bound up by reason. According to this view, coldness might follow fire tomorrow. “Its a denial of the coherence and comprehensibility of the natural world.”[/mfn]Hillel Ofek, Why the Arabic World Turned Away from Science [/mfn]
This view subscribes to the philosophical theory on causation known as occasionalism which asserts that created substances cannot be efficient causes of events. Instead, all events are taken to be caused directly by God. “Were it God’s will we would even have to practice idolatry.”2Ibn Hazm as quoted by Pope Benedict XVI Thus, all things are taken to be governed on whims by magical powers, not by laws accessible to the human mind. It’s no wonder science doesn’t emerge here.
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