(Latin: natura, nature)
A viewpoint in philosophy and theology insisting exclusively on the natural as distinguished from the transcendent and the supernatural. This may be restricted to physical nature, denying the supra-sensual and the spiritual; as such it is equivalent to materialism; to nature in the pantheistic, monistic sense, hence denying distinct First Cause; or finally to nature in the deistic sense of created reality, denying any intervention of the First Cause, whether providential or supernatural. In each sense it has a wide application in every field of knowledge; as a result it has been condemned by several popes, especially Pope Pius IX, in the Vatican Council.