What Is Nature? A Metaphysical Definition

The term nature (from the Latin natura, derived from nasci, “to be born”) primarily designates what belongs properly to a being, what constitutes it in its essence and determines its mode of being and acting. Nature is thus the internal principle by which a thing is what it is and acts as it does.

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In its most common sense, nature refers to the whole physical world, considered as the order of sensible realities and the laws governing them. Nature is then contrasted with artifice, culture, or human intervention. Although legitimate within its own domain, this cosmological meaning should not obscure the deeper significance of the term.

In the classical philosophical tradition, especially in Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, nature is the intrinsic principle of a being’s motion and rest. It expresses essence insofar as essence is the source of operations. Thus, human nature is not merely what man is, but that by which he thinks, wills, and acts in accordance with his being.

Metaphysics carefully distinguishes nature from essence. Essence answers the question “What is this thing?”; nature designates that same essence considered as a principle of activity. The same reality may therefore be viewed either as essence or as nature, depending on the perspective adopted.

Nor should the notion of nature be confused with that of substance. Substance designates what subsists in itself, whereas nature designates that by which a substance acts according to what it is. Substance pertains primarily to the question of being; nature to that of acting.

In the medieval and scholastic tradition, and later among several Renaissance thinkers, a distinction emerged that became classical: natura naturans (“nature naturing” or “naturing nature”) and natura naturata (“nature natured” or “natured nature”). The former designates the productive, creative, or generative principle of reality; the latter designates the totality of produced beings, the manifested order of creation. André Lalande summarizes this distinction as follows: “Natura naturans is God, insofar as He is the creator and principle of all action; natura naturata is the totality of beings and laws that He has created.”

This distinction originates in medieval philosophy, particularly among the Latin commentators of Aristotle and in certain formulations inspired by Neoplatonism. It was subsequently taken up by thinkers as diverse as Meister Eckhart, Nicholas of Cusa, Giordano Bruno, and Spinoza. Its meaning, however, varies considerably according to doctrine. In a theistic perspective, natura naturans designates God as the transcendent principle of being; in the Spinozist system, it designates God, or the one Substance, considered as the immanent cause of all things, whereas natura naturata corresponds to the totality of the modes and manifestations of this Substance.

Christian theology nevertheless maintains an essential distinction between the Creator and creation. God is neither a part of the world nor the world itself; He is its transcendent cause. Consequently, although the expression natura naturans may sometimes be employed to designate God as the source of all existence, it must not lead to a confusion between the uncreated order and the created order.

In its highest metaphysical sense, nature always manifests an intelligible order. It is neither a mere aggregate of phenomena nor a collection of blind mechanisms, but the expression of an intelligibility that ultimately refers back to its principles. According to a Platonic and Neoplatonic perspective, the cosmos as a whole may be understood as the symbolic manifestation of higher realities of which it constitutes the visible image. As Jean Borella reminds us, the world possesses an iconic function: it is the image of a reality that transcends it and upon which it ontologically depends.

Modern thought has often reduced nature to the totality of objective and measurable phenomena. This reduction, characteristic of naturalism and scientism, tends to overlook both the ontological dimension of nature and its symbolic significance. Nature then ceases to be perceived as a theophany or an image of principial reality and becomes merely an object of analysis and exploitation.

Nature thus appears as a pivotal notion linking physics, philosophy, theology, and metaphysics. It designates at once what a thing is, the principle of its operations, the total manifested order of the world, and ultimately the reflection of a higher reality from which it receives both its being and its intelligibility.

See also: Cosmos, Essence, Substance, Creation, Symbol, Theophany.

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Further Reading

Cosmos