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Methodological naturalism (MN) or Scientific Naturalism is a philosophical tenet that states that life exists in a single natural universe, as supported by science. MN describes life as a mechanically unfolding process; where everything is caused and possesses an effect.
History
The term MN itself probably doesn't go much past the 1980s; Phillip E. Johnson acknowledges taking it (or "methodological atheism") from Nancey Murphy, a theologian with training in the philosophy of science. Arguably, MN itself goes back to the Ionian pre-Socratic philosophers of the 4th century BCE; see, e.g., Jonathan Barnes's introduction to Early Greek Philosophy (Penguin), which describes them as subscribing to principles of empirical investigation that strikingly anticipate MN. Benjamin Wiker traces the historical development of the modern materialist perspective starting with the choice of the Epicureans to focus exclusively on the natural realm as a necessary step toward their goals; see his book "Moral Darwinism; How We Became Hedonists".
Naturalism vs. Tradition Religion
MN as a world view is based on the premise that knowledge about what exists and about how things work is best achieved through the sciences, not personal revelation or traditional religion.
MN believes that life is the evolved product of physics and Darwinian natural selection. Nothing about life escapes being included in the physical universe, or escapes being shaped by the various processes physical, biological, psychological, and social that science describes. MN believes that there exists no immaterial souls, spirits, or disembodied selves which stand apart from the natural world.
Cause vs. Effect
MN believes that each human being is an unfolding natural process, and every aspect of that process is caused, and is a cause itself. It states that what we are and do is connected to the rest of the world because our bodies and minds are shaped by conditions that precede us and surround us.
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