On the Natural, Artificial, Preternatural and Supernatural, and on miracles

The Natural, Artificial, Preternatural and Supernatural refer to an action or act each belonging to a different sphere. they are differentiated from the point of view of the subject, not so much the object.
The Subject of the natural is nature, of the artificial is man, of the preternatural is a spirit and of the supernatural is God.
So the Object of this action may be exactly the same, the moving of a stone. but the subject who performs this action may be different. If there were a earthquake and the stone was to fall, the action would belong to the natural sphere. A stone thrown by a man would belong to the artificial sphere, thrown by a demon, to the preternatural sphere and finally turn into children of Abraham by God, to the supernatural sphere.
Now miracles can be defined as an action by which God, transcending the ordinary course of nature, gives testimony of himself. This would mean that miracles belong to the supernatural sphere.

One of the important words in this definition is "testimony", because it is the final cause of the miracle, to give testimony to God. One of the ways we know that a message comes from God, or that a Saint is a man of God , is done by the testimony of miracles. Without miracles no one could be canonised, the Church would be incapable of deciding for or against apparitions or the such like.

Another important word is "transcends", because a miracle must be incapable of having a so called rational explanation. this is the formal cause. It is necessary for a miracle to "transcend the ordinary course of nature", if not it is not a miracle. The birth of a child does not transcend the ordinary course of nature , it is therefore not a miracle.

Another important word is "God" because he is the efficient cause, if the miracle does not have God as author, then it is not a miracle but a prodigy or an artifice. A prodigy being analogically a miracle in the preternatural sphere.

The material cause is the action itself.

Philosophy and Religion

Idealism of Plato (pointing up) the Realism of Aristotle (pointing down)

In a time when Hope seems to waver, when the subjective takes the place of the objective, it would seem important to remind ourselves some of the principles of sane philosophy.The errors of the modern era started with a rejection of the sane philosophy of St Thomas Aquinas based on reality, that is the objective, and the adoption of  philosophical systems with man, that is the subjective, at their base.

Modernism is first of all a philosophical error before it is anything else. Modernism is characterised by a confusion between the natural and the supernatural which leads to a confusion between the subjective and the objective.

The Supernatural can be defined as that which is above the sphere of nature, or that which belongs to God ( not to be confused with the preternatural which belongs to the spiritual world of angels and demons).
The terms "objective" and the "subjective" come from the words "object" and "subject" as they appear in grammar. So in the sentence "Peter is the first Pope", " Peter" is subject and "first Pope" is object. The Objective and the Subjective are points of view by which we judge a situation. The Good example would be a child under the age of reason who steals something. The Point of view of the object i.e. "Steals something" there is a sin. Objectively speaking to steal is a sin. On the point of view of the Subject "A Child under the age of reason" there is no sin.

The important point is that the objective is more known and more universal than the subjective. A subjective argument is more unsure than an objective one.