Term N

Natural knowledge
     A term used in describing a type of knowledge possessed by God. Often it is raised in discussions dealing with individuals’ free will and God’s infinite knowledge. God’s natural knowledge would be His knowledge of all things of potential existence influenced by individuals though not necessarily in actual existence. God knows this set of knowledge from all eternity, before the creation of the universe. It is called natural because it is a natural attribute of God’s existence. See also Free Knowledge and Middle Knowledge.

Naturalism
     The belief that all of human experience can be described through natural law.  It asserts that biological evolution is true and that there are no supernatural realities.

Neo-orthodoxy
     A focus on existential and psychological aspects of religious experience and denounces the literalism of the Bible.  Experience with the divine is what makes scripture real, not biblical revelation, not reason.  Neo orthodoxy is subjective and selective in its "orthodox" positions.

Naturalistic evolution
     The theory that the universe is many billions of years old and that after a long period of time, all galaxies, stars, planets, and life on earth evolved.  This evolution was without divine intervention.  Compare with creationism.

Nestorianism
     States that the two natures of Christ were so separated from each other that they were "not in contact"; the problem here is that worship of the human Jesus would then not be allowed. (See also Hypostatic Union, Eutychianism, and Monophycitism.)

Nun
     Especially in the Roman Catholic Church, those women who consecrate their lives to spiritual service and various religious orders.  They do not marry and are normally virgins.