Methodological naturalism is not the same thing as metaphysical naturalism or simply “naturalism”. Methodological naturalism is a method of attaining a very specific type of knowledge. While this method rejects supernatural explanations, it does so only because such objects do not represent the kind of knowledge that a scientist wishes to obtain, and not because it is true that there are no supernatural objects. Metaphysical naturalism or physicalism is a philosophical position about what exists in reality, or what reality consists of. In both cases, as I understand it, they reject the supernatural, and is certainly incompatible with the Christian faith; even though some would wish to define God as physical. Thus it is meaningless to me to speak of a Christian naturalist or a Christian physicality unless these term are merely referring to a methodological position concerning a particular aspect of human experience, i e that there are physical things and the best way of obtaining knowledge about physical things is to ignore any assumptions about the supernatural and its causal relation to the world when experimentally seeking that particular kind of knowledge.
See here.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysical_naturalism…
Metaphysical naturalism, or ontological naturalism, is a world view and belief system that holds that there is nothing but natural things, forces, and causes of the kind studied by the natural sciences, i.e. those required to understand our physical environment and having mechanical properties amenable to mathematical modeling. Metaphysical naturalism holds that all concepts related to consciousness or to the mind refer to entities which are reducible to or supervene on natural things, forces and causes. More specifically, it rejects the objective existence of any supernatural thing, force or cause, such as occur in humanity’s various religions, as well as any form of teleology. It sees all “supernatural” things as explainable in purely natural terms. It is not merely a view about what science currently studies, but also about what science might discover in the future. Metaphysical naturalism is a monistic and not a dualistic view of reality.
And here.
plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/…
Physicalism
First published Tue Feb 13, 2001; substantive revision Wed Sep 9, 2009
Physicalism is the thesis that everything is physical, or as contemporary philosophers sometimes put it, that everything supervenes on, or is necessitated by, the physical. The thesis is usually intended as a metaphysical thesis, parallel to the thesis attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher Thales, that everything is water, or the idealism of the 18th Century philosopher Berkeley, that everything is mental. The general idea is that the nature of the actual world (i.e. the universe and everything in it) conforms to a certain condition, the condition of being physical. Of course, physicalists don’t deny that the world might contain many items that at first glance don’t seem physical — items of a biological, or psychological, or moral, or social nature. But they insist nevertheless that at the end of the day such items are either physical or supervene on the physical.
