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Natural attacks and unarmed strikes are not the same thing.
For one, natural attacks do lethal damage while unarmed attacks do no lethal damage. Natural attacks do not provoke attacks of opportunity while unarmed attacks do.
Natural attacks include claws, bites, gore, slams, stings, etc,. Fists are not included in natural attacks. When using fists you are not armed, except for monks. Therefore fists are unarmed attacks.
A search of the PRD reveals that Natural Weapons are not actually defined, but Natural Attacks are. And by definition, fists are certainly not Natural Attacks.
Unarmed strike counts as a light weapon, and not as a natural weapon.
It isn't nebulous or a paradox. It's a general rule with a specific exception. Consider the following sentence: "I cannot consume dairy products (general rule), but I can drink goat's milk (specific exception)." From an ideal grammatical stance, there should be a 'most' in there, but the sentence still works.
When using fists you are not armed, except for monks.
Well anyone with Improved Unarmed Strike, which monks get for free. There are a few non-monk builds that fight unarmed, notably the unarmed fighter. Sorry about the minor technical point there.
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/advanced/spells/weaponOfAwe.html#_weapon -of-awe
Specifically this:
"You can't cast this spell on a natural weapon, but you can cast it on an unarmed strike."
By definition, your fists are a natural weapon. (There are various places in the book that specifically say this)
So- its like they are saying you can't cast it on you fists but you can cast it on any attack roll you make- which makes this all very nebulous.
I know they were trying very hard to go out of their way to exclude things like claws and bites and so on.... but in trying to do so- they succesfully created a paradox in which the spell's rules text contradicts itself.
They didnt want to allow non-druids the use of "magic fang"- but SERIOUSLY PAIZO? Just remove the ability to use this with unarmed attacks and/or make a level 3 version of this spell which DOES allow natural attacks. -or change it to a range of personal and allow natural weapons.
Fists are not natural weapons. Strikes with punches, kicks, and head butts are unarmed strikes. Natural attacks follow different rules, such as "You do not receive additional natural attacks for a high base attack bonus. Instead, you receive additional attack rolls for multiple limb and body parts capable of making the attack (as noted by the race or ability that grants the attacks)."
However, I agree with you that Weapon of Awe's restrictions make no sense. A claw cannot transformed into an awe-inspiring instrument, but a fist can?
For that matter, some interpretations of unarmed strike do not specify a body part. You just make an unarmed strike rather than a fist strike or a foot strike. In that case how do you touch an unarmed strike in order to cast this spell on it? I guess we either throw away that interpretation or declare that Weapon of Awe cannot be used on unarmed strike.
I am surprised that I have not seen this spell mentioned in the long threads about whether unarmed strike is one weapon or many weapons.