Isaac Newton's religious views

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The life of
Isaac Newton
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Sir Isaac Newton at 46 in Godfrey Kneller's 1689 portrait
Sir Isaac Newton at 46 in Godfrey Kneller's 1689 portrait

The law of gravity became Sir Isaac Newton's best-known discovery. Newton warned against using it to view the universe as a mere machine, like a great clock. He said:

Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done.[1]
This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent Being. … This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont to be called “Lord God” παντοκρατωρ [pantokratòr], or “Universal Ruler”. … The Supreme God is a Being eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect.[2]
Opposition to godliness is atheism in profession and idolatry in practice. Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors.[3]

Though he is better known for his love of science, the Bible was Sir Isaac Newton's greatest passion. He devoted more time to the study of Scripture than to science, and said, "I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by those who were inspired. I study the Bible daily."[citation needed] He spent a great deal of time trying to discover hidden messages within the Bible.

Newton is generally thought to have been unitarian, not holding to Trinitarianism. He listed "worshipping Christ as God" in a list of "Idolatria" in his theological notebook.[4] In a minority view, T.C. Pfizenmaier argued that he held closer to the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans and Protestants.[5] In his final days Newton refused the sacrament of the Church of England.

Newton and Boyle’s mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers clergy as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians.[6] The clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way in which to combat the emotional and mystical superlatives of superstitious enthusiasm, as well as the threat of atheism.[7]

The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment magical thinking, and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle’s mechanical conception of the universe. Newton gave Boyle’s ideas their completion through mathematical proofs, and more importantly was very successful in popularizing them.[8] Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles.[9] These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed man to pursue his own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect himself with his own rational powers.[10] The perceived ability of Newtonians to explain the world, both physical and social, through logical calculations alone is the crucial idea in the disenchantment of Christianity.[11]

Newton saw God as the masterful creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation.[12] But the unforeseen theological consequence of his conception of God, as Leibniz pointed out, was that God was now entirely removed from the world’s affairs, since the need for intervention would only evidence some imperfection in God’s creation, something impossible for a perfect and omnipotent creator.[13] However, it is still possible for God to be a perfect and omnipotent creator if human choice is one of the sources of causality in this universe.

On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish.[14] Newton himself may have had some interest in millenarianism as he wrote about both the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation in his Observations Upon the Prophecies

Newton’s conception of the physical world provided a stable model of the natural world that would reinforce stability and harmony in the civic world.[15]

[edit] Notes

  1. ↑  J.H. Tiner. Isaac Newton: Inventor, Scientist and Teacher, Mott Media
  2. ↑  Principia, Book III; cited in; Newton’s Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953.
  3. ↑  A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65.
  4. ↑  Westfall, Richard S. The Life of Isaac Newton, Cambridge U Press, 1993, ISBN 0-521-47737-9, p. 124
  5. ↑  Pfizenmaier, T.C., "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?" Journal of the History of Ideas 68(1):57–80, 1997.
  6. ↑  Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689-1720. p28.
  7. ↑  Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689-1720. p37 and p44.
  8. ↑  Westfall, Richard S. Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England. Yale University Press, New Haven: 1958. p200.
  9. ↑  Fitzpatrick, Martin. ed. Knud Haakonssen. “The Enlightenment, politics and providence: some Scottish and English comparisons.” Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p64.
  10. ↑  Frankel, Charles. The Faith of Reason: The Idea of Progress in the French Enlightenment. King’s Crown Press, New York: 1948. p1.
  11. ↑  Germain, Gilbert G. A Discourse on Disenchantment: Reflections on Politics and Technology. p28.
  12. ↑  Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. “The emergence of Rational Dissent.” Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19.
  13. ↑  Westfall, Richard S. Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England. p201.
  14. ↑  Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689-1720. p100-101.
  15. ↑  Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689-1720. p61.
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