Remember this when someone tells you that science and religion don’t mix:
Isaac Newton formulated the laws of mechanics and the law of universal gravity, the laws we use to describe so many of the phenomena we experience, from apples falling and rockets taking off to Mars to the colors of the rainbow. As a bonus, he also invented the reflector telescope that we use to extend our vision into the Universe. And, of course, Newton co-invented calculus, without which there would be no physics or engineering…
To focus on Newton’s science in order to understand Newton simply won’t do. His appetite for learning far transcended what we would nowadays call science. He devoted a larger amount of time to studies in alchemy and theology, dealing with arcane questions which ranged from the transmutation of elements to biblical chronology and the nature of the Christian Trinity.
Although we correctly learn in schools that Newtonian physics is a model of pure rationality, we would dishonor Newton’s memory if we overlooked the crucial role God plays in his Universe. It may be true that to understand Newton’s scientific achievements we can neglect the more metaphysical side of his personality. But that is only half the story — for Newton saw the Universe as a manifestation of the infinite power of God. It is no exaggeration to say that his life was one long search for God, one long search for communion with the Divine Intelligence, which Newton believed endowed the Universe with the beauty and order manifest in nature. His science was a product of this belief, an expression of his rational mysticism, a bridge between the human and the Divine.
Marcelo Gleiser, “Isaac Newton’s life was one long search for God” at Big Think (February 2, 2022)
Without Christianity, science as we know it wouldn’t exist. Science derived its power and efficacy from the pages of Scripture. But how many sons are there who hold their fathers in contempt because of their wealth?
All the big-name scientists were fervently seeking to understand the will of God, in both the Islamic and Christian worlds, until 1789. DOCTOR Locke and DOCTOR Marat broke the spell and gave us science serving the Holy Emperor-Doctor-Torturer instead of science seeking and serving God.
As to the headline of the article, “Isaac Newton’s life was one long search for God”
That is similar to what one of Stephen Meyer’s supervisors told him at Cambridge, (Newton’s alma mater), “If you have missed Newton’s Theism you have missed everything”
Here are a few more notes along that line, “for Newton discussions about God and design are not to be kept separate from natural philosophy (science), but rather are integral to it.”
And, “Newton held that, since the world is a product of divine freedom rather than necessity, the laws of nature must be inferred from the phenomena of nature, not deduced from metaphysical axioms — as both Descartes and Leibniz were wont to do.”
And, “The belief that it was by divine will and not by some shadow of necessity that matter existed and possessed its properties, had a direct impact on Newton’s science. It was necessary to discover laws and properties by experimental means, and not by rational deduction. As Newton wrote in another unpublished manuscript, “The world might have been otherwise,,”
Seeing that the ‘divine will’ of God, (sustaining the universe in its continual existence), played such an integral part in Newton’s ‘science’, (and although modern science has certainly come a long way since Newton first started the Scientific Revolution), let’s just simply say that Newton would be very pleased to see the recent closing of the “freedom of choice” loophole within quantum mechanics,
Moreover, when we rightly allow the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics, (as the Christian founders of modern science originally envisioned, Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, and Max Planck, to name a few of the Christian founders,,,, and as quantum mechanics itself now empirically demands with the closing of the “freedom-of-choice” loophole by Anton Zeilinger and company), then rightly allowing the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics provides us with a very plausible resolution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’ in that Christ’s resurrection from the dead bridges the infinite mathematical divide that exists between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics and provides us with an empirically backed reconciliation, via the Shroud of Turin, between Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity into the much sought after ‘Theory of Everything”
Verse:
St. Bernard on Learning: “It is God really who does the teaching”
Andrew