Here:
On his death in 1727, pioneering physicist Isaac Newton left behind a trove of manuscripts that he had shared with almost no one during his lifetime. The long-unpublished papers—containing some 10m words, or the equivalent of roughly a hundred novels—have tantalised scholars ever since. Newton famously left little published evidence of how he made his scientific discoveries. Could these private writings hold the key to understanding his genius?
Recovering the gold within his papers is no easy matter. The material is difficult on many levels. Forbiddingly technical, and unrelentingly heterogeneous, these are the writings of an introverted scholar working across six decades who was loath to throw away even the smallest scrap. One measure of the difficulty of this material is the fact that no comprehensive edition of Newton’s writings has ever been published.
To make matters worse, Newton left no will and no instructions for dealing with the papers. It was a strange omission that becomes clearer once it is understood just how inflammatory their contents were. The papers contained damning evidence of Newton’s heretical disbelief in the notion of the Trinity of God the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost—which he believed to be a mere scriptural corruption. Newton’s fascination with alchemy was also evident from these papers, as was his unseemly obsession with abstruse matters of church history and doctrine.
Immediately following Newton’s death, his relatives brought a Fellow of the Royal Society in to make a quick assessment of their worth (he had just three days with the papers). Unsurprisingly, he determined that, with a scant few exceptions, the papers were “Not fit to be printed.” The existence of these papers threatened Newton’s public image as a scientist-saint.
Stable, conventional folk have a hard time with geniuses because stable conventionals just don’t “get” a central fact: The qualities that enabled Newton to formulate usable laws of motion* meant that he was never going to be a club member in good standing at “Aren’t I Good?” Girls.
Many of us can choose but the choice was probably forced on Newton by his outstanding abilities.
* Vulgarized presentations of the story say that Newton “invented” the laws of motion. But that’s nonsense; most people understood then and now how motion works. But intuitions don’t lead directly to calculations. Newton formulated laws that enabled reliable calculations, which was a huge boost to technology in an age that was hungry to improve living standards thereby.
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Although I’ve seen atheists use the ‘Newton denied the trinity’ argument before to try to deny Newton was a true Christian, (apparently they were more concerned with attacking Christianity in particular than attacking Theism in general), in response I pointed out that, number 1, Newton, a few hundred years before it was remotely feasible, predicted the return of the Jews to their homeland,,
And Number 2, Newton predicted the return of Christ:
Thus, whatever Newton’s peculiarities of belief about the trinity, apparently Newton was ‘enough of’ a Christian to believe that Christ would return to this earth from heaven to rule and reign over this earth.
Of supplemental note: I think Newton, who ‘discovered’ gravity, would be very interested to learn that the moon keeps better time than we do.
Also of interest, it may surprise some to learn that the biblical ‘prophetic’ calendar is more accurate than our modern day ‘scientific’ calendar. The Gregorian calendar uses a fairly complex system of leap days (and seconds) to keep accuracy with the sun, whereas, on a whole consideration, the prophetic calendar uses a simpler system of leap months to keep accuracy to the sun. When these two systems are compared against each other, side by side, the prophetic calendar equals the Gregorian in accuracy at first approximation, and on in-depth analysis for extremely long periods of time (even to the limits for how precisely we can measure the Earth’s solar years) the prophetic calendar exceeds the Gregorian calendar in accuracy. i.e. God’s measure of time exceeds the best efforts of Man to scientifically measure time accurately for the earth.,, But, since God created space and time in the first place, why am I surprised about any of this this? 🙂
News, Strange are the ways of genius. Which, we should respect. And in so doing, we should recognise that ideas stand on their merits, not their authorship. Which brings us to the significance of plumb-line principles in reasoning, especially self-evident first principles. KF
The Holy Trinity is such a profound mystery, I very much doubt that repudiation of its post-Gospel formulation by the Church, albeit under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, could disqualify a person from legitimately defining himself as a Christian.
If they were to expressly reject any of Christ’s Gospel teachings concerning the Divine Persons, mysterious as they are, even individually, that would be another matter.
A list of Newton’s papers on theology
http://dlib.nli.org.il/R/?func.....on_id=7856
Judging from the title of his papers, if Newton had any left-field theological belief it was probably the same one I suffer from. I believe the Bible is the inspired, infallible, inerrant Word of God, and considering how much time Newton spent writing down his thoughts on Biblical prophecy, I would wager that’s what he believed also.
The question I have is, why should Newton’s religious belief have any bearing on whether or not god exists? Newton believed in a Christian god, Einstein didn’t. I didn’t think that truth, whatever it is, is based on consensus. The majority of eligible voters in the south during the mid 1800s believed that slavery was OK and often used the bible to justify it. After all, the bible never openly condemns slavery; it even talks about the proper way to treat your slave. That doesn’t make it right.
A-B said:
the proper way to treat your slave in the Bible was based on the economic master-slave relationship being that of a brother-brother relationship not owner-property relationship. It was covered in the laws God gave to the nation He chose to reveal Himself to. Now where do you suppose the idea that a slave was property, to be hijacked from his homeland and sold like a plow or an oxen, and didn’t need to be treated as a fellow human being came from?
Newton believed that the end of the present world would come in the year 2030. He also believed that almost all ancient myths were metaphorical stories with hidden meaning. Contrary to popular belief, alchemy was not about magic but had to do with the occult (hidden) sciences. Alchemists used metaphors to hide the meaning of their research. This is the reason that alchemical writings make no sense to the uninitiated. If Newton lived in our times, he would be branded as a crackpot creationist and a crank by evolutionists and materialists.
PS. I am a Christian and I, like Newton, believe that the Trinity doctrine is unmitigated nonsense. I believe in a Yin-Yang duality. Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.”
Not sure how we got round to slavery, but one complexity is that early Christians were more likely to be slaves than own slaves. Indeed, that was one if the jibes against them.
Also, the penalty for slave rebellions under Roman rule was crucifixion. So any advice given to Christians about how to conduct themselves in those times had to reckon with those facts.
Peter and Paul both took the view (which they lived out by martyrdom) that Christians would likely suffer anyway and it was important to the faith that they suffer *for the Gospel,* not some other cause.
None of that need direct policy today, when many heads of state are Christians, and Christians (and others) can simply abolish slavery legally.
A_b: Go read Philemon, then ponder why the Antislavery Society — founded BTW by Christians — had as its motto “Am I not a man and a Brother” [vv. 15 – 17] and/or “Am I not a woman and a sister” [add v. 2], then understand the one-sided polarisation game that is going on. Note, that epistle came from a prison cell while the Apostle was literally chained to a Roman Soldier. Understand the obvious surveillance, looking for any excuse to execute, and censorship then understand how he addressed the issues of slavery, escaped slaves and more, by the opposite of what is going on today . . . heart softening. KF
awstar #6
Under the Mosaic Law, the Hebrews were forbidden to have a save from among their own people, since it was abominable to the Lord.
It follows that:
a) The same would hold for Christians;
b) Or for anyone else, since their first Christian duty would be to evangelize the slave and make him a brother.
Well, in fact, absolutely central to Christianity is the precept Christ taught to the effect that we are all brothers and sisters of one another.
‘Someone said to Him, “Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak to You.” 48But Jesus answered the one who was telling Him and said, “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?” 49And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, “Behold My mother and My brothers!…’
Incidentally, far from Christianity constituting an ogrish patriarchy oppressing women, prior to its hegemony, under Roman law, women were held to be chattels, and the husband had the power of life or death over his wife, as he did his children.
Here’s an interesting article on Christianity’s raising of the status of women above chattels/slaves.
I never said that Christians weren’t important in the end of slavery. But it would be naive, and delusional, to pretend that it wasn’t also Christians who prolonged it.
The Catholic Church never condemned slavery per se. Nevertheless, just a few centuries after inheriting from pagan Rome the biggest slave society the world had ever seen, slavery was almost completely eradicated from all of Christendom.
By their fruits you shall know them.
Jorje: “The Catholic Church never condemned slavery per se. Nevertheless, just a few centuries after inheriting from pagan Rome the biggest slave society the world had ever seen, slavery was almost completely eradicated from all of Christendom.
“
A few centuries? How many generations are we talking about? How many millions of slaves?
awstar:
Thanks for the great list. By any chance do you know which document outlines Newton’s “heretical disbelief” in the Trinity?
And by “disbelief in the Trinity” I presume the OP article is not suggesting the Newton disbelieved in God, but rather disbelieved in the idea of the three-in-one amalgamation interpretation of scripture?
Prolonged it? You make it sound like other societies would have abolished slavery earlier than the Christians did. Can you name one non-christian society that abolished slavery at all?
newton wasn’t a geneius as there are no such people.
He just thought about things more and guessed or had insight on how to figure things out.
So his other ideas are using the same mechanism as he used for his good ideas.
physics is easy since it must work and few people back then thought about it.
I don’t think it was a big intellectual accomplishment.
just putting two and two together.
its a exalted opinion of his smarts that then makes people question the other stuff.
its all no big deal and the same use of basic presumptions to knock through walls of mystery.