This short book sounds like a lecture because it is. It was given at Balliol Colledge in 1973. The four:
1) His Father in Heaven
2) God's Word and God's Works
3) Corrupters Ancient and Modern
4) Prophecy and History
Much of Newton's religious writing only became availabile after 1950. Many of these are now at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Manuel makes use of his first hand examination to offer keen insights. This is his third book on Newton.
The myth that Newton's religious life was the result of old age and mental weakness is quickly dispelled. This was a legend promoted by the Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Biot in the nineteenth century. Newton worked on Bible prophecy in his prime and until late in life.
Newton was not a religious mystic or, as some were condemned, an 'enthusiastic'. The civil war had brought a hatred of the speaking in tounges, healing and visions of the rebels. The way to God was through study, the Bible and creation.
"To be constantly engaged in studying and probing into God's actions was true worship. . . . Working in god's vineyard staved off evil, and work meant investigating real things in nature and Scripture, not fabricating metaphysical systems and abstractions." (22) This was against Decarte and Leibniz.
Newton also wrote about the history of science. . .
"A single principle underlies them all. Knowledge of God's works thrived in those epochs in which there was a true conception of the deity; and conversely, when false ideas of God dominated society - such as pagan idolatry, Greek philosophical conceptions of a metaphysical God, or Papist Trinitarianism and idolatrous Saint worship - there was no real knowledge of God's works. . . . Newton's sketch of the period of Plato and Aristotle and that of the medieval schoolmen makes of them two comparable dark ages, when false religion was bound up with false science. . . . Polytheism was inimical to science because it accepted the idea of contrary and contradictory causes in nature which it associated with false gods. (42- 43)
This is now a common conclusion of various scholars. (See Eugene M Klaaren - "The Religious Origins of Modern Science".)
Newton's view of the two books of God, word and works, is "the worth of the two books was equal, and there could be no invidious comparisons between them. And whatever knowledge was revealed in one was harmonious with what unfolded in the other. At a later point I shall have occasion to show how sound scientific method was embodied in his principals of prophecy interpretation." (48)
Einstein noted after reading Newton religious work, he was scientific in "his spiritual workshop."
One of Newton's themes was the corruption of Christianity . . .
"The Corrupters of religion ancient and modern were legion: the contemporary Papists and their antecedents the pagan idolaters; the English sectarian enthusiasts - the new prophets- and their equivalents the hallucinating monks of early Christianity; the Pharisical Jews who rejected Christ; contemporary Deists and Atheists, like Hobbs, and their ancient counterparts the theological Epicureans, for whom all was chance; and finally, the philosophers who mixed up metaphysics and religion, particularly the modern rationalist system-makers Decarte and Leibniz." (65) Interesting that Christians still fight the same battles today.
Manuel makes the clear point, that Newton's religious work is just as rational as his science. It has a "basically rationalist framework. In the preface of a Latin version of the history, Newton laid down the thesis that 'the true understanding of things Christian depends on church history'. Only through a circumstantial account of the degradation of the church in a series of stages and its doctrinal deviation from the primitive creed could Christianity be stripped of its spurious accretions." (68)
History provides facts, facts provide truth.
Another foundation of Newton's thought was his opposition, even abhorrence, of metaphysics. "Metaphysics wrought havoc in the early centuries of Christianity, as the history of the apostolic creed and of the church councils bears witness, and the Leibnizian arguments are likely to foster the same divisive spirit in our time. Newton's contempt for metaphysics thus had religious as well as scientific roots. . . . Metaphysics remains an evil to be combated. Abstract system making, building hypothetical structures, was a mode of thinking responsible for the perversion of the only truly revealed religion, primitive Christianity. The modern philosophical system-makers who were molesting him were acting precisely as had the ancient Plantonists, Gnostics, and Cabbalists." (76)
Nationalism, multiverse, transhumanism, etc.
Newton's religious views on the future are unconventional . . .
"Newton envisaged the coexistence during the millennium of beings of different natures, some mortal, others spiritual and invisible, the children of the resurrection. . . . 'Such as is his body, such shall ours be', wrote Newton, with more than a touch of self-assurance that he would be among those 'children of the resurrection'. . . . The new Jerusalem signified not only a 'local city on earth' but 'the whole assembly of Christ and his Angles with the saints raised from the dead and reigning with him in heaven'. (101)
Rare insight into scriptural truth.
Manuel concludes this book with Newton's written confession of faith . . .
"We must believe that their is 'one God' or supreme Monarch that we may dear and obey him and keep his laws and give him honor and glory. We must believe that he is the father of whom are all things, and that he loves his people as his children that they may mutually love him and obey him as ther father. . . . We must believe he is the God of the Jews who created the heavens and earth all things therein as is exprest Ten Commandments that we may thank him for our being and for all the blessings of this life, and forebear to take his name in vain or worship images or other gods. . . . For tho ther be that are called God whether in heaven or earth (as there are God's many and Lords many) yet to us there is but one God the father of whom are all things and we in him and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him: that is, but one God and one Lord in our worship." (104)
Deep, profound, overriding faith, controlling his very being, from the most famous scientist in all history.
This work includes a thirty page appendix. The first is "Fragments from a Treatise on Revelation" and the second is "Of the World to come". Not easy to find. Contains a good index.
I enjoyed this presentation. Anyone who has interest in Newton, Biblical teachings, intellectual history or the scientific revolution will find many gems. Newton's rejection of metaphysics was drawn from his Biblical training.
The scientific revolution, the worship of reason by the French philosophes and the English empiricists, was based on deep religious belief. What irony!
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