Isaac Newton and Religion

[struggle4progress]

A number of posters regularly claim in this forum that religion is essentially inimical to science. These sweeping assertions are typically made without any significant supporting data, and such alleged "proofs," as may be provided, usually involve only scattered anecdotes.

The point of this post is simply to remark that Isaac Newton -- whose influence on science was instant, dramatic, and enduring -- took his own religious studies seriously throughout his entire lifetime:

An Introduction to Isaac Newton's Writings

Newton was an astonishingly prolific writer. Besides the huge body of published scientific writing for which he remains most celebrated, he also penned over a million words on the subject of alchemy and somewhere in the region of two and a half million about religion. There is also a substantial collection of administrative documents mostly in his own hand dating from his years of service at the Royal Mint (1696-1727) ...

http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/prism.php?id=43

Introducing Newton's Theological Manuscripts

Newton had a clergyman for a stepfather and a clergyman for an uncle, and he was brought up as a strict Puritan. His religion remained deeply important to him throughout his life, and he studied it quite as intensely as he did physics, optics and astronomy. Indeed, he wrote considerably more about the textual tradition of the Bible and the interpretation of Biblical prophecy than he did about light and gravity. However, his theological research led him to some highly unorthodox conclusions which he kept largely secret.

There is still much debate about whether his theological writings can be regarded as being in a completely separate category from his scientific work, but there is no doubt that he applied the same close scrutiny and rigorous discipline to both subjects ...

http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/prism.php?id=44

Some feel for Newton's seriousness regarding the matter can be gauged from this list of questions concerning ομοουσιος (omo-ousios -- the word in the Nicene Creed as "having the same essence" or "of one being"):

King's College Library
Cambridge, England
Keynes Ms. 11
23 queries about the word omoousios

... NOTE: ... Query 23 is incomplete, breaking off in mid-sentence ...

Quære 1. Whether Christ sent his Apostles to preach Metaphysicks to the unlearned common people & to their wives & children.

Qu. 2. Whether the word ομοουσιος ever was in any Creed before the Nicene; or any Creed was produced by any one Bishop at the Council of Nice for authorizing the use of that word.

Qu. 3. Whether the introducing the use of that word is not contrary to the Apostles rule of holding fast the form of sound words.

Qu. 4. Whether the use of that word was not pressed upon the Council of Nice against the inclination of the major part of the Council

Qu. 5 Whether it was not pressed upon them by the Emperor Constantine the great a Chatechumen not yet baptized & no member of the Council.

Qu. 6 Whether it was not agreed by the Council that that word when applied to the Son of God should signify nothing more then that Christ was the express image of the father, & whether many of the Bishops in pursuance of that interpretation of the word allowed by the Council, did not in their subscriptions by way of caution add τουτ εστιυ ομοιουσιος?

Quære 7. Whether Hosius (or whoever translated that Creed into Latin) did not impose upon the western Churches by translating ομοουσιος by the words unius substantiæ instead of consubstantialis & whether by that translation the Latin Churches were not drawn into an opinion that the father & son had one common substance called in the Greek Hypostasis & whether they did not thereby give occasion to the eastern Churches to cry out ( presently after the Council of Serdica) that the western Churches were become Sabellian.

Qu. 8. Whether the Greeks in opposition to this notion & language did not use the language of three hypostases, & whether in those days the word hyposta did not signify a substance.

Qu. 9. Whether the Latins did not at that time accuse all those of Arianism who used the language of three hypostases & thereby charge Arianism upon the Council of Nice without knowing the true meaning of the Nicene Creed.

Q. 10. Whether the Latines were not convinced in the Council of Ariminum that the Council of Nice by the word ομοουσιος understood nothing more then that the son was the express image of the father. the Acts of the Council of Nice were not produced for convincing them. And whether upon producing the Acts of that Council for proving this, the Macedonians & some others did not accuse the Bishops of hypocrisy who in subscribing those Acts had interpreted them by the word ομοιουσιος in their subscriptions.

Qu. 11. Whether Athanasius, Hilary & in general the Greeks & Latines did not from the time of the reign of Iulian the Apostate acknowledge the father Son & holy Ghost to be three substances & continue to do so till the Schoolmen changed the signification of the word hypostasis & brought in the notion of three persons in one single substance.

Qu. 12. Whether the opinion of the equality of the three substances was not first set on foot in the reign of Iulian the Apostate by Athanasius Hilary &c.

Qu. 13. Whether the worship of the Holy Ghost was not first set on foot presently after the Council of Serdica.

Qu. 14 Whether the Council of Serdica was not the first Council which declared for the doctrine of the consubstantial Trinity & whether the same Council did not affirm that there was but one hypostasis of the father son & H. Ghost.

Qu. 15 Whether the Bishop of Rome five years after the death of Constantine the great A.C. 341 did not receive appeals from the Greek Councils & thereby begin to usurp the universal Bishopric

Qu. 16 Whether the Bishop of Rome in absolving the Appellants from excommunication & communicating with them & did not excommunicate himself & begin a quarrel with the Greek Church.

Qu. 17 Whether the Bishop of Rome in summoning all the Bishops of the Greek Church to appear at the next Council of Rome A.C. 342 did not challenge dominion over them & begin to make war upon them for obteining it.

Qu 18 Whether that Council of Rome in receiving the Appellants into Communion did not excommunicate themselves & support the Bishop of Rome in claiming appeals from all the world.

Qu. 19 Whether the Council of Serdica in receiving the Appellants into Communion & decreeing Appeals from all the Churches to the Bishop of Rome did not excommunicate themselves & become guilty of the schism which followed thereupon, & set up Popery in all the west.

Qu. 20 Whether the Emperor Constantius did not by calling the Council of Millain & Aquileia A.C. 365, abolish Popery, & whether Hilary, Lucifer, were not banished for adhering to the authority of the Pope to receive appeals from the Greek Councils.

Qu. 21 Whether the Emperor Gratian A.C. 379 did not by his Edict restore the Vniversal Bishopric of Rome over all the west? And whether this authority of the Bishop of Rome hath not continued ever since

Qu 22 Whether Hosius St Athanasius, St Hilary, St Ambrose, St Hierome, St Austin were not Papists.

Qu. 23 Whether the western Bishops upon being convinced that the Council of Nice by the word ομοουσιος did

http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/texts/viewtext.php?id=THEM00011&mode=normalized

Since "of one being" belongs to a trinitarian formulation, the above list of questions may be related to:

Newton's Views on the Corruptions of Scripture and the Church

Newton's history of the Church was in essence the history of its corruption from a pristine original, both in terms of its doctrine and of its relationship with the ruling state. This perversion of Christianity reached its peak in the fourth century after Christ, a period which coincided with what he took to be a monumental tampering with Scripture. Newton had noted discrepancies between different versions of the New Testament from an early period in his study, but he undertook his most serious research into putative corruptions of Scripture after conversations with John Locke in early 1690. These conversations in turn had been prompted by Locke inquiring what Newton thought of the recent 'antitrinitarian controversy' ... Drawing on the 1657 Polyglot of Brian Walton and the 1675 Oxford Greek New Testament, Newton argued (in a letter to Locke of November 1690) that the earliest Greek and Latin manuscripts lacked passages that supported the Trinity. He showed by means of often convoluted arguments that two central texts invoked in support of the doctrine of the Trinity (1 John 5:7-8 -- containing the long-disputed Johannine Comma -- and 1 Timothy 3:16) were absent from the earliest manuscripts ...

http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/prism.php?id=73

Although I am strongly inclined to regard Newton's scientific work as more important and more lastingly influential than his theology -- though I must admit I have never really carefully examined any of his theological efforts -- the sheer quantity of his religious writing is rather stunning, and it clearly shows Newton was not simply seeking politically convenient religious formalisms to utter:

Newton's Views on Doctrine

Like most protestants, Newton placed great stress on the literal meaning of Scripture and on the power of the Holy Spirit to direct the attentive Christian to a true understanding of the text. Again, he shared the reformed view that the true meaning of gospel lay in the simple message preached by Christ in his own lifetime and then afterwards by his apostles. Newton's understanding of the subordinate nature of Christ was necessarily consonant with his understanding of the overwhelming domination of God, whose being he most famously described in the General Scholium to the second and third editions (1713 and 1726) of his Principia ...

Newton was a credal minimalist, who thought that in order to be considered true Christians ordinary people had only to believe that Christ was the long-awaited Messiah who rose again on the third day and who would return one day to 'judge the quick and the dead'. Nevertheless, his own Christology was more complicated. For Newton, Christ taught that he was the Son of God but was not God himself, in no way sharing (as the trinitarians or 'homoousians' would have it) in the physical substance of God ...

http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/prism.php?id=76

A number of issues that concerned Newton are still considered regularly in this forum. That he insisted on a distinction between religion and "philosophy" must understood in context: what we now call "science," Newton called "natural philosophy." Thus he appears to believe that science and religion do not address the same subject. Newton also wanted a separation between religion and politics:

SOURCE: Kings College Library, Cambridge, England: Keynes Ms. 6: Seven Statements on Religion

... NOTE: ... The Ms. breaks off after the figure '8' ...

1 That religion & Philosophy are to be preserved distinct. We are not to introduce divine revelations into Philosophy, nor philosophical opinions into religion ...

2 That Religion & polity or the laws of God & the laws of man are to be kept distinct. We are not make the commandements of men a part of the laws of God ...

5 By dead works we are to understand Idolatry, inordinate lusts of the flesh, covetousness & ambition. We are to forsake the Devil & his works that is fals gods & idols with the works which accompany such worship as being contrary to the love of God: & we are to refrain from the lust of the flesh the lust of the eye & the pride of life, that is from inordinate desires of the flesh, & from covetousness & ambition [] as being contrary to the love of our neighbour. And we are to beleive aright in one God & one Christ & in the Holy Ghost & be baptized in their name & to love our neighbour as our selves, & being admitted into the communion of some particular Church by the governours thereof upon these conditions, we are not to be deprived of that communion without breach of those conditions ...

7 This communion men are to be admitted into or deprived of by Order of the board of the governours of that Church & the Order is properly to be declared by the President of the board & the Declaration may be accompanied with some ceremony , as of imposition of hands The Declaration by imposition of hands is a Iewish ceremony. We call it confirmation, meaning a confirmation of what was done by the Godfathers in baptizing the Infant.

8.

http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/texts/viewtext.php?id=THEM00006&mode=normalized

It is clear from the foregoing that Newton's views were sometimes conventional and sometimes unconventional, and he apparently made substantial efforts to justify his views with rigorous historical and textual scholarship: the problems of scriptural interpretation have a long history. But Newton's theology is not merely a collection of exercises in historical or philological analysis: the last excerpt shows that proper church procedure mattered to him, too.

[Evoman]

1. There is no need for god anymore.

There was a book called the Origin of Species,
That showed creation stories to be feces.
Though god was once scary.
He's no longer necessary.
And scientists now should have better thesis.

[Evoman]

3. ...................

Science as we know it is quite new.
And a god hypothesis can no longer do.
Even saying god is aloof
Well, it needs some sort of proof.
And a scientist worth his salt knows that too.

[papau]

6. an "ok" effort - but your jab at me was more fun - and perhaps more on point :-)

but I do note that you do have a writing talent.

Good Luck

:-)

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. Thank you for this

and all the research you did! Fascinating!

[struggle4progress]

7. I was worried a while back that you might have abandoned the forum

Glad to see you're still around!

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

10. I look for people

who wish to discuss and share information--so again thanks!

[Vincardog]

4. The scientists I know believe that in seaking the truths they are after they are trying to

Read the mind of GOD.

[papau]

5. Wow - very nice research. Thank you for posting it. As Newton noticed, the fact Jesus never.

claimed to be God causes the trinitarians - like myself - a great deal of "pause".

Mewton was much like a 1st century Unitarian. I wonder if he was also into Universalism - the rejection of the idea of the "unsaved" and "hell". I suspect he was.

[More Than A Feeling]

8. Posting about scientists who were religious doesn't contradict anything,

Since nobody has claimed is not "scientists cannot be religious."

[struggle4progress]

9. I rather doubt that the word "contradict" occurs anywhere in my post

[sam sarrha]

11. proper church procedure was required to simply Exist in those days.. indicates nothing other than

he didn't want to piss them off..

the guy was obviously obsessive compulsive.. no one writes that much just to keep out of a cranky wifes ill nature.. but my brother does have a lot of old cars he is rebuilding..

i doubt anyone gets into science to prove religion.. i can see it working that way, Science is not just a dedicated hobby.. it is a method of perceiving the world and the way it works.. untouched by Dogma.

i am sure there are religious scientists.. the scientific process does tend ot dissolve when placed too near a Bible, there is no Faith in Science, there are observable effects of religion in people, but it means nothing of itself.. a truly scientific person could not be a religious person, they could have an interest in religion.. but that interest would only go as far as 'Observing' religion.
a scientific mind an a religious mind is diametrically opposed by nature.. faith in Here-say teachings of non earthly dogma vs endless search of effects, Phenomena and interactions of the material world.
i was a scientist, i had a metaphysical universal revelation.. and spent 7 years investigating religion and spiritualism, new age, you name it i did it and it never fit into science, i lack faith..im a scientist, i was kidnapped by the Moonies for a week..

i did become a Buddhist after 4 years of meditation training and study with a Tibetan Buddhist Monk, the chant master of the Dalai Lama's monastery in Dharamsalla..

i became a Buddhist because Buddhism does not involve faith and it is not a religion, it is a logical and essentially a scientific process of training the mind. It worked for me, religion didnt.

but if it works for you, i am happy for you.. but i still am confused anytime someone trys to attach science and religion at the hip.. .some of the Hindu's try to hijack Buddhism by saying Buddha was an incarnation of Vishnu.. yea sure, the important thing here is that one is not trying to justify what they believe in.. trying to fill the really BIG holes of reason in religion with science.. just have faith.. no need to justify it to me, sorry i have PTSD from childhood torture in a fundamentalist extremest christian church.. when i found Science i became FREE of religion.. i am not looking back, religion hates evolution cause their children evolve the next step up out of the muck and dont look back..

[struggle4progress]

12. This is a strange response. If you have any evidence that Newton's

Church procedure item, which is from an unpublished manuscript from Newton's papers, estimated to have been written sometime after 1710, reflects Newton's desire to "simply exist" and not "piss them off," then perhaps you could provide it. By the time the manuscript was written, Newton would have been perhaps seventy; he was the most celebrated scientist in the world, and had enjoyed a long career at the Mint; and during his lifetime, England had made some significant steps towards religious tolerance. Since Newton's theology remained as mere manuscript for quite a while, and contained apparently sincere (but politically unpopular) non-trinitarian views, something other than a desire to "simply exist" must explain the voluminous production.

Your claim that science is a "method of perceiving the world and the way it works" neglects the fact that the methodical pursuit of scientific knowledge is, for most practitioners, not a matter of instant perception but rather requires hard and dedicated work: beginning from what seems to be known, one must design models and experiments and then perform calculations to interpret the experimental results in light of the model. There is no question that Newton, like many before and after him, had a real dedication to this project. But you use the claim to conclude "a truly scientific person could not be a religious person," which must commit you to the odd view that Newton himself was not "a truly scientific person."

I often find Buddhist psychology offers profound insights. But of course the teachings on the illusory nature of the world and on reincarnation will be unpalatable to the typical hard-headed materialist. As scientific investigation concerns itself with accurate description of the physical world, I think there must be some question whether Buddhism could posibly be "scientific" in the Western sense. Certainly, some Buddhist traditions recast some teachings as psychology metaphor, but if one wants to regard such traditions as "scientific," then I fail to see why analogous metaphorical readings of (say) the Christian scriptures should still be regarded as inimical to science.

Nor is it clear to me why you think my post attempts "to attach science and religion at the hip," since I explicitly read Newton as claiming that religious methods are not to be used in science nor scientific methods in religion.

Regarding your experience with fundamentalists, I can only sympathize: I try to keep them at distance myself. Still, your claim that "religion hates evolution" does not match my own experience, since the majority of religious folk I know have no problem with evolution as a scientific idea.

[sam sarrha]

13. the ones that hate evolution were referred to only.. i just figured a lot of people then just like

now do what they have to do to do what they want to do..

my primary observation was that he appeared to be obsessive compulsive, like many remarkable men throughout history.. the shear volume of writings leans to indicate that.. if someone drawn into the obsessive quest of understanding reality in its dawn of revaluation, didn't try to apply it to religious overview they were born into i would be surprised.. i would also be surprised if they didn't have some sort of conflict in the process.. Modernity was delayed for centuries till they quit trying make the two be the same thing.

i did the same thing.. only i am a high functioning autistic, 164 IQ but i am functionally illiterate, but have good verbal skills. i felt a lot of pressure to stay in the closet, to not draw attention but i have an entirely different 'View' of the world, i see things in visual images, and freeze up sometimes because i cant find the words to express it. too much input and i panic and sorta go catatonic.

i was saved by the hippie movement.. i was very popular at parties and new age seminars.. they just wanted me to perform my mark twain like Chautauqua of reality.. and people actually got it sometimes, it was like playing mental chess.. sitting down with 6 or 9 people and having an intense discussion of perception, i drew pictures around it and they asked questions to confirm how close they were to it.. peoples eyes would really light up when they got it.. it was the first time i was ever a person of interest to anyone outside of someone wanting to abuse me.

it all started when i took a new age seminar and ended up teaching it.. i met a scientist who had been researching perception in a new procedure where they split the brains of epileptics and discovered the digital/analogical ie:right/left functioning.. i was talking about my research on perceptions and described what i had discovered in different words that he had discovered several years later in the laboratory.

i see the world as the reflections of particles too small to measure reflecting off the electron clouds defining space orbiting minuscule particles at relatively great distances all connected and separated by electromagnetic fields.. when we touch things we dont feel the thing, we feel the repulsion of electromagnetic fields of material that only represents about 4% of the actual 'material' of the universe.

i am amazed at how delicate this system is and still appears to be so solid.. i am also amazed that Neurologically Traditional people cant see it. i see the overview first and then the details, i put things together to understand them, i tell people about things,say problems at work and they take apart what i say to understand it and it dissolves.. they just make shit up to understand it.. then come back when it doesnt work and say.. 'what was that you said the other day about..' ..i work in Aerospace

i really enjoyed Ken Wilbers 'a brief history of everything' really cheap on Amazon.. it really expanded and organized a lot of common thoughts i had.. i got the tape set, i dont read so well

[struggle4progress]

14. Your description of the world seems Buddhist enough. Perhaps most people

(myself included) experience "physical reality" in a more integrated manner than you do. I notice only with difficulty how much my own mind creates my "common sense" perceptions.

I doubt psychiatrists would diagnose Newton "obsessive-compulsive." He certainly had an exceptional ability to concentrate -- he sometimes thought about particular topics for days, doing nothing else.

[toddaa]

15. Yes indeed, bigger gaps in Newtons day

But they started shrinking. All those shrinking gaps pretty much killed Pascal. He couldn't stomach the conclusions he was coming to and so he retreated into the darkness of the Church. Good for him, probably would have killed himself otherwise.

[struggle4progress]

17. If you want to argue that Newton used religion to fill gaps in a scientific worldview

then perhaps you could provide some evidence of that claim by citing Newton's writings? Otherwise, your claim is mere ideology.

[toddaa]

19. I don't want to argue that point

In fact, I never said any such thing. But thanks for assuming.

[struggle4progress]

21. Then the point of your post #15 is completely unclear to me.

Perhaps you just thought it was a convenient place to express some unrelated opinions about Pascal?

[moobu2]

16. Isaac Newton was most likely completely insane

Due to mercury poisoning. Ever hear the term ‘mad hatter’? ‘Mad hatter’ was a term used to describe people who made hats in the 18th and 19th century. The hat makers would eventually go insane due to mercury exposure used in the hat making process, thus the term ‘mad hatter‘. Isaac Newton worked extensively with mercury for many years in his alchemy studies, and was most likely profoundly effected by it, in fact, test done on Newton’s hair a few years ago revealed very high concentrations of mercury.

[struggle4progress]

18. You don't like his theology so he must have been "completely insane"? *snork*

The question of whether Newton ever showed symptoms of mercury toxicity is certainly interesting -- but if you want to argue his theology derived from madness, you might consider putting any dates, on which you claim he was mad, beside dates of his theological writings and various dates of his experiments

[moobu2]

26. I don’t know, nor do I even care, what his theology was or wasn’t

Most people at that time in history, even highly educated people, lived lives filled with religious superstition, it‘s no surprise he held those same superstitions, I would be more surprised if he didn’t, but I really could care less about any of that. He was most likely insane due to exposure to mercury anyway, so what difference would his weird religious ravings make.


If Isaac Newton had died before he discovered whatever he did about the physical universe, someone else would have made those same discoveries, because those scientific discoveries and observations represented real facts about the physical laws of nature. However, if he had died before anyone knew about his religious theology, no one would have ever rediscovered that, because that theology represented pure deluded fantasy. You could only learn his theology by reading his writtings or reading from someone else who read it, because, there's no great truth there, there are no facts about the universe, no laws, no anything.

[struggle4progress]

28. The most that can be said regarding his "insanity" is that he had ..

.. some illness in 1692/3, which he himself later described as losing his reason but afterwards he was again quite functional; see my response to your post below.

His theological views are no longer in vogue. In particular, he seems to have regarded the Bible as a valid historical source. While the modern view will be that he, like many of his contemporaries, was mistaken in this regard, mistaken is not the same as insane or even as superstitious. In his associated investigations of the history of certain Church dogmas, he appears to have applied reasonable historical methods.

[Odin2005]

20. Science and religion didn't fully seperate untill the later1700's

from the start of the Scientific Revolution until sometime during the 1700's most "natural philosophers" (the term "scientist" wasn't used until the 1800s) had a mystical side, mostly of a Neo-Platonist variety.

[struggle4progress]

23. Platonist metaphysics are very difficult to avoid in practice, especially ...

if one uses much mathematics.

I do not really doubt that naive Platonist views can be eliminated, but the required linguistic contortions must be substantial: try, for example, to give an account of (say) general relativity while avoiding any reference to mathematical abstractions that do not actually describe anything physical.

Such an exercise is interesting from a philosophical point of view, but it has no real relevance to the practice of science. Although a number of philosophers have concerned themselves with the metaphysical foundations of science, almost none of the work has had any significant scientific impact. Mach might be a counter-example. Russell, pursuing Frege's logicist program, attempted something like this -- but I think the modern view must be that Godel, a Platonist, demolished Russell's program.

Just as one can use modern mathematics with facility as an engineer or physicist, without being able to give an accurate account of the logical foundations of the subject, one can do perfectly acceptable scientific work without attempting to resolve adequately the metaphysical presuppositions that are apparently contained in the language one uses.

Since the naive Platonism of earlier investigators did not prevent them from practicing what we must today regard as high quality science -- namely, the construction of sophisticated mathematical models which were carefully checked against observational data -- it is simply silly to regard their lack of philosophical sophistication as evidence that they somehow confused science with religion.

[Odin2005]

33. I generally dislike Platonism.

I'm generally of a Nominalist bent so I dislike notions of "essences" and "universal forms" I'm not terribly knowledgeable about the philosophy of mathematics, but I generally like Russel's reduction of math to logic. I consider mathematics a special type of linguistic construct that helps us understand the universe's underlying order.

[struggle4progress]

35. My point is that it matters seldom, if ever, in practice.

I don't consider myself a Platonist. But anyone, sufficiently motivated to argue the point, would be able to show over and over again, that my verbal behavior provides significant evidence that I am in fact a Platonist, however much I might protest. My reaction to such an extended argument would be that I simply use convenient phrases to communicate, that I could eliminate any residual Platonistic cast from my speech by very very careful phrasing, and that I do not engage in such very very careful phrasing because the effort required would be enormous and the return minimal. The person dedicated to proving that I am a Platonist might be entitled at this point to shout Gotcha!, on the grounds that I claim to be able to do something which I actually find impossibly difficult to do. By that point, however, I will find that I have lost all interest in the discussion, which has become an unprofitable exercise and a mere distraction from more interesting and important matters.

It is perfectly possible to practice mathematics or science while claiming to march under any number of metaphysical banners.

[skepticscott]

22. Are you saying that

Newton did not think religion makes any truth claims about the physical world? If he claimed that science and religion never address the same subject, this must be the case.

[struggle4progress]

25. As I understand what I have read of Newton, he did not think it proper ...

... to apply religious arguments in the study of "<natural> philosophy" nor vice-versa.

Your use of the word "truth," however, is slippery and will cover a multitude of concepts. The orbital mechanics Newton found were quite orderly and beautiful: this fact did impress him, and he may consequently sometimes concluded that he could draw certain "truths" from that orderliness and beauty; but, of course, beautiful order is not itself a topic that admits study by clocks and rulers -- nor are any religious sentiments, based on the appreciation of order and beauty, part of natural philosophy.

If you find anywhere evidence that any of Newton's scientific theories require religious hypotheses, I should be interested to hear of it, but I rather doubt there are such examples.

[skepticscott]

29. You've completely misunderstood my point

or you're being disingenuous. I did not claim that Newton used religious hypotheses to support his scientific theories. My claim was that religion (and more specifically in this case, the Bible) makes truth claims about physical, historical events and depends on those claims to support its dogma, and that as a consequence, it is addressing subjects that are within the realm of science and factual inquiry. Do you have evidence that Newton regarded it otherwise, in support of your claim? And contrary to what you say, a truth claim in this context is not all that slippery a concept. When the Bible claims that a woman got pregnant without the aid of spermatozoa or that someone died and then came back to life those are truth claims. When the Bible claims that the Romans conducted a census requiring everyone in the Roman world to return to the home of their distant ancestors or that the sun stood still for Joshua, those are truth claims. Those things either happened or they didn't. They are either real events or they are myth, fable, allegory or some other type of imaginary story. Where in Newton's writings does he reconcile this? Where does he justify that religious doctrine is supportable without such truth claims?

[struggle4progress]

31. I suppose you are looking for the second paragraph here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=116869&mesg_id=117253

[skepticscott]

38. Uh, no

That's not what I was looking for at all, since it doesn't any any of the questions I posed, which were directed at your claim that Newton "appears to believe that science and religion do not address the same subject.", not at the question of whether mercury poisoning influenced his writings. If you have actual answers, I'd love to hear them.

[struggle4progress]

42. You asked whether Newton thought religion makes any truth claims ...

... about the physical world. I apparently misunderstood your question, which you then clarified by giving Biblical references.

I directed you to the second paragraph of a post where I wrote:

... he seems to have regarded the Bible as a valid historical source. While the modern view will be that he, like many of his contemporaries, was mistaken in this regard, mistaken is not the same as insane or even as superstitious. In his associated investigations of the history of certain Church dogmas, he appears to have applied reasonable historical methods.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=116869&mesg_id=117253

As I understand your clarification by Biblical reference, this seems to me to be an answer to the question you originally asked. I am afraid I do not understand your now objecting to it, on the grounds that you are not interested in "whether mercury poisoning influenced his writings," because the paragraph to which I sent you does not concern mercury at all (although it occurs in the context of a larger discussion of alleged mercury-induced psychosis).

[moobu2]

24. Newton’s Psychosis (brought on by mercury poisoning)

Newton’s Psychosis
MITCHELL SPIVAK, M.D. and MARCELO EPSTEIN, PH.D.
Calgary, Alberta, Canada

To the Editor: In a recent Clinical Case Conference, Dilip V. Jeste, M.D., et al. (1) presented an interesting comparison between a patient with a late-onset psychotic episode and Sir Isaac Newton’s psychosis. In describing the latter, the authors made several claims and assumptions that we would like to review.

It is well known that soon after his youthful creative years (1664–1666) Newton developed an interest in alchemy, and he performed his first documented experiment in 1678 (2). He handled many heavy metals, including mercury, meticulously recording their properties and, in particular, their taste. Of the 108 entries on taste, a typical one (3) reads, "strong, sourish, ungrateful," referring to mercury. Besides mercury, there is evidence in Newton’s journals of exposure to lead, arsenic, and gold—all of which can cause psychiatric symptoms. On the basis of arguments presented by Christianson (4), Jeste et al. argued against mercury poisoning as a possible cause of Newton’s illness, since symptoms such as tremor and gum ulceration seem to be absent. However, we have no documentary evidence that these symptoms were indeed absent. Moreover, it is known that mercury and other heavy metal poisoning can present a constellation of symptoms, with no specific symptoms being diagnostic for poisoning (5), which further weakens the argument. At any rate, one cannot ignore the fact that Newton not only was exposed to mercury but actually ingested it by his own account.

It is well documented that Newton experienced an 18-month period (1692–1693) of psychosis. However, the assertion in the article that there was a lack of previous symptoms and that Newton had a total remission of symptoms after that period is questionable. Descriptions of Newton’s groundless suspicious fears are abundant both before and after his psychotic episode (2). Long before his infamous dispute with Leibniz (1699–1722) on the priority of the invention of calculus, he was embroiled in several similar affairs (6). The dispute with Leibniz took place after the psychosis developed, and Newton persisted in it, viciously manipulating people even after Leibniz’s death.

No one can deny Newton’s genius, of which he was acutely aware. However, it is important to realize that Newton’s great contributions date back to an amazingly short period, when he conceived most of his mathematical and physical ideas. Although Newton went on to become master of the Mint and president of the Royal Society, he never again resumed serious scientific research and spent his mature years in pseudoreligious pursuits, such as the determination of the exact shape of Solomon’s temple. One can then hardly claim that Newton experienced a "total remission" of symptoms and "returned to...premorbid level...of functioning" (1, p. 448). http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/158/5/821-a">American Psychiatric Association

[struggle4progress]

27. I will certainly concede that the evidence suggests Newton was exposed to mercury.

It is somewhat difficult, at such great remove, to have any certainty in diagnosing mercury poisoning as the cause of the nervous breakdown Newton certainly did experience in 1692, especially given the fact that mercury can have a number of distinct effects, depending on quantity absorbed, the exact chemical compound absorbed &c. See link for various symptoms and diseases mercury poisoning can mimic; the very length of that list, unfortunately, indicates that mercury poisoning is a very supple hypothesis; for that reason alone, the attribution of the 1692 event to mercury is unlikely to be definitively proven.

The authors of the letter you provide, however, are wrong in certain respects: for example, they object to the "claim that Newton experienced a 'total remission' of symptoms and 'returned to...premorbid level...of functioning'." In fact, Newton clearly remained active after 1692:

... As a firm opponent of the attempt by King James II to make the universities into Catholic institutions, Newton was elected Member of Parliament for the University of Cambridge to the Convention Parliament of 1689, and sat again in 1701-1702. Meanwhile, in 1696 he had moved to London as Warden of the Royal Mint. He became Master of the Mint in 1699, an office he retained to his death. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1671, and in 1703 he became President, being annually re-elected for the rest of his life. His major work, Opticks, appeared the next year; he was knighted in Cambridge in 1705 ...

http://www.newton.cam.ac.uk/newtlife.html

If Opticks merely reported earlier work, it is nevertheless clear from the manuscript collection that such work had extended over many years; and as anyone who tries to summarize experimental work knows, presenting results in an orderly and coherent fashion requires nontrivial efforts, not easily produced in a state of derangement. Nor was his work at the Mint entirely trivial:

... Newton .. took a close personal interest in the running of the Mint and brought the full weight of his intellectual and moral authority to bear on it. He devised a new method of testing the quality of copper coin which was not improved on for over a century ...

http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/prism.php?id=48

The "Twenty-three queries regarding the word ομοουσιος" (which I posted above and which was written after 1700) show that his theological work was not simply limited to "pseudoreligious pursuits, such as the determination of the exact shape of Solomon’s temple" but included interesting efforts to sort out specific issues associated with Church history.

The authors of the letter want to make much of Newton's "groundless suspicious fears," which (however) they do not further detail. But of course he was born at the middle of a turbulent century -- which included a civil war, a revolution, the restoration of the monarchy -- and his political contemporaries imagined Popish plots everywhere. Today, it is widely agreed Newton treated Liebniz badly; but if Liebniz himself did not wrong Newton, it is nevertheless true that the supporters of Liebniz were as uncharitable to Newton as Newton was to Liebniz, and at the time Newton's reactions seemed reasonable to many of his countrymen, who perhaps egged him on.

[malikstein]

30. Isaac Newton could not explain

why planets stayed in their orbits rather than falling into the sun. He postulated that god wanted it that way.

Later, the French scientist Laplace discovered why, according to Newtonian mechanics the planets stayed in their orbits. When he explained his work to Napoleon, the latter asked where god was in his system. Laplace replied, "I have no need for that hypothesis".

In this same vein, folks might find Victor Stenger's "God: The Failed Hypothesis" worth reading.

http://www.amazon.com/God-Failed-Hypothesis-Science-Shows/dp/1591024811/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-4619653-1612916?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1174416820&sr=8-1

Newton lived on the cusp of modernity, when it wasn't yet clear whether natural philosophy was divorced from faith. For a few scientists, the divorce is not yet clear. But, we will forgive them their folly.

[struggle4progress]

34. You seem confused about Newton's accomplishment.

If, as you claim, Newton's mechanics involved divine intervention preventing the planets from falling into the sun, long-term interest in the Principia would have been rather limited.

... Astronomer Edmund Halley and architect Sir Christopher Wren suspected that there was an inverse square relation governing celestial motions based on Kepler's Third Law of elliptical orbits, but no one could prove it ... Halley travelled to Cambridge to ask for Newton's opinion. Newton responded ... that he had already solved the problem years before ... and promised to send Halley a proof. Halley ... Three months later ... received a nine page treatise from Newton, written in Latin, De Motu Corporum ... In it, Newton offers the correct proof of Kepler's laws in terms of an inverse square law of gravitation and his three laws of motion ... At Halley's insistence, Newton ... worked ... revising ... the short paper until it grew into three volumes.

... The Principia ... begins by defining the concepts of mass, motion (momentum), and three types of forces: inertial, impressed and centripetal ... The three Laws of Motion are proposed, with consequences derived from them. The remainder of The Principia continues in rigorously logical Euclidean fashion in the form of propositions, lemmas, corollaries and scholia. Book One, Of The Motion of Bodies, applies the laws of motion to the behaviour of bodies in various orbits. Book Two continues with the motion of resisted bodies in fluids, and with the behaviour of fluids themselves. In the Third Book, The System of the World, Newton applies the Law of Universal Gravitation to the motion of planets, moons and comets within the Solar System. He explains a diversity of phenomena from this unifying concept, including the behaviour of Earth's tides, the precession of the equinoxes, and the irregularities in the moon's orbit ...

http://www.math.ubc.ca/~cass/courses/m309-01a/wang/history.htm

Ptolemy's astronomical system had been the preferred method for predicting planetary motions for more than a millenium when Copernicus proposed his system, in which planets moved in perfect circles around the sun. However, the model of Copernicus did not give correct results. Kepler studied Brahe's observatory data for a number of years until he was able to formulate his own three laws of planetary motion, which involved elliptical orbits with the sun at one focus: these laws predicted planetary motions much more correctly than the Copernican scheme. Newton then described certain mechanical assumptions, together with a number of practical computational techniques, which enabled him to derive a slightly modified version of Kepler's laws.

Moreover, Newton's mechanical system had other interesting consequences, such as correctly explaining the relation of the tides to the phase of the moon. There was, it is true, some coastal folklore concerning the moon and the tides, but skeptical investigators were inclined to regard it as superstitious nonsense: Galileo, for example, upon learning that Kepler had became interested in such moon-tide traditions, expressed the opinion that Kepler had lost his mind in his old age.

There were, of course, matters Newton did not understand and knew he did not understand:

... we have explained the phenomena of the heavens and of our sea by the power of gravity, but have not yet assigned the cause of this power .... I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypothesis; for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called an hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy ...

http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/sci/history/AHistoryofScienceVolumeII/chap42.html

[malikstein]

37. I'm not confused about

Newtonian mechanics. I have a PhD in physics. My remark was directed at Newton's own failure to understand an aspect of his own discovery. That is not at all uncommon among pioneers. It sometimes takes centuries to work out the implications of a revolutionary new concept.

[struggle4progress]

39. You claimed Newton's mechanics couldn't explain ...

"why planets stayed in their orbits rather than falling into the sun" and said Newton's solution was to postulate "god wanted it that way."

But Newton's mechanics, rather than predicting that the planets would fall into the sun, actually predicted (if one ignores perturbative interactions) that the planets would move along conic sections: your supposed problem, of "falling into the sun" without divine intervention, simply doesn't exist.

Moreover, your claim that Newton postulated as part of his mechanics some sort of divine intervention is inconsistent with the attitude Newton expresses towards hypotheses in the quote from the end of the Principia, Book III, that I just provided: it shows clearly Newton was unwilling to introduce hypotheses not based on observational data into his mechanics.

[malikstein]

40. Please reread what I said.

I said the Newton, not Newton's mechanics, could not explain why the planets stay in their orbits. The theory contains that explanation, as Laplace later demonstrated. Newton, however, missed the explanation imbedded in his system.

However, you don't have to take my word for it:

http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/master.html?http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/1105/1105_feature5.html

[struggle4progress]

43. It seems to me there are a number of errors in your claims.

First, the problem of the stability of the solar system is not a question Whether the planets would remain in the orbits predicted by the Newtonian theory? but rather the question Whether the solar system would continue to have the same form indefinitely, if the orbits were calculated correctly by the Newtonian theory (taking into account accurately the mutual gravitational interactions of the various bodies)?

Despite your claims that Laplace solved that problem, it has actually been a topic of continuing research. A century after Laplace it was recognized that the problem was really still unsolved, and Poincare (another genius) won a prize in 1890 for a careful investigation of the question, in which, however, he also was unable to resolve it. Here, from just a few years ago, is a link describing a more recent award for investigation of the problem: http://www.news.utoronto.ca/bin/000125c.asp
In short, the stability of the solar system still appears to be an open problem. If this issue actually concerned Newton much, then one must really admire Newton's substantial mathematical insight and his ability to identify interesting and difficult problems.

Let us now turn to your claim, echoing the claim of the article you cite, that Newton appealed to divine intervention to prevent the collapse of the solar system. The quote, given in the article, comes from the scholium at the very end of the third book of the Principia, and I have already quoted from another part of the scholium. Here is a link to the text: http://www.spirasolaris.ca/scholium1c.html

If you read the scholium, you will see that it is actually a mish-mash of ideas and hodge-podge of remarks by which Newton attempts to bring his work on mechanics to some conclusion. He writes a paragraph on the vortex theory and a paragraph on motion in vacuo. In his next paragraph, he discusses the motion of the planets and throws in the watchmaker argument: This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. This leads to a long rhapsody on G-d, who is said to penetrate everywhere and everything, and Newton concludes this paragraph by remarking about allegories. In the following paragraph, Newton wonders what accounts for gravity and the inverse square law, arguing that whatever is involved must permeate everything equally (this follows since otherwise, for example, spherical bodies would not behave as if their masses were concentrated at their centers). Considering the previous paragraph, one might expect an offhand answer to this question -- but Newton declines to draw the conclusion one might expect from that juxtaposition and launches instead into the famous very passage in which he says he will not pretend to have a good scientific hypothesis concerning the real nature of gravity, because such a hypothesis requires evidence to support it. The last short paragraph mentions light and electricity and heat and the motion of animal bodies, which (he says) are things that cannot be explained in few words, remarking that the required experiments are still lacking.

It requires substantial intellectual dishonesty to read this scholium as an assertion that G-d "must occasionally step in and make things right" to prevent the solar system from collapsings, the claim made in the article you cite. My original post contained, in the form of a manuscript extract, evidence Newton thought religious and scientific methods should not be mixed. This scholium supports the same conclusion: Newton makes clear that he has a somewhat conventional view of G-d, but he does not appeal to this view as a substitute for scientific work, nor does he use his scientific ideas to discuss Christian doctrinal issues (such as sin and salvation) which we know also concerned him, as you can see by following links I provide elsewhere in this thread. Although Newton made a few remarks about G-d at the very beginning and very end of Principia in some editions, nothing in the body of the Principia involves religious hypotheses. The logic of the text is deductive, based on axioms, and the presentation follows Euclid's example.

[cyborg_jim]

32. Dogmatic and empiric knowledge are fundamentally incompatible paradigms

I fail to see the relevance of pointing out the obvious fact that people can hold beliefs under these two headings in the same mind.

[struggle4progress]

36. "Relevance" is not an absolute. Something is always "relevant to" something else.

So if you "fail to see the relevance of" my post, perhaps it is because you do not have in mind anything to which it might be relevant. I did, however, mention in the original post my reason for posting.

But supposing that you require clearer and more concrete explanation, consider the following quote from Richard Dawkins' website:

...
49

"I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world."

Richard Dawkins ...

http://richarddawkins.net/quotes

A number of posters in this forum seem to fervently believe this assertion and regularly provide their own versions of the claim. And, of course, it is possible to provide anecdotal examples that appear to support the assertion. But the claim is made with sweeping generality -- and in that generality it is simply untrue.

[cyborg_jim]

41. That was not your contention

Your contention was that science and religion were compatible. They are not.

As for the statement you provide it is inaccurate. Again I must point out that was not your original contention. I would therefore kindly ask you leave the goalposts alone.

Science and religion provide fundamentally different paradigms of knowledge which are incompatible. That people can conflate these domains incorrectly - for example, a belief that empirical data in general describes the characteristics of a god - does not alter this fact.

[struggle4progress]

44. I rather doubt that I have used the word "compatible" anywhere in this thread, since ...

... I regard the question Are science and religion compatible? and others like it as meaningless: I cannot give any good account of what is being asked, nor do I have any idea what a purported answer to the question would enable me to do.

You claim I have changed my contention and object to moving the goalposts.

My OP began "A number of posters regularly claim in this forum that religion is essentially inimical to science." I attempted to clarify this for you, by giving as an illustration of the view, a quote from Dawkins (ever popular in this forum): I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world. Newton apparently did not learn animosity to science from his religious upbringing, nor did his long interest in religious matters teach him to be satisfied with not understanding the world.

If you believe Newton conflated science and religion incorrectly, you are of course free to provide any evidence you think supports that belief.

[cyborg_jim]

45. I outlined it in the simplest manner possib;e

Newton apparently did not learn animosity to science from his religious upbringing, nor did his long interest in religious matters teach him to be satisfied with not understanding the world.

You do understand of course that from Newton's perspective, and pretty much everyone else's at the time, doing science was understanding god?

No? I guess you didn't read my previous post properly then.