Isaac Newton (January 4, 1643 - March 31, 1727) is considered a theologian who is knowledgeable and educated by his contemporaries. He wrote many works that would now be classified as occult studies and religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible.
Newton's conception of the physical world provides a stable model of the natural world that will strengthen stability and harmony in the civil world. Newton saw the monotheistic God as the creator of beings whose existence can not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Although born in the Anglican family, in the 1930s Newton held a published Christian faith, would not be considered orthodox by mainstream Christianity; Recently he was described as a heretic.
Video Religious views of Isaac Newton
Christian Orthodoxy
Newton was born into an Anglican family three months after his father's death, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. When Newton was three years old, his mother married his neighboring parochial rector at North Witham and lived with her new husband, Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in care of her maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. Isaac apparently hated Smith, and had nothing to do with him during his childhood. The maternal uncle, the rector serving the parish Burton Coggles, was involved in several parts of Isaac's care.
During 1667 Newton was a Fellow at Cambridge, making the necessary commitment to take Holy Orders within seven years after completing his studies. Before beginning the lessons he was asked to take a vow of celibacy and recognize the Thirty-Nine Church Church of England. Newton considered stopping his studies before completion to avoid the ordination required by King Charles II's law for all graduates. He then succumbed to his desire to be released from the binding of the law, in some way assisted in this by the efforts of Isaac Barrow, when in 1676 the then State Secretary Joseph Williamson changed the relevant legislation of Trinity College to grant a dispensation from this assignment. After putting aside these tasks, he commenced an investigative study of the early history of the Church, during which the 1680s succeeded in being questions about the origins of religion, on the contrary, at the same time having developed a scientific view of motion and matter. From PhilosophiÃÆ'Â| Naturalis Principia Mathematica he stated:
When I wrote my treatise on my Systeme, I oversaw such Principles might work by considering men for the beliefs of the Gods and no one can give me more to find them useful for that purpose.
Newton's religious views evolved as a result of participation in an investigative discourse with Nature (the nature of the world) and evolved from the real dichotomy of biblical reality from the increasing disclosure of the reality structure of the inquiry, and the subsequent challenge of these truths. nature became an established religion for Newton, especially in the light of biblical Christian beliefs. Unorthodox was made necessary for Newton, and those affiliated with him, by the need to rediscover the truths of priska that had been hidden somewhere in the classical history. By this they may have the capacity to engage in open dialogue with an investigation of Nature. In this conflict of ecclesiastical order and the liberating effects of scientific inquiry, he and others turn to prisca in all the security of classical civilizations supposedly founded in bona fide insights. So, for them, the truth lies in the perception of reality achieved by Pythagoras and communicated, supposedly in secret, to a certain circle of people.
As found among some of the Renaissance's established intellectuals, Newton believes that ancient philosophers and religious people have gained insight into the truth of the nature of the world and the universe, but this truth has become hidden in the language of recording the truth at the time and by scholars (Albertus Magnus, Arnold of Villanova and Roger Bacon) who needed deciphering to be understood. Belief in the wisdom of the ancients, that thought was intelligent and knew in the civilizations of classical religious figures (Jesus of Nazareth, prophet Isaiah and Solomon) and writers (Plato and Democritus) are known as prisca sapientia
Like many contemporaries (eg, Thomas Aikenhead) he lives with the threat of severe punishment if he is open about his religious beliefs. A heretic is a crime that could be punished by the loss of all property and status or even death (see, for example, Blasphemy Act 1697). Because of his secrecy over his religious beliefs, Newton is described as a Nicodem man.
According to most scholars, Newton is Arian, not adhering to Trinitarianism. 'In Newton's eyes, worshiping Christ as God is idolatry, for him is a fundamental sin'. As well as being antitrinitarian, Newton allegedly rejects the orthodox doctrines of the immortal soul, the personal devil and the literal demons. Although he is not a Socinian, he shares many similar beliefs with them. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he denied the existence of the Trinity was never published. In minority view, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues Newton is not "orthodox" or Arian, but that, more precisely, Newton believes these two groups have ventured into metaphysical speculation. Pfizenmaier also argues that Newton is closer to the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity than the West held by Roman Catholics and Protestants. However, S. D. Snobelen has denied this from a manuscript produced at the end of Newton's life which shows Newton rejecting the Eastern view of the Trinity.
Newton rejected viaticum before his death.
Maps Religious views of Isaac Newton
God as a skilled maker
Newton saw God as a master creator whose existence can not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. However, he rejects Leibniz's thesis that God will create a perfect world that does not require intervention from the creator. In Query 31 of Opticks , Newton simultaneously makes the arguments of the design and for the purposes of the intervention:
For a while comets move in very eccentric orbs in all positions, the blind fate can never make all planets move one and the same way in concentric orbits, some insignificant irregularities except that may arise from joint action of comets and planets on one another , and which will tend to increase, until the system wants reform.
This section encourages an attack by Leibniz in a letter to his friend, Caroline of Ansbach:
Sir Isaac Newton and his followers also had a very strange opinion about God's work. According to their doctrine, God Almighty wants to turn his watch from time to time: if not, it will stop moving. He does not, apparently, have enough foresight to make it a perpetual motion.
Letter Leibniz started Leibniz-Clarke's correspondence, as if with Newton's friend and disciple Samuel Clarke, although as Caroline writes, Clarke's letters "are not written without advice from Chev. Newton". Clarke complains that Leibniz's concept of God as a "supra-worldly intelligence" that constitutes "pre-existing harmony" is only a step away from atheism: "And like those people who pretend that in world governance things can continue walking very well without the king himself ordering or disposing of something, it may be presumed that they were eager to get rid of the king: so whoever argues that the creatures of the world can go on without the direction of God continuously doctrine.. this applies tend to exclude God out of the world ".
In addition to stepping in to reshape the solar system, Newton called for God's active intervention to prevent the falling stars from one another, and perhaps in preventing the number of movements in the universe from decaying due to viscosity and friction. In Newton's personal correspondence it sometimes implies that the power of gravity is due to immaterial influence:
It is inconceivable that the dead raw material must (without mediation from something immaterial) operate on & amp; affect other things without mutual contact.
Leibniz praised that such intangible influences would be a continuous miracle; this is another strand of his debate with Clarke.
Newton's view has been deemed to be close to deism and some biographers and scholars call him a deist profoundly influenced by Christianity. However, it differs from a strict deismist in that it calls God as a special physical cause to keep the planets orbiting. He warned against using the law of gravity to see the universe as a mere machine, like a great clock. He says:
This most beautiful solar system, planet, and comet, can only begin with the advice and power of an intelligent Being. [...] This being organizes everything, not as the soul of the world, but as God over all; and because of his power he will not be called "Lord God" ??????????? [pantokrat? r], or "Universal Ruler". [...] God the Almighty is an immortal, infinite, [and] absolutely perfect being.
The opposition to piety is atheism in profession and idol worship in practice. Atheism is so absurd and disgusting for humanity so never have many professors.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas go too far to produce millenarians, religious factions dedicated to the concept of a mechanical universe, but find in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment has fought so hard to extinguish. Newton himself may have an interest in millenarianism when he wrote about the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation in his Observation of Prophecy.
Newton's conception of the physical world provides a stable model of the natural world that will strengthen stability and harmony in the civil world.
Bible
Newton spent a lot of time trying to find hidden messages in the Bible. After 1690, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with literal interpretation of the Bible. In a manuscript written by Newton in 1704 he outlined his attempt to extract scientific information from the Bible. He predicted that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to affirm when time will end, but to stop the reckless allegations of strange people who often predict the time from the end, and by doing that bring the holy prophets into discrediting as often as their predictions fail. "
Prophecy
Newton relied on the existing Scriptures for prophethood, believing his interpretation would make a straight record in the face of what he considered, "very little understood". Although he will never write a cohesive work on Prophecy, Newton's beliefs will lead him to write several treatises on this subject, including an unpublished guide to prophetic interpretation entitled Rules for interpreting words & amp; language in the Bible . In this text he specifies the requirements necessary for what he considers to be a proper interpretation of the Bible.
End of the World vs. Starting from the Millennial Kingdom
In his observations published after the death of Daniel's Prophecy, and John's Revelation, Newton expressed his belief that biblical prophecy will not be understood "until the end of time", and even then "no evil will understand". Referring to it as the future ("the last days, the age of opening these things, now approaching"), Newton also anticipates "the general preaching of the gospel will be near" and "the gospel must first be preached in all countries." Before the great tribulation, and the end of the world ".
Over the years, a considerable amount of media attention and public interest has been circulating on mostly unknown and unpublished documents, clearly written by Isaac Newton, which shows that he believes the world could end in 2060. While Newton also has many possible dates (eg 2034), he does not believe that the end of the world will happen in 2060.
To understand the reasoning behind the prediction of 2060, the understanding of Newton's theological convictions must be taken into account, especially his nontrinitarian beliefs and the negative views he has of the Papacy. Both of these are important for his calculations, based on certain chronological dates he believes to have occurred and have been prophesied in Revelation and Daniel.
Like most Protestant theologians of his day, Newton believed that the Pontifical Office, (and not a particular Pope) was the fulfillment of biblical predictions about the Antichrist, whose government is expected to last 1,260 years. They apply the day-year principle (in which one day represents a year in prophecy) for several key verses in the Book of Daniel and Revelation (also known as the Apocalypse), and look for important dates in the papal revival to begin this timeline. Newton's calculations ending in 2060 are based on a 1,260 year timeline that began in 800 AD when Charlemagne became the first Holy Roman Emperor and reiterated earlier (756 AD) of Pepin's Donation to the Papacy.
2016 vs 2060
However, between the time he wrote his 2060 predictions (around 1704) until his death in 1727 Newton chatted, both first hand and through correspondence, with other famous theologians of his day. The contemporaries who knew him during the last 23 years of his life seemed to agree that Newton, and "the best interpreter" included Jonathan Edwards, Robert Fleming, Moses Lowman, Phillip Doddridge, and Bishop Thomas Newton, finally "quite agree" that the 1,260 must be calculated from 756 AD.
F.A. Cox also asserts that this is Newton's view and others, including himself:
"The authors adopted the Fleming hypothesis, Sir Isaac Newton, and Lowman, that 1260 years begin on A.d. 756, and consequently the millennium will not begin until 2016."
Thomas Williams states that this timeline has been a major view among prominent Protestant theologians of his time:
"Mr. Lowman, though the previous commentator, is (we believe) much more commonly followed, and he started 1260 days out of about 756, when, with the help of Pepin, the King of France, the Pope gained considerable temporality. 2016, or sixteen years before the start of the Millennium, as it is generally taken into account. "
In April 756 AD, Pepin, the King of France, accompanied by Pope Stephen II entered northern Italy, forcing the Lombard King of Aistulf to lift his siege to Rome, and return to Pavia. After the capitulation of Aistulf, Pepin gave the newly conquered territory to the Papacy through the Pepin Donation, thus elevating the Pope from the subject of the Byzantine Empire to head of state, with temporal power over the newly formed Pontifical State.
The end of the timeline is based on Daniel 8:25 which says "... but he will be broken without hands" and it is understood that the papal end is not caused by human action. Volcanic activity is described as a means to be used to subvert Rome.
"The Antichrist will maintain part of its power over the nations until about 2016." "And when 1260 years are over, Rome itself, with all its splendor, will be absorbed in the lake of fire, sink into the sea, and never rise again."
In 1870, the newly formed Italian Empire annexed the remaining Papal States, seizing the Popes from worldly rules for the next 59 years. Unaware that the papal government would be restored, (albeit on a very reduced scale) in 1929 as head of state of the Vatican City, the historical view that the Papacy is the Antichrist, and the related timelines depicting his administration rapidly declined in popularity as one of the most- the defining feature of the Antichrist (ie that he will also be a temporal political force at the time of Jesus' return) is no longer fulfilled.
Finally, that prediction is largely forgotten and there is no major Protestant denomination currently subscribed to this timeline.
Despite the dramatic nature of the final predictions of the world, Newton may not refer to the date of 2060 as a destructive act that resulted in the destruction of the earth and its inhabitants, but one in which he believed the world was to be replaced by a new one based on the transition to a divinely inspired peace era. In Christian theology, this concept is often referred to as the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and the establishment of Heaven by the Kingdom of God on Earth.
Other confidence
More Henry's beliefs on the universe and rejection of the Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. Then work - The Old Kingdom Chronology Changed (1728) and Observation of the Prophecies of Daniel and Revelation from St. John <174> - published after death.
The mechanical philosophy of Newton and Boyle was promoted by rationalist pamphlets as an alternative to pantheists and fans, and was received with doubt by orthodox priests and disagreeable preachers such as latitudinarians. The clarity and simplicity of science is seen as a way to counter the emotional and mystical superlatives of superstitious enthusiasm, as well as the threat of atheism.
The attacks on pre-Enlightenment magical thought, and the mystical elements of Christianity, are given their basis by Boyle's mechanical conception of the universe. Newton gave Boyle ideas of their settlement through mathematical evidence, and more importantly was very successful in popularizing them. Newton reconstituted the world governed by an interventionist God into a world created by God who designed together rational and universal principles. These principles are available to all to discover, allowing humans to pursue their own goals thrivingly in this life, not the next, and to perfect itself with its own rational power.
Posts
His first article on religious matters was Introductio. Continuing the Apocalypseos rationem generalem ( Introduction containing Apocalypse ), which has an unnumbered leaf between folios 1 and 2 with the sub primi profetia subtitle, written in the language Latin some time before 1670. Written later in English is a record of early Church history and the moral excellence of "barbarian" people to the Romans. His last paper, in 1737, was titled Dissertation on the Sacred Cubit of Jews and Cubits of several Countries . Newton did not publish his works in Bible studies during his lifetime. All Newton's writings on corruption in biblical and church scriptures occurred after the 1670s and before mid-1690.
See also
- Classical mechanics
- Theories of the working hour universe
References
Further reading
- Eamon Duffy, "Away from the Tree" (Review Rob Iliffe, Priest Nature: Isaac Newton's Religious World, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017, ISBNÃ, 9780199995356), The New York Review of Books , vol. LXV, no. 4 (March 8, 2018), p. 28-29.
External links
- Isaac Newton Theology, Prophecy, Science and Religion - writing about Newton by Stephen Snobelen
- Newton's Manuscript at the National Library of Israel - a collection of all his religious writings
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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