Talk:Religious views of Isaac Newton

Successful good article nomination

I am glad to report that this article nomination for good article status has been promoted. This is how the article, as of December 7, 2007, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: I found it easy to read through. The structure makes sense, lead and quotes are used in a good way.

2. Factually accurate?: I see no problem with it; everything is sourced and factual.

3. Broad in coverage?: Yes, it was very interesting.

4. Neutral point of view?: Yes. There are several various sources. It might be a controversial subject and its NPOV could be disputed some day, but I could not detect any distinctive POV.

5. Article stability? There have been some disputes but I consider those to be about technicalities. And there have been no disputes in last 2 weeks.

6. Images?: Sufficient for the topic.

For FA, it would probably need more information, further checkup about possible POV-problems and toning down the section "2060 A.D."

If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to take it to Good article reassessment. Thank you to all of the editors who worked hard to bring it to this status, and congratulations.— Fred-J 22:18, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

This article is terrible. Did the author ever read any of Newtons writings? How about the articles that are linked to? Over and over this article stated that 2060 was the earliest date that Newton had predicted as a possible date for the "end of the world". This is refuted by the #11 footnote. Of course Newton was never predicting the "end of the world", but the return of Jesus. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.91.99.147 (talk) 02:46, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Cross-article information: Religious Views vs. Occult Studies

Hi contributors. I've been routinely contributing to this article's sister article, Isaac Newton's occult studies and just recently noticed that much of the information in the Occult article has been transplanted verbatim into this article under the "Biblical Studies" section. Though it does present a degree of redundancy, my concern is really one of if the two articles should be merged or more appropriately isolated. Most of the "Biblical Studies" and its subsections on Prophecy and 2060 were originally constructed with occult studies in mind since these are more in line Newton's pursuit of "hidden knowledge" and not "religious views" per say. So I guess my question is: are Newton's prophecy and biblical interpretations more appropriately located here, or within the Occult article? I suppose it doesn't do any harm to have duplicated information in both articles (though updating is more complicated), but traditionally it seems WP usually has an abridged section with a "Main article:" section link. To be honest, I felt that the prophetic and biblical interpretation information belonged more in the Occult article, so I created them there. At the time it seemed this article was reserved for Newton's more mainstream theological beliefs such as Anti-trinitarianism, Anti-Papal, influence of Meade and Protestant beliefs, etc (or at least that's what I envisioned at the time). Should the "Biblical Studies" section be abridged and redirected to Occult Studies? It seems there is a bit of article bleed-over here, so I want to avoid a lengthy Merge at some point later on. Should the two continue to carry the same information, I can foresee a Merge edit (those are a pain) at some point. -- Trippz (talk) 08:12, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Final section (Other Beliefs)

While the information is useful, I feel this section needs clarifying. Perhaps it could be titled "Newton's influence" as "Other Beliefs" implies the section is about Newton himself. I altered the last sentence because a) It implied that Newton's influence as the "crucial" idea" in something called the "disenchantment of Christianity" is universally accepeted. b) "disenchantment of Christianity" introduced a technical term that I'd never heard of and initially was confused by. Does this term mean rejection of Christianity? Or Christianity losing some of its "mystique"? Or ...?

Anyway, I will have a think and maybe edit/suggest more. Xhile (talk) 15:13, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Elements of Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism and Christian Zionism in Newton

There are a number of publications that chart the connection between Newton & Freemasonry (and also the Rosicrucians). For example: 'Isaac Newtons Freemasonry: The Alchemy of Science and Mysticism' by Alain Bauer. In this book Bauer suggests that the Royal Society was itself a Masonic organisation and as such its member would have had to be Masons. Newton's concern with the Temple in Jerusalem and his attempts to work out its dimensions alone would suggest Masonic influence. This may be interesting in the context of the Christian Zionists beliefs of the present time and the collection of Newton's apocalyptic writings in the Yahuda collection in Jerusalem. --Wool Bridge (talk) 10:16, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

See Isaac Newton's occult studies. The two topics have been split, though share IN's personal beliefs --Trippz (talk) 07:20, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Jesus should be emphasized more in the article

the only time Christ/Jesus is mentioned in the article is when stating that Newton considered it idolatry to make Jesus perfectly equal to God, without also noting that Newton considered Christ the Jewish Messiah, the savior of all humanity, and The Son of God. [1]. to Newton, Christ Jesus was not a mere man. that's what makes him more of a Christian than anything else but the article doesn't make that clear, almost like it doesn't want to mention Jesus. unlike Judaism Newton accepts Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. unlike islam Newton considers Jesus the Son of God.Grmike (talk) 00:01, 9 February 2010 (UTC)grmike

This point is fair. The article talks mostly about how his beliefs were heretical but doesn't actually describe his beliefs overall. Jonathan Tweet (talk) 17:26, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Minor POV

I think the sentence in the opening: "The law of gravity became Newton's best-known discovery, but Newton saw a monotheistic God as the masterful creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation." Displays some bias that an understanding of gravity ought to imply a lack of existence of God. If this is not the intention then the sentence is unclear. I will change it to "Newton saw a monotheistic God as the masterful creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation."

Olleicua (talk) 18:48, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

POV in 'Orthodoxy' section

Part of the Isaac_Newton's_religious_views#Orthodoxy section seems to be POV and/or original research:

...it is tempting to read between the lines, especially given that his so-called piousness often reads off as somewhat sardonic or even forced. For example, he begins his text on the prophecies of Daniel with an attack on witchcraft,[24] which reads off as an attempt to quell possible suspicions, given his interest in alchemy. These political realities make it very difficult to understand what Newton actually believed, regardless of what he was indirectly coerced to say and write.[25] No label other than "deist" can be applied with much certainty.

• I'm not sure we should be 'reading between the lines' in an encyclopedia article.
• Someone's opinion of how something 'reads off' may not be the actual situation.
• Additionally, there are sources (e.g. Snobelen and Westfall, already quoted in the article) that demonstrate it isn't 'very difficult to understand what Newton actually believed' and that a more definite label than "deist" can and has been used.

I think this part should be removed/edited.

Article Cleanup

This was passed as a good article in 2007. Recently Drift chambers (talk · contribs) (who is now indefinitely blocked) added a lot of material too it. Much of it made a mess to this article. If somoene is interested in incorporating the good edits into this article properly that would be great otherwise I propose reverting it back to this version. I do not know enough about the subject to judge the merit of many of these edits. AIRcorn (talk) 01:40, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Some work has been done[2], but it is mostly cosmetic and the fundamental issues remain. I hate to see copy editing go to waste, but still feel the version before Drifts edits is a better one. AIRcorn (talk) 12:39, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

If consensus is that the article has fundamental structural problems that can only be solved by reverting, I'll not object. Let's leave it a few days for comment. Editor2020 (talk) 15:15, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

I left most of the article, just added back in the Masterful Creator section from the GA version. AIRcorn (talk) 23:42, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

The quotes I removed

I removed the two quotes from Tiner's book Isaac Newton: Inventor, Scientist and Teacher because the book is the only source I've ever seen for the quotes and because within the book they are unsourced and presented as part of a spoken conversation (where there is room for some liberties), and because the book presents a known fake quote as fact (the "atheism is so senseless" quote). It may well be that the two quotes accurately reflect his views, but there is little or no reason to think they're actual quotes. I'll check back in about a week and if nobody responds then I'll remove them again. OneGyTT|C 20:46, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

That makes sense. - DVdm (talk) 20:52, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Newton as Pantheist

Newton was, like Einstein, a Pantheist. “...God... is omnipresent not virtually only, but also substantially; for virtue cannot exist without substance. In Him are all things contained and moved... This was the opinion of the ancients. So - · Pythagoras, in Cicero De Natura Deorum (Pythagoras and Cicero were Pantheists) · Thales (Thales was a Pantheist) · Anaxagoras (Anaxagoras was a Pantheist) · Virgil Georgics iv 220, and Aeneid vi 721 (Virgil was a Stoic and Pantheist) · Philo Allegories at the beginning of Book 1 (Philo was influenced by Stoicism) · Aratus in his Phænomena, at the beginning [refer page 22] (Aratus was a Stoic and Pantheist)

“...It is allowed by all that the Supreme God exists necessarily; and by the same necessity he exists always and everywhere...”

Principia Mathematica

Vortexengineer (talk) 05:09, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

End of Days - Possible Contradiction and Too Much Focus on 2060

In both the sections Religious_views_of_Isaac_Newton#God_as_masterful_creator and Religious_views_of_Isaac_Newton#The_Bible it's stated that in a 1704 manuscript, Newton predicted that the world would end in 2060. These sections are almost identical and thus redundant.

A few lines later in Religious_views_of_Isaac_Newton#The_Bible that "he did not believe that the End of the World would take place in 2060". While this is consistent with the explanation that Newton's real goal was to counter frequent speculation that the world would end much sooner, it is confusing and could possibly be interpreted as contradictory. I've also read in "Newton's Notebook" , p. 143, that he gave estimates the world would en sometime in the nineteenth century, revised later to 1948. (This source is a good coffee-table reader but its citations to Newton's works are probably not precise enough to cite in the main article as a reliable secondary source.

I would therefore propose the following:

• (Relatively minor) The article should be cleaned-up a bit to present the end-of-the-world material in a single place without repetition or contradiction.
• (Larger) This material should focus more on the reasons for Newton's estimates and why they differed from those of his contemporaries.
  • The reason given in "Newton's Notebook" hinges on Newton's confidence in Arianism, but any such claim would need to be carefully backed-up.

I'm not knowledgeable enough on this topic to do this right now but can undertake more research and attempt such an improvement if it meets with editorial encouragement. Dominic Widdows (talk) 20:10, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

References

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Creationist?

Would it be appropriate in section Religious views of Isaac Newton#God as masterful creator to link to Creationism? I found the following secondary source (by Christopher B. Kaiser): "So the basic principles of Newton's natural philosophy were rooted in the creationist tradition..." [3] Of course, there's plenty of primary sources about it, too: [4] fgnievinski (talk) 01:26, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Well, technically Newton believed God created the world and actively intervenes in maintaining it. But the distinction creationism/evolutionism only became meaningful after Darwin published The Origin of Species. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:29, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

The Newton = Creationist equation practically only appears in lists written by Creationists who want to boost their standing by co-opting scientists from pre-Darwin centuries. So, definitely not appropriate.

Kaiser is a Templeton shill, so there is not much difference to a Creationist. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:23, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

I'd sure like to know whether Newton was a young-earth creationist? I presume he was, but I don't know. Jonathan Tweet (talk) 17:27, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Bible and heresy

The article treats IN's heretical beliefs as if they sort of come from nowhere, and it treats his biblical studies as a separate topic. The reason he held heretical beliefs is that he closely read scripture. Somehow, the section on the Bible and on his beliefs should be merged into one topic. Jonathan Tweet (talk) 17:31, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Trinity

As Bart Ehrman said, Jesus did not preach "I am the Second Person of the Holy Trinity and I am myself God". So, obviously, the dogma of the Trinity is a later invention. First Christians died without knowing it. It is the result of many theological fights/disputes, which took centuries. So, no, that's not just Newton's view, it is an objective historical fact. tgeorgescu (talk) 01:02, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

"Jesus did not preach" We don't actually know what Jesus preached about, and even reliable sources make educated guesses on the topic. What we do have is the rather romanticized Jesus of the canonical gospels, and the rather distinct theological views of each gospel. Trinitarianism is a later-day belief, but the gospels themselves are not contemporary sources on Jesus. Dimadick (talk) 09:05, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Edit war

Newton was a rabid Christian fundamentalist, but, you see, "rabid Christian fundamentalist" in no way precludes "occultist" and "heretic". tgeorgescu (talk) 07:46, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

If the Protestant Reformation proved anything, is that there can me multiple contradictory brands of Christian fundamentalism. Two fanatics may have mutually exclusive ideas, but they have their fanaticism in common. Dimadick (talk) 09:08, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

What's the definition of the word "Christian" anyway

The only sensible definition of the word "Christian" is a person who believes that Christ is God. Newton didn't believe that. He believed that would be idolatry, according to Wikipedia's main article on Newton. Cased closed, sit down and shut up, that man Isaac Newton was not a Christian. You can't be a "Christian" and believe "Christ is/was God" is an impermissible form of idolatry. This article is obviously written by people who, if they were to find thousands of letters from Newton to friends saying "I am not a Christian", would yet find some way to argue (or "prove") that Newton was a Christian. There's such an UTTER absence of good faith in these people who say that Newton was a Christian and Descartes was a Catholic based on cherry-picking flimsy supporting citations from their writings or writings ABOUT them. These people are not neutral persons sitting on the sidelines, indifferent a-priori their investigations as to whether Newton or Descartes should turn out to have had this or that faith. They are INVESTED in the answer going one way. Check into their backgrounds, and you will find those who assert Newton's Christianity to be Christian themselves, and those who assert Descartes's Catholicism to be Catholic themselves. Furthermore, I think you will find that they do not view their own religious beliefs as being mere opinions or "the hypothesis most likely to turn out to be true, based on the evidence we have so far", on matters of merely academic concern, in the way that I believe Lee Harvey Oswald carried a rifle into the book depository on the last day of JFK's life, and in the way that I believe the actor/producer from Stratford named "William Shakespeare" wrote (or maybe in some cases co-wrote) the works attributed to him. I do BELIEVE these things, but I don't CARE. At this late date the only things that matter about these issues are that people should try to find the truth--but WHICH of various hypotheses turns out to be the TRUE one is something that TRULY DOES NOT MATTER to the state of the world and to people's lives. The truth to be found won't matter, but the honesty in pursuing it DOES matter. So if later factual evidence arises that these beliefs of mine are wrong, I can revise them easily enough without having to recreate my entire being. Some religious people are ATTACHED to their religious beliefs, and will be traumatized if it's ever proven that their religious beliefs are wrong. If I find out tomorrow that Oswald DID NOT carry a rifle that day, I will shrug my shoulders, and say "Well, I guess we know a bit more now, so would you mind passing the ketchup?" and life doesn't change. Religious people are just not the same. Ask a Christian what would happen to them if in the future some new evidence surfaced which proved beyond all doubt that Jesus wasn't divine. They would DEFINITELY not just be shrugging their shoulders and asking for the ketchup. Their position is not one of indifference as to what the truth turns out to be as long as, whatever it is, it's found out. The issues that religion deals with are TOO IMPORTANT to religious people for them to have an encyclopedic indifference. They lack sufficient detachment from these issues to be trusted to comment on them in an encyclopedia. They're biased. They're not disinterested. They have a conflict of interest. They have a personal and selfish interest in preventing their religious faith from being shown to be falsehoods (or proven to be statements that of their nature are neither true nor false but, rather, are empty of sufficient actual content to qualify as being either true or false). I have NO similar PERSONAL interest in suppressing any argument that the Earl Of Oxford wrote Shakespeare's works. I just have not yet seen an argument that CONVINCES me. Other than that, I don't care. If Oxford DID write that stuff, my world won't collapse. That's the difference between me (or anyone else who wants an encyclopedia to be encyclopedic) and a religious person.2600:1700:6759:B000:E894:BFCC:705D:880 (talk) 12:26, 15 July 2024 (UTC)Christopher Lawrence Simpson

"The only sensible definition of the word "Christian" is a person who believes that Christ is God." Nonsense. Arianism specifically "asserts a total dissimilarity between the Son and the Father. Arianism holds that the Son is distinct from the Father and therefore subordinate to him." Dimadick (talk) 14:24, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Jehovah's Witnesses are Christians simply because they follow Jesus. They do not claim that Jesus was God. Anthropologically, sociologically, historically, and in religion studies, being a Christian means being a follower of Jesus. And being a follower of Jesus is something which every Christian decide for themselves what that entails. Besides, original research is banned by website policy, so we follow mainstream academic WP:SOURCES, not our own opinions. Mainstream WP:RS agree he was a Christian, and that's for us the end of the story. Christians don't need your authorization, nor to follow your set of rules in order to call themselves Christians. Think what that would entail historically: St. Peter wasn't a Christian, because he did not think that Jesus is God. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:09, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Newton and Arianism

Much of what people claim to know about Newton, for example that he was a believer but also an Arian, is based on what was known before 1998, when his manuscripts could not yet be accessed by the general public. But now there are good reasons to deny that he was an Arian.

In Yahuda MS 14 Newton says (p. 273):

"Soe there is divinity in the Father, divinity in the Son, & divinity in the Holy Ghost, & yet there are not three divinities but one divinity which is originally in the Father & by descent or communication in the Son & Holy Ghost."

Many people thought that he was not a trinitarian, but his own words show that he was. Watch-Wiki (talk) 14:43, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

That manuscript is not yet dated, so we have no way to know if it was the young Newton writing it or the intellectually mature Newton.

Also, original research performed upon WP:PRIMARY sources is banned from Wikipedia. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:52, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Heresy is a theologically-charged word

The word "heresy" has no place being used as a description of anyone's beliefs, as it is a theologically-charged word, unless the word is used from the perspective of heresiologists (like saying "Subject is accused of heresy by [the one accusing]"). The word "heresy" is not used by the academia to describe anyone's beliefs. TJMora (talk) 21:21, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Nice, but the reader still has to understand our writing, and "heresy" is an easy way to make that clear. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:45, 6 December 2024 (UTC)