Re: great creationists of the past

I agree that it would be both a slight and inaccuracy to assign Newton
to any such a specific pigeonhole. OK, I admit that I know only what I
have read in his biographies, but from them I sure have a sense - even
from them - that he came to his theological conclusions based on a great
deal more thought and personal research than many of us (with some
notable exceptions!) have engaged in, personally researching many of the
available theology-related manuscripts in their languages of expression.
And, it's clear that his beliefs as a body are going to be somewhat
idiosyncratic. He was after all a keen observer and problem solver, and
the internal wiring (observer, skeptic, critical thinker) that thus made
him a good natural philosopher in his day undoubtedly was the driver as
well for him to research and seek resolutions to theological
discrepancies with more logic and determination than would be required
by most of us today. It would not do him justice to simply label and
thus all too easily dismiss this considerable aspect of his remarkable
life. I expect that any similarity of his beliefs to those of Arius (or
anyone else) were arrived at pretty independently, and perhaps even more
competently from a western research-competency perspective. Newton was
not known to be a particularly peer- or precedence-influenced kind of
guy, other than his evident considerable respect for the early writings
that brought definition to Christianity! He has some particular and
pretty well-researched reasons for reaching his conclusions, hence my
concurrence that this particular scientist/theologian not be dismissed
too quickly by the expedient of classification. JimA

SatTeacher@aol.com wrote:

> I do have familiarity with Newton -- having read his MSS at Cambridge,
> Oxford, Jerusalem, Boston, and Palo Alto. I would not call him an
> Arian nor would I call him a Unitarian. As I read his MSS, I tried
> repeatedly to fit him into some mold and I could never do it. His
> views were more complex than any of the categories that we commonly
> use today. He did believe in creation.
>
> The funny thing about this ASA discussion is a conversation which I
> had with a high school science teacher about this very topic in an
> elevator in Chicago in the 1980s. I had just given a presentation on
> Newton and his unpublished MSS at the Annual NSTA meeting. She asked
> if Newton believed in Darwin's theory of evolution. The sad thing was
> that she had no idea that Newton (1642-1727) predated Darwin (1809-1882).
>
> For what it is worth, those are my thoughts,
> Helen Martin
Received on Sat Apr 15 21:35:10 2006