Re: great creationists of the past

These comments prompted me to do a little search: In his massive and majesterial study of Newton entitled Never At Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton (884 pages), Sam Westfall presents an account of Newton's theological studies on the trinitarian controversy of the fourth century. The pertinent pages, 314-320, contain a wealth of detail that traces the process by which Newton came to his theology of Christ. The following assertion appears on p. 315:

    "Well before 1675, Newton had become an Arian in the original sense of the term. He recognized Christ as a divine mediator between God and man, who was subordinate to the Father Who created him. Christ had earned the right to be worshiped (though not with the worship suitable to the father) by humbling himself and being obedient unto death. The man Jesus was to Newton, not the hypostatical union of human nature with divinity in one person, but the created logos incarnate in a human body, so that he, and not man, might suffer in the flesh. For his obedience, God exalted him and raised him to sit at his right hand."

Westfall goes on to record that Newton summarized his "Arian christology" in 12 points during the period 1672-1675 (too long to repeat here).

That does sound to me like Arian theology. No wonder Newton kept his mouth shut while he was at Trinity.

Just the few pages I've read are so fascinating, that I must finally get to this book. Sam was working on it when I read "Newtonian" eighteenth-century thought under him on a sabbatical in 1976-77. He first published it in 1980. But I don't think I'll read them on Easter Sunday!

Happy Easter to all,
Bob
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Jim Armstrong
  To: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Saturday, April 15, 2006 9:33 PM
  Subject: 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 Sun Apr 16 00:00:17 2006