Issac Newton was one of the greatest scientists of all time.
He laid out the three laws of motion in his masterpiece Principia Mathematica. He discovered the law of universal gravitation, the famous inverse-distance-squared law. Also he wrote deeply about light and optics after performing his own original experiments on light.
This guy invented calculus. He rejected the authority of the great Greek philosopher Aristotle and promoted experiment-based science. He challenged the established laws, theories, and ideas.
What was interesting to me was he was a very deep believer in a higher power. I never knew that..
He spent decades delving in the secrets of alchemy and science, but even longer studying the Bible, theology and church history.
Newton wrote 1.3 million words about theology and Biblical prophecy. He was a Christian. This all amounts to far more words written about theology than all of Newton’s writings about science combined.
His passion for the study of God’s word the Bible and it’s history was equally as consuming as all his interests in science and physics.
At the time of his death, he left more than a million words of notes on the Bible.
Six years after his death, Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John was published. Not only was Isaac a great scientist but also a dedicated student of the Bible.
One of Newton’s writings about the bible I will share with you.
Newton found multiple examples throughout history of reformations by God:
The worship which is due to this God we are to give to no other nor to ascribe anything absurd or contradictions to his nature or actions lest we be found to blaspheme him or to deny him or to make a step towards atheism or irreligion. . . .
For as often as mankind has swerved from them, God has made a reformation. When the sons of Adam erred and the thoughts of their heart became evil continually, God selected Noah to people a new world. And when the posterity of Noah transgressed and began to invoke dead men,
God selected Abraham and his posterity. And when they transgressed in Egypt God reformed them by Moses. And when they relapsed to idolatry and immorality, God sent Prophets to reform them and punished them by the Babylonian captivity. And when they that returned from captivity, mixed human inventions with the law of Moses under the name of traditions, and laid the stress of religion not upon the acts of the mind, but upon outward acts and ceremonies, God sent Christ to reform them.
And when the nation received him not, God called the Gentiles. And now the Gentiles have corrupted themselves, we may expect that God in due time will make a new reformation. And in all the reformations of religion hitherto made, the religion in respect of God and our neighbor is one and the same religion . . . so that this is the oldest religion in the world.
Aristotle and Plato lived about four hundred years before Christ and their impact on Western culture has been considerable. Newton was certainly heavily influenced by Jesus Christ and the early Christian writers, for he quoted them abundantly in his writings. Newton was born on the same day in 1642 that Galileo passed away, and he used many of Galileo’s findings in developing his famous laws of motion. Isaac Newton died in 1727.
Real quick – Galileo Galilei, though famous for his scientific achievements in astronomy, mathematics, and physics, and infamous for his controversy with the church was, in fact, a devout Christian who saw not a divorce of religion and science but only a healthy marriage: “God is known by nature in his works, and by doctrine in his revealed word.”
Very inspiring that the father of modern science would be so interested in the word. My personal take on the bible is many kings and rulers have tried to destroy it. You were killed if you had possession of one. Somehow it survived thousands of years. Coincidence?
We respect whatever you believe, all religions, all races, all people with a beating heart. However – I find it striking that these men who were so brilliant wrote about the word.
I also do not belong to a church at this time, the word of god is in your heart, your blood, and it needs not money or showmanship but real love and belief in the light.
“What we know is a drop, what we don’t know is an ocean.” – ISSAC NEWTON
