Newton’s World

Abstract

Isaac Newton earned his place in history as the creator of modern physics, but he was also a theologian. The number of works he wrote on theology is comparable with the number of his scientific works. He was a deeply committed theologian. This is documented both by his numerous statements on this subject as well as his entire oeuvre, if taken as a whole – all his achievements in physics together with their metaphysical framework. The opinions of a thinker of Newton’s class must be a harmonious synthesis – at least in his own evaluation – of his diverse experiences, even if drawn from very different spheres of achievement and activity. But Newton’s scientific instinct told him to keep his strictly scientific works free of his theological beliefs. Only the trained eye of the historian of science is capable of detecting vestiges of theological inspiration in works of this kind. But if that historian reads Newton’s scientific works in the full context of his philosophical worldview, he will readily discern the components of a synthesis. The foundation of that synthesis was the conviction espoused by the creator of classical mechanics that the world accessible to science was not all there was to the universe. To put it in today’s language, that the rationality proper to scientific method was not identical with rationality in its entirety. Moreover, looking from the perspective of the “higher rationality,” in the world accessible to science one could discern vestiges of components which were inaccessible to science.