Sir Isaac Newton Monotheist, Rejected Trinity, divinity of Jesus. Sir Isaac Newton PRS MP (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1727) was an English physicist and mathematician who is widely regarded as one of the most influential scientists of all time and as a key figure in the scientific revolution. Newton was a fellow of Trinity College, a devout but unorthodox Christian and, unusually for a member of the Cambridge faculty, he refused to take holy orders in the Church of England, because he privately rejected the doctrine of trinitarianism. T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view on the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans and most Protestants.[92] However, this type of view has lost support of late with the availability of Newtons theological papers, and now most scholars identify Newton as an Antitrinitarian monotheist. In Newtons eyes, worshipping Christ as God was idolatry, to him the fundamental sin.[ Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith—which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs.[6] Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an anti-trinitarian.In an age notable for its religious intolerance, there are few public expressions of Newtons radical views, most notably his refusal to receive holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to receive the sacrament when it was offered to him. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done. He believed in a rationally immanent world, ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity.He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice. But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities.[99] For this, Leibniz lampooned him: God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion. Newtons position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence. A century later, Pierre-Simon Laplaces work Celestial Mechanics had a natural explanation for why the planet orbits dont require periodic divine intervention.[Wikipedia] Since he did not believe in Trinity, rather One God, he is closer to Islam. Published on 24/06/2013
Posted on: Tue, 04 Nov 2014 16:42:02 +0000
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