To me, the only odd thing here is that people think Isaac Newton is/was odd because he was interested in religion, alchemy, etc. Being a scientific "genius," isn't mutually exclusive with being interested in other things that weren't scientific.
As Lawrence Principe points out in his Secrets Of Alchemy, Alchemy was in fact the precursor to our modern notion of 'Chemistry'. The alchemists had theoretical foundations for their work which were inspired by and often incorporated 'unscientific' notions of divinity. At the same time however it's very important to remember that in contemporary terms this wasn't unusual, it's only in hindsight that we can say Newton's mathematical work was more scientific than his theological or alchemical work. (Having read this scholarly book on the subject which spares the bullshit, I quite recommend it.)
To people with the 'Magicians Mindset' as Keynes might put it, the world has a rational soul underlying it which can be teased out by careful study of all things. If you're a Christian and start with this prior belief, then it makes perfect sense that you should expect your theological studies to inform your understanding of the natural world and your understanding of the natural world to inform theological studies. This is a mindset where metaphors and abstract connections are not of the human mind. Rather, they represent features of the territory showing us God's divine authorship of the world.
Another good book that outlines some of this is Hall's The Secret Teachings Of All Ages, which discusses the essentially Aryan (Indo-Iranian) thesis that all theological traditions discuss the same underlying esoteric doctrine which itself descends from one civilization. Having been written in 1928, Hall speculates Atlantis. (Naturally, you should take this text with perhaps more than just a grain of salt.) As far as I know the modern version of this thesis usually places the ultimate originating civilization in India.
These alchemical principles you mention are probably derived from the Neoplatonic philosophy of Plotinus and Proclus, which is a pretty fascinating school of metaphysics with a significant mystical component. These Platonic influences are highly visible in Catholic and Orthodox churches today, having been transmitted through Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius, and Origen. Hundreds of years ago, it made perfect sense for one person to be both a scientist and a theologian.
Also, "The Secret Teachings Of All Ages" sounds quite similar to the perennial philosophy.
The guy was a Renaissance Man through and through. It would be weirder if a guy with his level of genius and accomplishments wasn't interested in such a wide range of subjects and only was interested in a few subjects.
And by interest I don't necessarily mean that he has to excel at everyone one of them the way he did with physics and mathematics, but rather, to be intrigued enough to study them.
Yes. Also the assessment of parts of his non-scientific work as being 'almost entirely fruitless' might be mistaken. We don't and can't understand how his great mind worked. Could it be that an apparently strange obsession was vital to its functioning?
And, to an extent we only know that alchemy is "non scientific " because a lot of people like him worked hard on it and figured that out. Until then it was scientific. So too can religious research be scientific even if it turns out there isn't really a supernatural being.
I think he was odd because of what he did to his eyeball, and his treatment of other poeple. I’d go so far as to suggest that “odd” doesn’t even begin to cover it. His interest in religion and alchemy don’t even register, given the period.
It is more than just a passing interest. There would be no Newtonian physics without religion.
"Every action has an equal and opposite reaction" is just the golden rule restated as a physical law. Newton starts from the assumption that the physical world follows a moral law because it was created and is animated by god and everything else follows from and is in accordance with that belief.
It could also be pointed out that the "law" itself is just metaphysical twaddle. There is no empirical basis for this "law" and it makes no sense at all unless taken as a principle based on established authority.
The modernized version of the law is "When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body."
The extent of revision required to make the "law" even vaguely scientific demonstrates how unscientific the original was.
I always find these claims not persuasive, where some modern laws of physics can supposedly be aligned or derived from some historical religious concepts that no one ever used to make any predictions that could be verified by science until we started working backwards. There are some brilliant and lovely ideas in the historical texts that have survived to this day, but.... I just don't see that god passed on ideas to the authors of those texts.
Without some sort of equality or law of conservation it seems to me that nothing would be very easy to figure out. Maybe that is where the golden rule comes from, try and hold one social variable in place so that everyone can more easily understand everything else.
I don't think it was odd in the context of medieval and early Renaissance Europe for scientists to also delve into theology and Biblical exegesis. What's odd is how today's society elevates certain historical figures to the level of prophets in certain narrow areas of study, yet completely ignores or obscures their contributions in other areas. I never knew Newton was a staunch Arian before today, much like how I never knew that Pythagoras was a strict vegetarian, or that Socrates had a hatred of democracy, before researching them myself. Modern education is very careful to remove any trace of unorthodox viewpoints from its pantheon of scholars.
> Modern education is very careful to remove any trace of unorthodox viewpoints from its pantheon of scholars.
It's not just modern education/history. It's said that history is written by people who either love or hate someone or some event. Also, history has innate biases of the writer. It's why we focus primarily on western history while arabs, indians, chinese, etc have their own version of history. All history throughout history is peppered with half truths and embellishments or sometimes outright propaganda.
> I never knew Newton was a staunch Arian before today, much like how I never knew that Pythagoras was a strict vegetarian, or that Socrates had a hatred of democracy
Or how columbus was an absolute genocidal butcher along with being a great discoverer. Or how genghis khan and the mongols were extremely cosmopolitan/egalitarian/merciful as well as been brutal conquerors. Or how the soviet union was at the forefront of the workers, lgbt, women's rights movement while being a horrific totalitarian nightmare. Or how Mao united a divided and brutalized china and freed china from european colonization while also starving tens of millions of chinese.
Depending on where you grow up and what history you are taught, you'll only see a particular snapshot. It's only when you make the effort yourself that you get to see the larger picture rather than the one framed by others.
It's not some conspiracy. If you weren't taught that Pythagoras was a vegetarian, it probably has more to do with someone not wanting to inadvertently preach vegetarianism via some vague appeal to authority. And hey, it's irrelevant anyway, so why should it be taught? If you over-teach this stuff you're just as liable to create cults of personality.
Good writeup! For a fictionalization (well informed by the same resources cited by this article) of Newton's oddness, Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle books are an excellent pseudo-historical romp: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Baroque_Cycle
Finished the cycle last year, can't recommend it enough. The only problem is how well it intertwines the fictional from the non fictional, I'm not actually sure which parts I know about Newton's oddness is true or not.
This makes me think that approaching scripture intellectually must be a waste of time.
If Newton couldn't distill any worthy insights after a lifetime of study, then there mustn't be anything to find.
I mean reading the scriptures allegorically, or as poetry or with the 'right brain' can be a valuable thing to do, but to parse them too finely seems like the wrong way to go about it.
You may be interested in authors like Pseudo-Dionysius the Areophagite and Origen, who were extremely, extremely intellectual in their approach to reading Christian scriptures.
I'm curious how you would define that. As far as I understand, Newton's life was definitely colored and shaped by his theological pursuits-questioning their 'worthy'ness is raising the more fundamental argument of faith.
I mean that if Newton had found some groundbreaking insights through his lifetime of studying scripture, that we would likely have heard about them: the way we heard about calculus or gravitational theory or optics.
Newton wrote far more on his religion than he did on physics and optics. But it turns out that the value of that writing was virtually insignificant next to what little he wrote on physics and optics.
> Newton was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians, the last of the Babylonians and Sumerians, the last great mind which looked out on the visible and intellectual world with the same eyes as those who began to build our intellectual inheritance rather less than 10,000 years ago.
This is a really obnoxious quote by Keynes, who wasn’t the perfect rationalist himself - might even consider him a magician as well, therefore Newton was certainly not the “last”
Why can't scientific people be spiritual? If anything, science claims only the realm of that which can be externally observed and verified, and falsified. Spirituality is similar, only that it is the exploration of that which can only be seen an experienced for oneself, internally. And any good spirituality, like any good science, doesn't try to make absolute claims.
Of course they can be 'spiritual' (i've known several), with one clear philosophical caveat: religion, by definition, is dogma which requires faith. Faith requires, by definition, that one accept as truth universal aspects with no evidence. Being a good scientist requires, among other things, to accept nothing without supporting data - which is the opposite of faith. So, religious scientists who i have known notably split their understanding of the universe in two. Over coffee with one of these chaps i'll never forget his saying "Well, there's my professional system of belief, and there's my personal awareness, and I strive to keep them separate at all times." Just for the record, i couldn't manage to do that.
> Faith requires, by definition, that one accept as truth universal aspects with no evidence.
FWIW I'd disagree with this definition. To give a really simple example: believing in an intelligent creator based on design in nature. That's not "no evidence". Holding to a naturalistic theory of origins that explains apparent design by a long sequence of chance occurrences is equally a faith commitment.
> Over coffee with one of these chaps i'll never forget his saying "Well, there's my professional system of belief, and there's my personal awareness, and I strive to keep them separate at all times." Just for the record, i couldn't manage to do that.
I agree there. One of the underlying causes of the scientific explosion around the Renaissance is the idea that the universe follows rules and can be understood, and it's because it's created by God that motivated many Christian scientists like Newton, Kepler, Pascal, and others to believe that we can fruitfully explore and understand its workings. It's bizarre to me that someone would try to hold in mind a universe where different aspects are actually at odds with each other.
>To give a really simple example: believing in an intelligent creator based on design in nature. That's not "no evidence". Holding to a naturalistic theory of origins that explains apparent design by a long sequence of chance occurrences is equally a faith commitment.
I agree that modern science still requires faith as much of what we believe is inherently difficult to definitively prove. What I'm struggling to understand is how you can say that these competing theories require an equal faith commitment. By what measurement? How are the competing theories equally plausible? I actually agree when you say that the complexity of nature is "not 'no evidence'" and would add that the notion of an intelligent creator was probably the most plausible explanation available when the notion was conceived. However, plausibility has to be reevaluated and compared in the face of contrary evidence supporting other plausible theories, and I simply can't see how the competing evidence can be judged as supporting equally plausible theories.
I can give you an example/analogy that I personally believe in: I think that science and religion (the part that comes directly from scripture without intermediaries) are two ends of a really tangled morass long rope/thread. They might be different colours, thicknesses, and different textures, but they ultimately converge to being the one same thing. I think of religion as being a sort of mission statement (the why) with a some general guidelines of how to behave and what to expect (e.g. a interface in object-oriented programming), and science being a sort of detailed, meticulous set of steps (the how) to extract information from the environment and observable objects (e.g a concrete class that is supposed implementing the interface). Unfortunately/fortunately, the compiler doesn’t yell at you if you aren’t implementing the interface correctly, so you have to figure it out for yourself.
Either scripture itself was written down by intermediaries or you're already presupposing the existence of deities. (Those deities also require an explanation or you really are just talking about faith without evidence.)
> Being a good scientist requires, among other things, to accept nothing without supporting data - which is the opposite of faith.
An important caveat is this: a modern scientist accepts nothing without supporting evidence except, of course, the principle that "one should not accept anything without supporting evidence", which is itself taken without question as an axiom, a dogma. If it were possible for someone to live a life entirely free of assumptions, that person would have absolutely no access to objective knowledge, period.
And we must not forget to mention the various metaphysical assumptions that modern day science-philophers will often try to sneak past you while claiming to be objective.
It's of course true that it's dogmatic in the strictest sense, but it has a massive advantage that it's actually been shown pretty conclusively that it works. That's a high bar.
Still doesn't say anything about is vs. ought, but that's a whole other can of worms.
The kind of truth relevant for faith isn't the empirical sort that science concerns itself with, it's the kind of truth that is contained in wisdom. Faith is guidance for all those situations where it's not practical to set up a double-blind study to decide on the course of action, it's the belief that there is good and bad in the world and that you can make meaningful decisions that will increase the good and counteract the bad. The opposite of faith (which doesn't have to be religious), is nihilism, not science.
I don't disagree, but it's too easy to pull a kind of bait-and-switch using one of these non-religious definitions of faith. You can define "faith" as something like "adopting principles or wisdom for living that isn't empirically verified and is based on personally felt or shared values". Fine; I agree that everybody needs that kind of faith to avoid being a nihilist.
However, this doesn't imply that there's "another realm of truth" inaccessible to empirical demonstration, or that one ought to subscribe to some supernatural dogma. That's a separate definition of faith. The religious aspect is so baked into the usage of the word that we have to be careful that it doesn't get a free ride in on the back of a non-religious definition.
We should be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are always going to be bad people standing by to abuse whatever -- there are also plenty of scams that shroud themselves in supposedly scientific fact, e.g. practically every single health and nutritional claim in consumer marketing. Certain health-nuts are building entire pseudo-religions around their supposedly scientific beliefs.
I don't think it's correct to cordon off "truth" as being only that which can be empirically learned. That leaves us with phenomenon like true love and the self-evident truth that all men are created equal.
If anything is in a separate realm, I'd argue it's scientific truth. That's not to demean it, rather it's a higher, superior realm.
>"Well, there's my professional system of belief, and there's my personal awareness, and I strive to keep them separate at all times." Just for the record, i couldn't manage to do that.
Neither could Newton. Actually your comment made some things about Newton's work clearer to me. I would say that for Newton his research into orbits (and Principia is mainly a book about orbits) was no different than his work on the Christian origin. All of Newton's work is religious. This is what Newton wrote in his Optics:
God in the beginning formed matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable movable particles. (Isaac Newton, Optics, 1704, Book III, page: 375)
This quotes reveals two things. 1. Newton considers himself to be a prophet who is privvy to the way God created the world. And this idea was enforced later by Newton’s disciples. The idea being that, god created the world for Newton to discover (god created newton and all was light...) 2. That this is secretely Newton’s zeroeth law. Because Newton’s entire doctrine is based on the dogma of atomic materialism. Without the assumption of the doctrine of atomic materialism Newtonian edifice falls apart.
This quote clearly shows that when Newton was researching orbits he believed he was unraveling the secrets of god’s work. He was doing religious work and not what we would call “physics” today.
But Newtonian mythology is so strong that even otherwise enlightened people consider a blasphemy to question Newton and even to mention his name without the qualifier “genius”. A previous commenter who wrote something similar
>It is more than just a passing interest. There would be no Newtonian physics without religion.
was heavily downvoted.
I agree with the main idea but it is very misleading to call what Newton was doing “physics” because he was not. There was no such discipline at the time.
>Of course they can be 'spiritual' (i've known several), with one clear philosophical caveat: religion, by definition, is dogma which requires faith. Faith requires, by definition, that one accept as truth universal aspects with no evidence. Being a good scientist requires, among other things, to accept nothing without supporting data - which is the opposite of faith.
I've yet to meet a scientist who does not take something on faith (need not be tied to religion). And I've not met a devout person who at times required data.
Which is why a religious scientist or a skeptical theologian is nothing worthy of notice (at least if you spend time with the two camps).
Before contrasting religion with science, one should first disentangle 'history' from 'science.' That is, much of the 'conflict' between science and religion stems from differing opinions about past events. That is, history. Whether it be evolution or cosmology generally.
I'm unaware of any conflict between any religion and science in its strictest sense; that is, a reproducible phenomena backed up with expirementsl evidence.
Its a fallacy to think that use of scientific tools to support a historical theory makes the theory scientific.
The scientific method is a reified translation of the meaning of "consistent belief." The only sense in which spirituality is consistent is if you keep it to yourself. The second you try to put it in words and teach it, you are no longer doing something which can only be "experienced for oneself," and you are now open to having to justify your belief rationally to others. And science was designed to do that in the most general possible way.
And this is all ignoring the fact that human emotions and experiences are not immaterial 'spiritual' things that are not open to objective study.
I've been looking for an excuse to post this to HN, and here's the perfect thread. If you (like me) are afflicted since childhood with both Science and Religion, and you don't mind chewing through something a bit meaty, this is an excellent discussion of the relation between Science and Religion.
One thing I learned here was that Newton was anti-trinitarian. In Christan circles he is often held up as an example of Christian scientist, but I've never heard it mentioned that he was also technically a heretic.
