Newton had clear biblical faith
“Isaac Newton is well known as one of the greatest scientists who ever lived. Less well known is his deep belief in God and his conviction that scientific investigation leads to a greater knowledge of God the Creator of the universe. He loved God and believed God’s Word – all of it."
So wrote Ann Lamont in her article published by Creation Ministries International in her defence of him against those accusing him of Arianism. Her reference was to T C Pfizenmajer, Was Isaac Newton an Arian? (biography.pdfdirectory.org, Journal of the History of Ideas 68(1):57–80, 1997).
A very detailed defence of Newton’s Trinitarianism is Van Alan Herd, The theology of Sir Isaac Newton (gradworks.umi.com, Doctoral Dissertation, University of Oklahoma, 2008). This documents much evidence, including Newton’s words refuting tritheism and affirming Trinitarian monotheism: “That to say there is but one God, ye father of all things, excludes not the son and Holy ghost from the Godhead because they are virtually contained and implied in the father. . . to apply ye name of God to ye Son or Holy Ghost as distinct persons from the father makes them not divers Gods from ye Father. . . So there is divinity in ye Father, divinity in ye Son, and divinity in ye holy ghost, and yet they are not thee forces but one force.”
I quote the above article in defence of Isaac Newton’s clear biblical expression of his faith. Your regular contributor A C Mitchell was challenging those who quote the Bible as being unreliable people when expressing critical ideas to which he is prepared to listen.
He is free to speculate as to what Newton would have made of Darwin’s theory of evolution but if Mr Mitchell is open to critical thought he should understand that Darwin’s theory of evolution is no longer credible among thousands of scientists, both those who still believe in evolution (more than 500 listed with credentials in The Third Way) and thousands who reject the theory altogether. Evolution is a belief system without any scientific evidence.
It cannot be tested in the laboratory, has never been observed and is used today in an attempt to deny the existence of a creator God to whom we are all answerable.
Very few secular scientists are prepared to express their doubts publicly for fear of losing their funding.
They carry out research with great care and have proved without doubt that there is Natural Selection, but not evolution. Natural Selection keeps within kinds, in other words creatures which can breed with each other. If they can’t breed with another animal they don’t change their kind.
David Burton, Calverhall
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