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NEWTON'S BIBLICAL THEOLOGY AND HIS THEOLOGICAL PHYSICS

In the vast literature about Newton, little is devoted to explaining his religious views, except as personal aberrations, infantile views, or premature signs of senility. In recent years R. S. Westfall, Frank Manuel, James Force and a few others have tried to give some more impressive explanations of why one of the world's greatest scientists should have spent so much time thinking and writing about religious matters.1 In this paper I should like to turn the problem around and ask why did one of the greatest anti-Trinitarian theologians of the 17th century take time off religious matters to write works on natural science, like Principia Mathematica? Newton wrote on religion and theology from his college days down to the end of his life. Almost half of the pages that he physically wrote, most still unpublished, deal with explicating the Bible, interpreting it, and developing a theory of Scriptural and natural revelation. To appreciate Newton's accomplishments in these areas he really has to be compared with the other great theologians of the 17th century, such as his teachers and associates, Henry More, Ralph Cudworth and Isaac Barrow. This paper will deal primarily with Newton's views, with some indications as to how he went beyond the others of his time. Sir Isaac Newton's views on the Bible are an intriguing mixture of modern Bible scholarship, of the application of modern science to the Bible, and a conviction that in the proper reading of the revealed text, God's plan for human and world history can be found. Newton wrote a great deal about the Bible as an historical document, about the accuracy of the Bible, about the chronology of the Bible, and about the message of the Bible. He wrote on these matters from his student days at Cambridge until his death. For many years, including the central ones in his intellectual career, he was preparing manuscripts on

Gale E. Christiansen, In the Presence of the Creator. Isaac Newton and his Times (New York, 1984); James E. Force, William Whiston, Honest Newtonian (Cambridge, 1985); Frank E. Manuel, Isaac Newton Historian (Cambridge, Mass., 1963); and The Religion of Isaac Newton (Oxford, 1974); and Richard S. Westfall, Never at Rest. A Biography of Isaac Newton (Cambridge, 1980). THEOLOGY AND PHYSICS IN NEWTON 173 these subjects for publication, and withheld them because his views were so heretical for his time. Four items appeared posthumously: The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728), Observations on Daniel and Revelation (1732), an essay on the Cubit of the Hebrews (1737), and two letters to John Locke dealing with the Doctrine of the Trinity (1743).2 Besides the published material a vast amount of still unpublished manuscripts exists in libraries from Jerusalem to Japan.3 When Newton died, a large box of papers on religion and theology was given by his family to the Royal Society, of which he had been the President. The Royal Society looked through the material and returned it, telling the family not to show it to anyone. Years later they showed it to their minister, and were given the same advice. In the early 19th century some of the material was used by David Brew• ster in his biography of Newton, and he again advised the owners not to show it to anyone. Late in the 19th century, Cambridge University sent some people to go through the papers, looking for mathematical or scientific treasures, and returned the rest, with the same admoni• tion. The Earl of Portsmouth, Lord Lymington, became the owner in the early 20th century, and tried to give the papers to Cambridge University which refused them, and to the British Museum, which did likewise. The manuscripts were finally put up for auction at Sotheby's in 1936. The largest purchases were made by Lord Keynes and Prof. A. S. Yahuda, an eminent Arabist. Smaller units passed into libraries in Europe and America, and various pieces are still in private hands.4 The theological manuscripts in the Keynes collection, which was given to King's College, Cambridge, have been published in a slim volume.5 The largest collection, well over half of what was auctioned off, was bought by A. S. Yahuda, a wealthy Palestinian Jew, who took his degree in Arabic studies in Germany, became Royal Professor of Medieval Rabbinics in Spain, then Professor of Arabic in Germany, a lecturer in England in the 1930's, and a refugee scholar in America

Isaac Newton, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (London, 1728), and Two Letters to Mr. LeClerc (London, 1754). No inventory of Newton's theological manuscripts has been published. Westfall, in op.city gives a survey of where manuscripts are located. I have found others at the University of Kentucky, at the Seventh Day Adventist Seminary at Barien Springs, Michigan, and in private hands. There is a sales catalogue of Sotheby's for the manuscripts that were auctioned off in 1936. On the history of Newton's manuscripts, see Westfall, op.cit., pp. 875-877. Isaac Newton, Theological Manuscripts, selected and edited with an introduction by H. McLachlan (Liverpool, 1950).