Priest of Nature: The Religious Worlds of Isaac Newton

by Rob Iliffe

Overview

He was the dominant intellectual figure of his age. His published works, including the Principia Mathematica and Opticks, reached across the scientific spectrum, revealing the degree of his interdisciplinary genius. His renown opened doors throughout his career, securing him prestigious positions at Cambridge, the Royal Mint, and the Royal Society. Yet alongside his public success, Sir Isaac Newton harbored private religious convictions that set him at odds with established law and Anglican doctrine, and, if revealed, threatened not just his livelihood but his life.

Religion and faith dominated much of Newton's thought and his manuscripts, in various states of completion and numbering in the thousands of pages, are filled with biblical speculation and timelines, along with passages that excoriated the early Church Fathers. They make clear that his theological positions rendered him a heretic. Newton believed that the central concept of the Trinity was a diabolical fraud and loathed the idolatry, cruelty, and persecution that had come to characterize orthodox religion. Instead, he proposed as "simple Christianity"—a faith that would center on a few core beliefs and celebrate diversity in religious thinking and practice. An utterly original but obsessively private religious thinker, Newton composed some of the most daring works of any writer of the early modern period. Little wonder that he and his inheritors suppressed them, and that for centuries they were largely inaccessible.

In Priest of Nature, historian Rob Iliffe introduces readers to Newton the religious animal, deepening our understanding of the relationship between faith and science at a formative moment in history and thought. Previous scholars and biographers have generally underestimated the range and complexity of Newton's religious writings, but Iliffe shows how wide-ranging his observations and interests were, spanning the entirety of Christian history from Creation to the Apocalypse. Iliffe's book allows readers to fully engage in the theological discussion that dominated Newton's age. A vibrant biography of one of history's towering scientific figures, Priest of Nature is the definitive work on the spiritual views of the man who fundamentally changed how we look at the universe.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199995356
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	07/10/2017
Pages:	536
Sales rank:	1,142,069
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.90(d)

About the Author

Rob Iliffe is Professor of History at the University of Oxford. He is the General Editor of the online Newton Project and the author of Newton: A Very Short Introduction.

Table of Contents

Introduction: A Rational Christian

1. A Divine Web
2. A Spiritual Ant
3. IInfinity and the Imagination
4. From Liberty to Heresy
5. Abominable Men
6. Prisca Newtoniana
7. Methodising the Apocalypse
8. Divine Persecution
9. The End of the World
10. Private Prosecutions
11. Critical Friends
12. A Particle of Divinity

Editorial Reviews

05/08/2017
In this compelling look at Isaac Newton, Iliffe (Newton: A Very Short Introduction), professor of history at the University of Oxford, draws deeply on newly available papers to explore Newton’s lifelong fascination with theological matters. Iliffe skillfully chronicles Newton’s life from his childhood and his college years at Trinity College, Cambridge, to his later experiments in physics and the writings that gained him notoriety (especially the Principia Mathematica) at a time when religious and political controversies were swirling around England. Iliffe adroitly illustrates that, from the beginning, Newton displayed deep interests in scriptural interpretation, the history of the early Church, and the idea of prophecy, notably as it relates to the book of Revelation. He points out that in the “General Scholium,” an appendix to the Principia, Newton challenges the notion that Jesus is simply God in human form by stressing that the divine mode of being in our world is completely unknown to us. Iliffe’s fascinating study provides an absorbing glimpse into Newton’s work and early modern culture. (July)

Publishers Weekly

"One of the great strengths of this book is the degree to which Iliffe places Newton's religious research in the context of the debates of his own day." — Harvey Hill, Anglican and Episcopal History

"Rob Iliffe's Priest of Nature: The Religious Worlds of Isaac Newton is a work of excellent historical scholarship." — Paul R. Gilliam III, Church History

"Who was Isaac Newton? Rob Iliffe has responded to this problem by providing such a thoroughly researched and carefully constructed account of Newton's life and work that certain propositions can hardly be doubted." — Adam D. Righter, Journal of Ecclesiastical History

"This book is a fascinating read for anyone interested in learning more about Sir Isaac Newton, or about how someone with a scientific mind might approach religion....Essential."—C. Charnaswskas-Jasionowicz, CHOICE

"[W]hile other biographies acknowledge that Newton possessed a sincere, though heterodox, faith, Mr. Iliffe serves up the most complicated picture to date of the faith itself. He completely recasts the relationship of Newton's scientific inquiry to his religious beliefs, tying the two together to an unparalleled degree....Mr. Iliffe presents a syncretism in Newton's thinking that eludes simple classification....Mr. Iliffe also attends carefully to neglected periods of Newton's life, including the teen years he spent laboring in an apothecary's workshop and his stints as a Member of Parliament. Attention to such detail, woven deftly into a finely constructed and well-written narrative, makes Mr. Iliffe's 'Priest of Nature' a robust portrait with broad appeal. Both the academic and lay reader will appreciate how, in shattering the simplistic Enlightenment account of Newton, the book reveals the flexibility of the great man's capacious mind."—David Davis, Wall Street Journal

"Iliffe's book is not only an accurate and detailed reconstruction of Newton's religious thought, but it is also an important study of the great themes of freedom of conscience and religious tolerance, as well as the key political question of the relationship between church and state, which are at the roots of European culture in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is destined to become an indispensable reference for every serious Newton scholar, as well as for anyone dealing with religion and natural philosophy in the early modern period." — Franco Giudice, Metascience

"Iliffe's outstanding contribution to our knowledge of Newton will be of considerable relevance not only to historians of science and religion, but also to anyone interested in the important topics that were debated in the late seventeenth-century Europe." — William R. Shea, Fides et Historia

"This book is an enormous contribution to the Newton literature and the history of science in general. It examines huge numbers of sources that were, until now, essentially unknown and provides an unparalleled contextualization of the man and his work."—Science

"The author thoroughly examines Newton's religious papers, which were unpublished during the inventor's lifetime, including writings on natural theology, religious doctrine, prophesy, and heresy...Iliffe's challenging and scholarly work addresses an important and long overlooked aspect of Newton."—Library Journal

"Iliffe's fascinating study provides an absorbing glimpse into Newton's work and early modern culture."—Publishers Weekly

"For too long, historians have evaluated Isaac Newton's theological writings wholly in relation to his mathematical and natural philosophical work—first, as an embarrassing obsession, best passed over in silence; then, as a sideshow, taken up when his intellectual powers were fading; more recently, as an influence on properly scientific pursuits. Rob Iliffe knows the range of Newton's unpublished and published writings better than any other living scholar, and he gives us here a stunningly well-read, original, and provocative account of a thinker who struggled with theological matters throughout his life and whose reflections on right religion and on the sources of right knowledge emerged from the heart of his self-understanding. Priest of Nature is well titled: it radically redraws the picture of Newton we have long been offered."—Steven Shapin, Franklin L. Ford Research Professor of the History of Science, Harvard University

"Newton wrote importantly about physics, optics, and mathematics and wrote copiously about alchemy, but he saved his most intense thoughts and passionate investigation for perfecting his theology. In Priest of Nature Rob Iliffe restores Newton to an age of political upheaval and religious anxiety, portraying him as a godly man endlessly in search of truth, prophecy, and history. Newton's lifelong struggle to combat the perceived corruption of Christianity with the tools of faith and reason comes to life in this thought-provoking and deeply researched history. A must read for any serious scholar of Newton."—Paula Findlen, Stanford University

"Iliffe's book is not only an accurate and detailed reconstruction of Newton's religious thought, but it is also an important study of the great themes of freedom of conscience and religious tolerance, as well as the key political question of the relationship between church and state, which are at the roots of European culture in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is destined to become an indispensable reference for every serious Newton scholar, as well as for anyone dealing with religion and natural philosophy in the early modern period." — Franco Giudice, Metascience

From the Publisher

06/15/2017
Long debated by scholars, Isaac Newton's religious beliefs are made clear in this work by Iliffe (history, Oxford Univ.; Newton: A Very Short Introduction). The author thoroughly examines Newton's religious papers, which were unpublished during the inventor's lifetime, including writings on natural theology, religious doctrine, prophesy, and heresy. His beliefs would have been considered heretical at the time; for instance, he thought the Trinity was a fraud. He wrote often on early church history and was convinced that Christianity became corrupted as a result of the Council of Nicaea in the fourth century. Newton despised the Roman Catholic Church and felt it was the greatest political threat of his time; in particular, liturgical practices such as prayers to the Virgin Mary, the veneration of saints, and monasticism. Instead, Newton preferred a simpler version of Christianity, choosing to rely upon the devoted study of Scripture and the rational examination of the cosmos as the best way to gain knowledge of the divine. VERDICT Overall, Iliffe's challenging and scholarly work addresses an important and long overlooked aspect of Newton. Best suited for an academic or theological library.—Dave Pugl, Ela Area P.L., Lake Zurich, IL

Library Journal