(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
Let us look at the life of another Christian, Sir Isaac Newton. He was
a mathematician, physicist, and one of the foremost scientific
intellects of all time, but he was also a practicing Christian. Isaac
Newton was born at Woolsthorpe, near Grantham in Lincolnshire. There,
he attended school before he entered Cambridge University in 1661. He
was elected a Fellow of Trinity College in 1667, and Lucasian Professor
of Mathematics in 1669. He remained at the university, lecturing until
1696. In these Cambridge years, Newton was at the height of his
creative power. He said that 1665 to 1666 (spent largely in
Lincolnshire because of plague in Cambridge) was “the prime of my age
for invention.” During two to three years of intense mental effort, he
prepared Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) commonly known as the Principia. It was not published until 1687.
Newton also wrote about Judaeo-Christian prophecy, and decipherment was
essential, he thought, to the understanding of God. Newton’s book on
the subject, which was reprinted well into the Victorian Age,
represented lifelong study. Its message was that Christianity went
astray in the 4th century AD, when the first Council of Nicaea
propounded erroneous doctrines regarding the nature of Christ. The full
extent of Newton’s unorthodoxy was recognized only in the present
century. Although a critic of accepted Trinitarian dogmas and the
Council of Nicaea, he possessed a deep religious sense, venerated the
Bible and accepted its account of creation. In late editions of his
scientific works he expressed a strong sense of God’s providential role
in nature.
Newton hoped that his entire work in physics would inspire men to
believe in God. He stated, “When I wrote my treatise about our system I
had an eye upon such principles as might work with considering men for
the belief of a deity and nothing can rejoice me more than to find it
useful for that purpose.”
He spends the first part of his book showing that while many of the
other books of the Old Testament contain a wonderful and sacred history
of God’s dealings with men, the Book of Daniel holds a special place,
containing many detailed revelations directly from God about the
kingdoms of the earth. Those kingdoms can be traced in history,
verifying the foreknowledge of God. Even in his day people doubted the
authenticity of the book (and of course even more so today) but as far
as Newton was concerned, anyone who rejected the Book of Daniel
rejected Christianity. “An angel must fly through the midst of heaven
with the everlasting Gospel to preach to all nations, before Babylon
falls and the son of man reaps his harvest.”Quoting Rev. 14:6, Newton
continues, “For as the few and obscure Prophecies concerning Christ’s
first coming were for setting up the Christian religion, which all
nations have since corrupted, so the many and clear Prophecies
concerning the things to be done at Christ’s second coming are not only
for predicting but also for effecting a recovery and re-establishment
of the long-lost truth, and setting up a kingdom wherein dwells
righteousness. The event will prove the Apocalypse, and this Prophecy,
thus proved and understood, will open the old Prophetsand all together
will make known the true religion, and establish it.”