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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.
List 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
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.
Summary
The first major book on Isaac Newton's religious writings in nearly four decades that negotiates the complex boundaries between the scientific genius's public and private faith
Additional text
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.
Report
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
