Paul Davies (the physicist and writer of popular science) informs his fellow scientists (as well as his readers) about Isaac Newton’s religious physics.
The main problem with Paul Davies’s stress on Isaac Newton’s religious beliefs, and how they influenced (or even determined) his actual physics, is that he fails to distinguish the context of discovery from the context of justification. Thus, at its crudest, it wouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference to Newton’s theories, ideas or hypotheses (i.e., in physics) whether he was a serial killer, believed in pink goblins, was a Christian fundamentalist or stole all his ideas from Leibniz.
Broadly speaking, Paul Davies’s stress on Newton’s religious beliefs is something which had just previously occurred in the national media of many countries. This (as it were) new-found interest in Newton (at least when it came to the media) was largely down to the circulation of unpublished and previously unknown documents which had been written by the 17th-century English scientist (see here).
More particularly, many commentators were very excited by the fact that Newton prophesied that the world would end in 2060!
The story about Newton’s 2060 prophesy (alongside comments on his alchemy, his fixation with numbers, his many chronologies, his interpretations of the Bible, and his takes on the “philosopher’s stone” and “sacred geometry”) was featured on the front page of the UK’s Daily Telegraph, Canada’s National Post and other national newspapers. Added to that were the many internet and television features which followed, as well as a number of documentary films.
Of course, much has also been made of Newton’s (as it were) religious credentials. What’s more, spiritual-but-not-religious people and New-Agers have also made much of Newton’s alchemy, Biblical prophesies, chronologies, fixation with numbers, interpretations of the Bible, and his takes on the philosopher’s stone and sacred geometry. Indeed, their biographical and historical detail about Newton may be largely correct too.
So what can we draw from all that?
This new hullabaloo about Newton occurred in February and March 2003. That was around four years before Davies’s article ‘Taking Science on Faith’ for the New York Times (which is the main focus of this essay).
All that said, nothing in the words above is intended to imply that Paul Davies himself doesn’t have his own original and purely physics-based angle on Newton’s (as it were) religious physics. However, it can be safely assumed that many physicists and scientists both read and watched at least some of these titillating stories and programmes about Newton — despite what Davies believes about their complete ignorance of his biography and (well) religious motivations.
Isaac Newton’s Religious Physics?
The English physicist and science writer Paul Davies uses the case of Isaac Newton to get his central point across about the (to use his own word) “faith” scientists are supposed to have in the Universe’s “immutable laws”. He wrote:
“Christians envisage God as upholding the natural order from beyond the universe, while physicists think of their laws as inhabiting an abstract transcendent realm of perfect mathematical relationships.”
But what about Isaac Newton himself?
In basic terms, Davies ties Newton’s religious views to his physics. He told us that Newton
“first got the idea of absolute, universal, perfect, immutable laws from the Christian doctrine that God created the world and ordered it in a rational way”.
Davies then concluded by saying that
“[t]his shared failing is no surprise, because the very notion of physical law is a theological one in the first place”.
Davies adds that this is a “fact that makes many scientists squirm”.
It must be said that Davies is certainly correct about Newton’s religious views. And he’s also correct about how Newton himself tied his religious views to his own physics.
Take just a single example. Newton once stated the following:
“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.”
Yet all that is part of the context of discovery — as we shall see later.
Davies then (as it were) had a go at scientists for failing to see that Newton’s (to put it crudely!) physics is religious.
Davies also told us that
“[h]istorians of science are well aware that Newton and his contemporaries believed that in doing science they were uncovering the divine plan for the universe in the form of its underlying mathematical order”.
Indeed, historians of science will be aware of all that. Yet not many scientists would have a problem with any of this — despite what Davies says. Of course, some (or many) of them probably wouldn’t find it very interesting - at least not from a scientific perspective. However, Davies is arguing that they should find it interesting from a scientific perspective.
In any case, Davies concluded:
“I am depressed that reminding scientists of this well-known historical fact should elicit such a shock-horror response.”
It can be strongly doubted that there has been such a “shock-horror response” from most — or even any — scientists. This is especially the case if most scientists are well aware of the context of justification and context of discovery distinction (which will be tackled in a moment). Of course, scientists needn’t use these precise or specific technical terms from the philosophy of science.
Indeed, there’s one physicist who’s neither ignorant of, nor shocked by, Newton’s (as it were) religious context. Take the case of the theoretical physicist Lee Smolin.
This is what Smolin wrote in response to Davies’s essay ‘Taking Science on Faith’:
“As Davies says, the idea of immutable eternal laws arose in Newton’s time, when science and theology were much closer together.”
Smolin even (at least partially) agreed with Davies’s central thesis when he continued in this way:
“It does seem that getting rid of this idea is a necessary step for modern science to become fully free of the 17th century theological climate in which it was born.”
Relevantly, Smolin then diverges from Davies:
“However it is an exaggeration to say that until this is done science’s claims to be ‘free of faith are bogus.’ Most of science is healthy and most scientists rely on notions of laws that are restricted to certain domains where they are well tested.”
This passage includes Smolin’s realisation that Davies continuously conflates certain physicists with scientists as a whole. What’s more, Davies isn’t even right about all physicists, as Smolin’s own physics (or philosophy of physics) shows. And so too does the position of, to take only one example, Leonard Susskind and all those other physicists who’ve raised the possibility of “local bylaws” in the Universe. (Susskind once wrote: “If these things prove true, then some features of the laws of physics (maybe most) will be local environmental facts rather than written-in-stone laws — laws that could not be otherwise.”) There are also those physicists (a fair few of them) who’ve raised the possibility that the universal constants may not be… constant after all (see here).
Added to all that is the fact that Davies is clearly wrong about most biologists and virtually all other scientists (i.e., outside physicists) when it comes to their supposed faith in immutable laws.
[See my essay ‘Physicist Paul Davies’s Faith in His Idea That Science is “Founded on Faith”’ for more on this.]
In any case, the basic problem with Davies’s position on Newton’s religious physics is that he fails to distinguish the context of discovery from the context of justification.
The Context of Discovery and Justification
It can be supposed that in a short article (i.e., ‘Taking Science on Faith’) for the New York Times (in which most of Davies words in this essay can be found), Paul Davies simply didn’t have time to say much about the discovery-justification distinction. That said, he virtually ignores it elsewhere too.
Put at its simplest. This is a distinction which can be made between the creation (or formation) of a new scientific theory, idea or hypothesis, and the justification, defense, and/or verification (or testing) of it. Thus, at its crudest, it wouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference to Newton’s theories, ideas or hypotheses whether he was a serial killer, believed in pink goblins, was a Christian fundamentalist or stole all his ideas from Leibniz.
It’s also worth stating here that virtually every scientist in Europe was a Christian and monotheist when Newton was working and writing. Thus, it would have been very strange if their religious beliefs hadn’t impacted in some way — or even in many ways — on their work.
So, basically, the context of discovery is all the stuff (from Davies or whoever) about Newton’s religious beliefs and even what he got up to in his private life.
Now if we get back to the precise nature of the discovery-justification distinction.
The philosopher Karl Popper had influential things to say about this distinction. (The terms “context of discovery” and “context of justification” are often associated with Hans Reichenbach’s work.)
Take Popper’s position as it’s expressed in the following passage (from his The Logic of Scientific Discovery):
“The initial state, the act of conceiving or inventing a theory, seems to me neither to call for logical analysis not to be susceptible of it. The question how it happens that a new idea occurs to a man — whether it is a musical theme, a dramatic conflict, or a scientific theory — may be of great interest to empirical psychology; but it is irrelevant to the logical analysis of scientific knowledge. This latter is concerned not with questions of fact [ ] but only with questions of justification or validity [ ]. Its questions are of the following kind. Can a statement be justified? And if so, how? Is it testable? Is it logically dependent on certain other statements? Or does it perhaps contradict them? [ ] Accordingly I shall distinguish sharply between the process of conceiving a new idea, and the methods and results of examining it logically.”
There are both positive and negative aspects to Popper’s influential take on the discovery-justification distinction.
For a start, one certainly doesn’t need to take the view that the context of discovery isn’t a legitimate subject for the philosophy of science. (At one point in the 20th century, this was indeed the consensus position.) Moreover, that context of discovery isn’t even all about “intuition”, “eureka moments”, “creativity”, “cultural and religious influences” and the like either.
Thus, there are problems with this distinction - as there are with all similar distinctions.
So it’s true that the distinction may be too neat and tidy. (Note that this essay isn’t about the distinction.) In Newton’s case, it isn’t the whole story that he created a theory in a particular cultural, religious and biographical context, and only then (or after) did he scientifically, epistemically and logically assess it. In other words, even at the heights of Newton’s religious enthusiasm (say, when he triumphantly tied his religion to physics or vice versa) there would have been (purely) scientific and logical aspects to his (as its sometimes put) theory formation…
The central point is simply that there is a context of discovery.
Of course, Paul Davies may respond to all this by arguing that he’s tying Newton’s religious beliefs to his theories in physics in very precise and even technical ways. Thus, perhaps it would be very hard to do the same thing with Newton (possibly) being a serial killer, (possibly) believing in pink goblins, or (possibly) stealing all his ideas from Leibniz.
That said, it’s worth saying is that an artful commentator (with a knowledge of physics, history, religion, and biography) could indeed link (or tie) Newton’s (possibly) being a serial killer, (possibly) believing in pink goblins, or (possibly) stealing all his ideas from Leibniz to Newton’s actual physics (even if not as convincingly as Davies). Indeed, I could imagine a Freudian psychoanalyst doing a very good job of this kind of thing. (He or she would have a field day with Newton.)
Finally, it can be said that lots of religious people are keen to get Newton (as it were) back on board (i.e., after he was “stolen” by atheists, materialists, Rationalists, or whatnot). Yet, if we adhere to the context of justification, then it simply doesn’t matter if Newton was a (proto)Enlightenment thinker (see here) and a hard-headed Rationalist (see here), or if he was a Christian literalist (see here), a magician (see here) or even a merchant of woo (see here).
Infinite Contexts of Discovery
Paul Davies and other commentators wouldn’t place too much stress on literally every aspect of any given context of discovery.
Thus, if Newton’s Christianity or monotheism is important to his physics, then was his antipathy toward Catholics (see here), his hatred of counterfeit money, etc. important too? Of course, Paul Davies directly ties Newton’s theological ideas to his actual physics - as already stated. So perhaps my examples are unfair. However, I’m sure that an artful historian, biographer or even scientist could tie something peculiar in Newton’s private and religious life to at least something in his physics (or vice versa) if he tried hard enough.
So let’s take another admittedly extreme example to get the point across.
Many — or even all — scientists were introduced to the various sciences by particular teachers at school. Does this mean that contemporary physicists should factor in these teachers, their characters, what they said and how they said it into their actual theories in physics?
More relevantly, if religious commentators are going to stress Newton’s religious beliefs and attitudes, then they’re going to need to do a hell of a lot of picking and choosing. That’s primarily because I doubt that all Newton’s religious beliefs and attitudes will fall neatly into place in any (contemporary) religious camp.
For example, Newton rejected the Trinity, which would not be of much use to Catholics and many other Christians. (See Newton on the Trinity here.) And should commenters stress the fact that Newton believed that the Papal Office was the realisation of the Biblical predictions of the Antichrist? (See Newton on the Antichrist here.)
Newton also denied that there is such a thing as an immortal soul (see here), which would be unpalatable to most monotheists. Newton even refused the sacrament of the Anglican church, which was offered just before his death (see here). And how do contemporary Christians feel about those Deists who’ve claimed Newton for themselves (see here)?
What’s more, Newton has also been claimed by rationalists against pantheists and (religious) enthusiasts. More particularly, Newton’s science was seen to be an antidote to mysticism, religious (as it were) emotionalism and superstition. So rather than Newton being some kind of (as he’s been called) “mystic” or “magician”, his physics and theories have actually been used to counteract such things.
So, as can be seen, almost everyone wants a piece of Isaac Newton!
And that’s precisely why the discovery/justification distinction is so important, relevant and, indeed, helpful.
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(*) See my essays ‘Physicist Paul Davies’s Deep — or Specious! — Questions About Life, the Universe and Everything’ and ‘Physicist Paul Davies’s Faith in His Idea That Science is “Founded on Faith”’.
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