>
http://blog.beliefnet.com/deaconsbench/2010/05/from-heretic-to-hero-a...
>
> What a loon!
>
> ---Tim Shuba---
You interrupted a technical issue and that is not cool.
Newton was an Arian and his work more or less is consistent with that
belief unlike his followers who seemingly are intent in airbrushing
the man's comments on what he perceives as God and his creation.He is
forthright here as he is with everything else and his Christian views
are important to him as his technical perspectives and the same
applies here and now.There are too many weak minded people who can't
make sense of intuitive issues and especially the background of
faith,not as something that is guessed by the mind but felt by the
heart.You should read Newton's views on Christianity as they reflect
his agenda to a large extent but if it anything,it is not mediocre. -
"This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as
Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont to be called
Lord God pantokratwr , or Universal Ruler; for God is a relative word,
and has a respect to servants; and Deity is the dominion of God not
over his own body, as those imagine who fancy God to be the soul of
the world, but over servants. The Supreme God is a Being eternal,
infinite, absolutely perfect; but a being, however perfect, without
dominion, cannot be said to be Lord God; for we say, my God, your God,
the God of Israel, the God of Gods, and Lord of Lords; but we do not
say, my Eternal, your Eternal, the Eternal of Israel, the Eternal of
Gods; we do not say, my Infinite, or my Perfect: these are titles
which have no respect to servants. The word God1 usually signifies
Lord; but every lord is not a God. It is the dominion of a spiritual
being which constitutes a God: a true, supreme, or imaginary dominion
makes a true, supreme, or imaginary God. And from his true dominion it
follows that the true God is a living, intelligent, and powerful
Being; and, from his other perfections, that he is supreme, or most
perfect. He is eternal and infinite, omnipotent and omniscient; that
is, his duration reaches from eternity to eternity; his presence from
infinity to infinity; he governs all things, and knows all things that
are or can be done. He is not eternity or infinity, but eternal and
infinite; he is not duration or space, but he endures and is present.
He endures for ever, and is every where present; and by existing
always and every where, he constitutes duration and space. Since every
particle of space is always, and every indivisible moment of duration
is every where, certainly the Maker and Lord of all things cannot be
never and no where. Every soul that has perception is, though in
different times and in different organs of sense and motion, still the
same indivisible person. There are given successive parts in duration,
co-existent puts in space, but neither the one nor the other in the
person of a man, or his thinking principle; and much less can they be
found in the thinking substance of God. Every man, so far as he is a
thing that has perception, is one and the same man during his whole
life, in all and each of his organs of sense. God is the same God,
always and every where. He is omnipresent not virtually only, but also
substantially; for virtue cannot subsist without substance. In him2
are all things contained and moved; yet neither affects the other: God
suffers nothing from the motion of bodies; bodies find no resistance
from the omnipresence of God. It is allowed by all that the Supreme
God exists necessarily; and by the same necessity he exists always,
and every where. Whence also he is all similar, all eye, all ear, all
brain, all arm, all power to perceive, to understand, and to act; but
in a manner not at all human, in a manner not at all corporeal, in a
manner utterly unknown to us. As a blind man has no idea of colours,
so have we no idea of the manner by which the all-wise God perceives
and understands all things. He is utterly void of all body and bodily
figure, and can therefore neither be seen, nor heard, or touched; nor
ought he to be worshipped under the representation of any corporeal
thing. We have ideas of his attributes, but what the real substance of
any thing is we know not. In bodies, we see only their figures and
colours, we hear only the sounds, we touch only their outward
surfaces, we smell only the smells, and taste the savours; but their
inward substances are not to be known either by our senses, or by any
reflex act of our minds: much less, then, have we any idea of the
substance of God. We know him only by his most wise and excellent
contrivances of things, and final cause: we admire him for his
perfections; but we reverence and adore him on account of his
dominion: for we adore him as his servants; and a god without
dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but Fate and
Nature. Blind metaphysical necessity, which is certainly the same
always and every where, could produce no variety of things. All that
diversity of natural things which we find suited to different times
and places could arise from nothing but the ideas and will of a Being
necessarily existing. But, by way of allegory, God is said to see, to
speak, to laugh, to love, to hate, to desire, to give, to receive, to
rejoice, to be angry, to fight, to frame, to work, to build; for all
our notions of God are taken from. the ways of mankind by a certain
similitude, which, though not perfect, has some likeness, however. And
thus much concerning God; to discourse of whom from the appearances of
things, does certainly belong to Natural Philosophy." Newton
http://gravitee.tripod.com/genschol.htm