Essays on the Context, Nature, and Influence of Isaac Newton’s Theology

Essays on the Context, Nature, and Influence of Isaac Newton’s Theology
Author: J.E. Force
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9400919441

This collection of essays is the fruit of about fifteen years of discussion and research by James Force and me. As I look back on it, our interest and concern with Newton's theological ideas began in 1975 at Washington University in St. Louis. James Force was a graduate student in philosophy and I was a professor there. For a few years before, I had been doing research and writing on Millenarianism and Messianism in the 17th and 18th centuries, touching occasionally on Newton. I had bought a copy of Newton's Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John for a few pounds and, occasionally, read in it. In the Spring of 1975 I was giving a graduate seminar on Millenarian and Messianic ideas in the development of modem philosophy. Force was in the seminar. One day he came very excitedly up to me and said he wanted to write his dissertation on William Whiston. At that point in history, the only thing that came to my mind about Whiston was that he had published a, or the, standard translation of Josephus (which I also happened to have in my library. ) Force told me about the amazing views he had found in Whiston's notes on Josephus and in some of the few writings he could find in St. Louis by, or about, Whiston, who was Newton's successor as Lucasian Professor of mathematics at Cambridge and who wrote inordinately on Millenarian theology.

Newton and Religion

Newton and Religion
Author: J.E. Force
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2013-03-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 9401724261

Over the past twenty-five years - since the very large collection of Newton's papers became available and began to be seriously examined - the beginnings of a new picture of Newton has emerged. This volume of essays builds upon the foundation of its authors in their previous works and extends and elaborates the emerging picture of the `new' Newton, the great synthesizer of science and religion as revealed in his intellectual context.

Judaism in the Theology of Sir Isaac Newton

Judaism in the Theology of Sir Isaac Newton
Author: M. Goldish
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2013-04-17
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9401720142

This book is based on my doctoral dissertation from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1996) of the same title. As a master's student, working on an entirely different project, I was well aware that many of Newton's theological manuscripts were located in our own Jewish National and University Library, but I was under the mistaken assumption that scores of highly qualified scholars must be assiduously scouring them and publishing their results. It never occurred to me to look at them at all until, having fmished my master's, I spoke to Professor David Katz at Tel-Aviv University about an idea I had for doctoral research. Professor Katz informed me that the project I had suggested was one which he himself had just fmished, but that I might be interested in working on the famous Newton manuscripts in the context of a project being organized by him, Richard Popkin, James Force, and the late Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs, to study and publish Newton's theological material. I asked him whether he was not sending me into the shark-infested waters of highly competitive scholarship, and learned that in fact there were only a handful of scholars in the world who actively studied and published on Newton's theology. At the time the group consisted mainly of Popkin, Force, Dobbs, Frank Manuel, Kenneth Knoespel, and David Castillejo.

Scepticism in the History of Philosophy

Scepticism in the History of Philosophy
Author: R.H. Popkin
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 418
Release: 2013-03-09
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9401729425

Scepticism in the History of Philosophy is a dialogue between leading Latin American and North American scholars concerned with the history of scepticism from ancient times to present day philosophy. The volume contains interesting discussions by a wide range of philosophers and historians of philosophy. The book should be of great interest to many philosophers who are interested in scepticism. It is unique in presenting in English the work of philosophers from Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Chile; philosophers not well known to the English speaking world.

Naturalism in the Christian Imagination

Naturalism in the Christian Imagination
Author: Peter N. Jordan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2022-07-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 100921196X

Science today is often seen as providing the definitive frame of reference for understanding what goes on in nature. Furthermore, the history of science has frequently been portrayed as the story of steady progress in overturning religious explanation in favour of scientific truth. This narrative has been challenged by those who – like the author of this book – recognise that a naturalistic way of looking at the world, which lies at the heart of modern science, has a far richer relationship to religion than many have allowed. Peter Jordan now takes this recognition in fresh and exciting directions. Focusing on key thinkers in early modern England, who located causality within a divine and providential view of the cosmos, he shows how they were able to integrate ideas which today might be dichotomised as 'scientific' and 'religious'. His book makes a compelling contribution to current science and religion debates and their history.

Priest of Nature

Priest of Nature
Author: Rob Iliffe
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 553
Release: 2017
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0199995354

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

Scripture and Deism

Scripture and Deism
Author: Diego Lucci
Publisher: Peter Lang
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2008
Genre: History
ISBN: 9783039112548

This book deals with the British deists' biblical hermeneutics, its roots, and its effects on European culture and society. Deist thinkers such as John Toland, Anthony Collins and Matthew Tindal pointed out the historical and anthropological origins of positive religions. Focusing on the human roots of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Ancient Paganism, they advocated tolerance and freedom of thought. In the context of the deists' research on the history of positive religions, the study of the Scriptures played a key role. Deists and freethinkers fought against the influence of Christian doctrine on political and social life. They denied the supernatural foundations of Christianity and of Christian institutions, and analyzed the Bible with the aim to promote the free search for truth. This book thus stresses the significance of the deists' biblical criticism for the development of Enlightenment views of religion and for the secularization of Europe.

The Books of Nature and Scripture

The Books of Nature and Scripture
Author: J.E. Force
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2013-03-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9401732493

Dick Popkin and James Force have attended a number of recent conferences where it was apparent that much new and important research was being done in the fields of interpreting Newton's and Spinoza's contributions as biblical scholars and of the relationship between their biblical scholarship and other aspects of their particular philosophies. This collection represents the best current research in this area. It stands alone as the only work to bring together the best current work on these topics. Its primary audience is specialised scholars of the thought of Newton and Spinoza as well as historians of the philosophical ideas of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

Infinite Variety

Infinite Variety
Author: Wolfram Schmidgen
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2021-08-13
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0812253299

Infinite Variety offers a brilliantly learned analysis of a seventeenth-century aesthetic framed not by the rise of secularism, but by its opposite, and embraced by English writers including Thomas Hobbes, Richard Blackmore, John Locke, Jonathan Swift, and Daniel Defoe.