Newton and God

December 2, 2024 7 minutes • 1458 words

The principle of Universal Gravitation is that every particle of matter is attracted by, or gravitates to, every other particle of matter, with a force inversely proportional to the squares of their distances.

This characterizes The Principia.

Newton deduced it from:

the motion of the moon
the 3 laws of Kepler

The first law of Kepler is the proportionality of the areas to the times of their description.

Newton inferred that the force which retained the planet in its orbit was always directed to the sun.

The second law is that every planet moves in an ellipse with the sun in one of its foci.

Newton drew the more general inference that the force by which the planet moves round that focus varies inversely as the square of its distance therefrom.

He demonstrated that a planet acted upon by such a force could not move in any other curve than a conic section; showing when the moving body would describe a circular, an elliptical, a parabolic, or hyperbolic orbit.

He demonstrated, too, that this force, or attracting, gravitating power resided in every, the least particle; but that, in spherical masses, it operated as if confined to their centres; so that, one sphere or body will act upon another sphere or body, with a force directly proportional to the quantity of matter, and inversely as the square of the distance between their centres; and that their velocities of mutual approach will be in the inverse ratio of their quantities of matter.

Thus, he grandly outlined the Universal Law.

He verified its truth by:

the motions of terrestrial bodies
those of the moon and other secondary orbs

He finally generalized it to the entire Solar System.

Guided by the genius of Newton, we see sphere bound to sphere, body to body, particle to particle, atom to mass, the minutest part to the stupendous whole—each to each, each to all, and all to each—in the mysterious bonds of a ceaseless, reciprocal influence.

An influence whose workings are shown to be alike present in the globular dew-drop, or oblate-spheroidal earth; in the falling shower, or vast heaving ocean tides; in the flying thistle-down, or fixed, ponderous rock; in the swinging pendulum, or time-measuring sun; in the varying and unequal moon, or earth’s slowly retrograding poles; in the uncertain meteor, or blazing comet wheeling swiftly away on its remote, yet determined round.

An influence, in fine, that may link system to system through all the star-glowing firmament; then firmament to firmament aye, firmament to firmament, again and again, till, converging home, it may be, to some ineffable centre, where more presently dwells He who inhabiteth immensity, and where infinitudes meet and eternities have their conflux, and where around move, in softest, swiftest measure, all the countless hosts that crowd heaven’s fathomless deeps.

Newton proved à posteriori, a Deity.

“I had an eye on such principles as might work, with considering men, for the belief of a Deity.. this most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. And if the fixed stars are the centres of other like systems, these, being formed by the like wise counsels, must be all subject to the dominion of One; especially since the light of the fixed stars is of the same nature with the light of the sun, and from every system light passes into all other systems: and lest the systems of the fixed stars should, by their gravity, fall on each other mutually, he hath placed those systems at immense distances one from another.

“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 παντοκρατωρ 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 God usually signifies Lord; but every Lord is not 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 and space, but he endures and is present. He endures forever and is everywhere present; and by existing always and everywhere, he constitutes duration and space.

Since every particle of space is always, and every indivisible moment of duration is everywhere, certainly the Maker and Lord of things cannot be never and nowhere. Every soul that has perception is, though in different times and different organs of sense and motion, still the same indivisible person. There are given successive parts in duration, co-existent parts 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 one and the same God, always and everywhere. He is omnipresent, not virtually only, but also substantially; for virtue cannot subsist without substance. In him 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 everywhere. 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, nor 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 anything 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 only 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 causes; 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 everywhere, 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.”

Thus, the diligent student of science, the earnest seeker of truth, led, as through the courts of a sacred Temple, wherein, at each step, new wonders meet the eye, till, as a crowning grace, they stand before a Holy of Holies, and learn that all science and all truth are one which hath its beginning and its end in the knowledge of Him whose glory the heavens declare, and whose handiwork the firmament showeth forth.