Voluntarism and panentheism: the sensorium of God and Isaac Newton’s theology

ABSTRACT

Newton’s suggestion in Query 31 of the Opticks (1718) that infinite space is the sensorium of God and that God “is more able by his Will to move the Bodies within his boundless uniform Sensorium, and thereby to form and reform the Parts of the Universe, than we are by our Will to move the Parts of our own Bodies” has recently been shown to be both philosophically coherent and compatible with contemporary religious views. This paper explores the further meaning of this and what it tells us about Newton’s theology, and his attempts to maintain immanentism while avoiding pantheism. It is suggested that Newton’s evident equivocation in discussing these matters stems in large part from the fact that there was no designation in his day for his position, but it can now be understood as panentheism.

KEYWORDS:

• Isaac Newton
• sensorium
• absolute space
• voluntarist theology
• panentheist theology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Connolly, “Newton and God’s Sensorium”.

2. Ibid., 185

3. Newton, Opticks, Book III, Part I, Query 28, 370.

4. Newton, Opticks, Bk II, Pt I, Query 31, 403.

5. Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Bk II, Ch, VI, § 1. See also Connolly, “Newton and God’s Sensorium”, 186-7, where the views on the sensorium of Descartes and the medical writer Thomas Willis are outlined.

6. G. W. Leibniz to Jakob Bernoulli, 29 March 1715. Newton, Correspondence, vol. 6, 213.

7. As expressed at the outset of his correspondence with Samuel Clarke. See Alexander, ed., The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence; Koyré, From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe; A. Koyré and I. B. Cohen, “Newton and the Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence: With Notes on Newton, Conti & Des Maizeaux”; Vailati, Leibniz & Clarke; Priestley, “The Clarke-Leibniz Controversy”; Bertoloni Meli, “Newton and the Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence”; and Connolly, “Newton and God’s Sensorium”.

8. In Clarke’s First, Second, and Fourth Reply, see Alexander (ed.), Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, pp. 13, 21, 50. Newton to Abbé Anthony Conti, 1716, draft, quoted from Koyré and Cohen, “Newton and the Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence”, 98.

9. Newton, Opticks, Bk III, Pt I, Query 28, 370. Connolly, “Newton and God’s Sensorium”, 194, 195.

10. Newton, Opticks, Bk III, Pt I, Query 31, 403.

11. Newton, Opticks, Bk III, Pt I, Query 28, 370.

12. Cowper, Anatomy of Human Bodies, Introduction, sig. cv.

13. Descartes, Treatise on Man (1662), in Descartes, Philosophical Writings, Vol. I, 106. The “gland H” is the pineal gland, which is where Descartes believed the soul was located. The reference to the “common” sense is Descartes’s way of referring to the sensorium, also known as the sensus communis.

14. Cowper, Anatomy of Human Bodies, sig. cv.

15. Alexander (ed.), Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, Dr. Clarke’s Second Reply, § 4, 21.

16. Alexander (ed.), Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, Dr. Clarke’s Second Reply, § 5, 22.

17. Hallywell, Melampronoea, Chapter 1, 6. On Hallywell, see Lewis, “Pastoral Platonism in the Writings of Henry Hallywell (1641–1703)”.

18. Newton, “Hypothesis explaining the Properties of Light…” (1675), in I. B. Cohen (ed.), Isaac Newton’s Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy, 178–90: 185.

19. Alexander (ed.), Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, Mr. Leibnitz’s Second Paper, § 4, 17.

20. Kulstad, “Two Interpretations of the Pre-Established Harmony in the Philosophy of Leibniz”.

21. Biener and Schliesser (eds), Newton and Empiricism.

22. Newton, Principia, “General Scholium” (added to second edition of 1713), 943.

23. Newton, Opticks, Bk III, Pt I, Query 28, 370, 369.

24. See, for example, Manuel, Religion of Isaac Newton; Davis, “Newton’s Rejection of the ‘Newtonian World View’”; Force, “The God of Abraham and Isaac (Newton)”; Snobelen, “God of Gods, and Lord of Lords”; Buchwald and Feingold, Newton and the Origin of Civilization; Greenham, “Clarifying Divine Discourse in Early Modern Science”; and Iliffe, Priest of Nature.

25. Yahuda MS. 15.1, folio 11r. Now available online at The Newton Project: http://www.newtonproject.ox.ac.uk/view/texts/normalized/THEM00218, accessed March 12 2017.

26. Newton, Principia, 943. At its first appearance in the second edition of 1713, the sentence ended with a reference to “experimental philosophy”, which became “natural philosophy” in subsequent editions.

27. Newton, Principia, 941. The other citations are of John 14, 2; Deuteronomy 4, 39 and 10, 14; Psalms 139, 7, 8, 9; I Kings 8, 27; Job 22,12, 13, 14; and “Solomon”—presumably the whole of The Song of Solomon? There is also a citation of the Phenomena of Aratus, which is supplemented in the third and subsequent editions by references to Cicero’s De natura deorum, Thales, Anaxagoras, Vergil’s Georgics and Aeneid, and Philo’s Allegorical Interpretation. It has to be said that not all of these state clearly and unequivocally what Newton wants them to say.

28. See, for example, Disalle, “Newton’s Philosophical Analysis of Space and Time”; Rynasiewicz, “By Their Properties, Causes and Effects… Part I: The Text”; and Rynasiewicz, “By Their Properties, Causes and Effects… Part II: The Context”.

29. Compare J. E. McGuire and Martin Tamny, Certain Philosophical Questions, 342–53, with “De gravitatione et aequipondio fluidorum”, in Newton, Unpublished Scientific Papers, 89–156. The dating of the latter has been contested between c. 1670 and c. 1685. Internal evidence indicates it must have been written after 1668; see Gabbey, “The Term Materia in Newton and in the Newtonian Tradition”. The fact that there is no mention of action at a distance where it might have been expected, strongly suggests that it was written before 1684, when Newton began working on what eventually became the Principia. See McGuire, “The Fate of the Date”; and Henry, “Gravity and De gravitatione”.

30. Newton, Unpublished Scientific Papers, 131, 142–43.

31. Newton, Unpublished Scientific Papers, 132, 99 (Latin).

32. Sedgwick, “Neoplatonism and Emanationism”, in Sedgwick, Western Sufism. On emanationism in Newton see Stein, “Newton’s Metaphysics”, especially 267–69; and Goldish, “Newton’s Of the Church”, especially 162–64.

33. Newton, Unpublished Scientific Papers, 132–37.

34. Newton, Unpublished Scientific Papers, 136.

35. Newton, Unpublished Scientific Papers, 143.

36. Newton, MS Add. 3965, Section 13, ff 545r–546r. For a complete translation and commentary, see McGuire, “Newton on Place, Time, and God”.

37. McGuire, “Newton on Place, Time, and God”, 119.

38. McGuire, “Newton on Place, Time, and God”, 123, 121.

39. McGuire, “Newton on Place, Time, and God”, 123.

40. McGuire, “Newton on Place, Time, and God”, 123. Newton seems to have been inspired by Richard Bentley and William Whiston to allow his theological intentions to appear more overtly in the projected second edition. See, Force, “Providence and Newton’s Pantokrator”; and Snobelen, “The Theology of Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica”.

41. For modern discussions see, for example, Koyré, From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe; Westfall, “Newton and Absolute Space”; Stein, “Newtonian Space-Time”; Power, “Henry More and Isaac Newton on Absolute Space”; McGuire, “Existence, Actuality and Necessity: Newton on Space and Time”; Copenhaver, “Jewish Theologies of Space in the Scientific Revolution”; Grant, Much Ado About Nothing; Hall, “Newton and the Absolutes”.

42. On which, see Rynasiewicz, “By Their Properties, Causes and Effects”.

43. Newton, Principia, 941.

44. More, Enchiridion metaphysicum, Chapter VIII, § 8, 69–70. For full expositions see, Koyré, From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe, 125–54; Grant, Much Ado About Nothing, 221–28; Reid, “The Evolution of Henry More’s Theory of Divine Absolute Space”; and Reid, The Metaphysics of Henry More.

45. Newton, Unpublished Scientific Papers, 143.

46. Newton, Principia, 941–42.

47. Set up, or establish seems to be the commonest meaning of “constitute” in the Oxford English Dictionary. The only significant alternative, meaning 8 in the OED, is “to make up, form, compose, to be the elements or material of which the thing spoken of consists”. It might well be said that, for Newton, God provides the elements out of which space is composed, by virtue of his being present, but he is not himself the space.

48. McGuire, “Newton on Place, Time, and God”, 123.

49. McGuire, “Newton on Place, Time, and God”, 121.

50. Newton, Unpublished Scientific Papers, 137.

51. Newton, Unpublished Scientific Papers, 136.

52. Connolly, “Newton and God’s Sensorium”, 185.

53. See, for example, Burtt, Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science; Oakley, “Christian Theology and the Newtonian Science”; and Dobbs, Janus Faces of Genius. There is a dissenting view: Peter Harrison, “Was Newton a Voluntarist”. But see Henry, “Voluntarist Theology at the Origins of Modern Science”.

54. Voltaire, Candide.

55. See Oakley, Omnipotence, Covenant and Order.

56. Manuscripts of the Dibner Collection, MS. 1031 B, The Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology, Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Smithsonian Institution, p. 4v. Available on-line at The Chymistry of Isaac Newton website: http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/newton/mss/norm/ALCH00081, accessed March 18, 2017.

57. See Rowe, “Clarke and Leibniz on Divine Perfection and Freedom”; and Vailati, Leibniz & Clarke.

58. Newton, Unpublished Scientific Papers, 138–39.

59. Newton, Unpublished Scientific Papers, 139–40.

60. Newton, Unpublished Scientific Papers, 139, 140.

61. Newton, Unpublished Scientific Papers, 141.

62. Newton, Unpublished Scientific Papers, 141.

63. McGuire, “Newton on Place, Time, and God”, 123.

64. Newton, Optice, 346–7. The Latin reads: “nisi Intelligentiæ & Sapientiæ Entis Potentis semperque Viventis; quod sit ubique scilicet præsens, possitque Voluntate sua corpora omnia in infinito suo Sensorio movere, adeoque cunćtas Mundi universi partes ad arbitrium suum fingere & refingere, multo magis quam Anima nostra, quæ est in Nobis Imago Dei, voluntate sua ad corporis nostri membra movenda valet”.

65. MS Add. 3970.3, ff. 618r-623r, Cambridge University Library, f. 619r.

66. MS Add. 3970.3, ff. 231r-301r, 359r, 477v-478r, Cambridge University Library, f. 242v; see also f. 243r.

67. MS Add. 3970.3, ff. 231r-301r, 359r, 477v-478r, Cambridge University Library, f. 256r.

68. Locke, Essay, Book II, Chapter XXI, “Of Power”, § 4.

69. Locke, Essay, Book II, Chapter XXI, § 5.

70. Quoted from Koyré and Cohen, “Newton and the Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence”, 101.

71. Newton, Principia, 942–43.

72. Newton, Opticks, Bk III, Part I, Query 31, 403.

73. Newton, Principia, 941–42.

74. MS Add. 3970.3, ff. 618r-623r, Cambridge University Library, f. 619r.

75. Cross and Livingstone (eds), Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 1027. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as: “The theory or belief that God encompasses and interpenetrates the universe but at the same time is greater than and independent of it”.

76. Cooper, Panentheism.

77. Cooper, Panentheism, 32.

78. On Boehme’s supposed influence, see Popp, Jakob Boehme und Isaac Newton; Snow, Matter and Gravity in Newton’s Physical Philosophy, 45; and Walton, Notes and Materials for a Biography of William Law, 46. On More’s supposed influence see, for example, Hall, Henry More and the Scientific Revolution; and Leech, Hammer of the Cartesians.

79. Cooper, Panentheism, 19; see also 39, where Neoplatonism is said to be “the genuine fountainhead of classical panentheism”.

80. See, for example, Hall, Henry More and the Scientific Revolution; Friedman, “Newton and Kant on Absolute Space”; McGuire and Slowik, “Newton’s Ontology of Omnipresence”; Slowik, Deep Metaphysics of Space, 29-60.

81. Cooper, Panentheism, 28; Clayton, “Panentheism Today”.

82. Bierley, “Naming a Quiet Revolution”.

83. See Cooper, Panentheism, 301–18.

84. Cooper, Panentheism, 317. These theologians are Ian Barbour, Paul Davies, Arthur Peacocke, Philip Clayton, and John Polkinghorne.

85. Paul Davies, “Teleology without Teleology”, 99.

86. Peacocke, “God’s Presence in and to the World Unveiled by the Sciences”, 150. See also Clayton, “Barbour’s Panentheistic Metaphysic”, 56 and 60, where God’s relationship to the world is again likened to the mind’s relationship to the body.

87. Clayton, God and Contemporary Science, 90. Clayton does mention Newton’s sensorium, but misunderstands it: “space is a sort of divine sensorium, a framework imposed by God on what he perceives…” 89.

88. “New atheism” is aggressively evangelical in its cause, and seeks to use science to prove the non-existence of God. Prime examples are: Dawkins, The God Delusion; Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea; and Harris, The End of Faith. For a critique see, for example, Jonathan Sacks, The Great Partnership.

89. Clayton and Peacocke (eds), In Whom We Live and Move. See also Griffin, Panentheism and Scientific Naturalism, where the same claims about the resonance and congruence of panentheism and the scientific worldview are made.

90. See, for example, Allen, Doubt’s Boundless Sea; Buckley, At the Origins of Modern Atheism; Berman, History of Atheism in Britain; and Hunter and Wootton (eds), Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment.

91. Cooper, Panetheism, 57–62; and 72–77.

92. Israel, Radical Enlightenment; Sullivan, John Toland and the Deist Controversy; and Evans, Pantheisticon.

93. Robert Boyle, Occasional Reflections (1665), Discourse VI, “Upon the sight of one’s shadow cast upon the face of a river”, in Boyle, Works, Vol. 5, 106–12: 108.

94. Ibid., 109.

95. Roberts, Metaphysics for the Mob, 84.

96. Berkeley, Philosophical Commentaries, No. 712, in Works, vol. I, 87; Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, § 29, in Works, vol. II, 53. For a full exposition, see Roberts, Metaphysics for the Mob. Berkeley badly misunderstood Newton, and criticised him without realising the similarities between their positions. For an account of his critique of Newton, see Davis, “Berkeley, Newton, and Space”.

97. Connolly, “Newton and God’s Sensorium”, 185.

98. Newton, Principia, 943. In subsequent editions of the Principia (1726 onwards), “experimental philosophy” became “natural philosophy”. Levitin, Ancient Wisdom in the Age of the New Science, 435.

99. Levitin, Ancient Wisdom, 436, 443, and 446.

100. CUL MS Add. 9597.2.14, fol. 4r. Quoted from Levitin, Ancient Wisdom, 444.

101. Levitin, Ancient Wisdom, 445.

102. Greenham, “Clarifying Divine Discourse in Early Modern Science”, § 5.2, 17.

103. Newton, Unpublished Scientific Papers, 131–32.

104. Popkin, “Newton’s Biblical Theology and His Theological Physics”, 81.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John Henry

John Henry is professor of the History of Science Emeritus at the University of Edinburgh.

J. E. McGuire

J. E. McGuire is professor of History and Philosophy of Science Emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh.