The Collapsing of the Two Books in Newton’s Theological Investigations
Collapsing the “Two Books”
Newton’s theological investigations, marked by his pursuit of textual “simplicity” and his anti-Trinitarian convictions, revealed a man deeply invested in reconciling faith with reason. His approach to Scripture, which sought to uncover the “good sense” behind divine revelation, was emblematic of a broader intellectual shift in early modern Europe. This shift was not merely a theological reformation but also a philosophical revolution that began to redraw the boundaries between the sacred and the scientific. As Newton’s work exemplifies, the period was characterized by an urgent effort to balance the autonomy of natural philosophy with a rationalized form of Christianity. These tensions between reason, revelation, and tradition laid the groundwork for the eventual collapse of the “two books” metaphor—Scripture and nature as complementary sources of divine knowledge—into a more mechanistic and secular understanding of the cosmos.
In one of his unpublished manuscripts, for instance, Newton outlined “seven statements on religion,” opening with a striking principle: “religion and philosophy are to be preserved distinct.” For Newton, this meant that “we are not to introduce divine revelations into philosophy, nor philosophical opinions into religion.” His aversion to mingling the two realms aligned with the Latitudinarians’ distaste for “enthusiasm”—the fervent reliance on personal inspiration over reason. Writing to Locke about textual corruption, Newton sharply criticized “the hot and superstitious part of mankind” who, in matters of religion, were “fond of mysteries” and inclined to favor interpretations they understood least. “Such men may use the Apostle John as they please,” he remarked, “but I have that honor for him as to believe he wrote good sense, and therefore take that sense to be his which is the best.”[1]
Newton’s critique of superstitious “enthusiasm” aligns him with the principles of the Royal Society, an institution founded on the scientific ideals of Francis Bacon (1561-1626). Bacon, whose father was instrumental in the Elizabethan religious settlement, championed a vision of natural philosophy that resonated with the Reformation’s spirit. Bacon saw the pursuit of knowledge as a form of divine labor, casting the natural philosopher as a co-laborer in God’s work.[2] Yet, despite this theological orientation, Bacon also insisted on the separation of science and religion. In his Advancement of Learning (1605), he argued that “no man . . . can search too far or be too well studied in the book of God’s word or in the book of God’s works,” affirming a religious character to the pursuit of knowledge while granting natural philosophy its autonomy.[3]
Victor Nuovo points out that Bacon, in his unfinished Abecedarium novum naturae, even suggested that a “feigned atheism” might enable one to approach nature more objectively. Bacon warned against the “idols which beset men’s minds,” especially those that improperly blend theology with natural philosophy.[4] For both Bacon and Newton, then, wisdom lay in resisting the temptation to confound the book of nature with the book of Scripture.
A More Rational Religion
Thus, when Samuel Hartlib and his collaborators founded the Royal Society in 1660, they closely followed Bacon’s directive to keep theology separate from natural philosophy. English clergyman and mathematician John Wallis recalled that early discussions focused solely on “New Philosophy,” deliberately avoiding “Theology and State Affairs.”[5] This focus is reflected in Thomas Sprat’s History of the Royal Society (1667), where he envisioned natural philosophy as a new Reformation tool capable of restoring a primitive, rational religion—a revival of the prisca theologia.[6] Sprat praised the new learning for clearing away “the rubbish” of past ages, liberating “our understanding from the Charms of vain apparitions, and a slavery to dead Mens names.”[7]
Sprat’s respect for “rational religion” extended to the spiritual independence of the Royal Society, applauding its members for not meddling in “Spiritual things.” As Basil Willey later put it, Sprat’s view seems to offer religion “a cold salute after banishing it to a safe distance.”[8] Newton, upon becoming the Society’s president, maintained this stance, forbidding any discussions that veered too closely toward theology. The Society’s fellows—many of whom were liberal-minded clergymen—studied both the Book of Nature and the Book of Scripture with equal fervor, while carefully “keeping out of the sacristy,” as Frank Manuel observed, and leaving theologians “out of the rooms where experiments were performed.”[9]
This approach influenced an entire generation of English “virtuosi”—scientific virtuosos who adopted a Christian “virtuosity” that avoided intertwining theology and science. Robert Boyle, a devout Anglican, embodied this model by merging Epicurean atomism with Baconian scientific pragmatism.[10] Boyle believed experimental science could glorify God, positioning the natural philosopher as a “priest of nature” and advocating that scientific inquiry reinforced a sincere faith. In The Christian Virtuoso (1690), Boyle asserted that science, properly pursued, leads to “an hearty and operative assent to the principles of religion,” subtly challenging the authority of traditional clergy by reimagining the scientist as a new “high priest” of the natural world.[11]
John Locke, another key figure of the Royal Society, found inspiration in Bacon and mentorship under Boyle. Locke’s rational theology took shape partly during his Dutch exile, where he circulated among dissident intellectuals and studied with figures like Arminian theologian Philip van Limborch.[12] There, Locke was influenced by works that promoted a minimalist, reason-based Christianity—an approach he brought to his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689). Locke contended that reason must be the final arbiter of revelation: “no proposition . . . contradictory to our clear intuitive knowledge” could claim divine authority.[13]
Locke’s rational interpretation of Scripture aligned with the Latitudinarian spirit, emphasizing a simple, “plain and intelligible” gospel meant for all.[14] In his Reasonableness of Christianity (1695), Locke proposed that salvation required only belief that “Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ,” reducing Christianity to a moral code consistent with natural reason.[15] This approach, which resonated with German biblical critics like Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten, championed religious toleration and privatized faith—a reconciliation between “two books” that Locke would later admit was both “fragile and not enduring.”[16]
Figures like Bacon, Sprat, Boyle, Locke, and Newton thus advanced a moderate Protestantism that balanced theological enthusiasm with philosophical restraint, sidestepping the civil chaos wrought by earlier religious zeal. Where patristic thinkers like Augustine had subordinated nature to Scripture, these thinkers reversed the hierarchy, placing the book of nature as the foundation for religious understanding. Their views echoed Richard Hooker’s Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (1593–97), where he argued that the Bible, though infallible, must be interpreted through human reason to avoid what he saw as Puritan overreach.[17] For Hooker, sound interpretation required “the soundness of those reasons . . . not the fervent earnestness of their persuasion.” In the Royal Society, this balance of rationalism and restraint became an intellectual refuge amidst the theological upheavals of the age.
A New Picture of the Cosmos
As we have seen, early modern science was deeply interwoven with philosophical and theological ideas. Many “scientists” of the era believed that the Creator had designed nature with specific properties. Yet, in the wake of the New World’s discovery, the Protestant Reformation, and religious wars, many philosophers sought a more irenic way to discuss God, Scripture, nature, and humanity. A thorough understanding of modern biblical criticism’s rise requires attention to the new picture of reality emerging during this period, as most central figures of the so-called scientific revolution had something to say about the Bible, fundamentally shifting its interpretation.[18]
The acceptance of Copernicus’s heliocentric model marked a turning point in this shift.[19] Although the Catholic Church initially supported Copernicus’s work, tensions arose after the Reformation reignited debates on Scripture’s interpretation. In De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543), dedicated to Pope Paul II, Copernicus warned against critics who, “wholly ignorant of mathematics . . . shamelessly distort the sense of . . . Holy Writ” to attack his work. For him, “mathematics is written for mathematicians,” implying that theological objections to science should come only from those trained in the field.
German Lutheran astronomer Johannes Kepler expanded on Copernicus’s work, driven by religious convictions and seeing nature as revelatory.[20] His Mysterium Cosmographicum (1596) argued that the universe reflected divine order, and Kepler declared himself a “priest of the highest God in regard to the book of nature.” Yet, his God was more Platonic than scriptural: an aesthetician and geometer, creating in harmony. As Rhonda Martens observes, “Kepler’s God was a Platonic God, an aesthetician and a geometer, who created physical things to express aesthetically pleasing geometrical constructions.”[21] Kepler’s reverence for mathematical beauty coexisted with a Lutheran faith, although he avoided full allegiance to his church’s doctrines.
Kepler’s Astronomia Nova (1609) advanced what would become a bedrock argument of biblical criticism: the “accommodation theory.” He argued that the Scriptures, when speaking of common matters, used language that accommodated human understanding. Kepler distinguished the Bible’s purpose from scientific inquiry, stating that “in theology the authorities have decisive importance, but in philosophy the decisive importance attaches to calculations.” Here, Kepler asserts the Bible is not a science textbook, thus framing theology as subordinate to empirical investigation. He later noted that, “to me, however, the truth is more pious still . . . with all due respect for the Doctors of the Church, I prove philosophically . . . that [the earth] is carried along among the stars.”[22]
Kepler’s accommodation theory allowed him to reconcile his faith with scientific findings, marking a new independence for science. For Kepler, observable evidence was paramount, and he believed science should ultimately inform biblical interpretation rather than be limited by tradition or ecclesial authority.
Kepler’s contemporary, Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), further advanced the scientific revolution with telescopic discoveries that bolstered Copernican theory, such as the moons of Jupiter. Like Kepler, Galileo offered a fresh approach to interpreting Scripture.[23] He believed the Bible used simple language for accessibility, yet he also argued that “though Holy Scripture cannot err, nevertheless some of its interpreters . . . can sometimes err.”[24] In his famous 1615 Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina, Galileo argued for natural philosophy’s independence from theology, contending that scientific truths should shape, not contradict, biblical interpretation. Galileo asserted, “the Bible teaches us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go,” marking a clear boundary between theological and scientific inquiry. For Galileo, as for Kepler, the book of nature was mathematical and complex, whereas Scripture spoke in everyday language. When theologians encountered biblical references to the cosmos, he suggested they seek guidance from astronomers.
René Descartes (1596–1650), another prominent figure in the scientific revolution, would go on to redefine the cosmos. According to Voltaire, “the very Essence of Things” shifted with Descartes. In works like Discourse on Method (1637) and Meditations on First Philosophy (1641), Descartes envisioned the universe as a grand machine, governed by laws established by God but requiring no further intervention. In Holland—where he spent over twenty years amid religious dissent—Descartes advocated for a “natural theology” that did not rely on Scripture. His approach effectively separated divine truth from scientific investigation, suggesting a dual system: special revelations that transcend understanding and natural revelations accessible through reason alone.
Descartes’s mechanistic universe removed nature’s mystery, effectively secularizing it. Miracles, previously signs of divine intervention, became problematic. Descartes emphasized human reason as the foundation for knowledge, transferring divine wisdom to human intellect. His method diminished reverence for pre-modern views of nature and faith, fostering a skepticism that aligned with the period’s optimism and intellectualism. As Richard Popkin observed, “the Cartesian standard of true philosophical and scientific knowledge” increasingly shaped attitudes toward religious knowledge.[25] Descartes’s method, though not directly applied to biblical exegesis, created a climate conducive to critical approaches to Scripture, replacing divinely centered certainty with human-centered doubt.
In this context, Descartes’s methodical doubt became a tool for navigating post-Reformation religious strife. His skepticism toward competing dogmas suggested that none could meet his criteria for certainty. For biblical exegesis, this meant approaching the Bible as one would any natural phenomenon, with the presupposition of a self-contained universe where God’s role is limited to a distant cause. Although Descartes did not apply this method directly to Christianity, the implications were clear, leading his critics to charge that Cartesians had inverted the roles of Creator and creature.
Thus, while the scientific revolution emerged within a culture rich in religious conviction, it signaled a shift away from orthodox Christianity. By the late seventeenth century, science, history, and philosophy had gained autonomy from biblical authority. The “two books” metaphor collapsed, leaving only the book of nature, where divine intervention became unnecessary. This new approach suggested that revelation itself was redundant, that humanity could rely solely on natural causes to understand the world. In the coming generations, as scientific thought increasingly championed natural over supernatural explanations, the divine was relegated to the periphery of intellectual discourse, often seen as superfluous or even contradictory to natural integrity.
Conclusion
In Letters Concerning the English Nation, Voltaire, champion of a “religion of humanity,” included “Lord Bacon, Mr. Locke, [and] Sir Isaac Newton” among his pantheon of heroes. These thinkers, along with Galileo and Descartes, are seldom associated with the history of biblical criticism, yet their work embodies its foundational principles. They were joined by others—Grotius, Hobbes, La Peyrère, Simon, and Spinoza—who, as historian Klaus Scholder observed, represented “symptoms, not causes” of biblical criticism.[26] What I have emphasized here is how the “naturalization” of the Bible was embedded in the scientific revolution itself, visible even in Newton’s work.
The period’s shifting religious landscape was influenced by Socinian theology, which emphasized the human dimension of the Bible.[27] Stephen Snobelen noted that “biblical criticism was central to early modern antitrinitarian theology.”[28] Newton’s focus on textual purity aligned him with Socinian and Unitarian critics, while his Protestant leanings also employed familiar English tropes. Scholars like F. C. Baur and Adolf von Harnack understood Socinianism as an outgrowth of sola scriptura, pushing this Protestant principle to a logical extreme.[29] Richard Westfall saw in Newton’s paradoxical synthesis the seeds of modern deistic secularism; while Newton sought reconciliation, he paved the way for a worldview where natural religion was seen as sufficient.[30] Over time, some concluded that revelation was redundant, reducing the Bible to a mere ethical handbook.
The intellectual shifts stemming from the Reformation ultimately “dethroned” the Bible as the ultimate authority on knowledge. This emerging biblical criticism, in many ways, paralleled the Protestant critique of Roman Catholicism, dismissing dogma as a corruption of Jesus’s original message. Theologically, the result was a new contest between ancient materialism—Democritean atomism revived by figures like Lucretius—and the Augustinian worldview. The revival of Greek atomism reimagined nature as self-sustaining, created not by God but by random atomic motions, bound by nothing more than chance and necessity. Christians attempted to reconcile this materialistic perspective with their faith, framing the regularities of nature as “laws” imposed by God, a Lawgiver.
However, attempts to “baptize” the new mechanical worldview introduced tensions. As Carl Becker remarked, “nature’s God” began to look indistinguishable from nature itself.[31] Disillusioned by religious wars, some sought a deity revealed solely through nature, a trend Peter Gay famously labeled “pagan Christianity.” Figures like Bacon, Boyle, Descartes, Locke, and Newton each aimed to unify Scripture with emerging scientific views, but in doing so, they redefined Christianity itself. Far from secularism’s rise, historical-critical scholarship emerged from heterodox traditions. In this light, late-eighteenth-century biblical criticism was less a beginning than a culmination of heterodox thought.
Biblical criticism, as it evolved, was never neutral; it sought to challenge orthodox interpretations. Richard Popkin argued that the so-called “war” between science and religion stemmed not from the new physics or astronomy, but from applying scientific principles to Scripture.[32] From Copernicus to Newton, theological disputes dominated, driven more by liberal intellectuals seeking to modernize religion than by anti-scientific sentiment. This “über-Reformation,” as one commentator put it, became Newton’s legacy.[33] This worldview, increasingly “Newtonian,” influenced even biology, gradually sidelining God’s active presence in creation. Ultimately, while Newton and his followers sought harmony between science and faith, they laid the groundwork for a future perception that science and religion are fundamentally opposed.[34]
[1] Newton to Locke, 14 November 1690, in Correspondence, vol. 3, p. 108.
[2] See, e.g., Steven Matthews, Theology and Science in the Thought of Francis Bacon, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008.
[3] Francis Bacon, “Advancement of Learning and Division of the Sciences,” in Francis Bacon, Selected Philosophical Works, ed. Rose-Mary Sargent, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1999, p. 9.
[4] Victor Nuovo, John Locke: The Philosopher as Christian Virtuoso, Oxford: Oxford University Pres, 2017, p. 11.
[5] See account in The Works of Thomas Hearne, Vol. III. Containing the First Volume of Peter Langtoft’s Chronicle, London, 1810, pp. clxi–clxiv.
[6] Thomas Sprat, The History of the Royal-Society of London, For the Improving of Natural Knowledge, London: S. Bagster, 1667.
[7] Ibid., p. 29.
[8] Basil Willey, The Seventeenth Century Background: Studies in the Thought of the Age in Relation to Poetry and Religion, New York: Columbia University Press, 1967, p. 215.
[9] Manuel, The Religion of Newton, pp. 30–31.
[10] On the religious foundations of Boyle’s natural philosophy, see the celebrated study by Michael Hunter, Boyle: Between God and Science, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. See also the recent collection of essays in Jan-Erik Jones (ed.), The Bloomsbury Companion to Robert Boyle, London: Bloomsbury, 2020.
[11] Robert Boyle, “The Christian Virtuoso. The Second Part,” in Thomas Birch (ed.), The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle, 5 vols., London: A. Millar, 1744, vol. 5, p. 715. See discussion in Harold Fisch, “The Scientist as Priest: A Note on Robert Boyle’s Natural Theology,” Isis 44 (1953), pp. 252–265. More recently, see Lynda Walsh, Scientists and Prophets: A Rhetorical Genealogy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
[12] See Rosalie Colie, Light and Enlightenment: A Study of the Cambridge Platonists and the Dutch Arminians, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957. See also Luisa Simonutti, “Religion, Philosophy, and Science: John Locke and Limborch’s Circle in Amsterdam,” in James E. Force and David Katz (eds.), Everything Connects: In Conference with Richard H. Popkin, Leiden: Brill, 1999, pp. 295–324.
[13] See studies by Diego Lucci, John Locke’s Christianity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021; John Marshall, John Locke, Toleration and Early Enlightenment Culture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006; John Marshall, John Locke: Resistance, Religion and Responsibility, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. See also the introductory remarks by Victor Nuovo in John Locke, Writings on Religion, ed. Victor Nuovo, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002.
[14] See the helpful discussion in John C. Higgins-Biddle, “Introduction,” in Locke, Reasonableness, pp. lviii-lxxiv.
[15] John Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity, as Delivered in the Scriptures, ed. John C. Higgins-Biddle, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999, p. 6
[16] Nuovo, John Locke, p. 249.
[17] Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, 2 vols., London: Everyman’s Library, 1901, vol. 1, p. 135.
[18] Howell, God’s Two Books, p. 25.
[19] See Robert S. Westman, The Copernican Question: Prognostication, Skepticism, and Celestial Order, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011. See also discussion in Howell, God’s Two Books, pp. 39–72.
[20] See, e.g., the classic study by Max Casper, Kepler, trans. and ed. C. Doris Hellman, New York: Dover, 1993. See also more recently Rhonda Martens, Kepler’s Philosophy and the New Astronomy, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.
[21] Martens, Kepler’s Philosophy, p. 48.
[22] William H. Donahue, Selections from Kepler’s Astronomia Nova, Santa Fe NM: Green Lion Press, 2008, pp. 19, 25.
[23] Howell, God’s Two Books, pp. 181–207. See also: Maurice A. Finocchiaro, The Galileo Affair: A Documentary History, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989; Maurice A. Finocchiaro, Retrying Galileo, 1633–1992, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.
[24] Quoted in Finocchiaro, The Galileo Affair, p. 49.
[25] Richard H. Popkin, “Cartesianism and Biblical Criticism,” in Thomas M. Lennon, John M. Nicholas, and John W. Davies (eds.), Problems of Cartesianism, Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1982, pp. 61–81.
[26] Klaus Scholder, The Birth of Modern Critical Theology: Origins and Problems of Biblical Criticism in the Seventeenth Century, London: SCM Press, 1966, p. 7.
[27] For a general history, see Earl Morse Wilbur, A History of Unitarianism: Socinianism and Its Antecedents, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1945.
[28] Stephen D. Snobelen, “‘To us there is but one God, the Father’: Antitrinitarian Textual Criticism in Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century England,” in Ariel Hessayon and Nicholas Keene (eds.), Scripture and Scholarship in Early Modern England, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006, pp. 116–136.
[29] Ferdinand Christian Baur, Die christliche Lehre von der Dreieinigkeit und Menschwerdung Gottes in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung, 3 vols., Tübingen: C.F. Oslander, 1841–1843, vol. 3, p. 162; Adolf von Harnack, History of Dogma, trans. from the Third German edition, 7 vols., Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1894–1899, vol. 5, pp. 4ff.
[30] Richard S. Westfall, Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England, New Haven: Archon Books, 1970, p. 208.
[31] Carl L. Becker, The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1932, p. 21. See also relevant sections in Peter Gay, The Enlightenment, 2 vols., New York: W.W. Norton, 1966.
[32] Richard H. Popkin, “Scepticism, Theology and the Scientific Revolution in the Seventeenth Century,” in Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (eds.), Problems in the Philosophy of Science, Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing, 1968, pp. 1–39.
[33] N.T. Wright, History and Eschatology: Jesus and the Promise of Natural Theology: The 2018 Gifford Lectures, Waco: Baylor University Press, 2019, p. 21.
[34] See James C. Ungureanu, Science, Religion, and the Protestant Tradition: Retracing the Origins of Conflict, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019.