Articles

Essays on Newton by Stephen David Snobelen

A full account of the discovery of the owner of a stolen Newton album autograph inscription. This article complements two papers on Newton’s epigrams in student alba amicorum by George Gomori and Stephen Snobelen published in Notes and Records: The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science in September 2020.

The myth of the clockwork universe

This essay, published in a collection of essays on the religious dimensions of the Enlightenment in 2012, dispels the myth that Newton invented and endorsed a clockwork model of the cosmos.

Theology of the Principia

This essay, published in Germany in 2010, provides a preliminary survey of the theological themes of Newton’s magnum opus.

Newton on accommodationist hermeneutics

This essay, published in a four-volume collection of essays on science and biblical interpretation in 2008, outlines Newton’s endorsement of the hermeneutics of accommodation.

The true frame of nature

This essay, published by Oxford University Press in 2005,  examines Newton’s dual reformations in theology and natural philosophy (science), with special emphasis on Newton’s heresy.

Newton and Socinianism

This essay, published in Germany in 2005, explores the many analogies between Newton’s heretical theology and that of the Polish Brethren, or Socinians (the leading antitrinitarian movement of the seventeenth century).

Newton’s heterodox theology and his natural philosophy

This essay, published by Ashgate in 2004, shows ways in which Newton’s heretical theology interacted with his natural philosophy (science).

Newton on the devil

This essay, published in 2004, is the first full-length study of Newton’s disbelief in a personal devil and ontologically real demons.

Newton, the Apocalypse and 2060 AD

This essay, published in the Canadian Journal of History in 2003, considers what Newton meant when he jotted down the date 2060 on a scrap paper in the early eighteenth century.

Isaac Newton on the Return of the Jews

This essay, published in a collection of papers on millenarianism and science in 2001, outlines Newton’s prophetic belief in the return of the Jews to Israel, along with other aspects of his millenarian eschatology.

Theology of General Scholium

This essay, published in Osiris in 2001, reveals that the most famous book in the history of science (Newton’s Principia) concludes with an account of biblical monotheism and an attack on the doctrine of the Trinity.

Isaac Newton, heretic

This essay, published in the British Journal for the History of Science in 1999, details Newton’s dissenting theology and his attempts to preach his antitrinitarian faith in secret.

Encyclopedia Entries

Newton in S&R primer

This 940-word entry was published in The Science and Religion Primer in 2009.

Newton in Science, Religion and Society

This 8000-word entry was published in Science, Religion, and Society: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture, and Controversy in 2007.

Newton in Science, Technology and Ethics

This 1500-word entry was published in the Encyclopedia of Science, Technology and Ethics in 2005.

Newton in EEME

This 2500-word entry, published in Europe 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World in 2004, provides a biography of Newton placing him in his early modern context.

Newton in RGG

This 500-word entry, published in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (Religion in Past and Present), 4th ed., 2003, provides a brief outline of Newton’s theological views and how they related to his science.

Newton in Encyclopedia of science and religion

This 3500-word entry, published in 2003, stresses that there are many links between Newton’s religious faith and his study of nature.

Newton in Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment

This 3500-word biography, published in 2002, demonstrates that Newton was a profoundly religious man, not one of the founders of the Age of Reason.

Prophecy: general

Science, religion and the four blood moons of 2014 and 2015

Reflections on the blood moons prophecy first announced in 2008 and covered by the religious and secular media. This article engages with prophetic exegesis, apocalypticism, religious populism, science and the ways science and religion relate to each other. There are examples from history, including brief allusions to Newton’s prophetic views.

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