Walter Baade: A Life in Astrophysics Book

I give to A. Rupert Hall the 5-star rating based on his Sarton Medal-award winning reputation in the field of history of science. Without exception - to include the biographical data on Newton - you will be exhilarated and educated simultaneously by the depth and nuance of Hall's treatment of the Lincolnshire lad in as stylish and balanced a manner as any historian of science can possibly get. The detailing is too difficult to recap here, as it is a biography and a lengthy read. But some high points stand out in this 398 page treatment (to include Appendices A-E!):

His heroic stance against Catholic clericalism re-emergent at a Cambridge University pulling clear of a regicide, a dictator, and "the Late Middle Ages." Newton is hardly thought of a being a hero: tyrant of the Royal Society and Royal Mint is a more likely charge - as well as Stephen Hawking's idiotic indictment of this gentleman, just because he warms the same chair at Cambridge (the Lucasian) as did the great Newton (Newton humbly acknowledged that were it not for the likes of Descartes, Galileo, Kepler and several others, he would not have had any views off of any great giant's shoulders into humanity's growing understanding of nature. Even cursory studies of Newton's overall work - which he did not want to publish! - reveals all of this. He was also a telescope developer and like Spinoza and Galileo, delved into practical optics). In an age as chock-filled with the ideologically-zealous then as it is now (then it was Catholic agents wanting English institutions back: today they are Marxian agents wanting similar control) Newton warned and assured his fellow "fellows" (and others) that, if they stuck to English Law (and ignored the Canonical Law of the Catholics) they should all come out "all right." They did. (We can learn from this in the face of challenges from all "law" other than the secular one handed down from the Roman period.)

The other thing that you will be amazed by is this man's concomitant ability as a theologian. But first, what was it meant by Newton being a "theist" ? "Theism" is treated as an outdated concept, overwritten by Kantian quasi-romantic transcendentalism. All this does away with an indifferent and capricious deity (supra-rational = more all-knowing than what any mortal can know) who can be consulted for revelation/understanding, in science. The supra-rational god of the Jews was melted down into something "Deistic" (i.e., a "rational" deity who has found everything we need to know, is your friend, and so, now let's go be organized by the Kants & stop wondering). Along with his scientific and theistic soulmate, the great Robert Boyle, both men argued that "Lord God", or, the "Force," is all-knowing and all-approachable, and, should we seek answers in good faith, will get them from Him (Her??? - I jest!). The fact that we haven't come up with much really basically very useful and GOOD new stuff (Newton: Universal Gravitation Law, Boyle: Boyle's Law) might be a way of something telling us something. For in Genesis, it states somewhere that "all things discovered by men are a joy to him and his own forever" and this implies, via Holy Scripture, that all scientific discoveries not only have NOT all been made, but that such discoveries are OURs - and that a deity, for all we know, doesn't care one way or another.

But, back to his theological studies (his "alchemical" ones by the way were NOT mystical) - which were cabalistic and thus, somewhat mystical. Newton could study texts in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic (I believe) and in a few other languages. His studies are held in high repute by Talmudic scholars, and many are at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. I am no judge but apparently, some of his interpretations of the Biblical texts are held to be of the highest caliber in the world - besting any competing Jew and Gentile, alike. Never having to have taken clerical orders at Cambridge (since the John Lucas fund did not demand this) Newton, you might say, took them, anyway. He was not only the first great empirical scientist: he was also a great theologian. Indeed in this last respect, perhaps he was one of - if not THE - last "universal" men. And best of all, he shows the wedded nature of science and an honest belief in god.