For the Bible is not
chained in every expression to conditions as strict as those that govern all physical
effects; nor is God any less excellently revealed in Natures actions than in the
sacred testaments of the Bible” (Ibid., 252).
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 colors, 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 or heard or touched; nor ought He to be worshiped 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 colors, we hear only the sound, we
touch only their outward surfaces, we smell only the smells and taste the savors, 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”
(Thayer, 1953, 45).
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 or space, but
He endureth and is present. He endureth forever, and is everywhere present; and by
existing always and everywhere, He constitutes duration and space . . . In Him are all
things contained and moved”
(Burtt, 1951, 257).
I must profess I know no
sufficient natural cause of the earth diurnal motion. Where natural causes are at hand God
uses them as instruments in His works, but I do not think them alone sufficient for His
creation and therefore may be allowed to suppose that amongst other things God gave the
earth its motion by such degrees and at such times as was most suitable to His
creatures”
Turnbull, 1960,
334).
_________________________________________
Christianson, G., In the Presence of the Creator- Newton and His Times.
London: The Free Press, 1984.
Thayer, H.
S. Newton=s
Philosophy of Nature.
New York: Hafner Publishing Company, 1953.
Burtt, E.
A. The Methaphysical Foundations of Modern Science. New York: The
Humanities Press Inc., 1951.
Turnbull,
H. W. The Correspondence of Isaac Newton. Cambridge: University
Press, 1960.