Evidence · Case 09 · Atheism
Isaac Newton, letter to Richard Bentley, 1692
One exhibit from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.
Leading figures of the scientific revolution, among them Kepler, Boyle, and Newton, integrated their faith and their science. Newton wrote to the clergyman Richard Bentley that when he composed the Principia he had his eye on principles that might move thoughtful people toward “belief of a deity.”
Sources
Objections & responses
- Newton’s letters to Bentley are a textbook case of God of the gaps. He invoked God to explain the stability of the solar system, which Laplace later explained without God.
Fair, and it should be acknowledged. Newton’s specific inference from planetary stability was a gap argument that failed. The letter is cited only to show that Newton saw his science and his theism as connected, not to endorse his particular inference. Said plainly, it is an honest example of what a gaps argument looks like and why the next exhibit warns against them.