Cosmic Religionothers, would return – which they did. However, for Newton,
comets were fascinating not just because they appeared in the
sky but because the intermittency of their appearing resonated
with his view of God. His was a deity who intermittently inter-
vened in the universe. So, he conjectured, might the impact of a
comet on earth have been the cause of divine interventions like
Noah’s fl ood?
Another example of his interplay of religion and science is
found in the way Newton thought about the mysterious action
of gravity at a distance. He postulated that the universe was
fi lled with a tenuous ether. This ether served two purposes. First,
being made of tiny particles, it could provide a vehicle for the
transmission of the gravitational force. And second, it might
also be the medium for the spiritual forces necessary to animate
an otherwise inert universe.
Newton’s natural theology did go to extremes that seem
simply weird to us now. He turned his science to such matters as
the dimensions of Solomon’s temple, the number of the Beast,
and the recovery of lost knowledge from ancient times. One of
his close followers identifi ed over 300 occasions in which bibli-
cal prophecy was supported by mathematics (though he made
the fatal mistake of predicting the end of the world just 30 years
ahead of his own time: it didn’t happen). Scientifi c luminar-
ies such as Joseph Priestley and David Hartley valued Newton’s
alchemy too. They routinely and favourably cited him for his
expertise in esoteric matters. But one should hesitate to mock.
Think instead what speculations of today will seem outland-
ish to scientists 300 years hence. The multiverse theory? Eleven
dimensional space? Memes?
Not that such considerations humbled others. Leibniz, a con-
temporary rival of Newton once joked thus: ‘According to their
doctrine [Newton and followers], God Almighty wants to wind
up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to
move. He had not, it seems, suffi cient foresight to make it a per-
petual motion.’ But Leibniz misunderstood Newton’s premise.
Science could not explain God away. Quite the opposite: science