Faith Well Grounded

In comments here lately I have professed the fathers of modern science as working within a creationist framework. This is in response to the claim that ID is not science, and my making the point that the recent definition of science that bars the supernatural as a potential cause is just that-- recent. The fathers of modern science worked within a creationist's framework, and you can't separate their science from this framework. You just can't-- especially when they went through great pains to prevent us trying.

For instance, I'll be quoting about Newton from "The Soul of Science", pg 72, quotes cited in original.

Yet Newton himself was neither a deist nor a rationalist. He saw in the mechanical order of the world evidence for something *beyond* the mechanical world-- a living and intelligent Creator. In *General Scholium*, he argues that "this most beautiful system of sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being." And in *Optiks*, he writes that the business of science is to "deduce causes from effects, till we come to the very first cause, which certainly is not mechanical." In Newton's eyes, the major benefit of science is religious and moral. It shows us "what is the first cause, what power he has over us, and what benefits we receive from him," so that "our duty towards him, as well as that towards one another will appear to us by the light of nature."

Moreover, the motive for much of Newton's scientific work was apologetical, a fact widely recognized in his own day. Roger Cotes, in his preface to the second edition of Newton's *Principia*, wrote that the book "will be the safest protection against the attacks of atheists, and nowhere more surely than from this quiver can one draw missiles against the band of godless men."

So, was Newton a creationist? Obviously. Can his science be separated from his religion? Not by his own word. Was he a scientist? I'd like to see the modern establishment try to "define" him away...

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