Theology of Isaac Newton: a problem of typology

Abstract

Disputes about Newton's religious beliefs have already began during Sir Isaac’s life. Over the past two hundred years his beliefs been classified as Anglican, Puritan, Arian, Socinian, Deistic, and even Judaic. Now researchers have come to an unambiguous agreement about Newton's hetero-doxy - the first two versions are refuted, as well as the statement about Sir Isaac's deism. Howev-er, later divergences arose, emphasizing different traditions, whose influence, as different scholars suggest, had the greatest influence on Newton's theology. These discrepancies are related to two problems. First, they require a critical analysis of existing hypotheses, as well as their correlation with each other, in order to establish the validity of each one of them. Some scholars have empha-sized the originality of Newton's theology and rejected attempts to "squeeze" him into any particu-lar tradition. True in itself, this thesis suffers from vagueness, since the real uniqueness of New-ton's theology can be regarded as the specific combination of two theological traditions: Arianism with Socinianism. The author of the article, recognizing the fundamental importance of both for the thought of Sir Isaac, aims to show that the uniqueness of his theology is constituted by the combination of Socinian premises with Arian results in triadology. The version about the influ-ence of Judaism on Newton's antitrinitarianism is denied: though it has some grounds, after closer examination in turn out to be untenable. All the parallels and connections of Newton with Juda-ism, which the researchers has pointed out, are either false, or have analogues in the Christian tra-dition.