Science and God

I read an article once about how Isaac Newton tried to calculate dates of the apocalypse or the end of the world based on his readings of the Bible. What really struck me about this article was how we often seem to think that people in the sciences do not believe in God or in a Creator. Or that somehow science and religion cannot co-exist together for some reason.

Newton is known for his groundbreaking work in physics, astronomy, math and optics. Four areas not necessarily know for their groundbreaking work in the religious world. However, it appears that Newton also studied the Old Testament books carefully especially taking time in the Book of Daniel looking for clues about the end of the world. This seems to be interesting research for one of our greatest scientist.

Based on Newton’s work, he felt that the end would be no earlier than 2060 (I guess that is good news for us ;-)). Not that we know when the end of the earth will come, since it is not for us to determine when, but it is still interesting that Newton took the time out of his studies of physics to read the Bible and to try and understand it more clearly in relation to the end of the world.

It is also interesting that Newton notes in his writings that he is doing this more to protect the works of prophecy. What he meant is that by trying to determine the real time the world would end, it would help to stop the large number of people who were already predicting the end of time, but failed. These people who failed discredit the good prophecy and so his role was to try and maintain the good prophecy.

Regardless what we believe about end times, I think that it is important to recognize those important figures in history and highlight the entire person, good or bad, believer or non-believer. I think that this lends credibility to the faith and shows that even brilliant thinkers understand the importance of God in their lives. But is should also tells us something about today. Most of us would consider this the work of a mad man who was not all with it, trying to read the Bible and predict end of times, but no one would argue that Newton was not one of the foremost intelligent person of his time.

But it also means that we need to take time to learn about people of history. Too often we just accept the tidbits that we are taught in school or that are regurgitated to us by the media or others. In essence, these people, like Newton, were deep and had more to their lives than what we know and sometimes we might find ourselves surprised to find out more about these people who influenced our lives. There just might be more to the story then we are accustomed too.

When we acknowledge this, we are acknowledging the deep tradition that has gone on for thousands of years. The understanding of the importance of God in our lives and His Word given to us as a guide to help us in our journey in this world and to prepare us for the ultimate destination, to be with the Lord and Jesus.

Even the best and brightest did this, so should we.

God bless!