When Newton saw "the apple fall", why didn't he just attribute it to God's mysterious ways?

Question

Brad - That's why I put the apple part of the question in parenthesis.

Answer 1

Well, you know, he didn't actually see an apple fall. Newton's work dealt with physics, and considered astronomical observations and such.

And he was trying to find a way to have everything make sense. There was a huge push of technological and scientific advancement in that time, and it all brought questions about how God fits into our world.

Also, Newton had ways to test what he was researching, and was able to directly demonstrate it to others.

Answer 2

"John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the royal mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:

In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was musing in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.[30]"

As an Alchemist, Newton also believed he could create gold. Was he right?

Newton believed, as stated before, in God.

"Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation.[22][23][24] But the unforeseen theological consequence of his conception of God, as Leibniz pointed out, was that God was now entirely removed from the world’s affairs, since the need for intervention would only evidence some imperfection in God’s creation, something impossible for a perfect and omnipotent creator.[25] Leibniz's theodicy cleared God from the responsibility for "l'origine du mal" by making God removed from participation in his creation. The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil.[26]"

Happy Holy Days

Peace and Love

Answer 3

Good question. Here is an answer for all those who claim they know what Sir Isaac Newton was about, the would be great scientists , who hardly know anything about Newtons beliefs and his wisdom concerning the Greatest of Scientists,God.

*** w77 4/15 p. 244 Isaac Newton’s Search for God ***

Isaac Newton’s Search for God

POPULAR tradition has it that the fall of an apple started Sir Isaac Newton on the way to discovering the universal law of gravitation. Whatever may be the truth of this tradition, there is no question about Newton’s remarkable powers of reason. Concerning his renowned scientific work the Principia, we are told: “The whole development of modern science begins with this great book. For more than 200 years it reigned supreme.”1

Celebrated as were Newton’s scientific discoveries, he himself humbly acknowledged his human limitations. He was modest. Shortly before his death in 1727 he said of himself: “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”2

Newton appreciated that God is the Source of all truth, and in line with the deep reverence he had for his Creator, he appears to have spent even more time searching after the true God than he did in searching out scientific truths. An analysis of all that Newton wrote reveals that out of some 3,600,000 words only 1,000,000 were devoted to the sciences, whereas some 1,400,000 were on religious topics.3
*** w77 4/15 p. 247 Isaac Newton’s Search for God ***

2. The World Book Encyclopedia, 1973 ed., Vol. 14, p. 308.

3. The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, edited by H. W. Turnbull, F.R.S., Cambridge 1961, Vol. 1, p. XVII.

Will add some more info.

*** gh chap. 6 p. 54 par. 10 The Source of Good News—“God” ***

10 The discoverer of the “law of gravity,” Sir Isaac Newton, was another who was deeply impressed by the evidence of God’s invisible qualities that are to be seen in His creation. The following account relates how Newton testified to his belief in Almighty God:

Newton once had a skilled mechanic make for him a model of the solar system. Balls representing the planets were geared together so as to move realistically in orbit. One day an atheist friend visited Newton. On seeing the model, he operated it, and exclaimed in admiration, “Who made it?” Newton answered, “Nobody!” The atheist replied, “You must think I am a fool! Of course somebody made it, and he is a genius.” Newton then said to his friend, “This thing is but a puny imitation of a much grander system whose laws you know, and I am not able to convince you that this mere toy is without a designer and maker; yet you profess to believe that the great original from which the design is taken has come into being without either designer or maker!”

Answer 4

He had more than 80 points of IQ and knew that one can't go through life putting everything he didn't understand down to a mystical being in the sky.

Religion is the opium of the masses - Karl Marx... so basically if you are religious its the equivalent of being high.

Religion: Believed by the common man, regarded false by the wise man, thought useful by leaders - someone on Y!A... its true too.

Answer 5

Once again no one understands things.

People have been noticing things fall since long ago. My cat shows that trick to me all the time.

What Newton was looking for was a Dissertation to make him famous. To go down in the history books. It's what all college kids in PH D or Assistant Professorship programs look to do.

Newton turned that falling apple into numbers and laws of action. Had he not done that, we probably wouldn't know who is is.

If it wasn't for Relativity Eistein would be a footnote in history.

It's got nothing to do with anything else. It's about finding that thing no one else has done and explaining it.

Answer 6

Because unlike believers in the supernatural, Newton had an IQ above 100. LOL

Answer 7

Well, in a way he did :)
He devised the binomial theorem, put together the basics of differential calculus, made the disovery of the color composition of white light, and laid out the basic lines of his theory on gravity. It was during this time period of his life that an apple falling from one of the trees on the Woolsthorpe farm inspired his inquiry into the theory of gravity.

His theory of the universe --so he thought--was intended as a powerful tribute to the Grand Architect who designed such a wonderfully complex yet beautiful creation.
However, Newton depicted God in such a way that God actually lost "personality" and the realm of sovereign action. God was left a role in nature largely as "First Mover" with no further significant intervention in life. God nearly became identified with the eternity or infinity of the universe.

Newton considered himself a deeply devout Christian--though not of the normal sort. He was, in short, a unitarian [one who believes ... that the position of God is not shared by two other "persons," namely Jesus and the Holy Spirit; ... that Jesus is rather an adoptive "Son" of God--as we all have the potential to be--through having lived a Godly life]. Discovery of his unitarianism would have been ruinous for Newton in English society--so he kept his religious beliefs well away from public view.
In any case, he stood himself before God in great awe--great awe of the One who crafted the universe with such precision. It was this precision that so inspired Newton--that he gave his life to its uncovery for human viewing. Science and mathematics were thus for Newton virtually religious enterprises.

But in addition to this very rationalistic appreciation of the grandeur of God, there was also an aspect of his appreciation of God that today would be considered simply superstitious. While totally logical-rational in his approach to scientific theory, Newton was strangely mystical in his approach to technology. He was fascinated with the medieval practice of alchemy (the use of mystical incantations and magical formulas to change common elements into more precious ones, such as gold)--and particularly in his later years of life gave even more time to this pursuit than to science and math.

Answer 8

Because even though Newton fervently believed in a Creator, he wasn't so obtuse as to think things happened for no reason.

Answer 9

An apple a day kept the dogma away!

Answer 10

Because he was a man of science.
Religion is for idiots, science is for those who can think for themselves.
I like this quote;
"the church tells us that the earth is flat, but I have seen it's shadow on the moon, and I know that it is round. For I will believe a shadow before I believe the church."
Ferdinand Magellan