Newton and Life in a
Mechanical
The Scientific Revolution: The
search for physical cause for a
predictable effect
M. Todd Tippetts, Ph.D.
Aristotle’s Mechanics
• Natural Order to things
• Rocks fall because they want to be in their
right place, with the other rocks
• Planets move in circles because that is
their natural motion
Aristotle’s View Modern View
Paradigm of Scientific Age
• Nature works in predictable ways
based on natural laws
• Laws could be expressed in
mathematical formula
• All reality is a result of the interaction
of matter (particles) and energy
• Concept of Atom
Democritus and Atoms
• Indivisible particle of all
material called “atomos”
• Properties of atoms
explain their behavior
• Water atoms are smooth
• Iron atoms are like velcro
• Fire atoms have spikes
• Xeno and idea of dividing
matter forever won
John Dalton Revises Idea of Atom
• Quaker Schoolteacher, no lab of
his own-- Used other scientists’
results to formulate Atomic
Theory
• All matter made of indivisible
particles called atoms
• Atoms combine in simple ratios to
form molecules
• Chemical reactions are just a
reshuffling of atoms – atoms
themselves are indestructible
Atomists through the Ages
• Democritus, Leucipitus
• World was explained in terms of atoms. There
was no need for the Gods
• Atheists also at time of Dalton used atoms as
evidence for self sufficient universe.
• “Atoms moving in the void.”
• Boyle, Newton and Company
• World made of atoms, God made the atoms --
Existence of atoms was an evidence for the
existence of God
Mersenne (1588 -1648)
• Catholic Priest and amateur
scientist
• Worked in defining and
defending miracles
• Used Aquinas’ definition
• Mechanical philosophy sets the
boundaries for what can be
explained. What falls outside
those boundaries is a miracle
Robert Boyle (1627-91)
Atoms were created by God and act
according to the laws that God gave
them. God’s attention keeps them
moving
“God [is] the Author of the universe &
free Establisher of the Laws of
motion, whose general Concourse is
necessary to the conservation &
Efficacy of every particular Physical
Agent"
• Boyle felt Atheistic Atomists made two
fundamental mistaken assumptions:
1. They assumed atoms/matter had always
existed
2. They assumed atoms moved by
themselves
• Boyle felt that atoms existed because God
made them. They moved and continued to
exist only because God preserved and
sustained them
• Ontological Sustenance
Modern Ideas on Atoms
• They didn’t always exist, but formed
shortly after the Big Bang about 15
Billion years ago
• They move because of the remaining
heat energy form the Big Bang. When
the sun and stars goes out and the
universe cools, they will stop moving
Boyle and Voluntarism
• God was free to make any natural laws
that he choose. So they could not be
deduced by reason, but could only be
elucidated by experimentation.
• This was a justification for
experimental science
Descartes (1596-1650)
• Cartesian Coordinates used to
make physics mathematical
"In our search for the direct road to truth,
we should busy ourselves with no object
about which we cannot attain a certitude
equal to that of the demonstration of
arithmetic and geometry."
• God put the atoms into motion.
Science’s goal was to find those
mathematical principles which God
had used.
Moving Particles and Machines
• Action of the earth, plants and animals
were all explained by moving particles.
They were nothing but “machines”
• Involuntary behavior of humans was
also just a “machine”
• Since animals were just machines, you
could treat them however you wanted
(no animal rights)
Matter-Spirit Dualism
• Although some proposed that human
though was also just moving particles,
Descarte insisted that immaterial spirit
was the source of human thought
• This “ghost in the machine” was what
differentiated humans from animals
• This has been rejected by many modern
scientists and philosophers.
• See Daniel Dennett on reading list
Isaac Newton (1641-1727)
• Raised Anglican, but
dissented from some
principles (Trinity, etc.)
• Special Lucasian Chair
founded so he could stay
at Cambridge as a lay
person
• Now held by Stephen
Hawking
• Wrote book on Biblical Interpretation
• Proposed simplest possible interpretation,
usually literal
• History shows prophecy has been fulfilled
• Thought the Pope was the Antichrist
• Studies Spiritual Alchemy
• Change Lead into Gold
• Transform base men to higher levels
• Involved in mystic traditions
• Rosicrucians and Occult Freemasons
Scientific Positivism
• Science should look for mathematical
relationships in the phenomena.
Teleology and Metaphysics should be
avoided. Study how things take place,
but not why.
Newton’s Laws of Motion
1. Inertia: An object at rest remains at rest,
and an object in motion remains in motion
2. Force = (Mass) (acceleration)
• Gives relationships between mass, velocity and
changes of velocity.
• Allows prediction of position, velocity and
direction of moving particles
3. For every action there is an equal and
opposite reaction.
Particles and Motion
• Newton invented Calculus to calculate
forces on particles, and use this to predict
their motion. If one knows the
momentum, the position and the forces
involved, on can predict any future
position. This works for cannonballs, and
for planets.
Planet accelerates
moving towards sun,
and slows down
moving away from it
Forces on Cannonballs
Acceleration of gravity attracts cannonballs to
the earth. Path is determined by gravity as
well as the initial direction.
Newton’s Law of Gravity
• Gravity was
attraction at distance
based on the mass of
the objects
• Earth pulled the
apple towards it
• Gravity is what holds
the moon around the
earth, and the earth
around the sun
Gravity is the Law God has chosen
• Gravity is everywhere just as God is
everywhere
• Gravity shows God’s continuing interest
in the world.
• Ontological Sustenance maintains gravity
• God intervenes to keep universe in
balance
• Keeps the universe from collapsing due to
gravities attraction
God of the Gaps
• For Newton, gravity was a strong
evidence for God. Gravity was there
because God caused it to be
• If gravity is shown to be an intrinsic
property of particles, then there is no
need for God
Newtonian Physics and Free Will
• If one knows the position, momentum and
the forces acting upon any particle, you can
calculate where it was in the past, and
where it will be in the future.
• Planets are found in predictable location as
they orbit the sun. They have no choice
where they will be located at any given time.
Newton and Free Will
• Does this apply to the moving particles in
animals, and in humans?
• Do we really have free will, or is it just an
illusion as we move along our path which is
determined by our momentum, and the
forces on us.
• Perhaps all thought is reducible to an
arrangement of neurotransmitters, and ions
crossing membranes; particles and forces
acting on them.
Mind Spirit Dualism
• Animals are simply machines, a
collection of cleverly assembled
particles
• Man’s immaterial soul makes him
different from the animals. This allows
him to have real thoughts, not simply
an epiphenomena resulting from
moving particles
Dualism
• But there was no actual evidence for this
immaterial soul, no evidence for it’s
interaction with the physical body
• Perhaps if animals didn’t need a soul,
humans didn’t either
• Dennett and others have proposed theories
of consciousness based entirely on moving
particles and neurons.
Role of God in a Mechanical
Universe
• Enlightenment scientists saw the
universe as a huge clockwork. If all
events are the universe moving along
its predictable pathway, what is God to
do all day long?
• Deism: God made the universe, and
now has nothing to do with it
Responses to Deism
Newton: God needed to attend to the
universes to keep it in balance.
Gravity only existed because God
constantly willed it. God kept the
universe from collapsing due to
gravitational attraction. Comets
were God moving around the matter
to keep balance.
God of the Gaps
Responses to Deism
Leibnitz: The idea that
the universe needed
minding was blasphemy.
God made the universe
right he first time, it
didn’t need fixing.
Stability of Universe
• For Newton, Gravity should draw the
universe to the center till it collapsed
• The universe’s stability was the best
evidence for God
• New knowledge of the Big Bang has
provided a non-theistic reason for that
stability– it’s still expanding
• One day it may still stop expanding and
then collapse
Einstein on Disappearance of Gaps
“The more a man is imbued
with the ordered regularity of
all events, the firmer becomes
his conviction that there is no
room for causes of a different
nature. For him, neither the
rule of human nor the rule of
divine will exists as an
independent cause of natural
events.”
More from Einstein
“To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God
interfering with natural events could
never be refuted, in a real sense, for this
doctrine can always take refuge in those
domains in which scientific knowledge has not
yet been able to set foot. . . .A doctrine which
is able to maintain itself not in clear light, but
only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect
on mankind, with incalculable harm to human
progress.”