Uppity Catholics. As you may know from previous columns, I have a great amount of respect for Isaac Newton. He was, arguably, the most brilliant man between St. Thomas Aquinas and today. I have read, and reread, much of his writings on the history of The Church, the Book of Revelations, and on prophecy.
One sees that he did not believe in The Trinity, but did believe that belief in the Trinity was a form of corruption that “destroyed the Catholic Church”.
On the other side of that coin was one of our holiest men, St. Athanasius. St. Athanasius was persecuted, punished, and stripped of his priestly office for believing in The Trinity. He not only believed in The Trinity, but also, he was instrumental in refining and defining Catholic thought so that it, alone among contemporary faiths, had a complete and absolute faith in The Three Persons in One God.
We each make a lot of choices in our life. The biggest choice we make concerns the ultimate and eternal placement of our soul. Each soul will spend eternity either nearer or farther from the God Who programmed all of creation, with us in it as free will creatures who would make that choice. We either choose to believe in The Trinity, or in some other view of God.
The Roman Catholic Church placed its collective bet on The Trinity. When She did that, She also made the statement that faith is more important than intellect.
Newton, and those religions who have followed his ideas about The Trinity, have decided to reject that notion. They relied on their intellects, instead. It is easy, from an awareness of cash flows, to see why. As long as one believes in The Trinity, one is close to Catholic Doctrine.
Newton’s employer was England’s royal family, who were Protestants. He reported, indirectly, to them, since they were the official owners of the English Mint that he directed. While Anglicans believed that the occupier of the English Throne was as important as the Pope, they also believed in The Trinity. Leading intellectuals knew that to keep and increase their power, they had to decrease the Authority of the Roman Catholic Church. Newton’s interpretations did that by attacking the validity of The Trinity, as well as by interpreting The Book of Revelations in such a way that would put The Church in the worst possible light. By demeaning the Holy Spirit’s power, it’s hard to imagine how he could have gotten into a Heaven that Mark 3; 29 says is not open to any who sin against Him.
While clever, brilliant, and well-researched, Newton was wrong. We still wrestle with the descendants of Puritans who relied on Newton, their intellectual “hired gun”, who justified their particular apostasies. His teaching did a lot of damage to a lot of souls who have chosen to join such denominations.
It’s hard to reject a man so brilliant that he could invent calculus, discover Laws of Thermodynamics, calculate orbital trajectories, describe and analyze light, and do all the things that Newton did. If we don’t reject his theological conclusions, we’re betting against The Church.
