Isaac Newton' Works and Research
A little bit of history about Newton:
Isaac Newton was a man who knew that life came from an intelligent agent. He had his own original beliefs. One of many of Isaac Newton's writings is that he disagreed with the Trinity doctrine, a popular, but false doctrine, practiced and taught by most of today's Christian churches.
Newton did believe in the Divinity of Christ. What he did not believe is that Christ was God. Colossians 1:15-21. Neither did Jesus, his apostles, or the original Jewish members of Jesus' religion. "Hear, O Israel: Jehovah our God is one Jehovah " Deuteronomy 6:4 ASV. Jesus said to his apostles: “But the exact day and hour? No one knows that, not even heaven’s angels, not even the Son. Only the Father knows. Was Jesus Lying?
"Why is 1 John 5:7–8 omitted from almost all all modern translations of the Bible? Is it because the doctrine of the trinity is an invention of the modern church, inserted hundreds of years after the death of the author."
"As earlier as 1616 (A.D) Erasmus, a Catholic priest, discovered that the verses in question were not part of the original writings. His initial translation removed it, but the Catholic Church insisted that it be retained or he would be punished. Ref 1969 Encyclopedia Britannica under heading Erasmus."
Around 1673 when "Leibniz was elected Fellow of the Royal Society.", Newton discovers, after much research in the Biblical textbooks, that the "doctrine of the Trinity of God is a heretical error" which was inserted by the Church around the 4th Century A.D. of our Common Era.
Thus, The Life and Work of isaac Newton at a Glance, http://www.newtonproject.ox.ac.uk/his-life-and-work-at-a-glance, states: that in 1673 "At about this date, he also begins an intensive study of the textual history of the Bible (both in the original and in various translations) and of the Church Fathers, which continues to occupy him for the rest of his life and soon leads him to conclude that the doctrine of the Trinity is a heretical error introduced in the 4th century AD."
The following scripture, and many others, may have been used by Isaac Newton to arrive at his conclusion. Thus, speaking of Christ, as a fully Divine Person - but Under God, the Father- Colossians 1:15-21 states:
“And He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things have been created by Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead; so that He Himself might come to have first place in everything."
"For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.”
it is important to know that, Isaac Newton did not question the divinity of Christ nor the fact that he is now living with God in Heavens after his resurrection. Nor did he question the fact that Christ came down to Earth as sent by his Heavenly Father to fulfill a Messianic mission. Or the fact the Christ lived in Heaven with his Father eons before coming down to Earth. Newton, simply questioned what he labeled it as the "heretical doctrine of the TRINITY of God". No such doctrine, he said, is found in the original manuscripts of the Bible.
"Newton’s views concerning the doctrine of the Trinity, which he described in his unpublished writings as a wicked form of polytheism, seem to have been driven at least in part by his extreme dislike of Roman Catholicism, and more broadly, by his hatred of idolatry." (Lliffe, 2015)
Other writings of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein had a great interest in Newton and in his faith. His great reverence for Newton is seen in that Newton’s portrait hung in his bedroom until he died.
According to William F. Dankenbring : For some reason, "It was found that Sir Isaac did not believe in the Trinity. Newton's understanding was that some form of paganism had engulfed Christianity.
In 1936 Newton’s papers were auctioned at Sotheby & Co., and afterwards Professor Abraham Shalom Yahuda, a collector fascinated by the Bible and science, bought most of them, piece by piece, from the new owners. He was a Palestinian Jew and important Arabic scholar and collector of manuscripts. He believed that there was evidence of the historical accuracy of the Bible.
In 1940 Yahuda became a refugee in the United States. He brought his vast collection with him, and with the help of Albert Einstein, tried to get Harvard, Yale, or Princeton to take them over, but all three refused. On his deathbed, Yahuda bequeathed his entire manuscript collection to the Hebrew University.
Albert Einstein confessed that his own discoveries would have been impossible without the scientific work of Newton and his amazing discoveries. He also wrote to Yahuda, “Newton’s writings on biblical topics seems to me especially interesting, because they reveal a deep insight into the spiritual character and the working method of this significant man. For Newton, the divine origin of the Bible is unconditionally certain. . . . From this belief arises the firm conviction that the parts of the Bible that appear obscure must contain important revelations, which require only the decoding of the symbolic language used in them in order to be illuminated. Newton attempts this decoding or interpretation by means of his acute, systematic thinking, in which he carefully makes use of all the sources available to him. . . . These writings, mostly unpublished, thus provide a highly interesting insight into the spiritual workshop of this unique thinker” (signed by Albert Einstein, Sept. 1940, at Lake Saranac)
Popkins noted: “Newton did a great deal of original historical research to discern the events in world history which constituted the fulfillment of the prophecies. Some of his interpretations have been accepted by later Bible interpreters, especially among the fundamentalists.
Newton dedicated 50 years of his life to analyzing works of Bible prophecies. Not surprisingly, he deemed his religious discoveries too controversial for public release during his own lifetime. His theological studies remained a secret until recently, when scholars discovered them in the collection of the Jewish National Library in Jerusalem. But, Newton wrote, those who “hold fast” to God’s love and the pursuit of TRUTH are "destined for salvation".
Those are the two great virtues that Newton revisits time and time again. "By exercising the love of God and the pursuit of truth, any one of us can join the ranks of the elect." To encourage the pursuit of truth, he recommended reading about every new scientific advance, testing everything with experiments at home, where possible, and asking questions of those in authority.
Newton declared, “Through the asking of such questions is one liberated from those who would hide behind deception, for the architects of such sundry falsehoods view the Question as a deadly foe and go to extremes to avoid the Honest Answer, even if that answer be that the answerer does not yet know the whole truth; for the wise man freely admits that the greatest mystery is that Ultimate Truth designed by the Great Architect of Creation in whose shadow we all stand.”
Isaac Newton was a very humble man, and avoided all argumentation and public dispute as unbecoming for a Christian. He said of himself, shortly before his death, “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 now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me” (Moore, p.518).
Additional References, For Research:
A Spurious Reference to the Trinity Added in 1 John 5 verses 7-8
Some Bible translators of past centuries were so zealous to find support for their belief in the Trinity in the Scriptures that they literally added it. A case in point is 1 John 5:7-8
Theology professors Anthony and Richard Hanson, in their book Reasonable Belief: A Survey of the Christian Faith, "explain the unwarranted addition to the text this way: "It was added by some enterprising person or persons in the ancient Church who felt that the New Testament was sadly deficient in direct witness to the kind of doctrine of the Trinity which he favoured and who determined to remedy that defect . . . It is a waste of time to attempt to read Trinitarian doctrine directly off the pages of the New Testament" (1980, p. 171)."
A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam
"A History of God is not a tidy linear history. Rather, we learn that the definition of God is constantly being repeated, altered, discarded, and resurrected through the ages, responding to its followers' practical concerns rather than to mystical mandates. Armstrong also shows us how Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have overlapped and influenced one another, gently challenging the secularist history of each of these religions."
Other historical evidences:
"The Oxford Companion to the Bible under the article "Trinity" are enlightening: "Because the Trinity is such an important part of later Christian doctrine, it is striking that the term does not appear in the New Testament. Likewise, the developed concept of three coequal partners in the Godhead found in later creedal formulations cannot be clearly detected within the confines of the [New Testament] canon" (Bruce Metzger and Michael Coogan, editors, 1993, p. 782)."
Reference:
Isaac Newton and the End-Time Prophecies of Daniel
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20John%205&version=RSV