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Was Isaac Newton God?

When I was a schoolboy going to a Catholic school in Minnesota, I was taught,
by Nuns, that Isaac Newton discovered gravity when an apple fell on his head.
I didn't think much about Newton after learning about the apple story. It
didn't seem to me to be that important a discovery. So it explained why stuff
fell to earth. Interesting, but not mind-boggling.

Many years later, I was introduced to calculus. I was studying to be an
electrical engineer and discovered how important calculus was to understanding
much of electronics theory. Even then, I didn't get it that calculus was a
creation of Isaac Newton.

Over the years, as I learned more about different mathematical principles, it
became more and more clear to me that mathematics is a discovery, not an
invention. It seemed that all fields of mathematics described, in some way,
the natural way of things.

As an electronics technician in the Navy, I understood wave propagation and
long range navigation using hyperbolic intersections on a map. Later, as I
went on to a career as an electrical engineer specializing in digital
computers and software, it became more and more apparent that the logical
processes of the brain were similar to the way computers worked. Boolean
algebra and symbolic logic were new fields of mathematics that helped to
develop and understand computers, but they never seemed to me to be an
invention of man, but instead a new discovery.

Today, it is commonly understood that Isaac Newton was the inventor of
calculus. Also, it is commonly understood that the only way to truly
understand the nature of the universe we live in is through mathematics,
especially calculus, which is used by theoretical physicists. Observation only
helps to support the mathematical theories, but mathematics explains it all.

So here is my question. If calculus is an invention that is required to
explain the universe, then doesn't that say that Newton was God? My logical
brain says that if Newton was not God, then calculus was not an invention,
but instead was a discovery.

If mathematics were discovered, then it must be assumed that it is either a constant in nature or was an invention of a higher being.

I once was laughed out of a room full of liberal arts majors because I made the statement that mathematics is not an exact science (division by zero, infinity, the exact value of pi, etc.)

It has always made sense to me that there are an infinite number of zero's in a zero, but a professor told me there couldn't be any zeros in a zero because a zero was nothing, and for the sake of making all the other formulas work we would define it as one. That was one of the first great disillusionments in my life, along with trying to add and subtract infinity.

So the question then moves into the theological realm. Is God infallible? Traditional theology says yes, so if math were invented by a god why was it not made exact? If traditional theology is wrong and God is not infallible, then a god could have invented mathematics.

So the question is, does God make mistakes? To that I would enter into evidence the camel and the platypus. If one agrees that those were mistakes, then the very foundations of traditional theology would be shaken, and the discussion of
whether Newton were a god could be explored based on math not being an exact
science.

And if mathematical probability had not allowed a sun, earth, moon, and a convenient asteroid to make human life on earth possible, then we wouldn't be here to contemplate it anyway.

Your premise is that an invention by God, such as mathematics, must be exact and perfect.
It always surprises me how people who have read the Old Testament can believe that God is perfect.
If the Bible is also an invention of God, then how can you possibly fault God for imperfect math?

GeneB wrote:Is God

Presumes facts not in evidence..

..

We now return you to your regular "waiting for 2.0" programming.. (rymes w/ Godot)

I never read the Old Testament but I did see the movie twice.

Newton never married and was said to have been a virgin to his death.
Had he married he surely would have been told how fallible he was which would have disqualified him from any deity.
He might have also used mathematic exaggerations to convince his wife..., well, never mind.

Newton never married and was said to have been a virgin to his death.

Hmm. Interesting. Kinda like Jesus.
Maybe he was God.

I don't consider Newton a god... but, as a former physics teacher, I do credit him with making the single greatest leap of imagination any human has made - the fact that the laws that work here on earth also work 'up there'. That concept was extremely radical and groundbreaking.

FYI: he wasn't actually hit on the head with an apple. He was killing time sitting in an apple orchard thinking about firing stronger and stronger canons (whose projectiles would eventually become satellites). He was there because the university (and basically all of London area) was closed due to an outbreak of plague, as I recall (reading... not from personal memory, I'm old but not that old).

I do credit him with making the single greatest leap of imagination any human has made

I totally agree. I think he was more important than Einstein, by leaps and bounds.
NASA still uses mathematical principles introduced by Newton to travel the solar system.

i agree. he was the greatest scientist of all time.