The Atlantic: “Why Seventh Day Adventists Revere Isaac Newton”
by AT News Team
The noted literary magazine, The Atlantic, has published an article this week on its web site by Alan Jacobs, a professor at Wheaton College, connecting the great scientist Isaac Newton with the Baptist evangelist who founded the Adventist movement in the 19th century, William Miller. “Miller’s memoirs record his great debt to Newton and he named one of his ten children Isaac Newton Miller,” Jacobs writes.
“Newton was one of the first great Adventists … almost exactly one hundred years” before the Millerite revival. The famous economist John Maynard Keynes purchased a batch of Newton’s unpublished manuscripts in 1936 at an auction at Sotheby’s and was surprised to find “the great man’s obsession with biblical prophecy, especially the book of Daniel, a close reading of which had convinced Newton that he world would end in 2060 [with] the Second Advent of Jesus Christ. And he believed he had discovered this date just as surely as he had discovered … what we now call calculus.”
Newton discovered gravity and launched the modern era, “the whole scientific outlook as we know it,” Jacobs introduce his short essay. “This is the standard narrative about Newton, but it’s not the whole story. As much as today’s scientists celebrate Newton, their reverence is matched by that of a very different group: the Seventh-Day [sic] Adventist Church.” The article is illustrated with photo-reproductions of one of Newton’s manuscripts and Miller’s prophecy chart.
Professor Jacobs might be surprised to learn that this story is very likely unknown to most Seventh-day Adventists and the name of Isaac Newton is almost never mentioned in Adventist churches in connection with Bible prophecy or the Second Coming. It does reveal the linkage between Adventist theology and modernity which, although very strong, is largely unremarked by Adventists.
The article is available online at: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/06/why-seventh-day-adventists-revere-isaac-newton/258635/
Several years ago I studied into the relationship between Sir Isaac and the study of prophecy. The man seemed to have an insatiable curiosity about all things, and did not possess the "normal" scientific queasiness about delving into the mystical and religious. In fact he was exceedingly spiritual and wrote quite extensively about biblical prophecy. My interest in studying about him was to establish a component within Adventism's evangelistic outreach to touch the interest of scientific minds who otherwise may have been conditioned to feel that the mystical is somehow eternally divorced from the scientific, when in fact even Einstein is quoted as saying that the root of all scientific endeavor is "the mysterious," and this was the concept we presented (among other things) on the opening night of crusades in northwestern Washington, an area of highly educated professional people who are comparatively unchurched.
In my research I was amazed at the common ground Sir Isaac seemed to share with William Miller, though the men could not have been less alike in personality. The question even arose in my mind whether down the road we may conclude that without the life and interests of Sir Isaac, Adventism as we know it might never have developed as it has. Sir Isaac may have been one of the last "scientific theologians" as dedicated to extracting the essence of the Bible as he was in revealing the secrets of the universe.
I have held in my hands an original copy of Sir Isaac's book titled "Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John" London, M,DCC,XXXIII, (1733) 323 pgs.
I grew up in an Adventist pastor's home that honored Isaac Newton for his love of prophecy. I often heard my dad use Isaac Newton's name in his studies with non-Adventists. My dad had been a minister of another Protestant denomination. After he became an Adventist he was sent to the seminary. He studied under such men as Leroy Froom and became wonderfully grounded in prophetic history. Anyone who was fortunate enough to have this type of training was certainly familiar with the Isaac Newton prophecy connection. Because of my dad's respect for Isaac Newton, I obtained books on prophecy by him. Newton was a careful and creative thinker. I am grateful for his contributions to science and prophetic study. I am also grateful that much increased light on the prophecies has been granted to us, just as much increased scientific knowledge has been granted to our generation.
Edwin is certainly right that most Adventists do not know of this connection.
Does anyone know how Newton arrived at the 2060 date?
Newton believed the 1260 years began about 800 AD thus would end in 2060. He felt the end of the 1260 would be the time Jesus would come.