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Re: Devil's Advocate, small footnote.




I believe you will find that Newton was an Arian, an adherent of the 4th c.
Christian heresy (well, history is written by the winners, after all) that
maintained that Christ was created by God, but a divine mediator between God
and humans (something like the Platonic demiourgos, I think.) A great
deal of the Council of Nicea in 325 was given over to arguing vehemently
about the use, in this regard, of two greek adjectives which differ from
each other in spelling by only one letter. Something similar, one supposes,
to the weighty and prolonged discussions on this list about the use of the
word "heat." If you want to know more about Newton's problems as an Arian
in an Anglican society, I refer you to Ch. 8 of Westfall's biography.
M.J. Clarke, O.S.B.