Newton’s lost revolution: Why his most radical work remains unread

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Asad Zaman
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The Puzzle of Newton’s Mind

Isaac Newton is often celebrated as the ultimate rationalist, the scientist who unlocked the mysteries of the cosmos and ushered in the modern age. But there is a problem with this image—one that is so inconvenient that it has been quietly brushed aside. Newton, the father of modern physics, was also a theologian who wrote over a million words on religious matters. By sheer volume, he devoted more time to obscure theological debates than to the science for which he is remembered. Yet the vast majority of these writings remained unpublished for centuries, and only became accessible to the public recently—why?

How do we explain this contradiction? Was Newton merely an eccentric, a man of his time trapped in the superstitions of an earlier age, who somehow, by accident or genius, reached out of the darkness to grasp a brilliant scientific truth? Or—more disturbingly—was Newton serious and rational in all his endeavors, including his religious writings? If the latter is true, then perhaps it is not Newton who was mistaken, but us. Perhaps the way we have framed history has blinded us to something crucial.

Given the choice between thinking that Newton was partially crazy or that we are missing something fundamental, we should at least entertain the second possibility. What if Newton’s religious investigations were just as important to the development of modernity as his scientific discoveries? What if our understanding of the Enlightenment is incomplete?

The Two Steps To Modernity: Something Gained and Something Lost

The Enlightenment is often remembered as a singular triumph of reason over superstition, but this is not quite accurate. In reality, the path to modernity unfolded in two distinct steps:

1. Step One – The application of reason to both the external world (science) and the internal world (morality, meaning, and religion). Thinkers like Newton and Kant saw no contradiction in exploring both realms with equal seriousness. As the greatest of the Enlightenment philosophers Kant famously wrote: “Two things awe me most, the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.”
2. Step Two – The narrowing of vision. Over time, the focus on external reality (science, technology, material progress) was preserved and expanded, while the exploration of the internal world was discarded, marginalized, or dismissed as unscientific. The moral law within was forgotten.

Newton fits into the first phase of the Enlightenment, when reason was applied not only to the physical world but also to the fundamental questions of human existence. His religious inquiries were part of an intellectual project that we have since abandoned. When we look back at him and assume that his theological work was an embarrassing eccentricity, we project our own blind spots onto him.

Why This Matters: The Lost Treasures of Modernity

If Newton’s forgotten revolution was serious, and if we have misunderstood the true course of the Enlightenment, then what have we lost? The answer is profound:

1. Self-Knowledge – Modernity prides itself on self-awareness, yet it has severed itself from fundamental truths about human nature, morality, and consciousness. By abandoning reason’s application to the internal world, we have created blind spots in our understanding of ourselves. (See post: Understanding Society Via Self-Discovery.)
2. Meaning – The modern world often feels empty, disconnected, and purposeless. But early Enlightenment thinkers sought not just to understand the universe but to understand why we exist and how we should live. Newton’s generation pursued meaning as well as mechanics. Why did we abandon half of their project? (See post: Our Meaningless Modern Lives.)
3. An Enchanted World – We assume that disenchantment—the idea that reality is purely material, devoid of intrinsic meaning—is just a natural consequence of scientific progress. But this is a historical accident, not an inevitability. Earlier thinkers believed that scientific understanding could coexist with a profound sense of awe and purpose. Can we reclaim this lost vision? (See post: Re-enchanting the World.)

These are not trivial losses. They touch on the deepest parts of what it means to be human. The irony is that while we celebrate the Enlightenment for its expansion of knowledge, we have accepted an unnecessary contraction of intellectual horizons—one that thinkers like Newton never endorsed.

Conclusion: An Invitation to Reconsider

The questions we have raised here are profound and complex, and they resist easy answers. But we should at least recognize the puzzle: Newton’s work suggests that there may be depths to the Enlightenment that we have not yet fully understood.

Instead of dismissing his theological investigations as the eccentric obsession of an otherwise brilliant scientist, we might consider an alternative view: Perhaps Newton’s genius extended beyond physics, and his theological inquiries actually addressed the most pressing problems of time, using the most powerful tools available?

If that possibility is unsettling, then it is worth pursuing. What else might we unconver if we dared to retrace our steps?

This is not an argument for returning to the past, nor is it a rejection of science or reason. It is an invitation to widen the lens, to reconsider whether the road we have taken is the only road—or whether, in our rush to progress, we have left something invaluable behind. For some reflections on alternative notions of progress, and how they could change our lives, see: Alternative Models of Development: Becoming the Change You Want to See