When discussing men like Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton, describing them as “radical” would seem well fitting, but to the layman, their radical ideas most likely seem exclusive to science. However, through their discoveries, these men have not only challenged scientific findings at the time, but religion, philosophy, and our place as humans in this universe. While these men were extraordinarily controversial for their time, Renaissance humanists, like Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Niccolò Machiavelli, would have happily welcomed their ideas and contributions to science, philosophy, and spirituality. Over the course of this essay, I will explain how Isaac Newton and Galileo Galilei’s resilience and outspokenness challenging religious authority was influenced by Renaissance humanism, specifically their advancements in science due to disputing the role of religion in government, and the philosophical success of men like Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Niccolò Machiavelli.
Both Galileo and Newton wanted to perceive the world through a more scientific lense, rather than the heavily socially enforced religious lense more accepted at the time. Neither of these men would be considered atheist or necessarily “anti-religion,” however, their issues lay within humanity’s tendency to reject new evidence against what they previously thought of as “truth.” Newton and Galileo held to the belief that the material world can be equated to normal science. From Newton’s view, when humans invoke the absurdity in normal science and cling to religious belief, it means that they are conceding to the fact that they do not comprehend the material world phenomena. Newton further claimed, “to put into bodies, powers, and ways of operations, above what can be derived from our idea of body, or can be explained by what we know of matter” (Newton, 112). In other words, although the material world properties are inconceivable to humans, they remain to be real. In support of Newton’s viewpoint, Galileo goes as far to say that the human centered religious mindset can shield people from seeing how the universe is, rather than how they envision themselves in it. This educational shield is terrifying to both Newton and Galileo; it conceals the truth by taking the Bible too literally:
Contrary to the sense of the Bible and the intention of the holy Fathers, if I am not mistaken, they would extend such authorities until even purely physical matters - where faith is not involved - they would have us altogether abandon reason and the evidence of our senses in favor of some biblical passage, though under the surface meaning of its words this passage may contain a different sense. (Galileo finish quote)
Both Galileo and Newton find spirituality within science; they believe that science does not contradict God, but rather, science is a gift from God to humanity. Therefore, by ignoring this gift, we are doing a disservice to God Himself. Pico, especially, would love this mentality and agree with it wholeheartedly. Pico believes that man is not inherently great, but God has given man the potential to be. According to Pico, we are the only animals God gave free will, meaning we are the only ones who can choose their destiny. In this passage, Pico explains how the pursuit of knowledge can help lead man to his full, great potential:
But upon man, at the moment of his creation, God bestowed seeds pregnant with all possibilities, the germs of every form of life. Whichever of these a man shall cultivate, the same will mature and bear fruit in him. If vegetative, he will become a plant; if sensual, he will become brutish; if rational, he will reveal himself a heavenly being; if intellectual, he will be an angel and the son of God. (Pico QUOTE)
Pico’s distinction between “rational” and “intellectual” within this passage is key. Using religion as an answer for man’s many questions about the universe and his place in it could be considered rational, however, taking religion as an absolute
without question, would be deemed ignorant to both all philosophers and scientists mentioned. Galileo Galilei refused to believe that The Bible was an explanation for anything in the physical realm, while Isaac Newton believed religion may skew our perception of reality. Furthermore, in Newton’s The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Isaac Newton explains the difference between perception and understanding:
Thus far it has seemed best to explain the senses in which less familiar words are to be taken in this treatise. Although time, space, place, and motion are very familiar to everyone, it must be noted that these quantities are popularly conceived solely with reference to the objects of sense perception. And this is the source of certain preconceptions; to eliminate them it is useful to distinguish these quantities into absolute and relative, true and apparent, mathematical and common. (Newton, 408)
Man has the potential to understand his universe, but man must ignore his perception of his physical world before doing so. For example, man can understand that the earth is rotating, although he does not perceive himself as moving constantly. With this same mentality, man has the potential to understand the universe, but he must set aside his perception of religion, what the Church has forcefully taught him, before doing so to truly understand.
Like Pico, in Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy, Machiavelli states that a strong emphasis on religion through government can make “men [interpret] our religion according to idleness and not according to virtue” (112). The legal enforcement of religion upon man at the times of Galileo and Newton only oppressed those searching for a greater truth and suppressed the general population’s understanding of their own world, limiting answers to come exclusively from reigning religious authorities. Machiavelli sees religion as both a necessity to govern the public, yet also as a tool of manipulation: “Religion enabled the Senate to manipulate the people in carrying out its enterprises, a function implying that the nobles or princes who manipulate religion do not believe, unlike the people who are manipulated” (Machiavelli, xxxiv). Machiavelli’s interpretation of religion sees it as a tool, rather than faith. He believes that rulers are invirtuous, not believing the religious teachings they so strictly implicate on their people. This viewpoint is extremely similar to Pico’s warning: do not give the highest knowledge to the masses, because they cannot handle the power that comes with knowledge.
Galileo would think Pico’s warnings about the general population being unable to handle higher knowledge would be entirely due to man’s natural stubbornness to changing their previously understood viewpoint. To Newton, this stubbornness would be the reason man’s understanding of the world would be skewed. Just like Newton and Galileo, Pico welcomed the need for humans to project an infallible memory, insatiable curiosity, and immense mind in a bid to enhance their intellectual capabilities essential for understanding the material world (136). Pico advanced Newton’s and Galileo’s notion that religion and normal science can be correlated. However, the correlation can occur at the point of conjecture between the human knowledge or philosophy and human religion. As Newton and Galileo asserted, it will be difficult to draw relevance on using religion alone to interpret the material understanding of the world since religion has been used as a manipulative asset. Pico’s approach to understanding the universe provides a solution to Newton’s and Galileo’s concerns of religion’s dominance in the understanding of the material world. According to Pico, many things observed in the universe should identified as symbols of God rather than God’s creations. The perception of the material things as the creation of God is a medieval world view that propels religious control in explanation of the universe. Newton and Galileo would support Pico’s idea because of their wish to create a point of convergence between religion and human knowledge in describing the material world.
Works Cited
Galilei, Galileo, and Maurice A. Finocchiaro. The Essential Galileo. Hackett Publishing, 2008.
Newton, Isaac. The Principia: mathematical principles of natural philosophy. Univ of California Press, 1999.
