A Concord of Alchemy with Theology: Isaac Newton's Hermeneutics of the Symbolic Texts of Chymistry and Biblical Prophecy (2015)
That early modern natural philosophers such as Isaac Newton were deeply preoccupied by religious concerns, which were entwined with their study of nature, has become—at last—a fairly uncontroversial commonplace. In the area of the relationship between Newton’s natural philosophy, alchemy, and theology, Dobbs’ Janus Faces of Genius has had an enduring impact. However, the new historiography of alchemy and insights gained from the application of book history to the history of science—particularly the bookishness of alchemy—require Newton’s alchemy and theology to be revisited. Accordingly, this dissertation makes two main arguments: 1) Specific connections between Newton’s alchemy, or, to use the more inclusive term, “chymistry”, and his theology can be found by considering Newton’s methods of interpreting symbolic texts—as opposed to searching for specific unity of subject matter. Analysis of Newton’s textual research methods reveals his cross-comparative organization of textual sources and his particular descriptive-translational approach to symbolic texts: figurative alchemical texts and the prophetic texts of the Bible. 2) General connections between Newton’s chymistry and theology can be seen as his overall trend to incorporate statements of God into his natural philosophy was specifically manifested in physico-theological and divine metaphysical arguments that he built from chymical phenomena in his optical writing, particularly the Queries to the Opticks. The dissertation develops these arguments through analysis of Newton’s reading practices, evidenced by his particular method of dog-earing the books he owned and his organizational lists of hermeneutical rules and figurative vocabulary. Additionally, it analyses Newton’s integration of chymical sources and experimentation into his published optical work and its accompanying natural-philosophical discourse of God. While the necessary connectedness of Newton’s thought, the “unified mind” thesis articulated by Dobbs, may no longer be a viable way of conceiving Newton’s various intellectual (and practical) pursuits, this does not mean that they were unrelated. On the contrary, a uniquely textual connection can be seen within Newton’s work with the symbolic texts of alchemy and prophecy: his descriptive-translational approach. Moreover, Newton’s well-documented integration of matter theory and concepts of God are revealed to have an essential foundation in alchemical experimentation and theory.
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