Isaac Newton — "Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors."
Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors.
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More from Isaac Newton
"What is it that induces a man to be a philosopher? It is not the love of truth, but the love of fame, or the love of novelty, or the love of power."
"Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy."
"A man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true, for if the things be false, the apprehension of them is not understanding."
"I feign no hypotheses."
"I build my philosophy upon the shoulders of giants."
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Understanding this quote
What it means
Newton argues that atheism is both intellectually incoherent and morally repugnant to human beings, so much so that almost no one has genuinely held or openly declared it throughout history. He treats disbelief in God not as a reasonable philosophical position but as something so contrary to reason and human instinct that it barely qualifies as a real viewpoint worthy of serious engagement.
Relevance to Isaac Newton
Newton devoted more manuscript pages to theology than to physics. He viewed his laws of motion and gravity as revealing the rational mechanics God built into creation — science and faith were unified for him. He wrote extensively on Biblical prophecy and rejected the Trinity as unscriptural. His religious convictions were not peripheral but central: discovering natural law was, to Newton, discovering God's design.
The era
In 17th-century England, atheism was legally and socially dangerous — blasphemy laws made open disbelief a criminal matter. The Scientific Revolution paradoxically intensified theological debate: some feared new natural philosophy would displace God; defenders like Newton insisted it confirmed divine order. Most leading natural philosophers framed their work within Christianity. Declaring atheism 'senseless' was both sincere belief and a defense of science against accusations of impiety.
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