1. Introduction
It is now widely recognized that there is an extremely close link between Newton's metaphysical and theological thinking and his doctrine of absolute space. And while the importance of absolute space for Newtonian physics is acknowledged, it is largely agreed that in the context of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, neither scientific considerations nor empirical evidence alone was sufficient to establish the existence of absolute space. I think that this trend toward understanding Newton's theory of absolute space as a theological and metaphysical position, rather than a strictly scientific one, has been a positive development. My purpose in this paper, however, is to suggest that it is not entirely unproblematic.
Specifically, my goal in this paper is to argue that Newton's theory of absolute space has an untenable theological consequence; Newton's theory entails that God depends on space for His existence and is therefore not an independent entity.Footnote 1 I shall argue for this conclusion in stages. In Section 2 I shall show that Newton believed that space was a being. In section 3 I shall show that Newton believed that God and space were ontologically distinct beings. In Section 4 I shall show that Newton believed that the existence of space was a necessary condition for the existence of any other being. In Section 5 I shall discuss the ways in which this makes God depend on space for His existence and the reasons why this is unacceptable for traditional conceptions of God. Finally, in Section 6 I will consider Newton's polemical context and the nature of his theological thought. My hope is that these considerations will make this problem seem less serious than it first appears.
2. Space as a Being
The goal of this section is to show that Newton believed that space was a really existing being.Footnote 2 This serves to distinguish Newton from many of his contemporaries. Leibniz famously argued that space was merely a series of relations. So Leibnizian space, unlike Newtonian space, is not a fundamental feature of the universe. Closer to home, Isaac Barrow had argued that space was pure possibility. Space had no reality of its own, but offered the possibility of location to objects which were real.Footnote 3 A third view comes from Walter Charleton. For him space was not a potentiality for being, as in Barrow, but rather a negation of being. Charletonian space was pure void or pure nothingness.Footnote 4 Newton was aware of views like these, but rejected them in favor of one which reifies space.
The most important text for understanding Newton's views on space is an early manuscript known as De Gravitatione. In this text Newton makes explicit his belief that space is a really existing entity. He writes that space ‘has its own manner of existing which is proper to it and which fits neither substances nor accidents’.Footnote 5 Newton has two reasons for denying that space is a substance. The first is that space ‘is not absolute in itself’.Footnote 6 Newton's suggestion here is that space is an affection of being; this means in order for space to exist some other being must also exist. A substance, unlike a property or accident, was traditionally thought to depend on nothing else for its existence.Footnote 7 Newton's second, and more important, reason for denying that space is a substance is the fact that space does not act. Indeed, space is causally inert, incapable of acting on its own or of being acted upon. Newton's argument that space is not an accident is as follows. There is no one particular thing which is necessary for the existence of space. We can imagine a variety of objects coming into and going out of existence without any change to space's nature. This shows that space does not inhere in and does not depend on any one particular object for its existence and so cannot properly be considered an accident.Footnote 8
So Newton's claim is that space does exist as a real being, but that it is a very special kind of being. Put differently, I read Newton as arguing that the set of existing beings is not exhausted by the subsets of substances and accidents. There are really existing beings which can properly be classified as neither. This is why Newton speaks of space as ‘having its own manner of existing which is proper to it and which fits neither substances nor accidents’.Footnote 9 Space exists in a way or manner which is different from the way or manner that substances and their accidents do. This is why it can be classified as a different type of being.Footnote 10
Consider another passage from De Gravitatione in which Newton makes it explicit that he believes space is a really existing entity: ‘it is usually believed that these spaces [the ones devoid of body] are nothing; yet indeed they are spaces. Although space may be empty of body, nevertheless it is not in itself a void; and something is there, because spaces are there, although nothing more than that’.Footnote 11 Here Newton takes himself as correcting a common error. Some people consider empty space to be devoid of being. But this is incorrect, because space itself is a being, in empty space there is some thing, namely space itself. Note as well the relative independence that space is given in this quote. Space is not presented as having derivative being. The explanation of the being present in empty spaces stops at the mere existence of space: ‘spaces are there, although nothing more than that’.
At one other point in De Gravitatione Newton affirms the real existence of space. The occasion for this is a comparison of space to Aristotelian prime matter. Newton writes that ‘They differ, however, in that extension (since it [involves] “what” and “how constituted” and “how much”) has more reality than prime matter…’Footnote 12 Here Newton has a Scholastic concept of prime matter in mind: something which is either pure potency or has the lowest possible level of actuality. Newton very carefully points out that space has more reality than prime matter. So again, we get the view that space is a really existing entity, one which has its own (relatively high level of) reality and its own manner of existing.
Newton's view that absolute space was a really existing being also surfaces in the Principia. The Scholium on space and time makes the following claim: ‘Absolute space, of its own nature without reference to anything external, always remains homogeneous and immovable’.Footnote 13 This passage is important for two reasons. The first is that Newton suggests here that space has its own nature. The language of natures offers us some prima facie reason for thinking that Newton thinks space is a being.Footnote 14 Secondly, Newton's suggestion that we can consider space in isolation from other beings (‘without reference to anything external’) suggests it has some being. If space were just a product of relations between material objects or a pure potentiality or nothing, then considering it apart from other beings would be impossible.
Perhaps the most decisive piece of evidence for the claim that Newton believed that space was a real being is a passage from the manuscript known as Tempus et Locus. This manuscript closely resembles certain passages from De Gravitatione and suggests that Newton's position on space remained consistent from the time he composed De Gravitatione through the first edition of the Principia. In this manuscript Newton explicitly claims that space is a being (ens): ‘For it is a single being, [most simple], and most perfect [in its] kind’.Footnote 15 So several important Newtonian texts give us reason to think that he understood space to be a really existing being.
Before moving on, I want to discuss the work of one commentator who might be seen as offering a dissenting view. Andrew Janiak has denied that Newton believed that space was a being:
…in addition to being contingent, space and time are also not beings, and are therefore not necessary beings. Unlike contingent beings such as ordinary objects and human minds, which…are substances that bear characteristic actions, space and time are causally inert and therefore fail a crucial Newtonian criterion of substancehood. Space and time are mere affections, and not genuine substances. Thus for Newton, space and time are merely contingent and are mere affections.Footnote 16
It will be worthwhile to spend a few moments analyzing this claim. When properly understood I believe that this quotation, far from giving us reason to doubt that space is a being, can actually help us to understand the exact sense in which Newton believed space to be a being.
Janiak is perfectly correct to note that for Newton space and time are not substances. His characterization of space as an affection is also unproblematic. And Janiak is perfectly correct to think that we can infer that ‘x is not a substance’ from the claim that ‘x is a mere affection’. What is troubling about this passage, however, is that Janiak also seems to think that we can move from the claim that ‘x is not a substance’ to the conclusion that ‘x is not a being’. This is the move which I think is questionable. Janiak offers us no independent reason for thinking that Newton restricts the set of beings to the set of substances.
My position is that when we consider the polemical goals of De Gravitatione we realize that Newton was consciously trying to avoid just this sort of restriction. As Janiak himself points out, a major goal of De Gravitatione is to develop a metaphysic which is non-Cartesian (and non-Scholastic). In the course of doing this, one thing which Newton does is reject the claim that all entities can be classified as substances or attributes. Indeed, Newton carves out a special metaphysical category (affections) for entities (space and time) which are neither substances nor attributes. Given all of this, and given Janiak's careful work to show the sense in which Newtonian space is not a Newtonian substance, I think we can reformulate Janiak's claim that space is not an entity. We can more charitably read Janiak as claiming that space is not a substance.Footnote 17 If we read him this way then we can both agree that Newton denies that space is a substance, but does think that it is an entity (in the looser sense of the term).
3. Space as Distinct from God
Understanding that, for Newton, space was an entity distinct from God is, in a sense, difficult. It is difficult because it requires understanding that Newton differed from some of his contemporaries who held very similar views. Specifically, it involves understanding how Newton was different from his most immediate predecessor on the topic, Henry More, and how he was different from his most immediate successor on the topic, Samuel Clarke. These writers identified God with space. I will show that this is a position which Newton consciously and consistently rejected.Footnote 18
Henry More's views on the nature of space were both complicated and subtle. Furthermore, they underwent significant changes throughout his career.Footnote 19 Nevertheless, I think it is uncontroversial that More's mature position held that absolute space was to be understood as a divine attribute.Footnote 20 Samuel Clarke followed More in claiming that space was a divine attribute.Footnote 21 In his 5th Letter to Leibniz he writes as follows:
God does not exist in space and in time; but his existence causes space and time. And when, according to the analogy of vulgar speech, we say that he exists in all space and in all time; the words mean only that he is omnipresent and eternal, that is, that boundless space and time are necessary consequences of his existence; and not, that Space and Time are beings distinct from him, and in which he exists.Footnote 22
So here Clarke explicitly denies that God and space are distinct beings.Footnote 23 Given Newton's general intellectual debt to More, his personal association with More and Clarke, Clarke's general fidelity to Newton's own views, and some indirect evidence which suggests that Newton had a hand in Clarke's letters,Footnote 24 we might have reason to wonder if Newton also thought space was part of God.
Some interpreters have been convinced by these considerations and have argued that Newton, like Clarke and More, did identify God with space. The American Samuel Johnson, in his correspondence with Berkeley, was perhaps one of the earliest interpreters to take this position.Footnote 25 John Tull Baker, in his seminal work on early modern conceptions of space and time in England, argued that Newton conceived of space and time as divine attributes.Footnote 26 In this, he was followed by Edward Grant.Footnote 27 More recently, Edward Khamara, in summarizing the Newtonian position on space, writes that ‘In relation to God, however, space and time are not substances but properties: and constitute respectively the divine attributes of immensity (or omnipresence) and eternity (i.e. sempiternity)’.Footnote 28 Geoffrey Gorham has very recently defended the divine attribute reading as well.Footnote 29
In the following paragraphs I want to contest these interpretations. My position is that there is decisive evidence that Newton disagreed with Clarke and More on this point and claimed that God and space were distinct entities. I will first consider some passages which directly show Newton claiming we should resist the urge to identify space and God. Then I will show that some of Newton's other claims about space are incompatible with a reading of space as a divine attribute.
One text in which Newton warns us against identifying God with space comes in the General Scholium to the Principia: ‘[God] is not eternity and infinity, but eternal and infinite; he is not duration and space, but he endures and is present’.Footnote 30 I read this passage as a straightforward denial that space and God are in any way the same thing (‘he is not… space’). While it is not appropriate to say of God that He is space, it is appropriate to say of God that He is present. Put differently, Newton in this passage wants to emphasize that God is intimately related to space, to emphasize that God is in all parts of space, to emphasize that space modifies God with regard to location, but not to suggest that space is part of God. A second, similar, passage occurs in Tempus et Locus §4: ‘By reason of its eternity and infinity space will neither be God nor wise nor powerful nor alive…’Footnote 31 Newton here claims that although space and God share some features (they are both eternal and infinite), it would be a mistake to identify them or to associate space with God's power and wisdom. So in this passage we get an explicit comparison between the way in which space is extended (which does not make it perfect) and the way in which God is extended (which does make Him perfect).
The most decisive evidence that Newton believed God and space were distinct entities comes from the preface (Advertissement au Lecteur) which he wrote for a 1720 Amsterdam edition of the Leibniz-Clarke correspondence edited by Pierre Des Maizeaux. Newton wrote several drafts of this piece and they consistently show he was eager that readers not attribute to him the view that space is a divine attribute. Here is the text of Draft A, the language of which is closely replicated in the other four extant drafts:Footnote 32
The Reader is desired to observe that wherever in the following papers, through unavoidable narrowness of language, infinite space or Immensity & endless Duration or eternity, are spoken of as Qualities or Properties of the Substance wch is Immense or Eternal, the terms Quality & Property are not to be taken in that sense wherein they are vulgarly, by the writers of Logick & Metaphysicks applied to matter; but in such a sense as only implies them to be CONSEQUENTS of the Existence of a Being which is really necessarily & substantially Omnipresent & Eternal…Footnote 33
Here again we have Newton insisting that the relationship between space and God is extremely tight, yet still denying that they are the same thing. Space is more like an effect of God than like a feature or part of God.
So much for Newton's direct claims about the non-identity of space and God. I now want to consider some passages which motivate indirectly against the divine attribute reading. But in order to see how these passages do this it is necessary to say a little bit about how early modern philosophers thought about attributes. There are, broadly speaking, two ways of thinking about attributes: either as 1) ways of conceiving a substance or as 2) features of a substance which inhere in it. I think Newton makes claims about space which are inconsistent with space being an attribute according to either conception.
The first view about attributes holds that an attribute is just a manner in which a substance in conceived.Footnote 34 Omnipotence, for example, on this view is just one way of thinking about the perfectly simple substance that is God. So space, on this view is just one way of considering the divine essence; thinking about space is really just thinking about God. Henry More seemed to favor this understanding of space as a divine attribute. He often claims that space is an ‘image’ or a ‘representation’ of God.Footnote 35 He means that space is one of the ways in which human minds imagine, represent, or conceive of God.Footnote 36 I think that Newton could not have shared this view with More. The reason is that Newton believes we can conceive of space without conceiving of God. Consider the following passage:
If we say with Descartes that extension is body, do we not manifestly offer a path to atheism, both because extension is not created but has existed eternally, and because we have an idea of it without any relation to God, and so in some circumstances it would be possible for us to conceive of extension while supposing God not to exist?Footnote 37
On the view I am proposing, in which God and space are ontologically distinct, we can make perfect sense of this passage. We can conceive of space without God because they are distinct things.Footnote 38
Gorham has denied that this is a decisive text against the attribute interpretation. His argument is that Newton is operating within a Cartesian context where it is possible to conceive of extension without God. Newton, according to Gorham, must reject this possibility on pain of being complicit in this atheism.Footnote 39 I think Gorham has this backwards. Descartes makes it abundantly clear that extension cannot be conceived apart from God, this is why extension is not, properly speaking, a substance. So given that it is not Descartes’ position that God and extension can be conceived distinctly, it follows that it must be Newton's position that we can conceive of space apart from God. Further evidence that Newton is speaking in his own voice (and not channeling Descartes) comes from the fact that he claims that extension is not created and has existed eternally. Again, this is a position which is clearly Newton's and is clearly not Descartes’. How, given that he thinks space can be conceived apart from God, does Newton avoid the charge of atheism? Newton claims that although conceiving of space does not require conceiving of God, conceiving of bodies does (as Gorham goes on to note). So what Newton is attacking in this passage is the Cartesian equation of bodies with space; it is this conflation, and not the ontological distinction between God and space, that leads to atheism.
A second view about attributes treats them more like properties. On this view, attributes are things that inhere in their substances. So on this understanding of attributes, space inheres in God. I think this cannot be Newton's view. Consider this passage from De Gravitatione: ‘And much less may [space] be said to be nothing, since it is something more than an accident, and approaches more nearly to the nature of a substance.’Footnote 40 If Newton really did think of space as this sort of divine attribute then presumably it would be more natural to speak of space as an accident than to speak of it as a substance. On the view which identifies God with space, space is dependent on God for its being which makes it entirely unlike a substance. But here we have Newton claiming that it is more like a substance (which has its own being) than like an accident (which inheres in a substance).
This passage is even more striking when we consider what comes just before it. Newton has delineated the two reasons why space does not qualify as a substance. He thinks it is 1) incapable of existing aloneFootnote 41 and 2) incapable of action. In the analysis of these two reasons Newton provides us with an interesting counterfactual: ‘yet everyone tacitly understands [that substances are capable of action], as follows from the fact that they would readily allow extension to be substance in the matter of body if only it were capable of motion and of sharing in the actions of body.’Footnote 42 Here Newton writes that if space could act then it would be substance. But this counterfactual would be nonsensical if Newton understood space as an attribute. The reason is that it is impossible for an attribute-like thing to gain the power of acting. Because attributes are ontologically linked to substances, and because substances are the proper loci of actions, it is nonsensical to claim that an attribute (as opposed its substance) could act. Consider a pole-vaulter and one of her attributes, her strength. Now, it makes perfect sense to say that her strength allowed the pole-vaulter to jump over the bar or to say that a pole-vaulter jumps over a bar in virtue of her strength. But it is a serious logical error or a category mistake to claim that a pole-vaulter's strength jumps, or could jump, over the bar. And there is something bizarre about considering a counterfactual in which the pole-vaulter's strength gained the power to act while still being the pole-vaulter's strength.Footnote 43
On the view I am proposing, however, we can make perfect sense of this passage. I am arguing that space is a really existing being which is neither a substance, nor an attribute, nor an accident. Space has its ‘own manner of existing.’ Now if we imagine space as a really existing being, there is no logical obstacle to imagining it as existing with causal powers. On the understanding of space as an attribute, however, for it to be considered a substance it would have to do two things. First, it would have to acquire causal powers. Second, it would have to, somehow, ontologically detach itself from its substance (God). On my view, which has space already existing as an independent being, only the first of these steps would be necessary. This better fits with the sense of Newton's counterfactual claim.
My hope is that at this stage it should be clear that Newton rejected any position which understood space as a divine attribute.
4. Newton's Spatial Criterion for Existence
In this section I will show that Newton adhered to a certain metaphysical axiom or principle. This principle holds that the existence of space is a necessary condition for the existence of anything else. One particularly succinct and forceful presentation of this Newtonian claim comes from Tempus et Locus. Newton begins this manuscript by writing that ‘Time and Place are common affections of all things without which nothing whatsoever can exist.’Footnote 44De Gravitatione contains very similar language: ‘Space is an affection of being just as being. No being exists or can exist which is not related to space in some way. God is everywhere, created minds are somewhere, and body is in the space that it occupies; and whatever is neither everywhere nor anywhere does not exist. And hence it follows that space is an emanative effect of the first existing being, for if any being whatsoever is posited, space is posited.’Footnote 45
I think these texts are sufficient to demonstrate that Newton held the following:
Spatial Criterion for Existence (SCE): For any being to exist it must exist in space.Footnote 46
There are two important features of the SCE which deserve attention and there are two important questions about the SCE which deserve discussion. The two features are its modal status and its scope. The SCE has the modal status of necessity. For a being to exist, it must exist in space. Existing things necessarily exist in space. The scope of the SCE is universal. For any being to exist it must exist in space. All beings require space to exist in. The necessity and universality of the SCE embed it deeply in Newton's conceptual thought; it acts as a grounding or fundamental metaphysical principle.
The first interesting question about the SCE is why did Newton adhere to the SCE? Providing a complete answer to this question is outside the scope of this paper, but there are two considerations which I think are relevant.
The first relevant consideration is the fact that Henry More also held a version of the SCE.Footnote 47 Consider the following passage from the preface to his Immortality of the Soul: ‘For, to take away all Extension, is to reduce a thing onely to a Mathematical point, which is nothing else but pure Negation or Non-entity … it is plain that if a thing be at all, it must be extended.’Footnote 48 We know that Newton was a careful reader of More and thought highly of him. It is possible he simply adopted this view from More. But the mere fact that More held a similar position, or that such a position was ‘in the air’ at the time, does not really supply us with a reason for Newton to have held the SCE, it can only be a relevant consideration. Furthermore, as we saw above, and as his student notebooks make clear, Newton was certainly no slavish adherent of More's views.Footnote 49 This brings us to the second relevant consideration.
Newton may have believed that the SCE was a logical truth. He may have rejected the very coherence of existing objects which were unextended. Now there is a sense in which this is not really an argument. But it is worth noting that early modern philosophers (not entirely unlike some of their modern-day counterparts) placed an extremely high level of emphasis on the conceivability of various metaphysical views. And often it is considerations about conceivability which form the linchpin of their arguments.Footnote 50 At the very least Newton is correct to point out that human beings struggle to conceptualize non-spatial entities.Footnote 51 Were it not the case that Newton's position on this issue runs contrary to positions held by Descartes and Leibniz we might be more susceptible to his intuitions.Footnote 52
The second interesting question about the SCE is whether space itself meets the SCE. I argued in Section 2 that Newton believed that space was a really existing being. And above I insisted that the scope of the SCE was universal. Given this, space should exist in space. Newton clearly believes that space exists in time and that time exists in space.Footnote 53 The question of whether space exists in space, or is located in space, however, is slightly more complicated. Nevertheless, the view that space is in space does seem to be Newton's position. Consider a passage cited above: ‘Although space may be empty of body, nevertheless it is not in itself a void; and something is there, because spaces are there…’Footnote 54 This passage suggests that spaces are in space.Footnote 55 But as Newton discusses elsewhere, space is not really divisible into separate entities. Spaces are just different ways of delineating infinite space in our thought; considering a defined space is just one way of considering space as a whole. So space exists in itself; it provides the place of its own existence. And this means that space does pass muster according to the SCE. Of course, understanding that space is present in itself, that is to say, in space, is a bit confusing. But perhaps this is what we should expect given that ‘any being has a manner proper to itself of being present in spaces.’Footnote 56
4.1 An Alternative Reading of the SCE
Before moving on I want to consider a different interpretation of the SCE. Rather than suggesting, as I have done above, that the SCE is a metaphysical principle one might suggest that it is a conceptual observation. Put differently, one might argue that in putting forward the SCE Newton just intends to tell us what we mean by the word ‘existence’ or what we intend to claim when we say that any thing exists. Janiak has offered this sort of interpretation.Footnote 57
Depending on how this interpretation is understood it could be compatible with the one I have offered above or it could motivate against it. I'll consider these two possibilities in order. The understanding of the SCE as a conceptual or linguistic thesis might be amenable to the metaphysical reading I have offered above if we understand conceptual or linguistic claims as having metaphysical implications. Traditional formulations of the ontological argument for God's existence offer a clear case study in the way this works. One begins with conceptual truths or by explaining what is meant when people use the term ‘God’ and one ends up recognizing that these conceptual truths or linguistic expressions carry metaphysical weight. Specifically, one ends up committed to a metaphysical thesis.
So if we understand Janiak's interpretation of the SCE along these lines then it will be fully compatible with the metaphysical claim that I am interested in. Newton has offered us an analysis of the concept of existence or of what we mean to assert when we say that a thing exists. Specifically, Newton has it that when we say that something exists we mean that it is located in space. Given this, we can then learn that Newton believed space to be a necessary condition for the existence of anything. We can move from Newton's analysis of the concept or word ‘existence’ to a metaphysical principle which he embraced.
But there is another way of understanding the position that the SCE is only intended to tell us what we mean by the word ‘exist.’Footnote 58 On this interpretation, what it is for us to say that something exists floats free of the actual metaphysics of space and other objects. So on this view it is true that whenever we claim that an object exists we also claim that that object exists in space, but our claiming this has no bearing on the relationship (of logical, metaphysical, or causal priority) that holds between space and the object. So on this view it is a (contingent) fact that we can only conceive of existing objects as existing in space but this gives us no reason to think that the direction-of-fit (so to speak) between space and objects is one way rather than another. So this way of understanding the SCE is neutral with regard to the logic and metaphysics of existence claims; if anything, the SCE tells us facts about ourselves, what we mean when we say that to exist something must exist in space.
I believe that we can safely reject this understanding of the SCE. This interpretation simply does not seem to fit with the textual passages in which Newton discusses the SCE. One passage claims that without time and space ‘nothing whatsoever can exist’ and the other claims that ‘no being exists or can exist which is not related to space in some way’. Both of these are straightforward declarative sentences. Neither is accompanied by a clarificatory remark which suggests that Newton is merely explaining the limits of our concepts or our linguistic practices (‘it seems that…’, ‘by space I understand…’, ‘by space is meant…’).Footnote 59 Given the extraordinary amount of time Newton spent thinking about space, the seriousness with which he took the topic, and his general realist attitude, I think we can treat the SCE as a metaphysical principle.
5. The Problem for Newton
Now that we are armed with a certain understanding of space and certain views about what it is to exist we are ready to understand the theological problem that Newton faces. The problem is that God depends on or requires space to exist.
To make the force of the problem clear it will be worthwhile to spend a few moments sketching out the core Christian tenet which is threatened by Newton's other commitments. Christian theology awards God an extremely high level of independence. God is causally and explanatorily self-contained. God is not caused by anything, does not depend on anything, and does not require anything. The reasons for or grounds of God's existence are supposed to lie within God's self. They are not meant to invoke anything external to God. It is precisely this Christian belief which is threatened by Newton's absolute space.
Leibniz, for one, did not let this threat go unnoticed.Footnote 60 Here is his concise formulation: ‘Space is not the place of all things, for it is not the place of God. Otherwise there would be a thing coeternal with God and independent of him; no, he himself would depend on it, if he has need of place.’Footnote 61 Of course, the mere existence of something uncreated and co-eternal with God is not an ideal position to have held in the 17th century.Footnote 62 Declaring that God depends on something for His existence or is not independent, however, is seriously problematic.
Let's review how the problem arises for Newton. All substances require space in which to exist. God is a substance. Therefore, God requires space in which to exist. But God is not meant to require anything to exist. Or, for a different approach: God exists. In order for anything to exist it must exist in space. So, in order for God to exist God must exist in space. Space must exist in order for anything to exist in space. So space must exist in order for God to exist. So God requires something other than God in order to exist. A slightly different formulation: God is an independent entity. Independent entities can exist without any other entity existing. All entities require space to exist. No entity can exist without space. Therefore God cannot exist without space. Therefore God is not an independent entity. No matter how the problem is formulated, the central tension is clear. Newton is committed to space as a precondition for the existence of all other things and this is incompatible with God's status as independent and self-determining.
Here again it will be useful to return to the views of Newton's contemporaries. The theological problem arises for Newton because he accepts three different positions. Jettisoning any one of these three is sufficient to avoid the problem. Observing how other thinkers avoided the problem shows how these three Newtonian commitments help to generate it. The first problematic commitment is the claim that God must be extended in space. Descartes and Leibniz do not believe that God must be extended; for them God is transcendent and virtually omnipresent rather than immanent and substantially omnipresent.Footnote 63 Because of this they do not face this problem. The second problematic commitment is the claim that space is a really existing entity. Barrow and Joseph Raphson do not believe that space is a real entity (only a possibility or potentiality). So even if Barrow and Raphson did believe that God must be extended in space this belief would have no metaphysical consequences. God's need to be extended would be a mere logical constraint. And it is entirely acceptable to claim that God is bound by the laws of logic. The third problematic commitment is the claim that space is ontologically distinct from God. More and Clarke do not believe that space and God are ontologically distinct. So even if they accept the first two problematic commitments they do not hold the view that God depends on something external to Himself.
Before moving on I want to consider an objection. The objection has to do with two different ways of considering the material conditional.Footnote 64 One way of formulating the SCE might be to employ the material condition: (any object → space). I have been arguing that this means that the existence of space is a necessary precondition for the existence of any other object. But there are two ways of capturing the sense of the material conditional in English. The first is ‘if A, then B’. The second is ‘A only if B’. As anyone who has ever taught an introductory logic course can tell you, students often recognize a deeply intuitive difference between these two natural language formulations and are reluctant to accept that both can be symbolized with the same formal machinery. And one can certainly understand what it is that motivates the students’ discomfort. In the first (if A, then B) it seems as though A is the agent; A is responsible for bringing about B. In the second (A only if B) it seems as though B is the agent. A's existence can only be logically permitted if B also exists.
So the objection goes as follows. In formulating this problem for Newton I have been relying on the intuition at the heart of this second formulation of the material conditional. But it is entirely possible that Newton intended to be relying on the intuition at the heart of the first. So on this view it is not the case that God relies on or depends on space for His existence. Instead, it is just the case that when God exists, space also exists; God, not space, is in the driver's seat. This position is rather more innocuous.
I believe that this objection rests on a misunderstanding of the problem for Newton. The objection sets the problem up as a question about the material conditional and asks whether space is a mere consequence (as opposed to a precondition) of God's existence. The hope is that if one can show that God is the agent in the situation and that space is a consequence of God's existence then the problem will dissolve. But note that the problem remains for Newton even if we allow that space is caused by God. No matter what the causal origin of space, God will still require space in order to exist. Although some of Newton's texts do strongly suggest that space is an effect of God's existence, the ones which show his commitment to the SCE clearly demonstrate that space is required for God's existence. So even if we allow that the first understanding of the material conditional has some relevance, the second one will still apply as well.
6. Two Considerations
Hopefully, it is now clear that Newton's theory of absolute space has theological consequences which would have been unacceptable to many of Newton's contemporaries. My question in this section is whether these consequences would have been unacceptable to Newton. Did Newton himself see the claim that God depended on space for His existence as problematic? One possibility is that Newton just never recognized that his view of space had the theological implication which I have highlighted in this paper. This is a possibility, but I think it is an unlikely one. As manuscript evidence indicates, Newton spent extraordinary amounts of time throughout his career thinking through the issue of absolute space and its connection to God. This, combined with the fact that, even within his own lifetime, his theory came under attack for having theologically unacceptable implications, makes it seem improbable that Newton was not cognizant of the problem I laid out above. So in this section I want to offer two explanations of why Newton may have been untroubled by this consequence of his view.
6.1 Newton's Polemical Context
Although Newton's position is problematic, Newton might have held that it was less problematic than every other available position. The challenge Newton faced in delineating the relationship between God and space was to show that the connection between the two was close, but not too close. Specifically, it seems to me that Newton was attempting to navigate between the Scylla of a transcendent God and the Charybdis of a pantheistic one. The theological difficulties with these positions were far more serious than those of his own.
The problem with a transcendent God, like Descartes’, is that it did not make the connection between God and space close enough. According to Newton, the position failed because it was unable to make sense of God's action in the world. Newton believed that substances could only act where they were substantially present. This meant that God, in order to act in the world, had to be substantially extended throughout space. Any view which failed to make sense of this was theologically unacceptable. The opposite danger was in making the connection between God and space too close. For Newton, God was the ruler of the world, not the world itself. Specifically, Newton was keen to deny that God was a ‘world-soul’.Footnote 65 This view would also have been more theologically problematic than the view which Newton eventually chose.
So Newton's polemical context makes clear that he saw a comparative advantage in the view he actually chose. Although it did face some theological problems, they were less severe than those faced by his opponents.
6.2 What Kind of Theologian Was Newton?
The second relevant consideration has to do with the type of theologian Newton was. When confronted with the theological writings of Leibniz or Clarke, the contemporary reader might reject some of the writer's premises, might wonder why certain topics were of such importance to the author, and might smile at some of the antiquated features of the writing and argumentation. Nevertheless, the contemporary reader has little difficulty following the arguments and tracking the major concerns and considerations of the author. When discussing God and the divine nature, Leibniz and Clarke were primarily philosophical theologians. As such, we can expect them to conform to a broad understanding of God as articulated throughout much of the Western philosophical tradition and also to be responsive to strong philosophical arguments in the realm of theology.
With Newton, it seems to me, the case is importantly different. Newton was another kind of theologian entirely. When faced with Newton's voluminous theological writings, the contemporary reader experiences something alien and befuddling. Newton's theological writings come from a decidedly pre-modern piece of his intellect. He has rules for interpreting Scripture but is never above bending them (or departing from them entirely) to serve some exegetical end. He is continually drawn to the Book of Daniel and other mystical portions of the Bible. He takes a lively interest in Kabbalah and various Hermetic traditions. Above all, Newton's religion was historical and Biblical, not philosophical and rational. Consider Newton's obsession with corruptions of Scripture and the heterodox views (like mortalism and anti-trinitarianism) which he held because he thought they were the original teachings of the Bible.
Another way of making this point is to understand that for Newton, unlike for Leibniz and Clarke, theological terms and doctrines are not necessarily metaphysical. Instead, they may be moral.Footnote 66 Consider the following quote: ‘[t]he grand occasion of errors in the faith has been the turning of the scriptures from a moral to a (& monarchical to a physical &) metaphysical (& physical) sense & this has been done cheifly by men bred up in the (metaphysical) theology of the heathn Philosophers…(the Cabbalists & (ye) Schoolmen)’.Footnote 67 This is directly relevant. The point of this paper has been to show that space is a threat to God's metaphysical independence and importance. But it is very clear that space is not a threat to God's moral and monarchical independence and importance. This is true both because space is non-causal and because God is extended in all of space. Space's lack of causal power ensures it could never rival or challenge God's power and authority. And it is by being extended in all of space that God is present to all of Creation and is able to exercise His power and dominion.
So although it might be disconcerting for many philosophers to see that Newton's views on space entail that God depends on space for His existence, it is far from clear that this would be troubling to Newton. He had no compunctions about adhering to theological positions he found convincing, even if they were unconventional or unpopular.
7. Conclusion
The goal of this paper has been to show that Newton's views on space have the problematic consequence that God is not an independent being. I have argued for this claim in stages. First, I showed that Newton conceived of space as a being that is ontologically distinct from God. Then I showed that Newton thought that space was a necessary prerequisite for the existence of any other beings. From this it follows that God depends on something external to Him, space, in order to exist. I suggested that Newton may not have been bothered by this consequence of his view for two reasons: 1) the view was still superior to those of his competitors and 2) Newton's theology was, in an important sense, immune to rational critique.Footnote 68
