Место Бога в естественнонаучной картине мира И. Ньютона

Abstract

The author reveals the peculiarities of the methodological approach of I. Newton, which follows from the specifics of understanding the place of God in the natural science picture of the world of the great scientist. His ideas about God, as well as the religious ideas of Kepler, Descartes, and Leibniz, became the methodological basis for a number of epistemological principles, the use of which contributed to outstanding discoveries in natural science. These discoveries, in turn, formed the content of the scientific revolution of the 17th century. Among such principles is a “multifunctional” understanding of the role of God: as the creator of the world, as the foundation of the harmony of the world, as the source of the immutability of the laws of nature, as the root cause of movement, etc. The author demonstrates a regularity: the existence of problems in natural science, which in this state of science cannot be solved exclusively by scientific methods, leads to gaps in the holistic natural science picture of the world. In such a situation, the “God hypothesis” not only helps to fill such gaps, but can be considered as a special epistemological tool.