Journal of the ACMS
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Letter from the Editor
Journal of the ACMS, 2006 Issue
The God-Fearing Life of Leonhard Euler
Dale L. McIntyre, Grove City College
Abstract: The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, and He delights in his way. Ps. 37:23
For the past three centuries it has been fashionable among philosophers and academicians to deny that God and religious faith play a part in serious intellectual inquiry. The Enlightenment and Postmodernism teach that no scholar of highest repute regards God as anything more than a First Cause if, indeed, He exists at all. Yet Leonhard Euler, the greatest mathematician and theoretical physicist of the Age of Reason, was a deeply religious man and a passionate defender of the Christian faith. He emphatically asserted that "the works of the Creator infinitely surpass the productions of human skill" and unabashedly contended for "the divinity of the Holy Scripture," "the divine sending of Christ into the world," and "the truth of the Christian religion." That a God-fearing man would gain such stature and reputation in Europe during the human-centered days of the Enlightenment is indeed noteworthy.
What were the religious beliefs of this remarkable man? What were their origins and their effects upon him and how he related to others? What has been his influence? To answer these questions, we first present a brief account of his life as a whole; next we view elements of his character through the lens of his life's experiences; then we unveil tenets of his theology, as gleaned primarily from his Letters to a German Princess on Different Subjects in Natural Philosophy and his Defense of the Divine Revelation against the Objections of the Freethinkers; finally we reflect upon his legacy, how his life has impacted persons of his day and of today.
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