ABSTRACT
Clarke avoids the use of analiticall process by incorporating some of Newton's discoveries into his physico-theological version of the teleological argument. First, in his 1712 book Clarke promoted a political model of the Trinity in which Christ was reduced to a ministering cause. Second, in his 1713 letter to Clarke, North observed that the heathen theologians had conceived natural powers as 'enarches of fire and water with regard onely to their offices and ministrations, not hereby derogating from the great superior authority that is over all' and that Clarke's political model of 'subordination of authority in the exercise of one power debases Christ into a near enarch or subgovernor'. He have found no evidence that North read Edwards 'Postscript', perhaps, the first public criticism of Newton's conception of God. This fact is puzzling, since in manuscripts written up to the time of his death, North frequently cites Newton's name, as well as his books on rational mechanics and optics.
