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BY HERBERT VEGO
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Tuesday, November 7, 2017
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SCIENTISTS don’t easily believe the “obvious” as seen by the Church. Take it from Italian physicist Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), inventor of the telescope, who used his gadget to disprove the original position of the Roman Catholic Church that the sun revolves around the earth.
Galileo thereafter endorsed Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus’ theory that the earth revolves around the sun. His telescopic observation – that the neighboring planet Venus revolved around the sun – was his way of proving that the earth revolved likewise.
Today, everybody believes that the Church was wrong and Galileo, right: The sun is the stationary center, around which the earth and the other planets revolve.
Galileo’s evidence, being an affront to “papal infallibility,” forced the Church to label him “heretic” and sentenced him to indefinite house arrest in 1632.
The Church Tribunal ironically laughed off the argument because “the earth does not appear to move under our feet.” It was a simplistic attempt to prevent the further spread of the Protestant reformation that had begun in Germany in 1517, with Martin Luther questioning the Pope’s infallibility.
The embarrassed tribunal offered to pardon Galileo during his trial in 1616 if he would stop espousing the Copernican theory.
While still in house arrest in 1632, Galileo began writing his book Concerning the Two Chief World Systems – Ptolemaic and Copernican. A 12-year effort, the book presented all the arguments for and against Copernican (sun-centered) and Ptolemaic or Aristotelian (earth-centered).
He warned the Church of a trap they were walking into: “You run the risk of having to condemn as heretics those who would declare the earth to stand still and the sun to change position – eventually.”
The Roman Catholic hierarchy did not heed this advice. On the contrary, the Roman Curia promptly banned and confiscated Galileo’s monumental work, and it became the basis for his second trial, censure and lifetime house arrest by the dreaded Office of the Inquisition in 1633. Seven of the 10 cardinals presiding signed the condemnation.
The Inquisition wrote: “The proposition that the sun is the center of the world and does not move from its place is absurd and false philosophically and formally heretical because it is expressly contrary to the Holy Scripture.
“The proposition that the earth is not the center of the world and immovable, but that it moves, and also with a diurnal motion, is equally absurd and false philosophically, and theologically considered, at least erroneous in faith.”
The Holy Tribunal quoted no Bible verse, in effect further driving Catholics away from the faith.
Though Galileo himself did not publicly renounce his faith, his position and rebellious manner had alienated many and left the Church authorities no room to maneuver.
The Church’s error sprang from its reliance on the writings of Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC), who believed that the universe was “finite and spherical with a stationary earth at its center.”
Incidentally, Galileo’s lifetime fell within the so-called Renaissance Period (1300-1600 AD), the rebirth of Greek philosophy, when the pre-Christian Aristotle philosophy and science had already embedded Roman Catholic theology and tradition.
The primary problem was that while Aristotle’s science was going out of style, the Church could not make a distinction between Aristotelian and Christian teachings.
Some scientists now view Galileo’s conflict with the Church as a great triumph of science over organized religion that continues to preach papal infallibility. (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
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