Issues of the
Confrontation of Galileo Galilei with the Roman Catholic
Church
Modern history has
been re-written to portray Christians and the church in
their worst possible light. This fact is no less true with
Galileo. Those issues, listed here in summary form and
taken from Nancy Pearcey and Charles B. Thaxton, Soul of
Science (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1994), pages 25-28
in online version:
http://www.lambsound.com/Reading/books/Christian_Faith_and_Natural_Philosophy.pdf
1. Heliocentrism
was still being debated. At the time of the controversy
between Galileo and The Church, the issue of the earth
revolving around the sun vs. the sun rotating around the
earth was not a settled issue. It was not until the time of
Isaac Newton (1642-1727) that the revolutions of the planets
around the sun became a widely accepted fact. The actual
situation is just the opposite of that which is usually
reported in modern times: “the major part of the Church
intellectuals was on the side of Galileo” (page 22). At one
time, even the Pope who had ordered his appearance before
the Inquisition had accepted Galileo’s work as true.
(Gordon Clark in Thales to Dewey [page 307] states
that the heliocentric theory was not "proved" until 1838.)
2. The
primary objection of the church concerned Galileo’s attack
on Aristotelian philosophy which had become central to
the dogma of the Roman Catholic Church (RCC). The Pope and
church leaders feared that their doctrine might be weakened
by this attack. During this time period, also, the RCC was
still fighting the Protestants and did not want to give them
an edge in any way.
Aquinas had Christianized Aristotle so well that when
the authority of Aristotle in the area of astronomy and
physics was called into question, many Christian
theologians thought biblical truth was being denied. So
completely had Aristotle and medieval Christian theology
been harmonized in the Thomistic synthesis that the
threatened overthrow of Aristotelian cosmology seemed to
many theologians to be a rejection of biblical
revelation as well. Hence the move against Galileo: the
Aristotelian theologians realized that if the Copernican
doctrines were sanctioned, this would seriously damage
their own authority as guardians of orthodoxy by proving
false what they had taught was true. The real issue in
the trial of Galileo was not the truth of Holy
Scripture, bur rather the truth of Aristotle and the
authority of the Aristotelian theologians. (Charles
Dykes, “Medieval Speculation, Puritanism, and Modern
Science,” The Journal of Christian Reconstruction:
Symposium on Puritanism and Progress, ed. Gary North
(Vallecito, CA: Chalcedon, 1979), 6:1, page 35)
3. Galileo
provoked the RCC himself. In his revised publication of
his findings, he wrote, “Several years ago there was
published in Rome a salutary edict which, in order to
obviate the dangerous tendencies of our present age, imposed
a reasonable silence upon the Pythagorean opinion that the
earth moves. There were those who imprudently
asserted that this decree had its origin not in judicious
inquiry, but in passion none too well informed.
Complaints were to be heard that advisers who were
totally unskilled in astronomical observations ought not
to clip the wings of reflective intellects by means
of rash prohibitions.” (From Ariel and Will Durant,
The Story of Western Civilization, Volume 7, page
609. Emphases are Ed’s)
4. While Galileo
did recant his heliocentric view, he did not recant his
faith. Over and over he affirmed the doctrines of the
RCC and the Christian faith. He clearly saw his work as
investigating the orderliness and laws of God’s Creation.
“Only Galileo’s determination to remain within his religious
tradition seems an adequate explanation of why he tried so
hard to persuade everyone from the Pope downwards, and why
he declined all chances to escape to the safety of the
Venetian republic.” And his investigations were clearly into
God’s Creation, “We cannot presume to know how God thinks,
Galileo argued; we must go out and look at the world He
created.” (Pearcey, page 22, online version)
5. People of all
ages have been reluctant to accept new ideas, especially
those longstanding. Harvey’s work on the circulation of the
blood could not be published until after his death. Lister
faced severe opposition over his procedures to limit
infectious spread in hospitals. Pasteur’s germ theory was
ridiculed. Newtonian physics faced a severe headwind. And
on and on. To focus oppressively on the Church of Galileo’s
time, as the only people opposed to his theory, and as the
only time in history when new discoveries were opposed, is
to reflect clearly that at root is not
