Posted by In 1615 the Italian astronomer and physicist, Galileo Galilei, was investigated by the Roman Inquisition because of his support for the heliocentric theory that the earth revolved around the sun rather than the other way round. The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, which concluded that heliocentrism was “foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture.” The Church’s opposition to heliocentrism arose from biblical references such as Psalm 93:1, 96:10, and 1 Chronicles 16:30 which include text stating, “The world also is established. It cannot be moved.” In the same manner, Psalm 104:5 says, “He (the Lord) laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be moved forever.” Further, Ecclesiastes 1:5 states, “The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hurries to its place where it rises”, and Joshua 10:14 states, “Sun, stand still on Gibeon…”
The interpretation of some of these verses depends on how they are translated. For example Psalm 93.1b in the King James Version reads “the world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved,” while in the NIV the same passage is translated “indeed, the world is established, firm and secure.” Galileo’s writings on heliocentrism were submitted to the Roman Inquisition by Father Niccolò Lorini, who claimed that Galileo and his followers were attempting to reinterpret the Bible, which was seen as a violation of the Council of Trent and looked dangerously like Protestantism.
The sentence of the Inquisition was delivered on 22 June. Galileo was found “vehemently suspect of heresy,” namely of having held the opinions that the Sun lies motionless at the center of the universe, that the Earth is not at its center and moves, and that one may not hold and defend an opinion as probable after it has been declared contrary to Holy Scripture. He was required to “abjure, curse and detest” those opinions. His offending Dialogue was banned; and in an action not announced at the trial, publication of any of his works was forbidden, including any he might write in the future. He was sentenced to formal imprisonment at the pleasure of the Inquisition. On the following day, this was commuted to house arrest, which he remained under for the rest of his life.
It wasn’t until 1992 that Pope John Paul expressed regret for how the Galileo affair was handled, and issued a declaration acknowledging the errors committed by the Catholic Church tribunal that judged the scientific positions of Galileo Galilei.
Four hundred years after Galileo’s trial we no longer believe that the idea that the earth revolves around the sun is contrary to the Bible. In order to make Christianity compatible with a heliocentric view of the universe, we had to rethink the way we interpreted certain Bible passages.
Today, the battle between faith and science is largely enjoined over the Theory of Evolution. There is a macro battle here and a micro one. The macro battle is fundamental –has the universe and everything in it, especially humankind, been created by God, and, if so, does this creation have a divine purpose? The micro battle is over the interpretation of Genesis chapters 1-3. We’ll discuss Genesis and evolution in the next post, but first we’ll look into the macro issue here.
The Fundamental question to be resolved: Are science and religion incompatible?
In a very basic way, the answer is yes. Christianity (and other Western religions) depends on the existence of miracles, the most fundamental of which is that Jesus died, was buried and three days later rose from the dead. David Hume, the great Scottish philosopher wrote, “A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature, and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.” Thus, according to Hume, our experience demonstrates the constancy of the laws of nature. Those laws are the same in England and in Palestine; they are the same in the first century CE and in the 17th century CE. The scientific world view does not accept such violations of the laws of nature. Hume further says, “Anyone who believes in miracles, he added, is both gullible and biased by their religious beliefs.
Miracles can be defined as penetrations of the rational, material world by a non-material spiritual world. In principle, science can test whether a miracle actually happened. For example, Christians can point to the “empty tomb” as evidence of Christ’s resurrection. The validity of that evidence can be examined, although proof of what happened 2100 years ago is difficult to find.
As I wrote in my very first post, “…it is important to understand that our belief in the very idea of God, and his intervention in the world, requires us to believe in the supernatural, and therefore, to accept the possibility of miracles. Once, as a matter of faith, one accepts the idea of a personal God, who not only created us, but is accessible to us through prayer, it takes only a small step to believe that He intervenes in the world supernaturally. If God made the world, why couldn’t He turn water into wine or order the winds to cease? In fact, if God made the world, why couldn’t He cause a virgin to conceive and bear a son who is, in fact, the Word made flesh?”
However, the belief in a non-material world, in a creator God who lives outside of space and time, is not testable and, thus, not a proper question for scientific inquiry. In fact, most of the core questions of religion –What is a good life? Does life have meaning? How should we live? What happens after we die? are not amenable to scientific inquiry. The other side of the coin is that faith should stay out of science’s realm –Are there natural laws that describe the material world? Can we describe these laws? Are they the same everywhere and every-time? These questions are the fundamental stuff of scientific inquiry. Believers would be foolish to challenge these laws that are agreed to by the great majority of scientists. Science has learned that Copernicus and Galileo were correct. The earth indeed travels around the sun; people of faith have learned to accept that and to agree that heliocentrism does not violate scripture.
Does science contradict the fundamental premise of Christians that an all-powerful, all-knowing, beneficent God created the universe, and that that universe has a purpose that will be fulfilled by this insignificant part of the creation—humanity? Science can’t, because the premise lies outside the material world. It can point out how insignificant humanity is, how large is the vastness of space, and how long the span of created time is, but it can’t talk about purpose of a creator, since this is outside the sphere of scientific inquiry.
Conclusions: We’ve begun this series of blog posts to document the incredibly dangerous threat facing the Christian Church in America. In a study by the Barna Group, one-quarter of millennials believe that Christianity is anti-science. A Pew study found that while 95% of the public believe there is a god or higher power, only 51% of scientists do so. As I pointed out in my last post the seeming conflict between faith and reason is one of the reasons people, especially young people are leaving the church. Much of this conflict is inevitable, but the church must have a more accommodating view of science, or the abandonment of Christianity will continue.
My next post will examine the major conflict of evolution vs. Genesis.
