Is there God? 4b) Science] Heliocentric?

The case of heliocentric versus geocentric

Heliocentric: The sun as the centre, the earth revolves around the Sun

Geocentric: The sun as the centre, the earth revolves around the Sun

The case of heliocentric versus the geocentric is one of the significant controversies over theology, astronomy, and philosophy that happened in the 1630s. In 1633 the controversies reached its climax when the church suspected Galileo and his theory as heresy. Galileo was imprisoned then commuted to house arrest.  Galileo was required to "abjure, curse, and detest" his thesis to escape death penalty.

Because of this, the issue of the heliocentric and geocentric is often viewed as a case of unreasonable dogmatic view of the church against the revolutionary scientific view of a reasonable man. This case is often perceived as the science’s first decisive blow against faith. This case is one of the firm-ground for atheists and non-believers to question the authority of the church. This case gives some sceptics the reason to doubt the message pronounced by the church. This case is also often used as the foundation for the argument that suggests religion to stay away from science. 

Nowadays, in the 21^st century, religion and faith in God is often pitted against science. For atheists and non-religious scientists, religion and faith are simply irrational belief that sits on the “gaps” of science. In the future, as science will explain more of the universe, religion, faith and even God are expected to disappear. 

I understand why many people question the authority of the church because of this case. I once doubted the Bible as well. However, what I see to be different between many people’s motivation and my motivation about this case is that, I didn’t simply want to get comfortable at the doubting level. If the church is wrong, then what is right? As a result, I did a lot of reading. Yes I hate history books, but I guess, if you really want to know something, you got to find out the truth by checking the matter yourself, won’t you?  As I learnt the more and more about the complexity of this particular case, I found that this case might have been twisted by church-hater to corner church and God. In the previous post, I mentioned that if the Bible is really the word of God, it will not bear any false testimony, so why in this case the Bible seems to be defeated by science? Now, there are details in this case that we need to understand, for us to be able to appreciate the complexity and perceive this case more objectively.

Thousands of years ago, the general population of the world thought that the earth was flat - something like a thick disc. It was only in the 4^th century BC when Aristotle, scientifically used exact observation and logical deduction to prove that the earth is spherical. Since the early concept of spherical earth, there had been many models proposed, however, the geocentric model was the most widely accepted. Geocentric was the logical choice based on the resources available at that time. Seen with the naked eye, the planetary objects seem to move around the earth. This model was the generally accepted model by the world, and was the accepted model of the church too. Note that the Christian church only appears later in around 35 AD and thus it held the geocentric model just like the rest of general world population.

Now, around this time, there was Jesus Christ in History. His life convinced a group of people about His divinity, as well as His death and resurrection. This group of people, who believe in Christ, is then called as Christians. Since then, regardless of the persecution and oppression received, Christianity kept on growing. Especially in Europe, Church power grew along with the spread of Christianity. Since the Bible scriptures are considered as the word of God, it is considered inerrant and holds the utmost authority. Unfortunately, during the 15 centuries of church growth, the church slowly shifted and abused this truth. The indestructible authority of the Bible was slowly transformed to become the ‘not-to-be-challenged’ authority of the church.

This abuse went unchallenged until 1517 when the reformation happened. The Reformation is the movement in history, which attempts to bring Christianity back to the authority of the Bible. A group of people stood for the absolute authority and the sufficiency of the Bible, and on justification by faith alone, grace alone and Christ alone. The effort of the self-described "reformers", who objected the doctrines, rituals, and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led to the creation of new national Protestant churches.

Around the same time, a person named Nicolaus Copernicus, who was a mathematician, astronomer, jurist with a doctorate in law, physician, quadrilingual polyglot, classics scholar, translator, artist, Catholic cleric, governor, diplomat and economist (… wow!), reignited the idea for heliocentric model of the planet’s movement. In 1514 he wrote down an important foundation for the heliocentric model. He started from a mere 40-page manuscript called "Commentaroius" and later he finished his manuscript of "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" that explains the heliocentric model in much more detail.

If we look at the history, we will find that, the church did not limit the growth of science. In fact, university as we know now, matured during the medieval era of Catholic in Europe. Nothing like it had existed in ancient Greece or Rome. The institution that we recognize today, with its faculties, courses of study, examinations, and degrees, as well as the familiar distinction between undergraduate and graduate study, comes to us directly from the medieval world. This makes sense, since it was "the only institution in Europe that showed consistent interest in the preservation and cultivation of knowledge."

True science cannot flourish in the community of any worldview. Science cannot flourish when people see the world as no more than illusion. Science cannot flourish when people see the world as a torture to escape from. Science cannot flourish when people consider that things just happen by chance. On the other hand, Science will flourish only if people can be sure of the consistent orderly behaviour of things. And Christian, as well as other Abrahamic religions, held this worldview. People, who think that Christians cannot become good scientists because they believe in the miracle written of the Bible, need to understand that it is the contrary. Please understand that a miracle can only be considered as miracle because it does not happen often. In fact because it is against the normal behaviour of things, it was called a miracle.

Now back to Copernicus story. Copernicus decided not to publish his work publicly fearing the potential scorn for the novelty and incomprehensibility of this thesis. His research was only later published on the same day as when Copernicus died. Despite being delayed in terms of publication, the heliocentric model hypothesis of Copernicus had been delivered in a series of lectures and speeded further through words of mouth and rumours. Pope Clement VII and some cardinals who have heard the lectures were interested in this new heliocentric theory. A letter from Nikolaus Von Schonberg, the archbishop of Capua really expressed his interests of Copernicus work: "with the utmost earnestness I entreat you, most learned sir, unless I inconvenience you, to communicate this discovery of yours to scholars, and at the earliest possible moment to send me your writings on the sphere of the universe together with the tables and whatever else you have that is relevant to this subject." And so, not only limited to the catholic community, Copernicus theory also reached scholars and educated people across Europe.

If we look around now, it seems that everyone believe heliocentric model with no problem, however, when it started, this model was really slow to be accepted. Even after Copernicus writings, there were only around 15 astronomers/scientists that succeed Copernicus work. Many of these astronomers were Christians. Three of the famous ones were Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei and Sir Isaac Newton.

Kepler was a committed Christian. He was famous for his work around astronomy especially from his work "law of planetary motion." Even though initially Kepler intended to become a Lutheran minister after finishing his study in theology, he ended up teaching mathematics and labour in astronomy field. Kepler believed that his move to science field was led by God. Kepler strongly believed that ‘The world of nature, the world of man, the world of God—all three fit together’. Kepler reason for his work is motivated by his religion conviction. Because the universe was designed by an intelligent Creator, it should function according to some logical pattern. To him, the idea of a chaotic universe was inconsistent with God’s wisdom. That’s why when other scientists had given up on searching for logical pattern, Kepler strived on.

Kepler defended Nicolaus Copernicus' theory that the earth orbits the sun (heliocentrism) and sought to reconcile it with Scripture. He revolutionized scientific thought by applying physics to astronomy. Kepler’s research concluded in the famous Kepler’s law of planetary motion. First, the orbit of every planet is an ellipse with the Sun at one of the two foci. Secondly, a line joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas during equal intervals of time. Thirdly, the square of the orbital period of a planet is directly proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit.

Second one, Galileo is recognized as the father of observational astronomy, father of modern physics, and father of modern science. Like Kepler, Galileo was a pious Christian. Galileo, one who believe in heliocentric model, was someone that took Augustine position on Scripture, which is not to take every passage of the scripture literally, especially when reading the book of poetry and songs.  He expounded on the God given gifts of intellect and reason. Initially his main field of study was physics not astronomy. Only later when he built his first telescope, he starts observing the planetary movement. He discovered the Jupiter’s moon, which later is referred to Galilean moon. And with his telescope he found supporting arguments for a model with sun in the centre of the system.

In 1616, Galileo went to Rome, attempting to persuade the Catholic Church not to ban Copernican ideas. Unfortunately, Galileo heliocentric model, unfortunately, had neither solid nor comprehensive proofs of a sun-centered system. Galileo's telescope discoveries did not indicate a moving earth and his one "proof" based upon the tides was invalid. In the end Galileo's primary argument is against the purposefully deceitful application of Biblical passages, inappropriately used out of context. Galileo expressly said that the Bible cannot err, and saw his system as an alternate interpretation of the biblical texts. What made the matter worse is that during his defend for heliocentric he might have consciously or unconsciously insulted his friend, the Pope Urban VII as “Simplicio” – meaning: simpleton. The Pope did not take this insult lightly. Perhaps one of the reasons was because it was a public insult. And perhaps the other strong reason was because the authority of the Roman Catholic Church was recently questioned during reformation. This resulted in Galileo being trialled, forced to withdraw his opinion and imprisoned.

Finally Sir Isaac Newton came to the picture. Sir Isaac Newton was a physicist, mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, alchemist and a theologian. He is considered by many as the greatest and most influential scientist that have ever lived. He is famous for his three newton’s law. And like the previous two scientists mentioned, Newton also believed in God. Newton saw a monotheistic God as the masterful creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. 

During his career, Newton derived the law of gravitation between two masses, which become the modern basis for heliocentric model. Since the Sun was the most massive object in the planetary system, all of the planets would naturally be attracted to it and revolve around it, in the same manner as the Moon revolves around the Earth. In 1687, Newton eventually wrote about gravitation and the heliocentric theory in his famous monograph: Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. The church was initially still in opposition towards this concept. But within less than a century later, in 1758, the church decided dropped the prohibition of books advocating heliocentric.

I don’t know about you, but when I know these events in the history, I think that it is not fair that people frame this case as simply church against science. There was a lot more to this case than simply “the church punish Galileo because his scientific theory is different from what the church believe”. The church had reasonable scientific ground to doubt heliocentric theory. At least until Isaac Newton’s theory, heliocentric model was not yet a full thesis. I think it will be more proper if we see this case as Roman Catholic Church abusing the authority of the Bible. Since the bible did neither really say much about whether the earth revolve around the Sun nor the other way around, whichever one is true, brought no contradiction against the Bible. Both theories did not state things that are contrary to be Bible scripture but instead it is within the room of Bible interpretation. When the bible says “…the sun rises and the sun sets …“, that truth still stands for both geocentric believer and heliocentric believer.

Moreover, since it was a case between Christian parties that cares about the truth and evidence, I also learn that we cannot diminish the existence of God simply based on the mistakes of believers and/or religious institutions, especially when the mistakes are not the logical consequences for the teachings. For example, if the Holy Scripture says “you shall not lie” and the believers end up still lying, we cannot blame God for that. If the Scripture says “you shall love your neighbour” and some of the believers are still killing each other, contrary to the scripture’s teaching, it is not a reason for us to hate God. And so when the scripture did not mentioned about particular subjects of what revolves around what, but instead describes man as corrupted and sinful, it was an abuse if the church claims to be infallible in their arguments around geocentric model.

I would like to contrast these logical consequences of the existence of God, with the logical consequences of the non-existence of God. When people believe that there is no God, and that we are a mere product of harsh reality of the survival of the fittest, isn’t it logical for people to prey weaker others especially? Just like what is suggested in Dostoevsky novel: “If there is no God, everything is permitted.” Actually, for both theist and atheist, I would like to ask whether you have done things according to the logical consequences of your believe. If you have not act according to the logical consequences of your believe, then why? I shall leave this thought for now. We will discuss further when we reach to morality discussion which I’m pretty sure will be very interesting.

Now, as we have clarified the issue about heliocentric versus geocentric, and that neither of them contradict with the hypothesis of God’s existence, I would like to continue with the case of evolution. Evolution is a different case from the heliocentric. While the Bible does not say much about revolution of the earth, the Bible does speak about the creation. 

In the first book of the Bible, the Genesis, it is said that God created the universe. God created “seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds”. God also created “the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind” God also created “living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind”. Then God also created man in His own image. Now isn’t this contradicting with the theory of evolution? How can we say that the Bible does not bear false witness and does not contradict with any truth?

Wait for part 4c when we’ll discuss further about Evolution...