On June 22, 1633 Galileo was, with all papal pomp and circumstance, proclaimed a heretic. “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 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.” Finally, 31 October 1992, Pope John Paul II emitted an oblique, qualified acknowledgement that while errors were made by his infallible predecessors in regard to Galileo, Galileo was partially to blame for being pronounced a heretic. The fact that the Church had appeared retrograde for 350 years and wished to avoid further embarrassment by persisting in its inerrant, biblically-based condemnation probably motivated its quasi-deathbed conversion. It was so obdurate in its position for 350 years because, the solemn 1633 censure had been made in the most uncompromising and absolute terms.
For example, the condemnation was made in the name of Jesus Christ. “Invoking, therefore, the most holy name of our Lord Jesus Christ and of His most glorious Mother, ever Virgin Mary, but this our final sentence, which sitting in judgment, with the counsel and advice of the Reverend Masters of sacred theology and Doctors of both Laws, our assessors, we deliver in these writings, in the cause and causes at present before us between the Magnificent Carlo Sinceri, Doctor of both Laws, Proctor Fiscal of this Holy Office, of the one part, and your Galileo Galilei, the defendant, here present, examined, tried, and confessed as shown above, of the other part—
We say, pronounce, sentence, and declare that you, the said Galileo, by reason of the matters adduced in trial, and by you confessed as above, have rendered yourself in the judgment of this Holy Office vehemently suspected of heresy, namely, of having believed and held the doctrine—which is false and contrary to the sacred and divine Scriptures—that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from east to west and that the Earth moves and is not the center of the world. [emphasis added]”
In 1664 Alexander VII prefixed to the Index containing the condemnations of the works of Copernicus and Galileo and ``all books which affirm the motion of the earth [emphasis added]'' a papal bull signed by himself, binding the contents of the Index upon the consciences of the faithful. This bull confirmed and approved in express terms, finally, decisively, and infallibly [emphasis added], the condemnation of ``all books teaching the movement of the earth and the stability of the sun.''
Thus, based on Scripture, the highest authorities of the Catholic Church held that the heliocentric THEORY of the solar system was a heresy. (Not that the Protestants were any better. A number of the most famous Protestant theologians emphatically supported the Catholic Church’s conclusion). Evidently the Holy Spirit had brought an ecumenical unity and collective Christian wisdom to prevail. Both Catholics and Protestants authoritatively pointed to the following inerrant Scriptures to buttress the geocentric conception of the solar system. Biblical references Psalm 93:1, 96:10, and 1 Chronicles 16:30, they insisted, included “propositional truths” like "the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved." In the same manner, Psalm 104:5 says, "the Lord set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved." Further, Ecclesiastes 1:5 states that "And the sun rises and sets and returns to its place" etc. Wasn’t is obvious that a plain, common sense reading of the Scriptures proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that the earth stood unmovable and that the sun MUST rotate around the earth? In the end, a decree of the Congregation of the Index was issued, declaring that the ideas that the Sun stood still and that the Earth moved were "false" and "altogether contrary to Holy Scripture.”
In sum, the Pope, the Curia, and all the “Reverend Masters of sacred theology” were certain that they were certain; the heliocentric theory of the solar system was an abject, anti-biblical, heresy! And not infrequently in this era, the Catholic Church rooted out heresies by turning the heretic over to the “secular arm” where they could be burnt at the stake. When the Church was sufficiently certain of heresies, it determined that it would be better to burn your mortal body now to save your immortal soul from hell fire later. Giordano Bruno, for example, who also held ideas similar to Copernicus and Galileo, was burnt at the stake in 1600.
Galileo, attempting to defend himself, borrowed the remark of Cardinal Cesare Baronius who said: “The Bible tells us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.” Modern commentators who assert there is no conflict between biblical truths and scientific truths find this a convenient explanation also. This is a pithy way of suggesting that there is no conflict between revelation and science because, rightly interpreted, biblical and scientific discourse are two entirely different things. In the case of Galileo’s conflict with the Catholic church, for example, one could say that although the Church had incorrectly interpreted the inerrant Scriptures to infallibly teach that the sun circled the earth and not vice versa, only the Church was wrong and therefore the Bible remains infallible and inerrant. Biblical authority is saved! The Bible was not wrong, only what the Church claimed that the Bible taught was wrong. The Scripture’s purpose and intent was never to teach the geocentric theory of the solar system. Thus, we come full circle to Galileo’s quote of Cardinal Cesare Baronius: “The Bible tells us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.” If it was so clear that this was not the Scripture’s intent, why were all the Christian theologians so positive that it was?
The Achilles heel of this solution is that there is no practical difference between biblical inerrancy/infallibility and papal or ecclesiological infallibility; because both historically and contemporaneously, it is some human religious authority which is claiming that whatever they say the Bible says is what the Bible says. “The Bible says what I say it says.” With Galileo they claimed to infallibly know that the Bible did intend to not only tell us how to go to heaven, but also how the heavens go. Today, all too human religious authorities continue to claim to infallibly know that the Bible teaches—well, whatever THEY say that it teaches. You can fill in the blank depending on whether it’s the pope’s teaching on birth control or whether it is Reverend Pat Robertson or Politician/Pastor Mike Huckabee or Senator Inhofe teaching about AIDS, U.S. economic policy, or global warming.
This is a shell game. Given the fact that all too human religious authorities have 1) obviously erred multiple times about what the Bible infallibly said and 2) have at long last admitted some of these errors, they have attempted to distance the responsibility for those errors from the Bible to----themselves--- remaining, of course, the vicars of God. They still want to enlist God, infallibility, inerrancy, and divine revelation for THEIR all too human interpretation of God’s mind regarding the controversy du jour.
The second problem is that whether the thinker be Galileo, Isaac Newton or you and me, we thinkers aren’t capable of making a schizophrenic division between science and revelation. Was it God’s intent, for example, to teach the fixity of species in Genesis where the King James Version speaks of organisms reproducing “after their kind?” Even if “fixity” was divinely revealed to Moses, is it the intent of Scriptures to scientifically place this fixity at the species, genera, family, or phylum level? Did the Bible intend, infallibly, to teach that creation occurred on July 4, 4004 B.C? Does the Bible intend to inerrantly proclaim that the U.S. must support an Israeli monopoly on the Occupied Territories in order for the prophecies of Revelation, (Armageddon, the Apocalypse and the Second Coming/Rapture) to be fulfilled? Who is going to pontificate and let us know infallibly what we must believe to remain orthodox? Pat Robertson, the Pope, the elders of the Presbyterian church, the National Evangelical Association of Preachers, the Union of T.V. Evangelists? Certainly a number of this genus have proclaimed themselves candidates for this role and are convinced that they have a “word from the Lord” on all the above issues.
The biggest problem is that Church authorities, historic and contemporary, claim that their interpretation of inerrant scripture is infallible, and only after theologians were finally convinced by sources of authority totally outside of Scripture that their interpretation of Scripture had to be erroneous did they finally sheepishly admit that what they said MUST be truth was, even by them, admitted to be falsehood. Also, even more importantly, there was and is no authority outside of these now self-confessed fallible interpreters who can authoritatively what the “original intent” of a given revelation is. Thus, when believers insist that their interpretation of Scripture must trump what they pejoratively call secular humanists’ non-biblical scientific (that’s to say sinfully conceited) conclusions, they really are saying no more than: “I must be right and science must be wrong because I think that the Bible tells me so,” --even though they must admit that they were just as sure they were right about a number of interpretations that they now admit were totally erroneous. In other words, they claimed authority to say what the Bible says and now admit that that’s not what the Bible meant to say at all. So why should one believe they are any more right today regarding a disputed topic than they were in Galileo’s day?
For example, U.S. Senator James Inhofe insists that global warming is “the greatest hoax” based on Genesis 8:22, his “more sure Word” of prophecy that means he can completely deny all the science from 18 international scientific groups who consensus statements tell us that man-made global warming is beyond scientific dispute. More on this in a future blog.
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