Religion isn't to blame for the fate of Galileo
There are two general positions one can take about the relationship between science and religion: (1) the conflict thesis and (2) the concord thesis. I do not know which one is correct, but I do have a few things to say about one argument sometimes marshaled on behalf of (1): the Catholic Church’s opposition to Galileo and his model of the universe.
But first, a bit of history. Nicholas Copernicus (1473–1543) was a Polish clergyman, astronomer, and scientific revolutionary. In fifteenth century Europe, the accepted cosmology was the Ptolemaic or geocentric model — the Earth is the center of the universe and the sun and planets orbit around it. In 1543, Copernicus promoted a new theory of the cosmos wherein the Sun was the center of everything while the planets, including Earth, orbit around it (Schmidt 225) — the heliocentric model. The Catholic Church, though initially uninterested in Copernicus’ ideas, changed its stance when another astronomer, Galileo Galilei, began writing in defense of the new model. Irritated, the Church quickly added Copernicus’ book to the Index of Forbidden Books in 1616 and forced Galileo to agree not to teach heliocentrism nor present it as fact in writing. When he went back on the agreement some years later, the Inquisition put him on trial and sentenced him to house arrest for the rest of his life (Finocchiaro 68). A compelling question here is what pushed the Church to act so decisively and negatively against heliocentric sentiments.
I can think of two, plausible answers to this question: (i) the Church fought against Copernicans because heliocentrism conflicted with Christian beliefs, and (ii) political realities forced the Church’s hand. If we go with the first option, the conflict thesis may have something going for it. If (ii) is proven, then religion was not the primary impetus behind theologians’ dismissal of science.
Several arguments potentially support option (i). First, the heliocentric model ostensibly conflicts with the Christian affirmation that God made people in His image. The geocentric model is thought to rightly place humanity at the center of the universe, affirming mankind’s unique value as God’s highest creation, while Copernicus relegated the Earth to one among many planets orbiting the Sun (Shea 125). Thus, cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin writes that “our decent from center stage began with Copernicus” (117).
This argument is very weak. According to Aristotelian physics, the accepted scientific worldview of the time, heavy materials sink, coagulating at the center to form Earth. The further out from the center one goes, lighter and lighter materials exist, terminating in the heavenly abode. For this reason, geocentrism has no necessary connection to a high view of humanity. Indeed, it suggests a low view of human dignity. For example, Moses Maimonides, a Jewish philosopher steeped in the Aristotelian tradition and one of Aristotle’s most famous commentators, writes that “in the case of the Universe…the nearer the parts are to the center, the greater is their turbidness…their dimness and darkness” (118–119). Or again, Michel de Montaigne, a French philosopher from the sixteenth century, provides a dramatic affirmation of this interpretation when he writes that humanity is “lodged here in the dirt and filth of the world, nailed and riveted to the worst and deadest part of the universe” (2:134). Far from decreasing the value of Earth and humanity, Copernicus raised human dignity by removing Earth from the literal center of the cosmos (Danielson 54). In short, religious belief in the value of humanity is not a plausible reason the Church refused to accept heliocentrism.
In response to these considerations, some historians may point to the absence of Catholic officials who affirm this interpretation of geocentrism; there are no writings or quotations to speak of. Perhaps they interpreted Earth’s position in a life-affirming way and so may still have found heliocentrism objectionable on these grounds.
However, Aristotelian physics was the paradigm of medieval Europe and, by implication, the Catholic Church. Indeed, as historian Shea writes, Catholic “theologians had long interpreted [the Bible] to show its agreement with Aristotelian doctrine” (119). The absence of comment on the significance of the center of the universe suggests that Catholic theologians saw no reason to disagree with the prevailing, Aristotelian interpretation.
A second argument often given is that the heliocentric model conflicts with the teaching of the Bible: (i) “the sun rises and the sun sets, then hurries around to rise again” (Ecclesiastes 1:5), (ii) “the sun rises at one end of the heavens and follows its course to the other end” (Psalm 19:6), and (iii) “the world stands firm and cannot be shaken” (1 Chronicles 16:30). These passages provide some suggestion that the Bible teaches geocentrism, notheliocentrism. As the tribunal of the Inquisition that condemned Galileo wrote, “the proposition that the sun is the center of the world…is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture” (Tribunal of the Supreme Inquisition). The Bible was the seat of Catholic religious beliefs, and to challenge it was to challenge Christianity itself.
Again, however, doubts arise. Galileo himself provided a powerful way of reconciling heliocentrism with the Bible. In an insightful and memorable passage, he claimed that the “intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heavens go” (5). As he argued, there is no reason to think that idioms and common expressions cannot be a means through which God communicates to the world. Indeed, the Bible speaks of “the four corners of the Earth” (Isaiah 11:12), and yet most Catholics believed in a spherical Earth (Hannam 321). If theologians could reconcile a round Earth with the Bible, they could easily have reconciled a sun-centered universe with the same interpretive tools. The fact that they did not suggests that biblical difficulties were not the driving force behind Catholic opposition to Copernicanism.
Of course, Catholic theologians did insist on a literal interpretation of these passages — in particular, Cardinal Bellarmine (Westman 101) — but the point remains that their position on biblical interpretation was flexible, and this leads to the suspicion that something other than theology stood behind the Church’s uncompromising approach to the relevant biblical texts. At least, that flexibility leads to the possibility that the Church’s attitude had more to do with authority and traditional interpretation than with the Bible proper.
Questions of the Church’s authority bridge to an assessment of option (ii): it seems plausible that political factors were the driving force behind the Church’s opposition to heliocentrism. For context, forces of the Holy Roman Empire sacked Rome — Italy’s capital — in 1527, the Florentine Republic fell apart in 1530, the Protestant Reformation was underway, and Spain took control over Italy shortly thereafter (Shea 114–115). Due to these events, Italians were in a place of desolation and insecurity. They needed a strong, guiding force to bring them together and guarantee security and prosperity.
It was in this milieu that the Catholic Church found itself pushed to oblige. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, over sixty percent of Cardinals were Italian. By the end of the century, that proportion moved to eighty percent (115). Moreover, when the Council of Trent came together to outline orthodox Christian belief in the face of the Protestant reformation, seventy percent of all bishops attending were Italian (115–116). The proportion of Italians in the Church coupled with the deteriorating state of Italy as a nation suggests that what stood behind the Church’s actions was an unabashed political agenda: to unify Italy in the face of opposition. In this vein, challenges to Church beliefs — including geocentrism — were met with swift condemnation because at this point in history more than most, the Church needed respect for its authority, lest Italy fall away completely.
In addition to this general consideration, several facts support the thesis of political intentions. First, the residing Pope over Galileo’s trial — Pope Urban VIII — confessed that he did not think that Copernicanism was heretical, but “merely rash” (Hannam 326), a direct repudiation of the theological justification position. Second, Urban VIII allowed Tommaso Campenella, a little-known crackpot philosopher, to teach his incredibly heretical views because the latter had convinced the Pope that impending doom awaiting him, from which Campenella then ‘saved’ him (Germana). This suggests that what mattered to the Pope and the Catholic Church as large was respect for its right to rule. Campenella was not a threat to the Church; Galileo, however, was practically a celebrity in Europe by 1632. The Church had to meet his disagreement with orthodoxy with severity lest Italians and Catholics throughout Europe think that undermining of Church authority would be tolerated. For these political reasons, then, the Inquisition put Galileo on trial while Campenella was free to teach his heretical beliefs.
In conclusion, religious beliefs were not the driving motive behind the Catholic Church’s resistance to the heliocentric model of the universe; political realities, however, were. For whatever it’s worth, then, supporters of the conflict thesis cannot appeal to Galileo and the Church as evidence for their position.
Danielson, Denis R. “Myth 6: That Copernicanism Demoted Humans from the Center of the Cosmos.” Galileo Goes to Jail: And Other Myths about Science and Religion, edited by Ronald L. Numbers, Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2009. 50–58 Print.
Ernst, Germana. “Tommaso Campanella.” Stanford University. Stanford University, 31 Aug. 2005. Web. 21 Nov. 2016. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/campanella/>.
Finocchiaro, Maurice A. “Myth 8: That Galileo was Imprisoned and Tortured for Advocating Copernicanism.” Galileo Goes to Jail: And Other Myths about Science and Religion, edited by Ronald L. Numbers, Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2009. 68–78. Print.
Galilei, Galileo. Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany. 1615. Internet Modern History Sourcebook. Web. 17 October 2016. <http://www.thatmarcusfamily.org/philosophy/Course_Websites/Readings/Galileo%20-%20Letter.pdf>.
Hannam, James. The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution. Washington, DC: Regnery Pub., 2011. Print.
Holy Bible: New Living Translation. Carol Steam, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2007. Print.
Maimonides, Moses. The Guide for the Perplexed, trans. M. Freidlander, 2d ed. New York: Dutton, 1919. Print.
Montaigne. An Apology of Raymond Sebond (1568), in The Essays of Michel de Montaigne, trans. Charles Cotton. London: George Bell, 1892. Print.
Schmidt, Alvin J. How Christianity Changed the World: Formerly Titled Under the Influence. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004. 218–247. Print.
Shea, William R. “Galileo and the Church.” God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science, edited by David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers. Berkeley: U of California, 1986. 114–135. Print.
Tribunal of the Supreme Inquisition. “The Crime of Galileo: Indictment and Abjuration of 1633.” Modern History Sourcebook. Fordham University, Jan. 1999. Web. 10 Nov. 2016. <http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1630galileo.asp>.
Vilenkin, Alexander. Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes. New York: Hill and Wang, 2006. Print.
Westman, Robert S. “The Copernicans and the Churches.” God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science, edited by David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, Berkeley: U of California, 1986. 76–113. Print.
But first, a bit of history. Nicholas Copernicus (1473–1543) was a Polish clergyman, astronomer, and scientific revolutionary. In fifteenth century Europe, the accepted cosmology was the Ptolemaic or geocentric model — the Earth is the center of the universe and the sun and planets orbit around it. In 1543, Copernicus promoted a new theory of the cosmos wherein the Sun was the center of everything while the planets, including Earth, orbit around it (Schmidt 225) — the heliocentric model. The Catholic Church, though initially uninterested in Copernicus’ ideas, changed its stance when another astronomer, Galileo Galilei, began writing in defense of the new model. Irritated, the Church quickly added Copernicus’ book to the Index of Forbidden Books in 1616 and forced Galileo to agree not to teach heliocentrism nor present it as fact in writing. When he went back on the agreement some years later, the Inquisition put him on trial and sentenced him to house arrest for the rest of his life (Finocchiaro 68). A compelling question here is what pushed the Church to act so decisively and negatively against heliocentric sentiments.
I can think of two, plausible answers to this question: (i) the Church fought against Copernicans because heliocentrism conflicted with Christian beliefs, and (ii) political realities forced the Church’s hand. If we go with the first option, the conflict thesis may have something going for it. If (ii) is proven, then religion was not the primary impetus behind theologians’ dismissal of science.
The case for religious motives
Several arguments potentially support option (i). First, the heliocentric model ostensibly conflicts with the Christian affirmation that God made people in His image. The geocentric model is thought to rightly place humanity at the center of the universe, affirming mankind’s unique value as God’s highest creation, while Copernicus relegated the Earth to one among many planets orbiting the Sun (Shea 125). Thus, cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin writes that “our decent from center stage began with Copernicus” (117).
This argument is very weak. According to Aristotelian physics, the accepted scientific worldview of the time, heavy materials sink, coagulating at the center to form Earth. The further out from the center one goes, lighter and lighter materials exist, terminating in the heavenly abode. For this reason, geocentrism has no necessary connection to a high view of humanity. Indeed, it suggests a low view of human dignity. For example, Moses Maimonides, a Jewish philosopher steeped in the Aristotelian tradition and one of Aristotle’s most famous commentators, writes that “in the case of the Universe…the nearer the parts are to the center, the greater is their turbidness…their dimness and darkness” (118–119). Or again, Michel de Montaigne, a French philosopher from the sixteenth century, provides a dramatic affirmation of this interpretation when he writes that humanity is “lodged here in the dirt and filth of the world, nailed and riveted to the worst and deadest part of the universe” (2:134). Far from decreasing the value of Earth and humanity, Copernicus raised human dignity by removing Earth from the literal center of the cosmos (Danielson 54). In short, religious belief in the value of humanity is not a plausible reason the Church refused to accept heliocentrism.
In response to these considerations, some historians may point to the absence of Catholic officials who affirm this interpretation of geocentrism; there are no writings or quotations to speak of. Perhaps they interpreted Earth’s position in a life-affirming way and so may still have found heliocentrism objectionable on these grounds.
However, Aristotelian physics was the paradigm of medieval Europe and, by implication, the Catholic Church. Indeed, as historian Shea writes, Catholic “theologians had long interpreted [the Bible] to show its agreement with Aristotelian doctrine” (119). The absence of comment on the significance of the center of the universe suggests that Catholic theologians saw no reason to disagree with the prevailing, Aristotelian interpretation.
A second argument often given is that the heliocentric model conflicts with the teaching of the Bible: (i) “the sun rises and the sun sets, then hurries around to rise again” (Ecclesiastes 1:5), (ii) “the sun rises at one end of the heavens and follows its course to the other end” (Psalm 19:6), and (iii) “the world stands firm and cannot be shaken” (1 Chronicles 16:30). These passages provide some suggestion that the Bible teaches geocentrism, notheliocentrism. As the tribunal of the Inquisition that condemned Galileo wrote, “the proposition that the sun is the center of the world…is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture” (Tribunal of the Supreme Inquisition). The Bible was the seat of Catholic religious beliefs, and to challenge it was to challenge Christianity itself.
Again, however, doubts arise. Galileo himself provided a powerful way of reconciling heliocentrism with the Bible. In an insightful and memorable passage, he claimed that the “intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heavens go” (5). As he argued, there is no reason to think that idioms and common expressions cannot be a means through which God communicates to the world. Indeed, the Bible speaks of “the four corners of the Earth” (Isaiah 11:12), and yet most Catholics believed in a spherical Earth (Hannam 321). If theologians could reconcile a round Earth with the Bible, they could easily have reconciled a sun-centered universe with the same interpretive tools. The fact that they did not suggests that biblical difficulties were not the driving force behind Catholic opposition to Copernicanism.
Of course, Catholic theologians did insist on a literal interpretation of these passages — in particular, Cardinal Bellarmine (Westman 101) — but the point remains that their position on biblical interpretation was flexible, and this leads to the suspicion that something other than theology stood behind the Church’s uncompromising approach to the relevant biblical texts. At least, that flexibility leads to the possibility that the Church’s attitude had more to do with authority and traditional interpretation than with the Bible proper.
Perhaps it was politics?
Questions of the Church’s authority bridge to an assessment of option (ii): it seems plausible that political factors were the driving force behind the Church’s opposition to heliocentrism. For context, forces of the Holy Roman Empire sacked Rome — Italy’s capital — in 1527, the Florentine Republic fell apart in 1530, the Protestant Reformation was underway, and Spain took control over Italy shortly thereafter (Shea 114–115). Due to these events, Italians were in a place of desolation and insecurity. They needed a strong, guiding force to bring them together and guarantee security and prosperity.
It was in this milieu that the Catholic Church found itself pushed to oblige. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, over sixty percent of Cardinals were Italian. By the end of the century, that proportion moved to eighty percent (115). Moreover, when the Council of Trent came together to outline orthodox Christian belief in the face of the Protestant reformation, seventy percent of all bishops attending were Italian (115–116). The proportion of Italians in the Church coupled with the deteriorating state of Italy as a nation suggests that what stood behind the Church’s actions was an unabashed political agenda: to unify Italy in the face of opposition. In this vein, challenges to Church beliefs — including geocentrism — were met with swift condemnation because at this point in history more than most, the Church needed respect for its authority, lest Italy fall away completely.
In addition to this general consideration, several facts support the thesis of political intentions. First, the residing Pope over Galileo’s trial — Pope Urban VIII — confessed that he did not think that Copernicanism was heretical, but “merely rash” (Hannam 326), a direct repudiation of the theological justification position. Second, Urban VIII allowed Tommaso Campenella, a little-known crackpot philosopher, to teach his incredibly heretical views because the latter had convinced the Pope that impending doom awaiting him, from which Campenella then ‘saved’ him (Germana). This suggests that what mattered to the Pope and the Catholic Church as large was respect for its right to rule. Campenella was not a threat to the Church; Galileo, however, was practically a celebrity in Europe by 1632. The Church had to meet his disagreement with orthodoxy with severity lest Italians and Catholics throughout Europe think that undermining of Church authority would be tolerated. For these political reasons, then, the Inquisition put Galileo on trial while Campenella was free to teach his heretical beliefs.
In conclusion, religious beliefs were not the driving motive behind the Catholic Church’s resistance to the heliocentric model of the universe; political realities, however, were. For whatever it’s worth, then, supporters of the conflict thesis cannot appeal to Galileo and the Church as evidence for their position.
Works Cited
Danielson, Denis R. “Myth 6: That Copernicanism Demoted Humans from the Center of the Cosmos.” Galileo Goes to Jail: And Other Myths about Science and Religion, edited by Ronald L. Numbers, Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2009. 50–58 Print.
Ernst, Germana. “Tommaso Campanella.” Stanford University. Stanford University, 31 Aug. 2005. Web. 21 Nov. 2016. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/campanella/>.
Finocchiaro, Maurice A. “Myth 8: That Galileo was Imprisoned and Tortured for Advocating Copernicanism.” Galileo Goes to Jail: And Other Myths about Science and Religion, edited by Ronald L. Numbers, Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2009. 68–78. Print.
Galilei, Galileo. Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany. 1615. Internet Modern History Sourcebook. Web. 17 October 2016. <http://www.thatmarcusfamily.org/philosophy/Course_Websites/Readings/Galileo%20-%20Letter.pdf>.
Hannam, James. The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution. Washington, DC: Regnery Pub., 2011. Print.
Holy Bible: New Living Translation. Carol Steam, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2007. Print.
Maimonides, Moses. The Guide for the Perplexed, trans. M. Freidlander, 2d ed. New York: Dutton, 1919. Print.
Montaigne. An Apology of Raymond Sebond (1568), in The Essays of Michel de Montaigne, trans. Charles Cotton. London: George Bell, 1892. Print.
Schmidt, Alvin J. How Christianity Changed the World: Formerly Titled Under the Influence. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004. 218–247. Print.
Shea, William R. “Galileo and the Church.” God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science, edited by David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers. Berkeley: U of California, 1986. 114–135. Print.
Tribunal of the Supreme Inquisition. “The Crime of Galileo: Indictment and Abjuration of 1633.” Modern History Sourcebook. Fordham University, Jan. 1999. Web. 10 Nov. 2016. <http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1630galileo.asp>.
Vilenkin, Alexander. Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes. New York: Hill and Wang, 2006. Print.
Westman, Robert S. “The Copernicans and the Churches.” God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science, edited by David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, Berkeley: U of California, 1986. 76–113. Print.
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