Geocentrism: why doesn't it just die and be done with?

[hecd2]

Rossum posted two questions, one of which is revealing of this mindset: “what keeps the big mass of the sun in orbit around the small mass of the earth” or he might even have omitted twice “mass of”. Now, he is a western buddhist and seemingly a kind of atheist. To him, then, it is basically smallness of one mass that keeps it in orbit around bigness of other mass. To him that kind of question makes sense.

And so it does to all those people who think that the universe is intelligible and amenable to explanation using observation and reason. To me, the fact that the motions of celestial objects can be explained and predicted by a single simple principle universally applied is more wonderful, and more redolent of God, than the notion that they are being pushed around by legions of angels.

As I do believe in God and angels, it does not make sense to me, as an objectively pertinent question, once reiterated after the simple answer: “God or angels”. For daily rotation of universe around earth, the simple answer to that and to speeds involved is “God”. Which means I do not need earth to either rotate daily or to orbit a bigger orb to account for impressions that immediately say the opposite.

That’s absolutely fine as a personal approach to epistemology. If that’s how you choose your road to your beliefs about the natural world, no-one can criticise you. But as soon as you come into the public domain and argue that other people should think as you do, in spite of the evidence and in spite of the lack of compulsion to do so by the teaching authority of the Church, then you must expect to be asked to defend your beliefs by something more substantial than appeals to your intuition and your personal interpretation of Scripture and Tradition.

Someone said - and I have heard it before - if you take that sort of things into account, it is no longer science you are doing.

Quite so, I admit it is metaphysics rather than physics.

It’s not metaphysics, which has nothing to do with explaining the natural world by arbitrary and unfathomable supernatural acts. It is, rather, a faith belief, pure and simple,

But I insist that heliocentrism as commonly argued by scientists is a conclusion from erroneous and negative metaphysics, not from physics, still less immediately from observation.

You have failed to demonstrate that the metaphysics of “scientists” as it pertains to this matter is either negative or wrong. And you depart again from your personal supernatural epistemology to make a scientific proposition - it seems that geocentrists cannot resist mangling the science. The immediate observations of stellar aberration and stellar parallax need to be explained if your claim is to stand - or will you just fall back again on the angels?

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[Prophesy]

It’s not metaphysics, which has nothing to do with explaining the natural world by arbitrary and unfathomable supernatural acts. It is, rather, a faith belief, pure and simple,

I’d argue that it’s just math haha.

-Prophesy

 

[hecd2]

Some heliocentric catholics are trying to treat geocentrics as heretics, and therefore go against this when even quoting this.

Really? In all my years debating this matter I have never seen any Catholic accuse a geocentrist of heresy on the basis of his or her belief. Catholic non-geocentrists, so far as I can see, either argue against geocentrism on the basis of the science; or they argue not against geocentrism per se, but against the notion that geocentrism is an article of faith; and they unanimously, in my experience, agree that geocentrism/heliocentrism/acentrism/any-centrism is not a matter of faith and morals and whereas Catholics are not compelled to believe one or the other, equally they are free to believe either.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hansgeorg]

And so it does to all those people who think that the universe is intelligible and amenable to explanation using observation and reason. To me, the fact that the motions of celestial objects can be explained and predicted by a single simple principle universally applied is more wonderful, and more redolent of God, than the notion that they are being pushed around by legions of angels.(1)

That’s absolutely fine as a personal approach to epistemology. If that’s how you choose your road to your beliefs about the natural world, no-one can criticise you. But as soon as you come into the public domain and argue that other people should think as you do, in spite of the evidence and in spite of the lack of compulsion to do so by the teaching authority of the Church, then you must expect to be asked to defend your beliefs by something more substantial than appeals to your intuition and your personal interpretation of Scripture and Tradition.(2)

It’s not metaphysics, which has nothing to do with explaining the natural world by arbitrary and unfathomable supernatural acts. It is, rather, a faith belief, pure and simple,(3)

You have failed to demonstrate that the metaphysics of “scientists” as it pertains to this matter is either negative or wrong. And you depart again from your personal supernatural epistemology to make a scientific proposition - it seems that geocentrists cannot resist mangling the science. The immediate observations of stellar aberration and stellar parallax need to be explained if your claim is to stand - or will you just fall back again on the angels?(4)

1. That is your take on what is redolent of God. Besides legions of angels are as much a single principle as legions of atoms or legions of gravity force rays or … you get it?
2. I did. Look back into thread. Besides it is you who refuse part of the evidence because it theoretically can be explained away by parallactic view of own motion in other object.
3. You are wrong, notably about what metaphysics is. Also, about what faith is. Even an infidel, except he be doctrinally materialist would be able to accept the explanation.
4. Angels do very fine for both stellar parallax and nutation. Occams razor is, for now, on my side. I summed up what I explain with angels and for which you use five different explanations.

 

[hansgeorg]

The physics of gravity makes sense. 1) The math works out quite well for a heliocentric set to the solar system. 2) To say that God causes the universe to rotate around the Earth is a statement with interesting consequences (such as if God intervenes in this movement, why not elsewhere?)3)

1. Do they now? And even if so, are they the only ones that do? Or does the physics spirit rules matter not make sense suddenly?
2. Are you taking that on faith from Laplace? He has been demonstrated wrong in his calculations.
3. Why call it an intervention if He does so daily? Who says “not elsewhere”? Not me, for certain.

Do take a good look at this thread from beginning.

 

[DavidPalm]

Really? In all my years debating this matter I have never seen any Catholic accuse a geocentrist of heresy on the basis of his or her belief. Catholic non-geocentrists, so far as I can see, either argue against geocentrism on the basis of the science; or they argue not against geocentrism per se, but against the notion that geocentrism is an article of faith; and they unanimously, in my experience, agree that geocentrism/heliocentrism/acentrism/any-centrism is not a matter of faith and morals and whereas Catholics are not compelled to believe one or the other, equally they are free to believe either.

Yes, absolutely correct Alec. As I’ve said repeatedly here, Catholics have freedom in this matter and that includes the freedom of a geocentrist to hold to geocentrism, precisely because none of these are matters of faith.

However, even someone such as yourself who is outside of the Church can see that excubitor sets himself as the judge of Scripture and Tradition. He can produce no decree of an ecumenical council, no document signed by any Pope, no doctrinal definition of any kind condemning Pythagorean heliocentrism, let alone more modern acentric cosmological views. He admits to being “no expert”. But this does not stop him from spreading confusion and scandal by insisting, based on his private judgment, that all non-geocentric views have been formally condemned by the Church.

He proclaims loudly that he’s really the one who is faithful, the “true believer”:

A protestant however does not obey when he is told to put a sock in it or recant. He instead rebels and leaves the church. I am certainly and entirely in full communion with the catholic church. If anyone is standing up for the real version of Catholicism it is Sungenis and the geocentrists, who are faithfully standing by the medieval church and claiming that she did not wrong, and that she made no error. Nor am I being disobedient in any way or acting against the will of the church.

He insists that non-geocentric views are not only wrong, they are the veritable root of all evil:

The church hangs by a thread. Disbelief in almost every article of the faith is rampant. And where did it all begin? It began when the rank and file abandoned their teachers to follow the rank and vile teaching of heliocentrism, which paved the way to question every element of the faith and even the reliability of the scriptures and the Pope which we saw during the modernist period in the 1800’s and which we see come to full maturity in the rank and vile teaching of evolution in this current corrupt age. forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=6695397&postcount=39

Obviously he sees this as an absolutely core issue of the faith. He even compares it in importance to our Lord’s own Resurrection:

Also if the sun does not actually rise on Easter morning then maybe the Son did not actually rise either. “

He has to admit that the Catholic Church does not present geocentrism to the faithful as a matter of faith. But he hopes that “in these latter times” he and his fellow neo-geocentrists will bring the Church back to her lost Tradition, adopting the very language of a proposition which was formally condemned in a papal bull approved in forma specifica, Auctorem Fidei:

I pray that in these latter days people like me, Cassini, Sungenis, Salza will be the ones from which resurgence is born and our bishops are brought to task to restore Sacred Tradition.

Does anybody else see any material difference between his view and that which was condemned as heretical in Auctorem Fidei?:

1. The proposition, which asserts “that in these later times there has been spread a general obscuring of the more important truths pertaining to religion, which are the basis of faith and of the moral teachings of Jesus Christ,”—heretical.

I don’t.

It is excubitor who has to explain his private views in light of a formally condemned heresy.

 

[grannymh]

Yes, you are quite correct. You will find however that the Church unfortunately does tend to indulge in historical revisionism from time to time.

Sungenis himself makes a strong argument for that view:
catholicintl.com/articles/Dave_Armstrong_Teaching_Falsehoods_About_Galileo.pdf

As soon as I read this sentence, I realized that Sungenis is ignoring 16 centuries of Catholic history.
This is an example of the way Sungenis misunderstands Catholicism.

From page 2 of the link “Most of our faith and morals comes from the Ordinary
Magisterium, and the Ordinary Magisterium is rarely singled out as infallible dogma.”

The truth is that infallible Catholic doctrines regarding faith and morals come from Divine Revelation. Major Church Councils discerned most of these doctrines during the first 16 centuries under the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit. The easiest way to verify this is to check the footnotes and the Index of Citations in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition.

 

[LogisticsBranch]

And so it does to all those people who think that the universe is intelligible and amenable to explanation using observation and reason. To me, the fact that the motions of celestial objects can be explained and predicted by a single simple principle universally applied is more wonderful, and more redolent of God, than the notion that they are being pushed around by legions of angels.

Adding a little bit more from the previous page. I understand where you are coming from and agree. I support science! I don’t support Brian Swimme’s thoughts about “The Divinization of the Cosmos.”

*WIE: So it’s a process of God becoming more and more explicit or embodied in the forms of the universe?

BS: Yes, exactly. Teilhard also spoke in terms of “giving birth to person.” For example, your colleague Craig is there across the room. But if you go back five billion years, all of the atoms in Craig’s body were strung out over a hundred million miles. The process, as mysterious as it is, of matter itself forming into personality or personhood, is what Teilhard regarded as the essence of evolution. Evolution isn’t cold. He saw the omega point as that same process of giving birth to or actualizing this new, encompassing Divine Person—through not just all the atoms interacting with one another, but also the ‘persons’ of all the humans and other animals. All of us together are part of this same process, so that the entire universe becomes God’s body. To really get how radical Teilhard’s view is, think about an animal and dissolve the animal back in time in your imagination, back into individual cells. There weren’t any multicellular organisms until about seven hundred million years ago. For over three billion years, there were just single-cell organisms. If you get to know an animal well, the animal really has a personality. But the personality is something that is evoked by the cells of the animal. It’s truly mysterious. The animal’s personality is real, but that personality is evoked by the cells. So in Teilhard’s view, the individual members of the universe are actually in a process of evoking a Divine Person. We are actually giving birth to a larger, more encompassing, mind-spirit-personality. *
enlightennext.org/magazine/j19/teilhard.asp?pf=1

 

[hecd2]

1. That is your take on what is redolent of God. Besides legions of angels are as much a single principle as legions of atoms or legions of gravity force rays or … you get it?

No I don’t - physics, whether it is describing the quantum behaviour of atoms or the effects of gravity on cosmological processes does so in quantified and falsifiable way. For example quantum electrodynamics predicts the behaviour of atoms and the interaction of light and matter, including subtle effects such as the Lamb shift in hydrogen energy levels to an exquisite degree of accuracy. General Relativity predicts the orbit of the planets including subtle relativistic effects such as the shift in the perihelion of Mercury to an exquisite degree of accuracy. Calling on legions of angels predicts nothing and explains nothing - their explanatory power is not in the same ballpark as Newtonian mechanics or QED or GR - in fact it is practically non-existent. So, no, I don’t get the point you are making.

1. I did. Look back into thread. Besides it is you who refuse part of the evidence because it theoretically can be explained away by parallactic view of own motion in other object.

I am afraid you have not begun to provide a self-consistent and observationally supported explanation for the accelerations experienced by the earth as part of a dynamical system (ie what is the origin of forces that could possibly cause the sun, which is 330,000 times more massive than the earth to orbit it), or for stellar aberration which cannot be explained by any motion in other objects. But if you are privately satisfied by the angelic explanation, why do you feel compelled to mangle the science?

1. You are wrong, notably about what metaphysics is. Also, about what faith is. Even an infidel, except he be doctrinally materialist would be able to accept the explanation.

If you think that arriving at beliefs about natural phenomena that are based on supernatural, arbitrary, unpredictable and unfathomable causation by supernatural agents falls with the purview of metaphysics, then I would say that your belief about what constitutes metaphysics is about as accurate as your belief about what constitutes a cogent explanation for natural phenomena.

1. Angels do very fine for both stellar parallax and nutation. Occams razor is, for now, on my side. I summed up what I explain with angels and for which you use five different explanations.

So the answer to my question is, that having raised a scientific point (the position of the celestial poles in the star field) and having been answered, you fall back again on angels when challenged to explain stellar aberration in the context of a stationary earth. Angels explain everything and nothing. You would not be typing away on your computer now if scientists had been content to explain the behaviour of electromagnetism in semiconductors (a rather bizarre, counter-intuitive and quantum mechanical behaviour by the way) by the bare action of angels.

It is sad that you abandon a great jewel in the theology of the Catholic Church, which is that the world is ordered and intelligible and that the order and intelligibility of the world is a sign of God’s governance and redounds to His greater glory. The axiom of the world’s order and intelligibility lies at the very foundation of science and there are telling arguments that modern science arose in the West primarily because of the Catholic position regarding our ability to discern truths about the natural world by the powers of observation and reason.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

I would be interested in the perspective of geocentrists who claim that geocentricity is an article of faith, about the parallel but less well known case of the 8th century condemnation by the pope and many bishops of the day of the doctrine of the antipodes (ie the idea that men live on the other side of the world) on the grounds that the Fathers of the Church opposed the idea and that it was contrary to theology (there could not be people living beyond the reach of the gospels) and contrary to our immediate senses and to reason (how could men live with their feet above their heads?). The parallels are very telling but no-one is an anti-antipodean these days or proclaims that anti-antipodeanism is an article of faith and necessary for salvation (although I would not be surprised if a handful of anti-antipodeans still exist, who insist, for example, that Australia was populated only in modern times and was not populated in the 8th century - a satire advancing arguments against the doctrine of the antipodes might be amusing.)

St Augustine: “As to the fable that there are Antipodes, that is to say, men on the opposite side of the earth, where the sun rises when it sets on us, men who walk with their feet opposite ours, there is no reason for believing it. Those who affirm it do not claim to possess any actual information; they merely conjecture that, since the earth is suspended within the concavity of the heavens, and there is as much room on the one side of it as on the other, therefore the part which is beneath cannot be void of human inhabitants. They fail to notice that, even should it be believed or demonstrated that the world is round or spherical in form, it does not follow that the part of the earth opposite to us is not completely covered with water, or that any conjectured dry land there should be inhabited by men. For Scripture, which confirms the truth of its historical statements by the accomplishment of its prophecies, teaches not falsehood; and it is too absurd to say that some men might have set sail from this side and, traversing the immense expanse of ocean, have propagated there a race of human beings descended from that one first man.”

Interestingly, when Descartes heard of the trial of 1633, he was able to hope that since Copernicanism was not infallibly declared as a heresy, that condemnation would be revised in the future in the same way that the condemnation of antipodeanism, originally defended on the grounds of Scripture and Tradition, had, by that stage, been revised.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[grannymh]

I would be interested in the perspective of geocentrists who claim that geocentricity is an article of faith, about the parallel but less well known case of the 8th century condemnation by the pope and many bishops of the day of the doctrine of the antipodes (ie the idea that men live on the other side of the world) on the grounds that the Fathers of the Church opposed the idea and that it was contrary to theology (there could not be people living beyond the reach of the gospels) and contrary to our immediate senses and to reason (how could men live with their feet above their heads?). The parallels are very telling but no-one is an anti-antipodean these days or proclaims that anti-antipodeanism is an article of faith and necessary for salvation (although I would not be surprised if a handful of anti-antipodeans still exist, who insist, for example, that Australia was populated only in modern times and was not populated in the 8th century - a satire advancing arguments against the doctrine of the antipodes might be amusing.)

St Augustine: “As to the fable that there are Antipodes, that is to say, men on the opposite side of the earth, where the sun rises when it sets on us, men who walk with their feet opposite ours, there is no reason for believing it. Those who affirm it do not claim to possess any actual information; they merely conjecture that, since the earth is suspended within the concavity of the heavens, and there is as much room on the one side of it as on the other, therefore the part which is beneath cannot be void of human inhabitants. They fail to notice that, even should it be believed or demonstrated that the world is round or spherical in form, it does not follow that the part of the earth opposite to us is not completely covered with water, or that any conjectured dry land there should be inhabited by men. For Scripture, which confirms the truth of its historical statements by the accomplishment of its prophecies, teaches not falsehood; and it is too absurd to say that some men might have set sail from this side and, traversing the immense expanse of ocean, have propagated there a race of human beings descended from that one first man.”

Interestingly, when Descartes heard of the trial of 1633, he was able to hope that since Copernicanism was not infallibly declared as a heresy, that condemnation would be revised in the future in the same way that the condemnation of antipodeanism, originally defended on the grounds of Scripture and Tradition, had, by that stage, been revised.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

Just double checking. It sounds as if part of the parallels is that the involved pope, bishops, saints, etc. were acting as individuals .The Fathers, themselves, do not have the power to make doctrines. Nonetheless, their wisdom regarding matters of faith and morals does play a major part in preparation and during Church Councils. Thus, the debate and decrees on antipods never morphed into a formal doctrine at a Major Church Council.

Blessings,
granny

Genesis 1: 1

 

[LogisticsBranch]

Just double checking. It sounds as if part of the parallels is that the involved pope, bishops, saints, etc. were acting as individuals .The Fathers, themselves, do not have the power to make doctrines. Nonetheless, their wisdom regarding matters of faith and morals does play a major part in preparation and during Church Councils. Thus, the debate and decrees on antipods never morphed into a formal doctrine at a Major Church Council.

Blessings,
granny

Genesis 1: 1

I suggest you read The Successor of Peter Teaches Infallibly. Here’s a snippet from it though I recommend reading it in its entirety.

“When the Roman Pontiff speaks ex cathedra, that is, when in exercising his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians he defines with his supreme apostolic authority that a doctrine on faith and morals is to be held by the whole Church, through the divine assistance promised him in the person of St. Peter, he enjoys that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer wished to endow his Church in defining a doctrine on faith and morals. Therefore, these definitions of the Roman Pontiff are unreformable per se, and not because of the Church’s consent” (DS 3074)."
vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/audiences/alpha/data/aud19930317en.html

 

[hecd2]

Just double checking. It sounds as if part of the parallels is that the involved pope, bishops, saints, etc. were acting as individuals .The Fathers, themselves, do not have the power to make doctrines. Nonetheless, their wisdom regarding matters of faith and morals does play a major part in preparation and during Church Councils. Thus, the debate and decrees on antipods never morphed into a formal doctrine at a Major Church Council.

Blessings,
granny

Genesis 1: 1

I think that is the case here - the parallels extend to the fact that the doctrine of the antipodes was condemned as heresy in a particular case (St Virgil or Virgilius) but was never infallibly declared so by a Church Council or the pope declaring ex cathedra.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[grannymh]

I suggest you read The Successor of Peter Teaches Infallibly. Here’s a snippet from it though I recommend reading it in its entirety.

“When the Roman Pontiff speaks ex cathedra, that is, when in exercising his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians he defines with his supreme apostolic authority that a doctrine on faith and morals is to be held by the whole Church, through the divine assistance promised him in the person of St. Peter, he enjoys that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer wished to endow his Church in defining a doctrine on faith and morals. Therefore, these definitions of the Roman Pontiff are unreformable per se, and not because of the Church’s consent” (DS 3074)."
vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/audiences/alpha/data/aud19930317en.html

Bit of a clarification. Ex cathedra pertains to a duly defined infallible dogma as in your quote. Teachings can be based on an infallible doctrine. Teachings can also be based on speculations in a scientic area which would not be infallible. Anti-Catholics
like to claim that every word/decree/letter etc. from a Pope must be infallible.

 

[DavidPalm]

It is sad that you abandon a great jewel in the theology of the Catholic Church, which is that the world is ordered and intelligible and that the order and intelligibility of the world is a sign of God’s governance and redounds to His greater glory. The axiom of the world’s order and intelligibility lies at the very foundation of science and there are telling arguments that modern science arose in the West primarily because of the Catholic position regarding our ability to discern truths about the natural world by the powers of observation and reason.

This is beautifully put.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that St. Thomas taught that if a natural cause was sufficient to explain a given phenomenon then a supernatural cause should not be sought. Does anyone else know of this?

 

[LogisticsBranch]

To Grannymh, The Successor of Peter Teaches Infallibly by Pope John Paul II , General Audience March 1993:
“For this reason the Second Vatican Council states that all the Pope’s teaching should be listened to and accepted, even when it is not given ex cathedra but is proposed in the ordinary exercise of his Magisterium with the manifest intention of declaring, recalling and confirming the doctrine of faith. It is a consequence of the institutional fact and spiritual inheritance that completes the dimensions of the succession to Peter.”
vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/audiences/alpha/data/aud19930317en.html

The following document then becomes a doctrine of Faith (reference msg.318) . A very old document by the way.
*LETTER OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II TO REVEREND GEORGE V. COYNE, S.J., DIRECTOR OF THE VATICAN OBSERVATORY on 1 June, 1988.

To the Reverend George V. Coyne SJ
Director of the Vatican Observatory
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. 1, 2).
As you prepare to publish the papers presented at the Study Week held at Castel Gandolfo on 21-26 September 1987, I take the occasion to express my gratitude to you and through you to all who contributed to that important initiative. I am confident that the publication of these papers will ensure that the fruits of that endeavour will be further enriched.

The three hundredth anniversary of the publication of Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica provided an appropriate occasion for the Holy See to sponsor a Study Week that investigated the multiple relationships among theology, philosophy and the natural sciences. The man so honoured, Sir Isaac Newton, had himself devoted much of his life to these same issues, and his reflections upon them can be found throughout his major works, his unfinished manuscripts and his vast correspondence. The publication of your own papers from this Study Week, taking up again some of the same questions which this great genius explored, affords me the opportunity to thank you for the efforts you devoted to a subject of such paramount importance. The theme of your conference, “Our Knowledge of God and Nature: Physics, Philosophy and Theology”, is assuredly a crucial one for the contemporary world. Because of its importance, I should like to address some issues which the interactions among natural science, philosophy, and theology present to the Church and to human society in general.

The Church and the Academy engage one another as two very different but major institutions within human civilization and world culture. We bear before God enormous responsibilities for the human condition because historically we have had and continue to have a major influence on the development of ideas and values and on the course of human action. We both have histories stretching back over thousands of years: the learned, academic community dating back to the origins of culture, to the city and the library and the school, and the Church with her historical roots in ancient Israel. We have come into contact often during these centuries, sometimes in mutual support, at other times in those needless conflicts which have marred both our histories. In your conference we met again, and it was altogether fitting that as we approach the close of this millennium we initiated a series of reflections together upon the world as we touch it and as it shapes and challenges our actions . . .

As we behold the incredible development of scientific research we detect an underlying movement towards the discovery of levels of law and process which unify created reality and which at the same time have given rise to the vast diversity of structures and organisms which constitute the physical and biological, and even the psychological and sociological, worlds.

Contemporary physics furnishes a striking example. The quest for the unification of all four fundamental physical forces – gravitation, electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear interactions – has met with increasing success. This unification may well combine discoveries from the sub-atomic and the cosmological domains and shed light both on the origin of the universe and, eventually, on the origin of the laws and constants which govern its evolution. Physicists possess a detailed though incomplete and provisional knowledge of elementary particles and of the fundamental forces through which they interact at low and intermediate energies. They now have an acceptable theory unifying the electro-magnetic and weak nuclear forces, along with much less adequate but still promising grand unified field theories which attempt to incorporate the strong nuclear interaction as well. Further in the fine of this same development, there are already several detailed suggestions for the final stage, superunification, that is, the unification of all four fundamental forces, including gravity. Is it not important for us to note that in a world of such detailed specialization as contemporary physics there exists this drive towards convergence?

In the life sciences, too, something similar has happened. Molecular biologists have probed the structure of living material, its functions and its processes of replication. They have discovered that the same underlying constituents serve in the make-up of all living organisms on earth and constitute both the genes and the proteins which these genes code. This is another impressive manifestation of the unity of nature. . .

The Church long ago recognized the importance of such links by establishing the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, in which some of the world’s leading scientists meet together regularly to discuss their researches and to convey to the larger community where the directions of discovery are tending. . . .*
vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/letters/1988/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_19880601_padre-coyne_en.html

 

[razredge]

The Galileo issue is not quite that black and white:

catholic.com/library/Galileo_Controversy.asp

Of course - but let’s not base our view on articles from Catholic apologetics websites:

This article provides a more balanced history of the affair:
galilean-library.org/site/index.php/page/index.html/_/essays/history/the-galileo-affair-part-1-introduction-r65

The complex tale that is the Galileo affair cautions us not to make simplistic judgements. Nevertheless, it remains the case that the question of whether or not Galileo had any proof for Copernicanism was never at issue—in 1616 or in 1633. The very possibility of any demonstration was excluded in principle by Bellarmine’s doctrinal position and its adoption by an authoritarian Church. The trial and abjuration of Galileo thus represented an “institutionalised abuse of power which can never be sufficiently deprecated” (ibid), in which the societal position of the Church was used to dictate the correct understanding of an issue that was never considered on its own terms. Allowing the enmity of some philosophers to provoke a theological confrontation when there was only a physical argument at issue, the machinery of the Holy Office was turned against Galileo and fell into the very error he and Augustine before him had warned against.

In spite of Galileo not being blameless himself, it is fair to say that history has judged the Church justifiably harshly—most notably, perhaps, Pope John Paul II with his comment on the Galileo affair that “the sons and daughters of the Church must return with a spirit of repentance … [to] the acquiescence given, especially in certain centuries, to intolerance and even the use of violence in the service of the truth”

…

On the 31st of October, 1992, the Pope again addressed the Pontifical Academy to draw to a close this period of investigation. Commenting on the whole affair, his talk took a different tack when he said that

Quote
From the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment down to our day, the Galileo case has been a sort of myth, in which the image fabricated out of the events was quite far removed from reality. In the perspective, the Galileo case was the symbol of the Church’s supposed rejection of scientific progress, or of dogmatic obscurantism opposed to the free search for truth. This myth has played a considerable cultural role. It has helped to anchor a number of scientists of good faith in the idea that there was an incompatibility between the spirit of science and its rules of research on one hand and the Christian faith on the other. (in 1992: 271-280)

The Pontiff went on to explain that the affair had resulted from a “tragic mutual incomprehension”, which consisted in four separate conclusions of the Commission:

* Galileo failed to appreciate that he had no proof of Copernicanism;
* Theologians of that time did not correctly understand Scripture;
* Bellarmine truly understood what was "at stake" in the affair; and
* The Church accepted Copernicanism as soon as proof was available.

We have seen that the first of these is untenable. The second fails because the methodological principle of Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess, while commonplace today, was neither understood nor employed by theologians at that time; and so it is useless to complain that it was not wielded correctly. We have also noted that Bellarmine’s position rendered any such accommodation impossible. Following on from this, the third we already know to be in error: Bellarmine’s position was not instrumental at all but based on reading all Scriptural passages as literally coming from the Holy Spirit. Finally, the idea that the Church embraced Copernicanism as soon as it was demonstrated is given the lie by the unwillingness to open the Secret Vatican Archives and the fact that the 1744 edition of Galileo’s works was not allowed to contain the Letter (although it did include the Dialogue, but only with the sentence of 1633 alongside it) (Coyne, 2002), as we have treated of briefly above.

Thus we see that the Church had retreated from the boldness of John Paul II’s intentions in 1979 to a restatement of the old myths we have considered and rejected throughout. Meanwhile, Galileo studies continue unabated with new perspectives continually casting the affair in a different light. It is perhaps in this desire to consider the case closed that the contemporary Church has erred most seriously, since the continuing relevance of all the issues encompassed by this great human, theological, philosophical, political and personal drama is such that it seems likely to maintain its hold over our imaginations indefinitely. It is as well to leave the last word on a subject that is never final, then, to Fantoli (1996: 511), who suggested that:

Quote
[The Galileo Affair] remains, and should remain, “open”… as a severe lesson of humility to the Church at all levels and as a warning, no less rigorous, not to wish to repeat in the present or in the near future the errors of the past, even the most recent past.

 

[razredge]

As soon as I read this sentence, I realized that Sungenis is ignoring 16 centuries of Catholic history.
This is an example of the way Sungenis misunderstands Catholicism.

The truth is that infallible Catholic doctrines regarding faith and morals come from Divine Revelation. Major Church Councils discerned most of these doctrines during the first 16 centuries under the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit. The easiest way to verify this is to check the footnotes and the Index of Citations in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition.

Then pray tell, Granny - why you are so vehemently opposed to polygenism? Since the Ordinary Magisterium is fallible and Humani Generis was not an ex cathedra statement (or a council decree)?

The following document then becomes a doctrine of Faith (reference msg.318) . A very old document by the way.
*LETTER OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II TO REVEREND GEORGE V. COYNE, S.J., DIRECTOR OF THE VATICAN OBSERVATORY on 1 June, 1988.

To the Reverend George V. Coyne SJ
Director of the Vatican Observatory
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. 1, 2).
*

Fr George Coyne, himself an astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978-2006 and so is well placed to comment on the matter - even he has been less than enthusiastic over the Church’s attempts to whitewash the Galileo affair:
The Church’s Most Recent Attempt to Dispel the Galileo Myth

In that same speech John Paul II, as he had done on previous occasions,
described the Galileo affair as a “myth”

 

[Al_Moritz]

Of course - but let’s not base our view on articles from Catholic apologetics websites:

This article provides a more balanced history of the affair:
galilean-library.org/site/index.php/page/index.html/_/essays/history/the-galileo-affair-part-1-introduction-r65

Certainly, the apologetics article that I gave the link for has its own biases, but I am not sure that your article really provides a more balanced history.

Quote:
The complex tale that is the Galileo affair cautions us not to make simplistic judgements. Nevertheless, it remains the case that the question of whether or not Galileo had any proof for Copernicanism was never at issue—in 1616 or in 1633. The very possibility of any demonstration was excluded in principle by Bellarmine’s doctrinal position and its adoption by an authoritarian Church.

Perhaps, perhaps not. Fact is, Galileo simply did not have the proof. Stellar parallax could not be measured at the time to an accuracy that allowed to settle the issue, and this link shows that the actual observational data available to Galileo at the time did not back his views:

nature.com/news/2010/100305/full/news.2010.105.html

It cannot be denied that the Church has made a great mistake with the trial, and this cannot be whitewashed indeed. But fact is also, as your link states as well, that Galileo was not blameless himself. And my post was also in reply to Gentleatheist, who claimed that “Galileo was convicted of heresy for holding beliefs contrary to geocentrism is proof positive that geocentricism was a dogma of the Catholic Church”. Obviously, he does not know what constitutes dogma of the Catholic Church.

 

[razredge]

Certainly, the apologetics article that I gave the link for has its own biases, but I am not sure that your article really provides a more balanced history.

Perhaps, perhaps not. Fact is, Galileo simply did not have the proof. Stellar parallax could not be measured at the time to an accuracy that allowed to settle the issue, and this link shows that the actual observational data available to Galileo at the time did not back his views:

nature.com/news/2010/100305/full/news.2010.105.html

True, it is more about the Church intruding into a matter of science and presumptiously declaring Galileo a heretic.

It cannot be denied that the Church has made a great mistake with the trial, and this cannot be whitewashed indeed. But fact is also, as your link states as well, that Galileo was not blameless himself. And my post was also in reply to Gentleatheist, who claimed that “Galileo was convicted of heresy for holding beliefs contrary to geocentrism is proof positive that geocentricism was a dogma of the Catholic Church”. Obviously, he does not know what constitutes dogma of the Catholic Church.

Yes, I can agree with that. Though on the dogma question, I don’t know - it was definitely taken seriously by the 16th century Church - and it is pretty much the reason that we have the likes of Sungenis and his geocentrist ilk around today.

The dogma issue is also what leads to the modern rejection of other scientific findings such as polygenism.