Why was the Catholic Church against correct models of the universe when they were first presented?

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coolcatholicguy

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I’m talking about stuff like Galileo and Nicodemus, and elements of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Can you give me a clearer understanding of this?
 
Jesus promised, “I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now. But when the Spirit comes He will lead you to the complete truth…All He tells you will be taken from what is mine.” “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and then you will be my witnesses not only in Jerusalem but indeed…to the ends of the earth.” [John 16:8-9, 12-13, 15]

It can sometimes take a while for the Holy Spirit to ‘lead us to the full truth…but all He does teach us comes from what is Jesus’ truth.

Jesus told us it would be so before His resurrection…that the Church wouldn’t learn the whole truth all at once…that we couldn’t take it in.

God bless you. 🙂
 
coolcatholicguy said:
I’m talking about stuff like Galileo and Nicodemus, and elements of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Can you give me a clearer understanding of this?
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Do you mean 'Nicolai Copernicus?" Nicodemus was, if I remember correctly, a disciple of Jesus (not an apostle). . . And this segues into. . .

As for Gallileo, please, please, PLEASE read something that is NOT Wikipedia and NOT from Dan Brown et. al. Try the Catholic Encyclopedia at New Advent. First, Galileo wasn’t even 100% correct in all that he was presenting not as Theory but as FACT.

As for Darwin, what exactly are you speaking of and can you show us some examples?

Finally, remember who is responsible for giving the world universities (The Catholic Church), who gave us some of the greatest scientists (The Catholic Church), who gave us things like hospitals, asylums, fostered scientific advances in agriculture (the Catholic Church). . .and then ask why people are claiming the Church is 'anti-Science" on the basis of a few buzz words when they don’t even have all the real facts and are relying on Wiki and ‘word of mouth’. . .
 
Most likely, Church officials did not know at first that the models were correct, only that they were different from what had previously been held – and they did not at the time see how one could reconcile Biblical statements with such ideas (some still don’t).

Usagi
 
These have been talked about a lot, but I’ll just summarize some of the issues.

For Galileo, he was presenting his findings as fact, not a theory. He was kind of pompous too. Contemporary scientists were even discrediting him. Imagine if someone came up with the idea that the earth was really a triangle, and saying that it was fact, not a theory. There’s no way this person is wrong, in his view. Wouldn’t you question his findings? That’s the way it was viewed for the heliocentric universe: it’s fine, if presented as a theory; otherwise, back up your findings if you want it as a fact.

As for Copernicus, I admit I’m not as familiar with him. But I believe that his book was ignored from the Church until an influential priest started condemning it.
 
coolcatholicguy said:
I’m talking about stuff like Galileo and Nicodemus, and elements of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Can you give me a clearer understanding of this?
Click to expand...
The Catholic Church did far more to help the sciences than she ever did to hurt it. She was the principal contributer to the sciences, art, philosophy etc during the Middle Ages. That’s not to say every situation was handled perfectly, or there weren’t cases when members of the Church were too harsh on others.

The problem is, history textbooks cherry pick out specific events that paint the Church in a bad light and ignore everything else. It’s kind of sad really, but Jesus did warn that His Church would be persecuted.
 
I can at least vouch for my illustrious and beloved patron saint, Thomas Aquinas, in that he was cautious about many scientific things. Remember that the prevailing scholastic method, of understanding the universe via philosophy and science, had to use many stopgaps. Our friends in the past simply did not know everything, so they made up excuses or explanations that were wrong. St. Thomas was never condemned for saying, of the Ptolemaic System: “if it be true…”, because in the 1260’s no one was that worried about it.

The Angelic Doctor literally said that we may find better and more realistic theories and scientific understanding than we now have (13th century-wise). He did not feel particularly threatened by new knowledge about planetary motion or centrality. For him, the Earth is the center of the Universe because human beings (the image of likeness of the Creator) are here, and because God became man (our Lord Jesus Christ) on it. The actual physical location of Earth in space has absolutely nothing to do with its import, and Aquinas would have recognised that had he been around for Copernicus.
 
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