The Warfare of Science with Theology by A. D. White

[_LittleNipper]

Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543)
Copernicus was the Polish astronomer who put forward the first mathematically based system of planets going around the sun. He attended various European universities, and became a Canon in the Catholic church in 1497. His new system was actually first presented in the Vatican gardens in 1533 before Pope Clement VII who approved, and urged Copernicus to publish it around this time. Copernicus was never under any threat of religious persecution - and was urged to publish both by Catholic Bishop Guise, Cardinal Schonberg, and the Protestant Professor George Rheticus. Copernicus referred sometimes to God in his works, and did not see his system as in conflict with the Bible.

http://www.tc.umn.edu/~allch001/galileo ... 16docs.htm

Cardinal Bellarmine's Certificate (26 May 1616)
We, Robert Cardinal Bellarmine, have heard tht Mr. Galileo Galilei is being slandered or alleged to have abjured in our hands and also to have been given salutary penances for this. Having been sought about the truth of the matter, we say that the above-mentioned Galileo has not abjured in our hands, or in the hands of others here in Rome, or anywhere else that we know, any opinion or doctrine of his; nor has he received any penances, salutary or otherwise. On the contrary, he has only been notified of the declaration made by the Holy Father and published by the Sacred Congregation of the Index, whose content is that the doctrine attributed to Copernicus (that the earth moves around the sun and the sun stands at the center of the world without moving from east to west) is contrary to Holy Scripture and therefore cannot be defended or held. In witness whereof we have written and signed this with our own hands, on this 26th day of May 1616.

The same mentioned above,
Robert Cardinal Bellarmine

............

The Pope has been known to be mistaken on other occasions. It was not the first nor last Biblical misconception from a pontiff. One being that Peter was a pope (1st one even). Another being the immaculate conception (regarding the birth of MARY).

By-the-way, do you say sunrise or earth-turn. One is perceptual and the other factually more to the point. However, neither is objectionable ---- even to a scientist.

[_Maksutov]

http://www.tc.umn.edu/~allch001/galileo ... 16docs.htm

Cardinal Bellarmine's Certificate (26 May 1616)
We, Robert Cardinal Bellarmine, have heard tht Mr. Galileo Galilei is being slandered or alleged to have abjured in our hands and also to have been given salutary penances for this. Having been sought about the truth of the matter, we say that the above-mentioned Galileo has not abjured in our hands, or in the hands of others here in Rome, or anywhere else that we know, any opinion or doctrine of his; nor has he received any penances, salutary or otherwise. On the contrary, he has only been notified of the declaration made by the Holy Father and published by the Sacred Congregation of the Index, whose content is that the doctrine attributed to Copernicus (that the earth moves around the sun and the sun stands at the center of the world without moving from east to west) is contrary to Holy Scripture and therefore cannot be defended or held. In witness whereof we have written and signed this with our own hands, on this 26th day of May 1616.

The same mentioned above,
Robert Cardinal Bellarmine

............

The Pope has been known to be mistaken on other occasions.

Really? But I guess Franklin Graham and Ken Ham are always right, so you're golden.

[_LittleNipper]

The Pope has been known to be mistaken on other occasions.

Really? But I guess Franklin Graham and Ken Ham are always right, so you're golden.

No, not always right --- they are however permanently born-again.

[_Maksutov]

Really? But I guess Franklin Graham and Ken Ham are always right, so you're golden.

No, not always right --- they are however permanently born-again.

I was born right the first time.

[_Maksutov]

Very noteworthy is the fact that this late survival of an
ancient belief based upon text-worship is found, not in the
teachings of any zealous priest of the mother Church, but
in those of an eminent professor in that branch of Protes-
tantism which claims special enlightenment."

Nor has the warfare against the dead champions of sci-
ence been carried on by the older Church alone.

On the 10th of May, 1859, Alexander von Humboldt was


* For the amusing details of the attempt in the English Church to repress sci-
ence, and of the way in which it was met, see De Morgan, Paradoxes, p. 42. For
Pastor Knak and his associates, see the Revue des Deux Mondes, 1868. Of the
recent Lutheran works against the Copernican astronomy, see especially the
Astrononiische Unterredung zwischen einem Liebhaber der Astronomie und mehr-
eren beriihmten Astronomer der Neuzeit, by J. C. W. L., St. Louis, 1873.


buried. His labours had been among the glories of the cen-
tury, and his funeral was one of the most imposing that
Berlin had ever seen. Among those who honoured them-
selves by their presence was the prince regent, afterward
the Emperor William I ; but of the clergy it was observed
that none were present save the officiating clergyman and a
few regarded as unorthodox.*



V. RESULTS OF THE VICTORY OVER GALILEO.

We return now to the sequel of the Galileo case.

Having gained their victory over Galileo, living and
dead, having used it to scare into submission the professors
of astronomy throughout Europe, conscientious churchmen
exulted. Loud was their rejoicing that the " heresy," the
*' infidelity," the ''atheism" involved in believing that the
earth revolves about its axis and moves around the sun had
been crushed by the great tribunal of the Church, acting in
strict obedience to the expressed will of one Pope and the
written order of another. As we have seen, all books teach-
ing this hated belief were put upon the Index of books for-
bidden to Christians, and that Index was prefaced by a bull
enforcing this condemnation upon the consciences of the
faithful throughout the world, and signed by the reigning
Pope.

The losses to the world during this complete triumph of
theology were even more serious than at first appears : one
must especially be mentioned. There was then in Europe
one of the greatest thinkers ever given to mankind— Rene
Descartes. Mistaken though many of his reasonings were,
they bore a rich fruitage of truth. He had already done a
vast work. His theory of vortices — assuming a uniform
material regulated by physical laws — as the beginning of
the visible universe, though it was but a provisional hy-
pothesis, had ended the whole old theory of the heavens with
the vaulted firmament and the direction of the planetary
movements by angels, which even Kepler had allowed. The

* See Bruhns and Lassell, Life of Humboldt , London, 1873, vol. ii, p. 411.


scientific warriors had stirred new life in him, and he was
working over and summing up in his mighty mind all the
researches of his time. The result would have made an
epoch in history. His aim was to combine all knowledge
and thought into a Treatise on the World, and in view of this
he gave eleven years to the study of anatomy alone. But
the fate of Galileo robbed him of all hope, of all courage ;
the battle seemed lost ; he gave up his great plan forever."

[_Maksutov]

But ere long it was seen that this triumph of the Church
was in reality a prodigious defeat. From all sides came
proofs that Copernicus and Galileo were right; and although
Pope Urban and the Inquisition held Galileo in strict seclu-
sion, forbidding him even to speak regarding the double mo-
tion of the earth ; and although this condemnation of " all
books which affirm the motion of the earth " was kept on
the Index-, and although the papal bull still bound the hidex
and the condemnations in it on the consciences of the faith-
ful ; and although colleges and universities under Church
control were compelled to teach the old doctrine— it was
seen by clear-sighted men everywhere that this victory of
the Church was a disaster to the victors.

New champions pressed on. Campanella, full of vagaries
as he was, wrote his Apology for Galileo, though for that and
other heresies, religious and political, he seven times under-
went torture.

And Kepler comes : he leads science on to greater vic-
tories. Copernicus, great as he was, could not disentangle
scientific reasoning entirely from the theological bias : the
doctrines of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas as to the neces-
sary superiority of the circle had vitiated the minor features
of his system, and left breaches in it through which the
enemy was not slow to enter ; but Kepler sees these errors,
and by wonderful genius and vigour he gives to the world
the three laws which bear his name, and this fortress of sci-


* For Descartes's discouragement, see Humboldt, Cosmos, London, 1851, vol.
iii, p. 21 ; also Lange. Geschichte des Materialismus, English translation, vol. i, pp.
248, 249, where the letters of Descartes are given, showing his despair, and the
relinquishment of his best thoughts and works in order to preserve peace with the
Church ; also Saisset, Descartes et ses Pr^curseiirs, pp. 100 et s'q.; also Jolly, His-
toire du Mouvement intellecUiel au XVI^ Sikle, vol. i, p. 390,


ence is complete. He thinks and speaks as one inspired.
His battle is severe. He is solemnly warned by the Prot-
estant Consistory of Stuttgart " not to throw Christ's king-
dom into confusion with his silly fancies," and as solemnly
ordered to " bring his theory of the world into harmony
with Scripture " : he is sometimes abused, sometimes ridi-
culed, sometimes imprisoned. Protestants in Styria and
WUrtemberg, Catholics in Austria and Bohemia, press upon
him ; but Newton, Halley, Bradley, and other great astrono-
mers follow, and to science remains the victory."

[_Maksutov]

Yet this did not end the war. During the seventeenth
century, in France, after all the splendid proofs added by
Kepler, no one dared openly teach the Copernican theory,
and Cassini, the great astronomer, never declared for it. In
1672 the Jesuit Father Riccioli declared that there were
precisely forty-nine arguments for the Copernican theory
and seventy-seven against it. Even after the beginning of
the eighteenth century— long after the demonstrations of
Sir Isaac Newton — Bossuet, the great Bishop of Meaux, the
foremost theologian that France has ever produced, de-
clared it contrary to Scripture.

Nor did matters seem to improve rapidly during that
century. In England, John Hutchinson, as we have seen,
published in 1724 his Moses' Principia maintaining that the
Flebrew Scriptures are a perfect system of natural phi-
losophy, and are opposed to the Newtonian system of gravi-
tation ; and, as we have also seen, he was followed by a long
list of noted men in the Church. In France, two eminent
mathematicians published in 1748 an edition of Newton's


* For Campanella, see Amabile, Fm Tommaso Campanella, Naples, 1882, espe-
cially vol. iii ; also Libri, vol. iv, pp. 149 et seq. Fromundus, speaking of Kepler's
explanation, says, *' Vix teneo ebullientem ristwi" This is almost equal to the
Nezu York Church Journal, speaking of John Stuart Mill as " that small sciolist,"
and of the preface to Dr. Draper's great work as " chippering." How a journal,
generally so fair in its treatment of such subjects, can condescend to such weapons,
is one of the wonders of modern journalism. For the persecution of Kepler, see
Heller, Geschichte der Physik, vol. i, pp. 281 et seq. ; also Reuschle, Kepler und die
Astronomie, Frankfurt a. M., 1871, pp. 87 et seq. ; also Prof. Sigwart, Klcine Schrif-
ten, pp. 211 et seq. There is poetic justice in the fact that these two last-named
books come from Wurtemberg professors. See also The New-Englander for March,
1884, p. 178.


Principia ; but, in order to avert ecclesiastical censure, they
felt obliged to prefix to it a statement absolutely false.
Three years later, Boscovich, the great mathematician of
the Jesuits, used these words : " As for me, full of respect
for the Holy Scriptures and the decree of the Holy Inquisi-
tion, I regard the earth as immovable ; nevertheless, for sim-
plicity in explanation I will argue as if the earth moves ; for
it is proved that of the two hypotheses the appearances
favour this idea."

[_LittleNipper]

No, not always right --- they are however permanently born-again.

I was born right the first time.

You were born into sin and because of sin you will die.

[_Maksutov]

I was born right the first time.

You were born into sin and because of sin you will die.

No, I wasn't. Only weird old religious perverts could come up with the idea of sinful babies. And all so that you can sell people something they don't need, based on the tall tales of a man who never met Jesus and made up everything he said about him. You're a sucker, Nipper. Sorry if you fell for a big old scam, but others of us know better.

Maybe a little therapy would allow you to be "reborn" into a functional and sane human being. Nawwwwwwww....

[_huckelberry]

You were born into sin and because of sin you will die.

No, I wasn't. Only weird old religious perverts could come up with the idea of sinful babies. And all so that you can sell people something they don't need,

Maybe a little therapy would allow you to be "reborn" into a functional and sane human being. Nawwwwwwww....

I suppose most people would figure that a newborn has not committed any crimes. That fact does not seem to go very far in blocking humans from committing atrocious things as they gain the ability. Not all of us the same , influence and situations vary. I could think of good Americans lynching people in the last century . I could thing of Germans in ww2 eliminating people , not just in special camps but as groups of armed executioners.

People can be incomprehensibly awful. It is clear we were born into sin. I think it would be well if we were all born again and start building better paths.