God's Chance Creation (Cardinal Shonborn was wrong about Christianity and Darwinian Evolution)

The Tablet ^ | 8/06/05 | George Coyne, SJ

[curiosity]

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn claims random evolution is incompatible with belief in a creator God. Here, in an exclusive rebuttal of that view, the Vatican’s chief astronomer says that science reflects God’s infinite purpose

The murky waters of the rapport between the Church and science never seem to clear. Despite the best efforts of John Paul II and of Benedict XVI, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, the struggle still goes on to dispel myths, mistakes and misunderstandings. Even today, disquiet still rumbles over the treatment of Galileo, despite the formation of the Galileo Commission to investigate the treatment of the scientist after John Paul II realised that many in the scientific world still believed there was an intrinsic animosity between the Church and science.

The Commission’s task was to investigate calmly and objectively the rights and wrongs of the affair on whatever side, the Church’s or Galileo’s, the responsibility lies. However, in the almost unanimous opinion of the community of historians and philosophers of science, it did not fully realise the expectations of the Pope.

There was a further attempt to ease the divisions between Church and science, when the International Theological Commission, under the presidency of Cardinal Ratzinger, and less than a year before he was elected to the Papacy, issued a lengthy statement in which it saw no incompatibility between God’s providential plan for creation and the results of a truly contingent evolutionary process in nature.

Now the waters have again been darkened by the publication in the New York Times of 7 July 2005 of an article by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna, a one-time student of Benedict XVI and a high-profile and influential figure in the Church, in which he essentially claims that neo-Darwinian evolution is not compatible with the Church’s belief in God’s purpose and design in creation. In so doing the cardinal dismisses as “rather vague and unimportant” the epoch-making declaration of John Paul II in 1996 to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in which he declared that evolution is no longer a mere hypothesis and then proceeded, far from any thought of incompatibility, to draw reasonable implications for religious belief from that conclusion.

So why does there seem to be a persistent retreat in the Church from attempts to establish a dialogue with the community of scientists, religious believers or otherwise? There appears to exist a nagging fear in the Church that a universe, which science has established as evolving for 13.7 x 1 billion years since the Big Bang and in which life, beginning in its most primitive forms at about 12 x 1 billion years from the Big Bang, evolved through a process of random genetic mutations and natural selection, escapes God’s dominion. That fear is groundless. Science is completely neutral with respect to philosophical or theological implications that may be drawn from its conclusions. Those conclusions are always subject to improvement. That is why science is such an interesting adventure and scientists curiously interesting creatures. But for someone to deny the best of today’s science on religious grounds is to live in that groundless fear just mentioned.

Perhaps the following picture of God’s relation to the created universe, as that universe is seen by science and interpreted by a religious believer, may help to assuage that fear. In the universe, as known by science, there are essentially three processes at work: chance, necessity and the fertility of the universe. The classical question as to whether the human being came about by chance, and so has no need of God, or by necessity, and so through the action of a designer God, is no longer valid. And so any attempt to answer it is doomed to failure. The fertility of the universe, now well established by science, is an essential ingredient, and the meaning of chance and necessity must be seen in light of that fertility. Chance processes and necessary processes are continuously interacting in a universe that is 13.7 x 1 billion years old and contains about 1022 stars. Those stars as they “live” and “die” release to the universe the chemical abundance of the elements necessary for life. In their thermonuclear furnaces stars convert the lighter elements into the heavier elements. There is no other way, for instance, to have the abundance of carbon necessary to make a toenail than through the thermonuclear processes in stars. We are all literally born of stardust.

How did that come about? Take one simple example: two hydrogen atoms meet in the early universe. By necessity (the laws of chemical combination) they are destined to become a hydrogen molecule. But by chance the temperature and pressure conditions at that moment are not correct for them to combine. And so they wander through the universe until they finally do combine. And there are trillions and trillions of such atoms doing the same thing. Of course, by the interaction of chance and necessity, many hydrogen molecules are formed and eventually many of them combine with oxygen to make water, and so on, until we have very complex molecules and eventually the most complicated organism that science knows: the human brain. While science cannot claim to know all of the links in this evolutionary chain, nor especially the passage to living organisms, there is very strong evidence for a large degree of continuity in the whole process. Carbon, for instance, found abundantly in both biotic and non-biotic systems, has remarkable bonding properties and those are necessary for life as we know it. Thermodynamics works in the same way in the non-living and living world. Information storage and transmittal is very similar in non-living and living systems. Life began on the earth, which formed about 4.5 x 1 billion years ago, within about the first 400 million years, a relatively rapid transition to life. In fact, the search for life’s origins may be in vain. There may be no clear origin, no clear threshold as seen by science, between the non-living and the living.

This process of continuous evolution, called by scientists chemical complexification, has a certain intrinsic natural directionality in that the more complex an organism becomes the more determined is its future. This does not necessarily mean, however, that there need be a person directing the process, nor that the process is necessarily an “unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection” as Cardinal Schönborn describes it. It is precisely the fertility of the universe and the interaction of chance and necessity in that universe which are responsible for the directionality. Thus far science.

Now, the religious believer asks, where does God the creator feature in this scientific scenario? If one believes in God’s loving relationship with his creation, and especially with the human beings made in his image and likeness, and if one also respects the science described above, then there are marvellous opportunities to renew one’s faith in God’s relationship to his creation.

It is unfortunate that creationism has come to mean some fundamentalistic, literal, scientific interpretation of Genesis. Judaeo-Christian faith is radically creationist, but in a totally different sense. It is rooted in a belief that everything depends upon God, or better, all is a gift from God. The universe is not God and it cannot exist independently of God. Neither pantheism nor naturalism is true. But, if we confront what we know of our origins scientifically with religious faith in God the Creator – if, that is, we take the results of modern science seriously – it is difficult to believe that God is omnipotent and omniscient in the sense of many of the scholastic philosophers. For the believer, science tells us of a God who must be very different from God as seen by them.

This stress on our scientific knowledge is not to place a limitation upon God. Far from it. It reveals a God who made a universe that has within it a certain dynamism and thus participates in the very creativity of God. Such a view of creation can be found in early Christian writings, especially in those of St Augustine in his comments on Genesis. If they respect the results of modern science and, indeed, the best of modern biblical research, religious believers must move away from the notion of a dictator God or a designer God, a Newtonian God who made the universe as a watch that ticks along regularly. Perhaps God should be seen more as a parent or as one who speaks encouraging and sustaining words. Scripture is very rich in these thoughts. It presents, indeed anthropomorphically, a God who gets angry, who disciplines, a God who nurtures the universe, who empties himself in Christ the incarnate Word. Thus God’s revelation of himself in the Book of Scripture would be reflected in our knowledge of the universe, so that, as Galileo was fond of stating, the Book of Scripture and the Book of Nature speak of the same God.

Theologians already possess the concept of God’s continuous creation with which to explore the implications of modern science for religious belief. God is working with the universe. The universe has a certain vitality of its own like a child does. It has the ability to respond to words of endearment and encouragement. You discipline a child but you try to preserve and enrich the individual character of the child and its own passion for life. A parent must allow the child to grow into adulthood, to come to make its own choices, to go on its own way in life. Words that give life are richer than mere commands or information. In such wise ways we might imagine that God deals with the universe.

These are very weak images, but how else do we talk about God? We can only come to know God by analogy. The universe as we know it today through science is one way to derive an analogical knowledge of God. For those who believe modern science does say something to us about God, it provides a challenge, an enriching challenge, to traditional beliefs about God. God in his infinite freedom continuously creates a world that reflects that freedom at all levels of the evolutionary process to greater and greater complexity. God lets the world be what it will be in its continuous evolution. He is not continually intervening, but rather allows, participates, loves. Is such thinking adequate to preserve the special character attributed by religious thought to the emergence not only of life but also of spirit, while avoiding a crude creationism? Only a protracted dialogue will tell. But we should not close off the dialogue and darken the already murky waters by fearing that God will be abandoned if we embrace the best of modern science.

George Coyne SJ is Director of the Vatican Observatory.

[curiosity]

Okay, I know, I know, the Tablet is a CINO publication, and the author's order doesn't have the most stellar reputation for upholding religous orthodoxy. Nevertheless, it is a good article. If you're going to crticize it, please do so on the merits.

[curiosity]

Faith and Science Ping.

[theFIRMbss]

Hey, cool! A thread on
religion and science. What
a good thread idea!

[PatrickHenry]

Excellent article. Thanks.

[Restorer]

Even today, disquiet still rumbles over the treatment of Galileo, despite the formation of the Galileo Commission to investigate the treatment of the scientist after John Paul II realised that many in the scientific world still believed there was an intrinsic animosity between the Church and science.

It's a lot more accurate to say that Galileo got in trouble with the academics and intellectuals of his day than with the Church, as such. It's just that at the time all the scientists, professors, academics and intellectuals were by definition Churchmen and were able to use this position to impose their views on non-religious topics on "heretics."

Galileo really collided with the scientists of his day, not with the Church. But that doesn't make nearly as good copy.

[NYer]

Fr. George Coyne, SJ, director of the Vatican Observatory on Mount Graham, is also adjunct professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona.

In the past year VATT ( Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope) observers have discovered evidence of possible Massive Compact Halo Objects around the galaxy M-31, a key to understanding the "missing mass" problem in cosmology. Another team has begun a spectrophotometric survey of stars both in our galaxy and in galaxy M-51 that may help us decode the order in which different parts of the galaxy were formed. Another group at the VATT recorded a rare eclipse of Saturn's moons, refining their orbits in a way that may give clues to the internal structure of Saturn itself. Meanwhile, every technical problem solved helps teach engineers about what to look for (and look out for) when the LBT,VATT's larger cousin, is built.
STARGATE

Catholic Ping
Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list

[Mylo]

Sorry, no scientist worthy of the name would refuse to look through the telescope to see for them self Galileo's observation that the earth was not the immovable center of the universe. Moreover it was their flawed interpretations of Biblical passages that made them think the sun moved around the earth, not any scientific observation.

Galileo was put under house arrest because he contradicted theology, not scientific theory.

[curiosity]

Sorry, but you're sipmly wrong. Cardinal St. Ballermine was not a scientist. The Holy Office was not run by scientists. Yet it was they who condemned him.

That being said, you are right that the popular version of the Galileo affair is wrong. While the actions of certain clerics were reprehensible, Gallileo's fate was not the result of a hostility to science on the part of the Church.

[Right Wing Professor]

Scientifically literate (of course) and thoughtful; it dispels, to some extent, my worries that the RCC was going to follow the anti-scientific stampede that so much Christian fundamentalism seems to be hell-bent on.

[Mark Felton]

There is no truth science discovers that God is afraid to have known.

But God does fear that we do not always understand the truths uncovered by science.

Knowledge and understanding are two very different matters. God tells us to constantly seek wisdom and understanding, beginning with the fear of God.

"Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom"

[Ichneumon]

It's a lot more accurate to say that Galileo got in trouble with the academics and intellectuals of his day than with the Church, as such. It's just that at the time all the scientists, professors, academics and intellectuals were by definition Churchmen and were able to use this position to impose their views on non-religious topics on "heretics." Galileo really collided with the scientists of his day, not with the Church. But that doesn't make nearly as good copy.

This is complete poppycock. The many documents and edicts of the time made it entirely clear that the Church arrested Galileo for contradicting SCRIPTURE, not for contradicting opposing "scientists". Here's a previous post of mine dealing with someone else who tried to spin what actually happened:

Not smart. So the Church overreacted and condemned him for heresy. Big mistake, indefensible, but the truth is that Galileo was not quite the "martyr for science" that secularists make him out to be.

This is really splitting hairs. "He wasn't persecuted for advocating science, he was persecuted for raising questions about scripture by advocating science"... Oh, well then, that's *entirely* different...

Unfortunately for such revisionism, there exist extensive records of the condemnations of Galileo and his heresy trial. They make entirely clear that it was specifically his advocacy of the Copernican system which was his primary "crime", and his "heresies" (i.e., believing that observations of nature itself give reliable insights into the workings of the universe) were a result of his daring to practice science in the manner that it is known today.

Papal condemnation/sentencing of Galileo: "Whereas you, Galileo, son of the late Vaincenzo Galilei, Florentine, aged seventy years, were in the year 1615 denounced to this Holy Office for holding as true the false doctrine taught by some that the Sun is the center of the world and immovable and that the Earth moves, and also with a diurnal motion; for having disciples to whom you taught the same doctrine; for holding correspondence with certain mathematicians of Germany concerning the same; for having printed certain letters, entitled "On the Sunspots," wherein you developed the same doctrine as true; and for replying to the objections from the Holy Scriptures, which from time to time were urged against it [i.e. for disagreeing with Bible-based criticisms - Ich.] [...] This Holy Tribunal being therefore of intention to proceed against the disorder and mischief thence resulting, which went on increasing to the prejudice of the Holy Faith, [...] 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. [...] Furthermore, in order to completely eliminate such a pernicious doctrine, and not let it creep any further to the great detriment of Catholic truth, the Holy Congregation of the Index issued a decree which prohibited books which treat of this and declaring the doctrine itself to be false and wholly contrary to the divine and Holy Scripture. [...] Likewise, you confessed that in several places the exposition of the said book is expressed in such a way that a reader could get the idea that the arguments given for the false side were effective enough to be capable of convincing, rather than being easy to refute. [...] We say, pronounce, sentence and declare that you, Galileo, by reason of these things which have been detailed in the trial and which you have confessed already, have rendered yourself according to this Holy Office vehemently suspect of heresy, namely of having held and believed a doctrine that is false and contrary to the divine and Holy Scripture: namely that Sun is the center of the world and does not move from east to west, and that one may hold and defend as probable an opinion after it has been declared and defined contrary to Holy Scripture. [...] Consequently, you have incurred all the censures and penalties enjoined and promulgated by the sacred Canons and all particular and general laws against such delinquents. [This includes torture - Ich.]

The text of Galileo's recantation also makes entirely clear that it was his SCIENTIFIC VIEW which was his crime, and which he had to renounce:

Under threat of torture, and mindful that the Church had already burned at the stake Giordano Bruno for the same "crime", Galileo publicly renounced his "false" doctrine that the Earth revolves around the Sun: "I, Galileo Galilei, son of the late Vincenzo Galilei, Florentine, aged seventy years, arraigned personally before this tribunal, and kneeling before you [...] I wrote and printed a book in which I discussed this doctrine already condemned, and adduced arguments of great cogency in its favor [horrors! - Ich.], without presenting any solution of these [i.e., without reconciling it with the Church's interpretation of Scripture -- Ich.]; and for this cause I have been pronounced by the Holy Office to be vehemently suspected of heresy, that is to say, of having held and believed that the sun is the center of the world and immovable, and that the earth is not the center and moves. [...] with sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure, curse, and detest the aforesaid errors and heresies, and generally every other error and sect whatsoever contrary to the said Holy Church; and I swear that in the future I will never again say or assert, verbally or in writing, anything that might furnish occasion for a similar suspicion regarding me"
-- Galileo's forced recantation, June 27, 1633

Galileo's early "heretical" statements included this clear statement of the modern scientific viewpoint:

"The doctrine of the movements of the earth and the fixity of the sun is condemned [by literalists] on the ground that the Scriptures speak in many places of the sun moving and the earth standing still… I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the Scriptures, but with experiments and demonstrations.", "I accepted the Copernican position several years ago and discovered from thence the cause of many natural effects which are doubtless inexplicable by the current theories. [i.e., the new theory better matched and explained the observations - Ich.]" -- Galileo Galilei

Furthermore, one of the more prominent denunciations of Galileo by a high-ranking Church official (prior to his arrest) makes clear that Galileo's primary "crime" was his scientific view itself:

"But to want to affirm that the sun really is fixed in the center of the heavens and only revolves around itself (i. e., turns upon its axis ) without traveling from east to west, and that the earth is situated in the third sphere and revolves with great speed around the sun, is a very dangerous thing, not only by irritating all the philosophers and scholastic theologians, but also by injuring our holy faith and rendering the Holy Scriptures false. [...] And if Your Reverence would read not only the Fathers but also the commentaries of modern writers on Genesis, Psalms, Ecclesiastes and Josue, you would find that all agree in explaining literally (ad litteram) that the sun is in the heavens and moves swiftly around the earth, and that the earth is far from the heavens and stands immobile in the center of the universe. [...] Third. I say that if there were a true demonstration that the sun was in the center of the universe and the earth in the third sphere, and that the sun did not travel around the earth but the earth circled the sun, then it would be necessary to proceed with great caution in explaining the passages of Scripture which seemed contrary, and we would rather have to say that we did not understand them than to say that something was false which has been demonstrated. But I do not believe that there is any such demonstration; none has been shown to me. It is not the same thing to show that the appearances are saved by assuming that the sun really is in the center and the earth in the heavens. [...] I add that the words 'the sun also riseth and the sun goeth down, and hasteneth to the place where he ariseth, etc.' were those of Solomon, who not only spoke by divine inspiration but was a man wise above all others and most learned in human sciences and in the knowledge of all created things, and his wisdom was from God."
-- Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, April 12, 1615 letter to Foscarini.

I don't see how any person at all familiar with the trial of Galileo could possibly say with a straight face that his persecution was not a result of "a hostility towards science". That's *exactly* what it was about. The Church was hostile to the notion of anyone using scientific principles to reach conclusions contrary to existing church dogma.

[js1138]

...was not the result of a hostility to science on the part of the Church.

No doubt we are about to be treated to some new and hitherto unexpected definition of the word hostility.

[eastsider]

Galileo did invite the theologians to look through his telescope and to see for themselves that the moon was not perfectly smooth but in fact was covered with mountains, valleys and craters. Their response was that there were indeed mountains, etc., but that there was an invisible, perfectly smooth surface covering them. Galileo agreed, and said that on top of the perfectly smooth surface were invisible mountains ...

[Restorer]

Yes, but the theology was based primarily on Aristotle and Ptolemy, not on the Bible. They obviously tried to drag in some misinterpreted Biblical justification for their theories, but the Bible was certainly not the source for those beliefs, since the Bible doesn't have enough to say about such matters to make the development of a biblical cosmology possible.

Essentially, they made issues such as the motion of the earth or sun, based on theories of ancient Greeks, into matters of faith when they really didn't have anything to do with faith or the Bible or belief in God.

Of course, the intellectuals who refused to give G's evidence a fair hearing were not good scientists. The scientific method itself was in the process of struggling to be born at this time. However, they were all men who believed they knew the truth about the world and were willing to destroy those who challenged them. It is my opinion that the things that got G. in trouble were not essentially religious in nature.

[curiosity]

Galileo was put under house arrest because he contradicted theology, not scientific theory.

That's also not entirely true. Galileo was put under house arrest because he was publicly insisting that the Church re-interpret certain Biblical passages on the basis of evidence that the Church did not deem to be sufficient.

And to be frank, the scientific evidence at Galileo's time was not sufficiently strong to reject the geocentric model. All it had going for it, at the time, was that it made the math simpler, but that's it.

It is well documented that Church leaders at the time knew that Galileo was probably right, and that the passages in question probably would have to be reinterpreted. They were even willing to allow scholars to teach the Copernican model as a probable hypothesis. That's why Copernicus endured no persecution, nor did his books receive any condemnation for 70 years before Galileo came along. That's why Galileo's books, after his trial, were allowed to be published in Rome provided they be slightly altered so that the Copernican model was presented as a hypothesis.

And no, Bruno's prior burning at the stake does not reflect a hostility to science. Yes, he was burned at the stake, and yes he believed in a Copernican universe, but no he was not burned for that belief. Rather, he was burned for his theology, which was a bizzare form of pantheism. And no, I'm not condoning his burning, which I agree was reprehensible. I'm just pointing this out in anticipation of the argument that Bruno's burning reflected a hostility to science, which it most emphatically did not.

[wagglebee]

Very interesting. One of my family's closest friends is a Jesiut who was posted at the Vatican Observatory and University of Arizona for decades. It's nice to see that some of the Jesuits still make sense.

[curiosity]

We've been through this before. Galileo was never threatened with torture. The pop-history version of his problems are a gross distortion of reality.

[Restorer]

I don't see how any person at all familiar with the trial of Galileo could possibly say with a straight face that his persecution was not a result of "a hostility towards science". That's *exactly* what it was about. The Church was hostile to the notion of anyone using scientific principles to reach conclusions contrary to existing church dogma.

Agreed. However, the "existing church dogma" in many areas was based on essentially non-religious sources such as Aristotle and Ptolemy, not on the Bible.

The "men who knew" of the time were churchmen, because that was the only way for an intellectual to make a living. Today the "men who know" are scientists, professors, academics, etc. They also have a nasty habit of attempting to destroy those who disagree with them or challenge their preconceptions. Fortunately, in non-totalitarian societies their resources for destroying their challengers are less effective than those of G's enemies.

Of course their doing so is a violation of the principles of science which they claim to follow, but then G's trial (and Bruno's) were equally a violation of the principles of Christianity their persecutors claimed to follow.

[Mylo]

Yes, he contradicted theology.

And the evidence was there for anyone to see that the moons of Jupiter didn't circle the earth. It was quite sufficient to do away with the silly idea that the earth was the immovable center and everything circled around it.

And Bruno's last words were "Nonetheless it MOVES (i.e. the earth; and he said it in Italian)" not "My pantheistic gods are better than your monotheistic god."; so it seemed HE knew what he was being burned at the stake for.

[eastsider]

Galileo said that, not Bruno.

[curiosity]

It's actually quite clear from even the text you provide that Church officials were willing to enterain the possiblity of the Copernican model. Cardinal Bellarmine himself says:

I say that if there were a true demonstration that the sun was in the center of the universe and the earth in the third sphere, and that the sun did not travel around the earth but the earth circled the sun, then it would be necessary to proceed with great caution in explaining the passages of Scripture which seemed contrary, and we would rather have to say that we did not understand them than to say that something was false which has been demonstrated.

He's quite open to the possibility. However, quite rightly, Cardinal Bellarmine DID NOT believe that the evidence at the time was sufficient to say that the Copernican model was true. Fact is, ALL Galileo could do was show that the Copernican model explained the data more simply. While that's a good indication the model is true, it is not sufficent to rule out the geocentric model. Ballermine did not want to reinterpret scripture until sufficient evience was made know.

[curiosity]

And the evidence was there for anyone to see that the moons of Jupiter didn't circle the earth.

True, and the Church at the time fully aknowledged it to be true. This idea that Clergymen refused to look through Galileo's telescope is another one of these popular myths that have zero basis in History.

At any rate, how exactly does the fact that Jupiter's moons orbit Jupiter prove that the Eart orbit's the sun? I don't see how that follows.

[nickcarraway]

Please cite were they condemened him?

[Originalist]

There is no truth science discovers that God is afraid to have known.

What a perfectly apt statement. Science is real, but it too is God's creation.

[curiosity]

Agreed. However, the "existing church dogma" in many areas was based on essentially non-religious sources such as Aristotle and Ptolemy, not on the Bible.

First of all, geocentrism was not dogma. It was the prevailing theological opinion, but it was never defined as dogma.

Second of all, it was based on Biblical passages in Joshua and the Psalms. There are Biblical fundamentalist geocentrists today who reject modern science on the basis of these passages.

[curiosity]

The condemnation has already been quoted on this thread.

[betty boop]

...the author's order doesn't have the most stellar reputation for upholding religous orthodoxy.

True. The Society of Jesus has produced some leading-edge intellectuals in all the knowledge disciplines over many centuries by now. Thus, it's no accident that 12 craters on the Moon are named for Jesuit scientists. Though it is true that, in more recent times, many have wandered quite a far distance from orthodoxy. It seems Pope Benedict XVI is taking a very serious look at the problem.

Nevertheless, it is a good article.

That's an understatement, curiosity! Thank you ever so much for posting it!

[Ichneumon]

The condemnation has already been quoted on this thread.

Yes it has, and it *contradicts* your claim, since you claimed (in post #9) that it was the *scientists* who condemned Galileo, yet oddly enough, that condemnation on this thread shows the CHURCH officials condemning Galileo.

Nice try.

[PatrickHenry]

I don't see how any person at all familiar with the trial of Galileo ...

A few links for those who may wish to dig further:
Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany. Galileo's opinion about science/scripture conflicts.
The Crime of Galileo: Indictment and Abjuration of 1633. The heresy confession.
Trial of Galileo Galilei in 1633.

[Ichneumon]

We've been through this before.

Yes we have, and you were wrong then too.

Galileo was never threatened with torture.

From Galileo's own "confession":

And, in the event of my contravening, (which God forbid) any of these my promises, protestations, and oaths, I submit myself to all the pains and penalties imposed and promulgated in the sacred canons and other constitutions, general and particular, against such delinquents

Being subject to "pains" in addition to "penalties" sounds pretty much like torture, does it not?

Are you actually trying to claim that the Inquisitors did *not* use torture, and the threat of torture, against "heretics" in order to get them to recant?

Are you trying to claim that Galileo would have renounced and repudiated his life's works for lesser threats? He lived the rest of his life under permanent house-arrest in the home of the archbishop of Siena in the "plea bargain" which saved him from far worse treatment.

And is it really your contention that being imprisoned for life and forced, by whatever means, to publicly renouce and repudiate his works was somehow a proper action by the Church in response to his scientific writings? That as long as threat of actual torture wasn't involved, it's okay? That if other (unnamed) "scientists" were the ones who first sparked the Church's inquisition of Galileo, that the Church is absolved of the most reprehensible form of crushing free thought?

The pop-history version of his problems are a gross distortion of reality.

Your own apologetics version is a far worse distortion of reality than any pop-history version.

[narby]

The "men who knew" of the time were churchmen, because that was the only way for an intellectual to make a living. Today the "men who know" are scientists, professors, academics, etc. They also have a nasty habit of attempting to destroy those who disagree with them or challenge their preconceptions.

The heliocentric issue was at the leading edge of "intellectual" research in Galileo's day, so it was understandable that people of good will could disagree on it. No one would seriously challenge our Sun/Earth model today because it is settled science. Space probes wouldn't fly to the right place if it were not.

Likewise, evolution is thoroughly settled science today. It has been relentlessly attacked because of religious reasons for it's entire history. Yet it has withstood all attacks from well funded and intellegent people for nearly two centuries.

Still, there are entities and individuals who have made *popular* attacks against evolution that have swayed some people who have little knowledge of the details of evolution. Just as a few individuals have been convinced that Neil Armstrong didn't go to the moon and 9/11 was staged by the CIA and George Bush is stupid.

But the truth is that in the scientific community, evolution is stronger than it ever has been. There are zero questions about evolution coming from within the scientific community. Claims the contrary notwithstanding.

And those that believe there is some kind of grand conspiracy among scientists to force evolution on the world, should consider that if there ever were a theory on species to replace evolution, the discoverer would earn the Nobel prize and would become famous as Crick, Watson and Einstein.

Come on Discovery Institute! What are you waiting for!

[Ichneumon]

At any rate, how exactly does the fact that Jupiter's moons orbit Jupiter prove that the Eart orbit's the sun? I don't see how that follows.

At the time, the notion was that everything in the universe revolved around the Earth, because, after all, the Earth was the center of Creation, and everything "looked" like it revolved around the Earth.

The observation that anything might revolve around some *other* celestial object cracked this "fundamental truth", and opened up the realization that if things revolved around Jupiter, then other things might revolve around objects other than the Earth as well, like the Sun. Once you discover that the other planets moved in (mostly) circular orbits around the Sun, instead of convoluted orbits around the Earth, the realization that the Earth goes around the Sun also is a minor last detail.

[PatrickHenry]

And to be frank, the scientific evidence at Galileo's time was not sufficiently strong to reject the geocentric model.

Actually, Galileo's evidence blew away the geocentric model. There were, besides scripture, two arguments at that time that I know of for the geocentric model. One was that we never see Venus going through phases, as it should if its orbit were inside the earth's orbit. With the telescope, such phases could be seen -- which should not have followed the pattern they did unless Venus orbited the sun (and not the earth).

The second argument is a bit more obscure. Galileo was a generation before Isaac Newton, and no one then knew that gravity affected the heavens as well as the earth. It was thus argued that if the earth moved -- absurd! -- well then it would run away from the moon! But when Galileo found that Jupiter (which surely moved!) had moons of its own, and somehow they weren't left behind by Jupiter's motion, the "moon-left-behind" argument was toast.

[RobbyS]

"Science is completely neutral with respect to philosophical or theological implications that may be drawn from its conclusions. " Science may be neutral as regards any specific proposition, but ascientist is never neutral, since he inevidably brings his personal and cultural biases to the table. In other words, every observation affects the outcome since the evaluator looks at it from a certain place. If he follows the rules of logic, his conclusions are, of course" true, but in stating his conclusions he necessarily colors his statement in a peculiar way.

[PatrickHenry]

Found a simplified pic of the phases of Venus, as predicted by the heliocentric model, and as seen with Galileo's telescope:

[curiosity]

I never said scientists condemned Galileo. In fact, I was correcting another poster who made the same claim.

[curiosity]

You may know something about science, but you know very little about history, I see.

"Pains and penalties" refer to many things besides torture in Canon law. And they don't necessarily refer to physical pain. The phrase "pain of excommunication" is extremely common, even though excommunication involves no physical pain.

Yes, inquisitors did you torture sometimes, but during the time of Galileo it was relatively rare. Most of the time, it merely imprisoned people.

There is zero evidence that Galileo was ever threatened with torture. The manner in which you grasp at straws trying to claim otherwise is quite telling.

I never said other scientists "sparked" the heresy trial. And no, I don't condone what actually happened to Galileo. It was reprehensible, and John Paul II quite rightly apologized for it.

My only interest here is that history is accurately represented and not clouded by lies such as the claim Bruno was burned for heliocentrism or that Galileo was threatened with torture.

[RobbyS]

What got Galileo in trouble was that he exaggerated the strength of his argument. The Church was willing to accept his theory as theory.His intuitions were right but his system was not sufficiently thought through. It was Newton who showed why Galileo conclusions were right.

[curiosity]

I agree with you that the Venus phases were significant, but they still were consistent with Tycho Brae's model, wherein all the other planets orbit the Sun which orbits the Earth. That, in fact, was the major model competing with that of Copernicus at the time.

It was not until Newton that a definitive refutation of geocentrism was possible, as far as I know.

[curiosity]

The observation that anything might revolve around some *other* celestial object cracked this "fundamental truth", and opened up the realization that if things revolved around Jupiter, then other things might revolve around objects other than the Earth as well, like the Sun.

The operative word is "might." It does not necessarily follow that the Earth orbits the sun from the proposition that the moons orbit Jupiter. I agree this evidence was extremely indicative, but it was not decisive. It was only with Newton that Geocentrism was thoroughly disproven.

[DBeers]

I don't see how any person at all familiar with the trial of Galileo could possibly say with a straight face that his persecution was not a result of "a hostility towards science". That's *exactly* what it was about. The Church was hostile to the notion of anyone using scientific principles to reach conclusions contrary to existing church dogma.

So what? -if one accepts each and every point in your version of facts, of what relevance is it today or for that matter in a thread about the Church discussing the fact that science and faith are not mutually exclusive and only the agenda driven myopic closed minded in either camp would suggest and push such argument? -- e.g. the theory of evolution requires a faith in that which is unknown and unknowable -much similar to the leap of faith required to believe in God... Conceptually both camps science & religion embrace the same unknowing positive philosophical mindset -one can not legitimately embrace one without embracing the other and to suggest one contravenes would be quite 'dumb'...

Anyway -I suggest you look up the term 'dogma' -you know not of what you speak; nothing of Galileo's contradicted Church dogma...

[PatrickHenry]

... the theory of evolution requires a faith in that which is unknown and unknowable -much similar to the leap of faith required to believe in God...

Ichneumon on the Scientific Method. It's post 401 and it's excellent.

Ich ... saving you the bother.

[DBeers]

I will save you the bother of defending your religion of evolution by opting out of the wasted exercise...

I tend not to hang out on the evolution religion threads -in a sense, you are on Catholic turf now...

Regardless, in the interest of educating you two evolutionist clerics and potentially fostering better dialogue between the two faiths -here is illuminating reference to one aspect of the Catholic Church you may both be ignorant...

Reference the following words (pretend the passages are ambiguous fossilized bone fragments if this necessary to bypass any myopic belief system filtering you may inherently yet unknowingly possess)

Catholic Dogma

But according to a long-standing usage a dogma is now understood to be a truth appertaining to faith or morals, revealed by God, transmitted from the Apostles in the Scriptures or by tradition, and proposed by the Church for the acceptance of the faithful. It might be described briefly as a revealed truth defined by the Church.

FYI, The Catholic Church does not or has never held or taught a dogmatic position on the solar system, sun etcetera...

[Frank Sheed]

Ichneumon seems to have forgotten about the poor Pole who was in good stead with the Vatican and with Christianity and who basically gets no respect:Nicholas Copernicus.

His genius appears in the fact that he grasped the truth centuries before it could be proved. If he had precursors they are to be compared to those of Columbus. What is most significant in the character of Copernicus is this, that while he did not shrink from demolishing a scientific system consecrated by a thousand years' universal acceptance, he set his face against the reformers of religion. For supplementary information see the article GALILEO.

Opposition was first raised against the Copernican system by Protestant theologians for Biblical reasons and strange to say it has continued, at least sporadically, to our own days. A list of many of their Pamphlets is enumerated by Beckmann. On the Catholic side opposition only commenced seventy-three years later, when it was occasioned by Galileo.

It seems Galileo was just a bit stubborn which got him into a heap of trouble. Bad, bad Vatican!

Cheers!

Frank

[Frank Sheed]

Kuhn demolishes your entire linked theory. You would like to persuade that evidence accumulates and the contravening theory or hypothesis is dropped or modified. The Truth is more likely that you will hold onto your dead theory or patch its inconsistencies until your group dies out and the new paradigm prevails. Kuhn's book on Scientific Revolutions is absolute must reading for how science actually occurs.

The physician who proposed that in most cases, H. pylori causes ulcers and that this could be treated by Tagamet, Pepto Bismol and an antibiotic was declared a lunatic. Now, any surgeon who does a vagotomy on someone with stomach ulcers without trying that regimen three times at least is open to malpractice. Sure, the paradigm was "modified."

Guffaw.


Cheers!
Frank

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you both so much for pinging me to this engaging article!

[LiteKeeper]

INTREP

[TXnMA]

Chance processes and necessary processes are continuously interacting in a universe that is 13.7 x 1 billion years old and contains about 1022 stars.

I expect that was supposed to read, "10²² stars"...