Galileo Was Wrong?

Next article: The Moral Values Article
Previous article: The Name Game, Part III

Share with your friends and followers:

This makes an interesting follow-up to previous posts on the relations between natural science and Christian faith. In following a link from St. Stephen’s Musings, I came across Robert Sungenis, a Roman Catholic apologist. Well, actually, his apologies have nothing to do with Roman Catholicism, in sooth, but geocentrism. Yes, you read correctly. Remember Galileo? Forced to recant for believing the heresy that the earth revolved around the sun? Received a posthumous apology from the Vatican about a decade or so ago? Yes, that Galileo. Mr. Sungenis, evidently, thinks the Ptolemaic scientists were correct, and he has somehow tied this confusion to the Roman Catholic faith. No doubt Mr. Sungenis would cheer at the tragic climax of a film about Galileo, as the nearly blind scientist whispers to his daughter about the Copernican solar system yet receives the final rites in return for his recanting and mute respect for the communion of the Church.

This is what happens when doctrine becomes too closely allied with the science of a particular age. When the science changes, the faith looks naïve. It is the nature of doctrine — since it is divinely revealed — to be stable and relatively unchanging. Yet it is the nature of science — since it is a seeking and a discovering of the world by fallible human minds — to be always changing, reflecting new finds and new insights.

Do you think Mr. Sungenis’ geocentrism sounds ludicrous? Scientific creationists will seem equally ridiculous in a very short time. To most, they already are.

Share with your friends and followers:

The URL to trackback this post is:
http://kevinbasil.com/2004/11/06/galileo-was-wrong/trackback/

Comments are closed.