February 2016: 400 Years Ago the Catholic Church Prohibited Copernicanism | Origins: Cu... - 0 views
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In February-March 1616, the Catholic Church issued a prohibition against the Copernican theory of the earth’s motion.
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This led later (1633) to the Inquisition trial and condemnation of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) as a suspected heretic, which generated a controversy that continues to our day.
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In 1543, Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) published On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres. This book elaborated the (geokinetic and heliocentric) idea that the earth rotates daily on its own axis and revolves yearly around the sun
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Since antiquity, this idea had been considered but rejected in favor of the traditional (geostatic and geocentric) thesis that the earth stands still at the center of the universe.
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The objections to the geokinetic and heliocentric idea involved astronomical observations, the physics of motion, biblical passages, and epistemological principles (e.g., the reliability of human senses, which reveal a stationary earth)
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The Inquisition launched an investigation. Galileo’s writings were evaluated and other witnesses interrogated. The charges against Galileo were unsubstantiated. However, the officials started worrying about the status of heliocentrism and consulted a committee of experts.
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These discoveries did not conclusively prove Copernicanism, but provided new evidence in its favor and refutations of some old objections.
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In February-March 1615, one Dominican friar filed a written complaint against him, and another one testified in person in front of the Roman Inquisition. They accused Galileo of heresy, for believing in the earth’s motion, which contradicted Scripture, e.g., the miracle in Joshua 10:12-13.
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Copernicus did not really refute these objections, but he elaborated a novel and important astronomical argument. Thus, Copernicanism attracted few followers. At first, Galileo himself was not one of them, although he was interested because his new physics enabled him to answer the mechanical objections.
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On February 24, 1616, the consultants unanimously reported the assessment that heliocentrism was philosophically (i.e., scientifically) false and theologically heretical or at least erroneous.
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The following day, the Inquisition, presided by Pope Paul V, considered the case. Although it did not endorse the heresy recommendation, it accepted the judgments of scientific falsity and theological error, and decided to prohibit the theory.
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the Church was going to declare the idea of the earth’s motion false and contrary to Scripture, and so this theory could not be held or defended. Galileo agreed to comply.
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Without mentioning Galileo, it publicly declared the earth’s motion false and contrary to Scripture. It prohibited the reading of Copernicus’s Revolutions, and banned a book published in 1615 by Paolo Antonio Foscarini; he had argued that the earth’s motion was probably true, and certainly compatible with Scripture.
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The 1616 condemnation of Copernicanism was bad enough for the relationship between science and religion, but the problems were compounded by Galileo’s trial 17 years later.
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Galileo kept quiet until 1623, when a new pope was elected, Urban VIII, who was a great admirer of Galileo.
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The Inquisition summoned him to Rome, and the trial proceedings lasted from April to June 1633. He was found guilty of suspected heresy, for defending the earth’s motion, and thus denying the authority of Scripture.
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“Suspected heresy” was not as serious a religious crime as “formal heresy,” and so his punishment was not death by being burned at the stake, but rather house arrest and the banning of the Dialogue.
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The Church’s condemnation of Copernicanism and Galileo became the iconic illustration of the problematic relationship between science and religion.
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This controversy will probably not end any time soon. This may be seen from Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’, with its focus on climate change. Whatever its merits, it could be criticized for having failed to learn, from the Galileo affair, the lesson that the Church should be wary of interfering in scientific matters.