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Galileo today
Three and a half centuries after the trial
Author: Mariano Artigas.
Published in: Aceprensa, service 174/82. Revised: January 2006.
Date of publication: 17 November 1982.
Index
350 years ago, on 23 September 1632, Galileo was summoned to appear before the Holy See official document in Rome, and the following year he was condemned. This famous trial has been clearly deplored by the Church. But these facts are also abused, drawing from them some false conclusions - both historically and scientifically - which are applied to judge various current problems.
Around 1610, Galileo became increasingly convinced of the truth of the heliocentric system, according to which - contrary to the then prevailing view - the Earth revolves around the Sun, and the Sun occupies the centre of the world. His observations through the newly invented telescope - especially the observation of the phases of Venus - played an important role in his acceptance of the theory, which he could not prove convincingly. His reputation as an experimenter and mathematician and the strength with which he defended his convictions brought to the fore a question that had already been raised in Copernicus' On the Revo lutions of the Celestial Orbits, published in 1543.
Copernicus based all his astronomical calculations on the hypothesis that the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun. Whatever his opinion, the work was preceded by a cautious prologue by the Protestant theologian Andreas Osiander (although it did not bear signature, and appeared to be Copernicus'), which stated that it merely formulated a convenient mathematical hypothesis for the calculations, without claiming to judge how things actually were. In truth, Copernicus had no scientific basis for further assertion. Galileo had more data, but not enough to affirm the truth of heliocentrism. If his conclusions were true, his evidential arguments did not have the same consistency.
This theory aroused suspicion at the time for two reasons: it seemed to run counter to a Philosophy based on ordi nary experience, and some saw it as incompatible with passages in the Bible that speak of the stillness of the Earth and the motion of the Sun.
In 1616, the Holy official document in Rome requested an opinion from 11 theologians, who qualified Galileo's astronomical thesis as philosophically absurd and formally heretical. This opinion was never published as an act of the Magisterium of the Church. On 26 February, before Cardinal Bellarmine, Galileo promised not to defend the heliocentric theory, without trial or condemnation.
The trial came after 16 years, when the circumstances seemed favourable to Galileo, as Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, who seemed sympathetic to the theory in question, had been elected Pope - under the name of Urban VIII - Cardinal Maffeo Barberini. Galileo published his Dialogue on the Two Great Systems of the World in February 1632, with the proper ecclesiastical authorisations, but was accused of defending heliocentrism. On 23 September 1632 he was legally summoned to appear before the Roman Inquisition. On 12 April 1633 the first appearance before that tribunal took place. In spite of his protestations to the contrary, it was quite clear that he had not strictly adhered to the 1616 pledge. On 22 June 1633 he was sentenced to censures, which were pardoned in view of his good dispositions, and to imprisonment (in a palace in Rome), which was immediately commuted to confinement in his villa in Gioiello, where he continued to work and publish until his death in 1642, at the age of 78.
The judgment of 1633 was based on the unfortunate opinion of the theologians of 1616, which was not discussed again then. The conflict could easily have been avoided, leaving aside the circumstances of the time. Indeed, the Church admits that the text of the Bible must be interpreted in each case according to the subject of the question in question, and it is obvious that, when it comes to scientific questions, the human author will use expressions which correspond to the ordinary appearance of the facts: God does not intend to reveal in advance conclusions of natural science. This was so clear that Galileo himself stated it, in writing and correctly, in a long letter of 1615.
The conflict made Galileo suffer. It has hurt the Church for centuries. The less injured party was science: soon after, Newton went much further than Galileo, and laid down the instructions of physics in a stable way, making possible a systematic progress that has never ceased. And, of course, neither the Sun nor the Earth are at rest, nor are they the centre of the Universe: in physics we only measure relative movements (of some bodies with respect to others) and taking as reference letter a system that for practical purposes can conveniently play its role.
The Second Vatican Council expressly deplored the trial of Galileo. Pope John Paul II also, while noting that, apart from the misunderstandings of that trial, the scientific and Catholic Galileo objectively teaches a B harmony between science and faith: this harmony was, in fact, one of the main driving forces behind the scientific creativity of the great pioneers of modern science, such as Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton. The systematic birth of modern science was made possible by an explicit conviction about the rationality of a Universe that is the work of an infinitely wise and powerful Creator God, and about the capacity of the human spirit - created by God in his image and likeness - to understand the natural order. And this certainty was due to the influence of Christianity, which came to shape an entire culture.
Today, some claim that the Church is wrong to maintain its teachings on the dogmas of faith and morals, or to condemn - for example - contraceptives or abortion: these would be new "Galileo cases" that would not take into account the progress of science, so that the Church would remain wrongly committed to ways of thinking that have already been superseded.
But this invocation of Galileo is misplaced. Galileo never believed that his scientific theories were contrary to faith or to what the Bible affirmed. What he clashed with was the erroneous interpretation of the Bible by the theologians of his time, thus attempting to elucidate a scientific question. On the other hand, when it comes to issues such as those mentioned above, the Magisterium of the Church remains in its own sphere, which is the religious and moral sphere.
For example, the spread of abortion is a fact of custom, not a scientific conclusion. And the Church's rejection of abortion is the position most in line with the data of current science, which shows a continuous process of development of human life from the moment of conception. Today it is the defenders of abortion who turn a deaf ear to the scientific conclusions on this topic.
New ways of repeating a mistake
As far as the natural sciences are concerned, there has been no other case similar to Galileo's. The alleged conflicts between modern science and faith come, without exception, from doctrines which are arbitrarily presented as scientific conclusions when they are not. The alleged conflicts between modern science and faith arise, without exception, from doctrines which are arbitrarily presented as scientific conclusions when in fact they are not. This happens, for example, when the existence of the human soul is denied because experimental science cannot prove it, forgetting that the experimental method that allows to investigate the structure of the subject is not Pass to study the nature of the spirit; or when the divine creation of the universe is rejected on the basis of evolutionary theories that, in any case, are limited to study possible transformations between already existing beings, without being able to give a reason for the very existence of them.
Those who reason in this way today are in fact making the same mistake that some ecclesiastics made with Galileo. They tried to judge scientific hypotheses by theological methods, without respecting the autonomy of science. Today, it is some men of science - and others who are far from being scientists - who claim to pontificate on the realities of the spirit with criteria and methods valid only for experimental science.
Our age needs to echo, in a positive way, a saying of Cardinal Baronius used by Galileo (who was always a firm believer, before and after the trial): the Holy Scriptures do not teach us what heaven is like, but how to go to heaven. The problem today is not to note that there is no contradiction between science and Catholic doctrine. What matters now is to discover the profound harmony between science and faith. Science provides ever more extensive and profound knowledge about reality and allows us to master it to a large extent, but it tells us nothing about the use of its results or about the meaning of human life.
Christian faith provides a great financial aid to reason in its task of posing and solving the deepest problems of human life. This was undoubtedly Galileo's conviction, and that of so many other scientists who have made possible the progress of science today. To leave it in oblivion entails serious risks of dehumanisation. Our age has already had sufficient experience of how easily man falls victim to his own products if the spiritual dimensions of human existence are disregarded. Moreover, it remains true that scientific progress only leads away from God when viewed in a partial and distorted perspective: if one thinks about it with a minimum of depth, it is a great financial aid for finding God. Galileo would certainly underline this assertion unconditionally.
has been clearly deplored by the Church. But these facts are also abused, drawing from them some false conclusions - both historically and scientifically - which are applied to judge various current problems.
Around 1610, Galileo became increasingly convinced of the truth of the heliocentric system, according to which - contrary to the then prevailing view - the Earth revolves around the Sun, and the Sun occupies the centre of the world. His observations through the newly invented telescope - especially the observation of the phases of Venus - played an important role in his acceptance of the theory, which he could not prove convincingly. His reputation as an experimenter and mathematician and the strength with which he defended his convictions brought to the fore a question that had already been raised in Copernicus' On the Revo lutions of the Celestial Orbits, published in 1543.
Copernicus based all his astronomical calculations on the hypothesis that the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun. Whatever his opinion, the work was preceded by a cautious prologue by the Protestant theologian Andreas Osiander (although it did not bear signature, and appeared to be Copernicus'), which stated that it merely formulated a convenient mathematical hypothesis for the calculations, without claiming to judge how things actually were. In truth, Copernicus had no scientific basis for further assertion. Galileo had more data, but not enough to affirm the truth of heliocentrism. If his conclusions were true, his evidential arguments did not have the same consistency.
This theory aroused suspicion at the time for two reasons: it seemed to run counter to a Philosophy based on ordi nary experience, and some saw it as incompatible with passages in the Bible that speak of the stillness of the Earth and the motion of the Sun.
In 1616, the Holy official document in Rome requested an opinion from 11 theologians, who qualified Galileo's astronomical thesis as philosophically absurd and formally heretical. This opinion was never published as an act of the Magisterium of the Church. On 26 February, before Cardinal Bellarmine, Galileo promised not to defend the heliocentric theory, without trial or condemnation.
The trial came after 16 years, when the circumstances seemed favourable to Galileo, as Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, who seemed sympathetic to the theory in question, had been elected Pope - under the name of Urban VIII - Cardinal Maffeo Barberini. Galileo published his Dialogue on the Two Great Systems of the World in February 1632, with the proper ecclesiastical authorisations, but was accused of defending heliocentrism. On 23 September 1632 he was legally summoned to appear before the Roman Inquisition. On 12 April 1633 the first appearance before that tribunal took place. In spite of his protestations to the contrary, it was quite clear that he had not strictly adhered to the 1616 pledge. On 22 June 1633 he was sentenced to censures, which were pardoned in view of his good dispositions, and to imprisonment (in a palace in Rome), which was immediately commuted to confinement in his villa in Gioiello, where he continued to work and publish until his death in 1642, at the age of 78.
The judgment of 1633 was based on the unfortunate opinion of the theologians of 1616, which was not discussed again then. The conflict could easily have been avoided, leaving aside the circumstances of the time. Indeed, the Church admits that the text of the Bible must be interpreted in each case according to the subject of the question in question, and it is obvious that, when it comes to scientific questions, the human author will use expressions which correspond to the ordinary appearance of the facts: God does not intend to reveal in advance conclusions of natural science. This was so clear that Galileo himself stated it, in writing and correctly, in a long letter of 1615.
The conflict made Galileo suffer. It has hurt the Church for centuries. The less injured party was science: soon after, Newton went much further than Galileo, and laid down the instructions of physics in a stable way, making possible a systematic progress that has never ceased. And, of course, neither the Sun nor the Earth are at rest, nor are they the centre of the Universe: in physics we only measure relative movements (of some bodies with respect to others) and taking as reference letter a system that for practical purposes can conveniently play its role.
The Second Vatican Council expressly deplored the trial of Galileo. Pope John Paul II also, while noting that, apart from the misunderstandings of that trial, the scientific and Catholic Galileo objectively teaches a B harmony between science and faith: this harmony was, in fact, one of the main driving forces behind the scientific creativity of the great pioneers of modern science, such as Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton. The systematic birth of modern science was made possible by an explicit conviction about the rationality of a Universe that is the work of an infinitely wise and powerful Creator God, and about the capacity of the human spirit - created by God in his image and likeness - to understand the natural order. And this certainty was due to the influence of Christianity, which came to shape an entire culture.
Today, some claim that the Church is wrong to maintain its teachings on the dogmas of faith and morals, or to condemn - for example - contraceptives or abortion: these would be new "Galileo cases" that would not take into account the progress of science, so that the Church would remain wrongly committed to ways of thinking that have already been superseded.
But this invocation of Galileo is misplaced. Galileo never believed that his scientific theories were contrary to faith or to what the Bible affirmed. What he clashed with was the erroneous interpretation of the Bible by the theologians of his time, thus attempting to elucidate a scientific question. On the other hand, when it comes to issues such as those mentioned above, the Magisterium of the Church remains in its own sphere, which is the religious and moral sphere.
For example, the spread of abortion is a fact of custom, not a scientific conclusion. And the Church's rejection of abortion is the position most in line with the data of current science, which shows a continuous process of development of human life from the moment of conception. Today it is the defenders of abortion who turn a deaf ear to the scientific conclusions on this topic.
New ways of repeating a mistake
As far as the natural sciences are concerned, there has been no other case similar to Galileo's. The alleged conflicts between modern science and faith come, without exception, from doctrines which are arbitrarily presented as scientific conclusions when they are not. The alleged conflicts between modern science and faith arise, without exception, from doctrines which are arbitrarily presented as scientific conclusions when in fact they are not. This happens, for example, when the existence of the human soul is denied because experimental science cannot prove it, forgetting that the experimental method that allows to investigate the structure of the subject is not Pass to study the nature of the spirit; or when the divine creation of the universe is rejected on the basis of evolutionary theories that, in any case, are limited to study possible transformations between already existing beings, without being able to give a reason for the very existence of them.
Those who reason in this way today are in fact making the same mistake that some ecclesiastics made with Galileo. They tried to judge scientific hypotheses by theological methods, without respecting the autonomy of science. Today, it is some men of science - and others who are far from being scientists - who claim to pontificate on the realities of the spirit with criteria and methods valid only for experimental science.
Our age needs to echo, in a positive way, a saying of Cardinal Baronius used by Galileo (who was always a firm believer, before and after the trial): the Holy Scriptures do not teach us what heaven is like, but how to go to heaven. The problem today is not to note that there is no contradiction between science and Catholic doctrine. What matters now is to discover the profound harmony between science and faith. Science provides ever more extensive and profound knowledge about reality and allows us to master it to a large extent, but it tells us nothing about the use of its results or about the meaning of human life.
Christian faith provides a great financial aid to reason in its task of posing and solving the deepest problems of human life. This was undoubtedly Galileo's conviction, and that of so many other scientists who have made possible the progress of science today. To leave it in oblivion entails serious risks of dehumanisation. Our age has already had sufficient experience of how easily man falls victim to his own products if the spiritual dimensions of human existence are disregarded. Moreover, it remains true that scientific progress only leads away from God when viewed in a partial and distorted perspective: if one thinks about it with a minimum of depth, it is a great financial aid for finding God. Galileo would certainly underline this assertion unconditionally.