God and Galileo

What a 400-Year-Old Letter Teaches Us about Faith and Science

David L. Block, Kenneth C. Freeman

• Publisher: Crossway
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781433562891
• eBook ISBN:
  9781433562921
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion & Science

"A devastating attack upon the dominance of atheism in science today."
Giovanni Fazio, Senior Physicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

The debate over the ultimate source of truth in our world often pits science against faith.

In fact, some high-profile scientists today would have us abandon God entirely as a source of truth about the universe.

In this book, two professional astronomers push back against this notion, arguing that the science of today is not in a position to pronounce on the existence of God—rather, our notion of truth must include both the physical and spiritual domains.

Incorporating excerpts from a letter written in 1615 by famed astronomer Galileo Galilei, the authors explore the relationship between science and faith, critiquing atheistic and secular understandings of science while reminding believers that science is an important source of truth about the physical world that God created.

Part 1

Grace and Space

Setting the Stage

The dispute between the church and Galileo sowed the seed for the apparent divorce between science and faith. The dispute was about the theory of the universe, presented by Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) in 1543, that the sun was at the center of the universe. This theory was in opposition to the Aristotelian view promoted by the church, that the sun and other planets were in orbit around the earth. Galileo favored the Copernican model because of what he observed through his own telescopes, particularly that the moons of Jupiter were in orbit around the planet Jupiter. These were landmark telescopic observations—not all bodies in the universe were orbiting the earth!

Copernicus’s theory was regarded as heretical because it clashed with the church’s interpretation of the biblical creation account, in which God “set the earth on its foundations” (Ps. 104:5 ESV). Harvard historian Owen Gingerich carefully elaborates:

As far as the theologians were concerned, the Copernican system was not really the issue. I can hardly emphasize this point enough. The battleground was the method itself, the route to sure knowledge of the world, the question of whether the Book of Nature could in any way rival the inerrant Book of Scripture as an avenue to truth.1

Who controls the access to the wells of truth?

Pope Urban VIII allowed Galileo to continue his investigations of the heavens, provided his findings were presented as theory, not as fact. But in the end, Galileo could not restrain himself from fully embracing the heliocentric system.

Galileo was summoned from Florence to Rome for trial by the Inquisition in 1633. He saw no conflict between the domains of scientific research and faith in God. He believed that study of the universe would promote greater understanding of the correct interpretation of the Scriptures. But the label of Galileo as a suspected heretic prevailed in the trial, and he was forced to recant and sentenced to house arrest: he died in Arcetri and on January 9, 1642, was buried in an unmarked grave.2

Galileo was far-reaching in his views: he saw the difference between the nature of truth (Scripture) and the truth of nature (science).3 Although it soon became clear that Galileo’s worldview was correct, it took until 1992 for the church to offer an acknowledgment of the error of the theologians at the time. Here are the words from Pope John Paul II:

Thanks to his intuition as a brilliant physicist and by relying on different arguments, Galileo, who practically invented the experimental method, understood why only the sun could function as the centre of the world, as it was then known, that is to say, as a planetary system. The error of the theologians of the time, when they maintained the centrality of the earth, was to think that our understanding of the physical world’s structure was, in some way, imposed by the literal sense of Sacred Scripture. Let us recall the celebrated saying attributed to Baronius: “Spiritui Sancto mentem fuisse nos docere quomodo ad coelum eatur, non quomodo coelum gradiatur” [“It was the Holy Spirit’s intent to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heavens go”]. In fact, the Bible does not concern itself with the details of the physical world, the understanding of which is the competence of human experience and reasoning. There exist two realms of knowledge, one which has its source in Revelation and one which reason can discover by its own power. To the latter belong especially the experimental sciences and philosophy. The distinction between the two realms of knowledge ought not to be understood as opposition. The two realms are not altogether foreign to each other, they have points of contact. The methodologies proper to each make it possible to bring out different aspects of reality. . . .

Thus the new science, with its methods and the freedom of research which they implied, obliged theologians to examine their own criteria of scriptural interpretation. Most of them did not know how to do so.

Paradoxically, Galileo, a sincere believer, showed himself to be more perceptive in this regard than the theologians who opposed him.4

The pope also refers in his address to Galileo’s famous letter dedicated to Christina of Lorraine (1565–1637), the Grand Duchess of Tuscany. Christina of Lorraine was the favorite granddaughter of Catherine de Medici, the queen of France, and Christina’s son Cosimo II de Medici (1590–1621) was Galileo’s patron. Dedicating this letter to the Grand Duchess Christina was a very prudent move by Galileo, as discussed below. It has even been suggested that while Galileo’s letter of 1615 to the Grand Duchess was indeed dedicated to her, it was never intended to be read by her. In fact, there are no records that the Grand Duchess actually read the letter.5

As Pope John Paul II emphasized, it was a battle for the soul of the world then, and it is a battle for the soul of the world now. What better aid for us to use four centuries later than the actual letter written by Galileo in 1615 and addressed to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany? The letter is about the harmony between the new science and faith in God. It is a letter of such significance that it does not escape mention by Pope John Paul II.

1. Owen Gingerich, “The Galileo Affair,” Scientific American 247, no. 2 (1982): 123–24; italics added.

2. Maurice A. Finocchiaro, ed. and trans., The Essential Galileo (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2008), 24. The present whereabouts of Galileo’s mortal remains will be discussed later.

3. This eloquent expression comes from Gingerich, “Galileo Affair,” 119.

4. John Paul II, “Allocution of the Holy Father John Paul II to the Participants in the Plenary Session of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences,” October 31, 1992, in Papal Addresses to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences 1917–2002, Pontificiae Academiae Scripta Varia, no. 100 (Vatican City: Pontificia Academia Scientiarum, 2003), 336–43.

5. We are indebted to Ottavio and Daniele Besomi, Massimo Bucciantini, Michele Camerota, and George Coyne for their insights into these aspects of the Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany.

1

Is There Grace in Space?

The Two Books

Galileo began his Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany as follows:

A few years ago, as your Highness well knows, I discovered many things in the heavens which had been invisible until this present age. Because of their novelty and because some consequences which follow from them contradict commonly held scientific views, these have provoked not a few professors in the schools against me, as if I had deliberately placed these objects in the sky to cause confusion in the natural sciences.1

A recurring theme in this letter, and a source of great concern to Galileo, was this tension between what he observed through his telescope and the opinions of the theologians. Cherished by the theologians of the day was Aristotle’s geocentric model of the universe, wherein all bodies, including the sun, orbited the earth. The earth was perceived to be the center of the universe. At the time of Galileo, the book of Scripture was used by many as the only source of truth, and the concept of a non-earth-centered world, as revealed by Nicolaus Copernicus’s and Galileo’s new observations, was seen as a huge threat.

The shoe is now on the other foot; to many today, the living truths are found only in the book of science, and the book of Scripture is regarded as mythological and irrelevant. Our personal horizons since the time of Galileo have completely changed. Authority has moved from the church (which so dominated everyday life in Galileo’s time) to the individual. Many now choose to follow the book of science exclusively, with God beyond the fringe of their horizon. Does science not explain everything? No, there are two realms of knowledge. Everything is not science. Above all, spiritual revelation is not science. As Pope John Paul II elucidates,

There exist two realms of knowledge, one which has its source in revelation and one which reason can discover by its own power. To the latter belong especially the experimental sciences and philosophy. The distinction between the two realms of knowledge ought not to be understood as opposition.2

We refer to these two realms of truth as the two books. For us, as astronomers and Christians, the book of Scripture is the revelation of God to humanity over thousands of years. Whether one accepts these revelations is up to the individual; it depends ultimately on faith, not on bare reason, experiment, or observation (although the faith we are describing does not jettison these either). In contrast, the book of nature encompasses our transient knowledge of science, both observational and theoretical, and its goalposts are ever moving.

Galileo seems to have had a better sense of the two books than his antagonists....

Table of contents

• Cover
• Newsletter Signup
• Endorsements
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Part 1 Grace and Space
• Setting the Stage
• 1 Is There Grace in Space?
• 2 Misunderstanding Truth
• 3 Understanding the Universe and Scripture
• 4 What Grace and Space Cannot Tell Us
• 5 The Fraud of Scientism
• 6 An Illusion of Conflict
• 7 Discerning the Truth
• 8 The Two Cathedrals
• Part 2 Historical Vignettes
• 9 A Moon of Glass from Murano, Venice
• 10 A Troubled Dinner in Tuscany
• 11 Winning Back Trust
• Figure 1 Abell 2218 cluster of galaxies. NASA / STScI / Andrew Fruchter and the ERO Team (Sylvia Baggett,
• Part 3 Personal Experiences of Grace
• 12 Grace in the Life of Blaise Pascal
• 13 Grace alongside a Telescope in South Africa
• Appendix Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany
• Bibliography and Additional Readings
• General Index
• Scripture Index