Letter to the Editor from LaGrange: More On Galileo

Published: May 18, 2006

To the Editor:

I read the recent article on William Raddell’s comments to the National Catholic Educational Association convention (The Georgia Bulletin, April 27) with great interest. His remarks were compelling. There are two points I would like to question, however. The first concerns the condemnation of Galileo for holding a heliocentric theory (Copernican view) of the solar system. Mr. Raddell apparently said that Galileo made his beliefs into a “theological truth” instead of a “scientific theory” in an age that accepted a geocentric theory (Ptolemaic view). This is a misconception of a very complex trial. History is now often viewed as a combination of fiction and fact, but there are some facts that should not be overlooked. In February of 1616 Cardinal Bellarmine forbade Galileo to hold the Copernican view. But in 1632 Galileo published his “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems” which did not openly defend the Copernican view, but any careful reader could see which one he held. In April of 1615 Bellarmine had written another “Copernican” priest saying that he was under the impression that the priest and Galileo “did prudently to content yourselves with speaking hypothetically and not positively.” He knew that Galileo’s theory “saved appearances” (i.e., described the data of the solar system’s motion) better than Ptolemy’s. The cardinal was very concerned, however, about what would happen to Scripture (in which the sun “moves”) if it were proved that the earth goes around the sun. Galileo responded to Bellarmine saying that no “two truths can contradict one another, this and the Bible must be perfectly harmonious.” He also refused to accept the Copernican view as an “astronomical hypothesis that is not really true.” I take these texts from a late Catholic physicist’s remarkable survey (James T. Cushing, Philosophical Concepts in Physics [Cambridge University Press 1998]). He and Stephen M. Barr (another Catholic physicist) both refer to the fine contributions made by Catholics (and other Christians) to the development of modern science (Modern Physics and Ancient Faith [U. of Notre Dame Press 2003]). It is important that the great John Paul II noted that Galileo had a better hermeneutic of Scripture than his opponents (see his “Address to the Plenary Session of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences” on Oct. 31, 1992 when he accepted their report on the Galileo case).

The second issue, concerning which I will be much briefer, is Mr. Raddell’s statement that while some teach the whole Bible is without error Catholics only believe it is without error in “matters of faith and morals.” This view was rejected by Pius XII in a document of great importance for Catholic biblical scholars — Divino Afflante Spiritu § 1 (Sept. 30, 1943). The pope noted we could not “… regard other matters, whether in the domain of physical science or history, as obiter dicta [things said in passing] and—as they contended—in no wise connected with faith.” He referred to an earlier encyclical of Leo XIII (Providentissimus Deus, Nov. 18, 1893) that affirmed a similar position. Vatican II (Verbum Dei § 11) continued the discussion with its affirmation that “the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writing for the sake of salvation.” The council does not casually dismiss history, although some Catholic scholars have begun to follow many modern Protestant biblical scholars down that road. Would that matters were as simple as Mr. Raddell would like.

John Granger Cook, LaGrange