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Dialogue on Geocentrism and the Catholic Faith (Part 1)

 

Are Catholics required to believe in Geocentrism 

as an article of faith?

 

Gary Hoge

 

 

Legend has it that a small boy was once asked to define “faith,” and after pondering this question for a few moments, he replied, “Faith is believing something you know isn’t true.” Unfortunately, some good Catholics, having fallen prey to the arguments of the new Catholic geocentrists, seem to have concluded that their faith requires them to do just that: to believe something they know in their heart isn’t true. I recently received a letter from a self-described “faithful Catholic and Biology major” who said that he felt “forced to accept geocentrism” even though he admitted that “the firmly established idea of Heliocentrism is quite convincing.” He urged me to reconsider my opposition to geocentrism, and to accept it on faith, as he had done. Here is his argument, and my reply (edited somewhat for clarity):

 

St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica (the very first part) states that the doctrinal science is to lead its handmaid – the natural sciences. The natural sciences are only to be used to support the doctrinal sciences, not to change them.

 

Which, of course, raises the question of whether the physical properties of the world are the subject of Christian revelation. I submit that they are not. In 1992, Pope John Paul II said, “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. … 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.”¹

 

St. Robert Bellarmine states that the council of Trent decreed that whenever the Fathers of the Church unanimously agree, they are not to be contradicted. He states further that not only the Fathers of the church but all of the Church’s commentators unanimously agree on geocentrism.

 

Which, again, raises the question of whether the Christian faith intends to teach us about the physical nature of the world. If it doesn’t, then the fact that the Fathers believed that the earth was the center of the universe is no more significant than the fact that they believed that everything was composed of only four elements (air, earth, fire and water) and that disease was caused by an imbalance of “humors” in the blood. Whatever else they were, the Fathers of the Church were men of their times, and when they discussed physical matters, it’s not surprising that they would reflect the prevailing beliefs of their day. But those erroneous scientific beliefs are not binding on us today. In his 1893 encyclical Providentissimus Deus, Pope Leo XIII wrote: “The unshrinking defense of the Holy Scripture, however, does not require that we should equally uphold all the opinions which each of the Fathers or the more recent interpreters have put forth in explaining it; for it may be that, in commenting on passages where physical matters occur, they have sometimes expressed the ideas of their own times, and thus made statements which in these days have been abandoned as incorrect.”² That is certainly the case with respect to geocentrism.

 

St. Bellarmine states that geocentrism is a matter of faith because Scripture comments on it.

 

Pope Leo XIII specifically stated that Scripture does not intend to teach such things. He wrote: “We must remember, first, that the sacred writers, or to speak more accurately, the Holy Ghost Who spoke by them, did not intend to teach men these things (that is to say, the essential nature of the things of the visible universe), things in no way profitable unto salvation. Hence they did not seek to penetrate the secrets of nature, but rather described and dealt with things in more or less figurative language, or in terms which were commonly used at the time, and which in many instances are in daily use at this day, even by the most eminent men of science. Ordinary speech primarily and properly describes what comes under the senses; and somewhat in the same way the sacred writers – as the Angelic Doctor also reminds us – ‘went by what sensibly appeared,’ or put down what God, speaking to men, signified, in the way men could understand and were accustomed to.”³

 

St. Bellarmine was indeed a geocentrist (as was just about everybody back then), but in April 1615, in the very same letter in which he argued that the Fathers of the Church agreed on geocentrism, he wrote: “I say that if there were a true demonstration that the sun is at the center of the world and the earth in the third heaven, and that the sun does not circle the earth but the earth circles the sun, then one would have to proceed with great care in explaining the Scriptures that appear contrary, and say rather that we do not understand them than that what is demonstrated is false.”⁴ In other words, Bellarmine stated that if science ever proved that the sun was the center of the solar system (which he didn’t think would ever happen) he would rather admit that he didn’t understand the Scriptures than absurdly claim that what had been proved was false. I submit that in the centuries since Bellarmine’s day science has truly demonstrated that the sun is at the center of the solar system. Therefore, we should accept that it is. At the very least, we should not insist as a matter of faith that it is not, because, as Pope Leo XIII explained, Scripture doesn’t intend to teach us about such things one way or the other.

 

“You can judge a tree by its fruits.” The tree of heliocentrism has caused the Copernican revolution which states that Scripture is only infallible in matters of faith and morals (See syllabus of Errors).

 

You’re conflating two distinct things: Copernicanism and theological liberalism. They are not related, and certainly the former is not the cause of the latter. It’s true that most liberals are Copernicans, but so are most Fundamentalists. These days everyone is a Copernican, and those who would limit Scripture’s inspiration to matters of faith and morals on the grounds that “Scripture was wrong about geocentrism” are simply mistaken in their premise that the authors of Scripture intended to teach geocentrism in the first place. Scripture is infallible in everything it actually intends to assert, on any topic whatsoever, but Pope Leo XIII pointed out that Scripture doesn’t intend to assert anything about the essential nature of the physical universe. Rather, it’s authors simply described what they saw, just the same as we still do today when we use terms like “sunrise” and “sunset.” Therefore, when the authors of Scripture described the sun “rising” in the sky, that was not an “error” any more than it was an “error” when novelist David Baldacci wrote that his protagonist “had stood on the rear deck for a while and watched the sun slowly rise over him.”⁵ Neither Mr. Baldacci nor the authors of Scripture nor the morning paper intend to teach astronomy when they use such common figures of speech. Indeed, can you imagine how awkward and stilted Scripture would be if its authors always had to describe the world with rigorous scientific precision? Instead of saying, “The sun had risen over the earth when Lot came to Zoar” (Gen 19:23), the inspired author would have to say, “The earth’s eastward rotation had caused the sun to appear from Lot’s perspective as if it had risen over the earth when he came to Zoar.”

 

I fully admit that the firmly established idea of Heliocentrism is quite convincing. I have struggled with it myself a great deal, but I believe the Eucharist is truly and substantially the body and blood of Jesus, no matter how many scientists “prove” me wrong.

 

That’s admirable, but geocentrism is not an article of the faith; the Eucharist is. Further, as any good Catholic theologian will tell you, the change that takes place at the consecration of the bread and wine is not discernible to the senses. Therefore science (which can only measure things that are discernible to the senses) can’t “prove” anything about it one way or the other.

 

At this point in time I also fully admit that the physical sciences sure seem to demonstrate heliocentrism, but at the cost of scripture and tradition. I in faith, must, because of the above reasons, reject heliocentrism as destructive to the faith and erroneous.

 

I urge you to reconsider this position. You won’t be able to convince modern men that geocentrism is true because they know as well as you and I do that science has overwhelmingly demonstrated heliocentrism. If you continue to insist (contrary to Popes Leo XIII and John Paul II) that geocentrism is a doctrine of the Catholic faith, you’ll only make the Catholic faith look ridiculous.

 

Part 1, Part 2