The Essential Galileo (22 page)

From this I think one can very reasonably deduce that, whenever the same Holy Scripture has seen fit to assert any physical conclusion (especially on things that are abstruse and difficult to understand), it has followed the same rule, in order not to sow confusion into the minds of the common people and make them more obstinate against dogmas involving higher mysteries. In fact, as I said and as one can clearly see, for the sole purpose of accommodating popular understanding, Scripture has not abstained from concealing the most important truths, attributing even to God characteristics that are contrary to or very far from His essence; given this, who will categorically maintain that in speaking incidentally of the earth, water, sun, or other created thing Scripture has set aside such regard and has chosen to limit itself rigorously to the literal and narrow meanings of the words? This would be especially implausible when mentioning features of these created things which are very remote from popular understanding, and which are not at all pertinent to the primary purpose of the Holy Writ, that is, to the worship of God and the salvation of souls.

Therefore, I think that in disputes about natural phenomena one must begin not with the authority of scriptural passages, but with sense experiences and necessary demonstrations. For the Holy Scripture and nature derive equally from the Godhead, the former as the dictation of the Holy Spirit and the latter as the most obedient executrix of God's orders; moreover, to accommodate the understanding of the common people it is appropriate for Scripture to say many things that are different (in appearance and in regard to the literal meaning of the words) from the absolute truth; on the other hand, nature is inexorable and immutable, never violates the terms of the laws imposed upon her, and does not care whether or not her recondite reasons and ways of operating are disclosed to human understanding; [317] but not every scriptural assertion is bound to obligations as severe as every natural phenomenon; finally, God reveals Himself to us no less excellently in the effects of nature than in the sacred words of Scripture, as Tertullian perhaps meant when he said, “We postulate that God ought first to be known by nature, and afterwards further known by doctrine—by nature through His works, by doctrine through official teaching” (
Against Marcion
, I.18);
¹⁵
and so it seems that a natural phenomenon which is placed before our eyes by sense experience or proved by necessary demonstrations should not be called into question, let alone condemned, on account of scriptural passages whose words appear to have a different meaning.

However, by this I do not wish to imply that one should not have the highest regard for passages of Holy Scripture; indeed, after becoming certain of some physical conclusions, we should use these as very appropriate aids to the correct interpretation of such Scriptures and to the investigation of the truths they must contain, for they are most true and agree with demonstrated truths. That is, I would say that the authority of Holy Scripture aims chiefly at persuading men about those articles and propositions which, surpassing all human reason, could not be discovered by scientific research or by any other means than through the mouth of the Holy Spirit himself. Moreover, even in regard to those propositions that are not articles of faith, the authority of the same Holy Writ should have priority over the authority of any human works composed not with the demonstrative method but with either pure narration or even probable reasons;
¹⁶
this principle should be considered appropriate and necessary inasmuch as divine wisdom surpasses all human judgment and speculation. However, I do not think one has to believe that the same God who has given us senses, language, and intellect would want to set aside the use of these and give us by other means the information we can acquire with them, so that we would deny our senses and reason even in the case of those physical conclusions which are placed before our eyes and intellect by our sense experiences or by necessary demonstrations. This is especially implausible for those sciences discussed in Scripture to a very minor extent and [318] with disconnected statements; such is precisely the case of astronomy, so little of which is contained therein that one does not find there even the names of the planets, except for the sun,
¹⁷
the moon, and only once or twice Venus, under the name of Morning Star. Thus, if the sacred authors had had in mind to teach people about the arrangement and motions of the heavenly bodies, and consequently to have us acquire this information from Holy Scripture, then, in my opinion, they would not have discussed so little of the topic—that is to say, almost nothing in comparison with the innumerable admirable conclusions which are contained and demonstrated in this science. Indeed, it is the opinion of the holiest and most learned Fathers that the writers of Holy Scripture not only did not pretend to teach us about the structure and the motions of the heavens and of the stars, and their shape, size, and distance, but that they deliberately refrained from doing it, even though they knew all these things very well. For example, one reads the following words in St. Augustine (
On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis
, book 2, chapter 9): “It is also customary to ask what one should believe about the shape and arrangement of heaven according to our Scriptures. In fact, many people argue a great deal about these things, which with greater prudence our authors omitted, which are of no use for eternal life to those who study them, and (what is worse) which take up a lot of time that ought to be spent on things pertaining to salvation. For what does it matter to me whether heaven, like a sphere, completely surrounds the earth, which is balanced at the center of the universe, or whether like a discus it covers the earth on one side from above? However, since the issue here is the authority of Scripture, let me repeat a point I have made more than once; that is, there is a danger that someone who does not understand the divine words may find in our books or infer from them something about these topics which seems to contradict received opinions, and then he might not believe at all the other useful things contained in its precepts, stories, and assertions; therefore, briefly, it should be said that our authors did know the truth about the shape of heaven, but that the Spirit of God, which was speaking through them, did not want to teach men these things which are of no use to salvation.” (The same opinion is found in Peter Lombard's
Book of Sentences
.) The same contempt which the sacred writers had for the investigation of such properties of heavenly bodies is repeated by St. Augustine in the following chapter 10, in regard to the question whether heaven should be thought to be in motion or standing still. He writes: “Some brethren have also advanced a question about the motion of heaven, [319] namely, whether heaven moves or stands still. For if it moves, they say, how is it a firmament? But if it stands still, how do the stars which are thought to be fixed in it revolve from east to west, the northern ones completing shorter circuits near the pole, so that heaven seems to rotate like a sphere (if there is at the other end another pole invisible to us) or like a discus (if instead there is no other pole)? To them I answer that these things should be examined with very subtle and demanding arguments, to determine truly whether or not it is so; but I do not have the time to undertake and to pursue these investigations, nor should such time be available to those whom we desire to instruct for their salvation and for the needs and benefit of the Holy Church.”

Let us now come down from these things to our particular point. We have seen that the Holy Spirit did not want to teach us whether heaven moves or stands still, nor whether its shape is spherical or like a discus or extended along a plane, nor whether the earth is located at its center or on one side. So it follows as a necessary consequence that the Holy Spirit also did not intend to teach us about other questions of the same kind and connected to those just mentioned in such a way that without knowing the truth about the former one cannot decide the latter, such as the question of the motion or rest of the earth or sun. But, if the Holy Spirit deliberately avoided teaching us such propositions, inasmuch as they are of no relevance to His intention (that is, to our salvation), how can one now say that to hold this rather than that proposition on this topic is so important that one is a principle of faith and the other erroneous? Thus, can an opinion be both heretical and irrelevant to the salvation of souls? Or can one say that the Holy Spirit chose not to teach us something relevant to our salvation? Here I would say what I heard from an ecclesiastical person in a very eminent position (Cardinal Baronio
¹⁸
), namely, that the intention of the Holy Spirit is to teach us how one goes to heaven and not how heaven goes.

But let us go back and examine the importance of necessary demonstrations and of sense experiences in conclusions about natural phenomena, and how much weight has been assigned to them by learned and holy theologians. Among hundreds of instances of such testimony we have the following. Near the beginning of his work
On Genesis
Pererius asserts: [320] “In treating of Moses' doctrine, one must take diligent care to completely avoid holding and saying positively and categorically anything which contradicts the decisive observations and reasons of philosophy or other disciplines; in fact, since all truths always agree with one another, the truth of Holy Scripture cannot be contrary to the true reasons and observations of human doctrines.” And in St. Augustine (Letter to Marcellinus, section 7), one reads: “If, against the most manifest and reliable testimony of reason, anything be set up claiming to have the authority of the Holy Scriptures, he who does this does it through a misapprehension of what he has read and is setting up against the truth not the real meaning of Scripture, which he has failed to discover, but an opinion of his own; he alleges not what he has found in the Scriptures, but what he has found in himself as their interpreter.”
¹⁹

Because of this, and because (as we said above) two truths cannot contradict one another, the task of a wise interpreter is to strive to fathom the true meaning of the sacred texts; this will undoubtedly agree with those physical conclusions of which we are already certain and sure through clear observations or necessary demonstrations. Indeed, besides saying (as we have) that in many places Scripture is open to interpretations far removed from the literal meaning of the words, we should add that we cannot assert with certainty that all interpreters speak with divine inspiration, since if this were so then there would be no disagreement among them about the meaning of the same passages; therefore, I should think it would be very prudent not to allow anyone to commit and in a way oblige scriptural passages to have to maintain the truth of any physical conclusions whose contrary could ever be proved to us by the senses or demonstrative and necessary reasons. Indeed, who wants the human mind put to death? Who is going to claim that everything in the world which is observable and knowable has already been seen and discovered? Perhaps those who on other occasions admit, quite correctly, that the things we know are a very small part of the things we do not know? Indeed, we also have it from the mouth of the Holy Spirit that God “hath delivered the world to their consideration, so that man cannot find out the work which God hath made from the beginning to the end” (Ecclesiastes, chapter 3);
²⁰
so one must not, in my opinion, contradict this statement and block the way of freedom of philosophizing about things [321] of the world and of nature, as if they had all already been discovered and disclosed with certainty. Nor should it be considered rash to be dissatisfied with opinions which are almost universally accepted; nor should people become indignant if in a dispute about natural phenomena someone disagrees with the opinion they favor, especially in regard to problems which have been controversial for thousands of years among very great philosophers, such as the sun's rest and earth's motion. This opinion has been held by Pythagoras and his whole school, by Heraclides of Pontus, by Philolaus (teacher of Plato), and by Plato himself (as Aristotle and Plutarch mention); the latter writes in the “Life of Numa” that when Plato was old he said it was very absurd to believe otherwise. The same opinion was accepted by Aristarchus of Samos (as Archimedes tells us), by the mathematician Seleucus, by the philosopher Hicetas (according to Cicero
²¹
), and by many others; finally, it was amplified and confirmed with many observations and demonstrations by Nicolaus Copernicus. Furthermore, in the book
On Comets
, the very distinguished philosopher Seneca tells us that one should attempt to ascertain with the greatest diligence whether the daily rotation belongs to the heavens or to the earth.

Therefore, it would perhaps be wise and useful advice not to add without necessity to the articles pertaining to salvation and to the definition of the faith, against the firmness of which there is no danger that any valid and effective doctrine could ever emerge. If this is so, it would really cause confusion to add them upon request from persons about whom not only do we not know whether they speak with heavenly inspiration, but we clearly see that they are deficient in the intelligence necessary first to understand and then to criticize the demonstrations by which the most acute sciences proceed in confirming similar conclusions. However, if I may be allowed to state my opinion, I should say further that it would be more appropriate to the dignity and majesty of Holy Writ to take steps to insure that not every superficial and vulgar writer can lend credibility to his writings [322] (very often based on worthless fabrications) by sprinkling them with scriptural passages; these are often interpreted, or rather distorted, in ways which are as remote from the true intention of Scripture as they are ridiculously close to the aims of those who ostentatiously adorn their writings with them. Many examples of such an abuse could be adduced, but I shall limit myself to two which are not far from these astronomical subjects. One of them consists of the writings that were published against the Medicean Planets, which I recently discovered, and against the existence of which many passages of Holy Scripture were advanced; now that these planets can be seen by the whole world, I should very much like to hear in what new ways those same opponents interpret Scripture and excuse their blunder. The other example involves someone who has recently argued in print against astronomers and philosophers, to the effect that the moon does not receive its light from the sun but is itself luminous; ultimately he confirms, or rather convinces himself to be confirming, this fancy with various scriptural passages, which he thinks could not be accounted for if his opinion were not true and necessary. Nevertheless, it is as clear as sunlight that the moon is in itself dark.