Some would argue that if one rejects this scientific version of natural theology, then one is forced to believe in a static earth and a geocentric universe because that is what the Bible infallibly teaches. No, the Bible does not teach this because the Bible is silent on this scientific issue. Some Bible verses in poetic contexts do state that the earth cannot be moved (1 Chronicles 16:30; Psalm 93:1; 96:10; 104:5; contrast Job 9:6, a poetic verse which refers to the earth and motion). These verses can refer to the general stability of the world as opposed to the absolute motionlessness of the physical earth. Psalm 19's description of the sun's daily race from one end of heaven to the other is obviously poetic. Other verses refer to the sun's rising or setting (Ecclesiastes 1:5) or to the miracle of the sun's standing still (Joshua 10:12-14). This language, of course, can refer to how an event appears from the human perspective. We today still use terms such as "sunrise" and "sunset." We have invented the modern term "outer space." We do not mean to imply by these terms that we today believe in a physically geocentric universe. Neither should we assume such implications from the use of "sunrise" and "sunset" in Scripture. Their use is incidental rather than the substance of some teaching about the nature of creation.
The reason there was controversy over the heliocentric versus the geocentric universe was not because of the Bible but because of the philosophy of Aristotle. "Aristotle conceived of the universe as a set of concentric spheres, with the earth stationary at the center."1 "The Aristotelian world view was the single most important source and support for the pre-Copernican tradition of astronomical practice." "During the last centuries of the Middle Ages the setting of Christian life, both terrestrial and celestial, was a fully Aristotelian universe."2 Thomas Kuhn gives the following description of the Aristotelian astronomy:
For Aristotle the entire universe was contained within the sphere of the stars.... The largest part of the interior is filled with a single element, the aether, which aggregates in a homocentric set of nesting shells to form a gigantic hollow sphere whose surfaces are the outside of the sphere of the stars and the inner surface of the homocentric sphere carrying the lowest planet, the moon. Aether is the celestial element -- a crystalline solid in Aristotle's writings, though its solidity was frequently questioned by his successors. Unlike substances known on earth, it is pure and unalterable, transparent and weightless. From it are made the planets and stars as well as the nest of concentric spherical shells whose rotations account for the celestial motions.3
According to Aristotle, the underside of the sphere of the moon divides the universe into two totally disparate regions, filled with different sorts of matter and subject to different laws. The terrestrial region in which man lives is the region of variety, change, birth and death, generation and corruption. The celestial region is, in contrast, eternal and changeless. Only aether, of all the elements, is pure and incorruptible. Only the interlocked celestial spheres move naturally and eternally in circles, never varying their rate, always occupying exactly the same region of space, forever turning back upon themselves. The substance and motion of the celestial spheres are the only ones compatible with the immutability and majesty of the heavens, and it is the heavens that produce and control all variety and change on earth.4
It is instructive to note exactly how the heliocentric Copernican system defeated the geocentric Ptolemaic system:
Because the Ptolemaic and the Copernican systems are mathematically equivalent, there was no conceivable observational test that could distinguish between them, at least so far as the solar system was concerned. And in any case Copernicus was no great observer.
...
If it was impossible to refute Ptolemy directly, it was much easier to dispose of Aristotle and his crystalline spheres. The astronomers, who did not care for such things, might shrug their shoulders and accept Copernicanism as merely an alternative philosophical scheme to Ptolemy. The common man still thought in Aristotelian terms and his universe was certainly in for some shocks. When they came it was in a series of most remarkable coincidences.
In 1572 an omen appeared in the European skies that proved to be a new star -- an exceedingly rare supernova. What was remarkable was not just its brightness (visible even at midday), but the observation made by the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe that it was in the region of no-parallax, i.e., very far away and far beyond the orbit of the moon. But its location way out in space was in flat contradiction with the teachings of Aristotle and the schoolmen. According to them changes (like new stars) simply did not occur so far from the earth. Nor were matters improved when Tycho discovered a similar remoteness for another celestial novelty, a new comet, five years later. That posed the additional problem of having to make its way through the crystalline spheres to which the planets were attached. Then, when Galileo became the first man to peer at the skies through a telescope (in 1610), he found the planet Jupiter had its own retinue of four attendant moons, the 'perfect' sun had spots on its face, Venus had phases like the moon, and much else that shook ancient cosmology to its foundations. Finally we may record that a meticulous examination of Tycho's matchless observational data by his heir-apparent, Kepler, led the latter to conclude that there was an 8-minute discrepancy between the observed orbit of Jupiter and the best prediction based on circular motion. His proposal that the planet moved in an ellipse not merely paved the way for the Newtonian synthesis. It was the final blow to Aristotelian astronomy.5
The Christian church had not immediately adopted an Aristotelian universe:
In the early centuries of the Christian era the Church Fathers were crusaders and proselytizers for a new faith, fighting for its very existence. Their calling itself demanded that they deprecate the pagan learning of their predecessors ... In the writings of Augustine's less liberal contemporaries and successors, his deprecation of pagan science was usually coupled with an outright rejection of its content. Astronomy, because of its ties to astrology, was particularly scorned ...
...
By the time that Christian Europe reestablished commercial and cultural ties with the Eastern Church in Byzantium and with the Moslems of Spain, Syria, and Africa, the Church's attitude toward pagan wisdom had changed. The main areas of continental Europe had been converted; the Church's intellectual and spiritual authority was complete; the hierarchy of ecclesiastical administration was fixed. Pagan and secular learning were no longer a threat, provided that the Church could maintain intellectual leadership by absorbing them. ...
We have been calling the process by which Christians discovered that they lived in an Aristotelian universe a recovery of ancient learning, but 'recovery' is clearly an inadequate word. What occurred was far more nearly a revolution in both Christian thought and the ancient scientific tradition. From the fourth century on, Aristotle, Ptolemy, and other Greek writers had been attacked by Churchmen because of the conflict between their cosmological opinions and Scripture. Those conflicts still existed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and they were recognized. In 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council issued a similar, though more restricted, anti-Aristotelian edict. Other interdictions issued from the papacy throughout the century. There were unsuccessful, winning lip service alone, but they are not insignificant. The edicts testify to the impossibility of simply adding ancient secular learning to the existing body of medieval theology. Both ancient texts and Scripture required modification in the creation of a new fabric of coherent Christian doctrine. When the new fabric was completed, theology had become an important bulwark for the ancient concept of a central stationary earth.
The physical and cosmological structure of the new Christian universe was predominately Aristotelian. St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) [was] the scholastic who contributed most to the final pattern of the fabric ...6
Thomas Kuhn comments on Aquinas' efforts to bend Scripture to fit the Aristotelian mold:
For example, in discussing the scriptural text, 'Let there be a firmament made amidst the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters' (Genesis 1:6), Aquinas first outlined a cosmological theory that would preserve the literal sense of the passage and then said:
As, however, this theory can be shown to be false by solid reasons, it cannot be held to be the sense of Holy Scripture. It should rather be considered that Moses was speaking to ignorant people, and that out of condescension to their weakness he put before them only such things as are apparent to sense. Now even the most educated can perceive by their senses that earth and water are corporeal, whereas it is not evident to all that air also is corporeal. ... Moses, then, while he expressly mentions water and earth, makes no express mention of air by name, to avoid setting before ignorant persons something beyond their knowledge.7
By reading 'water' as 'air' or 'transparent substance' the integrity of Scripture is preserved. But in the process the Bible becomes, in some sense, a propaganda instrument, composed for an ignorant audience. The device is typical; the scholastics employed it again and again.
The painstaking thoroughness with which Aquinas and his contemporaries attacked the task of reconciliation is illustrated by the difficulties they discovered in the Biblical account of the Ascension. According to Scripture Christ "ascended up far beyond all heavens, that he might fill all things" (Ephesians 4:10). Aquinas succeeded in fitting this bit of Christian history into a universe of spheres, but to do so he had to resolve many varied problems ...8
Scripture was distorted when interpreted in the light of Aristotle9, just as Scripture is distorted when interpreted in the light of science. Scripture should be accepted as the shining light compared to which all other lights are flickering candles. Rather than teaching us the need to interpret Scripture in light of infallible science, the Copernican revolution teaches us the danger of any two-source theory of truth which compromises the status of Scripture as the only infallible rule of faith and practice.
1 W.T. Jones, The Classical Mind: A History of Western Philosophy, Second Edition (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1970), page 232.
2 Thomas S. Kuhn, The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957), pages 94, 108.
3 Thomas S. Kuhn, Ibid., page 78.
4 Thomas S. Kuhn, Ibid., page 90.
5 Colin A. Russell, Cross-currents: Interactions between Science and Faith (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1985), pages 38-39. Cf. chapter 6: "The Assimilation of Copernican Astronomy" in Thomas S. Kuhn, Ibid., pages 185 - 228. The mathematical inaccuracy of Copernicus' theory was due to his belief that the planets traveled in circular orbits at uniform speeds.
6 Thomas S. Kuhn, Ibid., pages 106 - 108.
7 In this section of Question 68 in Book 1 of Summa Theologica, Aquinas is addressing the question, Whether the firmament divides waters from waters? He begins with the following observation: "It would seem that the firmament does not divide waters from waters. For bodies that are of one and the same species have naturally one and the same place. But the Philosopher says (Topic. i, 6): 'All water is the same species.' Water therefore cannot be distinct from water by place." The "Philosopher", of course, is Aristotle. According to Aristotle, the four elements of the sublunary region each have their natural place. "According to the Aristotelian laws of motion ..., the elements would, in the absence of any external pushes and pulls upon them, settle into a series of four concentric shells like the aetherial spheres of the fifth element surrounding them. Earth, the heaviest element, would move naturally into a sphere at the geometric center of the universe. Water, also heavy but not so heavy as earth, would settle in the spherical shell about the central region of earth. Fire, the lightest element, would rise spontaneously to form a shell of its own immediately below the moon's sphere. And air, also a light element, would complete the structure by filling the remaining shell between fire and water." Thomas S. Kuhn, Ibid., page 81.
8 Thomas S. Kuhn, Ibid., pages 109 - 110. For a study on Calvin and Copernicus, see "Calvin and the Astronomical Revolution" by Matthew F. Dowd at http://www.goshen.net/LibraryOfGod/calvin.html.
9 Thomas Aquinas in Question 68 of Book 1 of his Summa Theologica deals with the question, "Whether the firmament divides waters from waters?" In his discussion, he says the following, which reveals his two-source view of truth: "Further, all that was made in the six days was formed out of matter created before days began. But the firmament cannot have been formed out of pre-existing matter, for if so it would be liable to generation and corruption. Therefore the firmament was not made on the second day. "On the contrary, It is written (Gn. 1:6): 'God said: let there be a firmament,' and further on (verse 8); 'And the evening and morning were the second day.' "I answer that, In discussing questions of this kind two rules are to observed, as Augustine teaches (Gen. ad lit. i, 18). The first is, to hold the truth of Scripture without wavering. The second is that since Holy Scripture can be explained in a multiplicity of senses, one should adhere to a particular explanation, only in such measure as to be ready to abandon it, if it be proved with certainty to be false; lest Holy Scripture be exposed to the ridicule of unbelievers, and obstacles be placed to their believing. ... "Still less compatible with the belief that the substance of the firmament was produced on the second day is the opinion of Aristotle, seeing that the mention of days denotes succession of time, whereas the firmament, being naturally incorruptible, is of a matter not susceptible of change of form; wherefore it could not be made out of matter existing antecedently in time."
