Copernicus and the History of Science and Religion

Copernicus´ experience with his ideas of heliocentrism, started in 1514 and published in his 1543 book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, were a famous origin of modern controversies between the nascent modern scientific community and Christian religious authorities and their doctrines. One popular conception holds that Church authorities unscientifically and with religious doctrine opposed the idea. It turns out that a historical sociological analysis finds that popular psychological explanatory needs were involved in trying to grasp the idea. Copernicus did make some pre-telescopic observatory observations, but made mathematical philosophcal evaluations to reach his conclusions. Galileo´s discoveries, including some of Jupiter´s moons, alone weren´t that convinced some key component of society. Scholars have found that the necessary step that had the most significant influence was Newton´s description of gravitation that explained a key concern for people.

At first, the first Church´s representatives to act against Copernicus were the Dominican Bartolomeo Spina, (source: R. Feldhay) and then more elaborately another Dominican Giovanni M Tolosani (R.S. Westman). He argued that there was no physical theory to deduce by induction. It turns out that his concerns reflected a widely held notion that if the Earth were in motion, everything would just fall off. (D. Kobe). Galileo´s first contribution wasn´t with his telescopic observations, but his work in clarifying the concept of "inertia" (E. Jung). Aristotle´s own ideas had been that bodies required the constant application of an outside force to stay in motion.

Philip Melanchthon was a major Protestant leader at that time, and called Copernicus´ ideas "absurd." However, he sent a mathematician, J Rheticus, to learn about Copernicus´ work, and he published an abstract summary of Copernicus´ heliocentric ideas in 1541, two years before Copernicus´ Revolutionibus was published. However, some small group of astronomers carried the ideas forward and the Protestant Kepler became the first astronomer to openly support the Copernican model in his 1596 Mysterium Cosmographicum. He used theological belief to propel his thinking, comparing the Sun to God the Father, the stellar area to the Son, and intervening space to the Holy Spirit.

It then took DesCartes´ analytical geometry and his innovated variables to make modern algebraic equations fully workable. It was then that Newton could apply himself. Of course, Newton´s work involved various aspects related to modernizing Christian psychosocial spiritual and religious development. Two were that the flexibility of Christian freedom of the individual allowed Newton to avoid formal religious practice. Without any ongoing psychospiritual discipline, Newton´s run-in with the cranky and envious R Hooke over gravity caused Newton to put his work away. It was only some five years later that Ed Halley came knocking as a friendly associate scientist with his own investigation of a comet´s behavior. Halley then revived Newton´s interest in the work, and sponsored him through publishing. Another aspect of the University´s tendencies towards Freedom of Thought involved Newton drawing from his recreational interest in alchemy to get the concept of "action at a distance." He compared the apple, the moon, and the planets, and conceived gravity. He wrote famously against "occult" interpretations, "hypothesis non-fingo" (K Walsh). It was his formulation that settled lingering doubts in people´s minds (O Gingerich).

The problem then of presuming mistakenly that Science was eliminating Religion is still being addressed. One landmark is J Polkinghorne´s response to both Scientism and the oppositional philosophical Anti-Realism was Critical Realism (D Lamoureux). As an interfaith Christian and member of the Unitarian Universalist Religious Association, my personal objective is to clarify the worldview related to the Freedom of Religion or not. One aspect is to illuminate the Christian integrity involved in the development of that very policy. Jesus´ legacy emerges in the historical sociological perspective involving human beings inserted in the development of Christian society and acts of integrity and hypocrisy. Meanwhile, his teachings about God´s love and caring love for self, neighbors, enemies, and thus fellow human beings. While many church doctrines have narrower scope, Western Civilization´s Human Rights has provided a game plan for broader interaction.

1. Were you aware that Aristotle had conceived "impetus" I think he called it, in such a way that the constant application of force was necessary? 2. Were you aware of the diversity of events involved in the sequence from Copernicus´ 1514 conception of heliocentrism, Rheticus´ preliminary publication, and the different issues on up to Newton? 3. Specifically, What do you think of the role of religious cultural imagination in Kepler´s work and Newton´s? That itself goes back earlier to a 1277 document by a Bishop Tempier for Pope John XXI, that condemned unquestioning acceptance of Aristotle´s work, and spurred the work of the pre-modern scientific foundations in Robert Grosseteste and the Oxford Franciscan School with Roger Bacon. The issue was against Aristotle´s lack of universal laws, in his "metabasis," and Christian notions of Divine Omnipotence and Freedom. How does all that compare to your understanding of the History of Science and Religion?