Posted: Aug 23, 2011 8:31 am
TimONeill wrote:
No, they weren’t. How many times have we been over this? The Catholic Church had and has four levels of scriptural exegesis, of which the literal level is one and the least important. A text was interpreted literally if that accorded with reason – the Psalm that refers to God as a chicken was not to be interpreted literally as saying that God really is a chicken and so was read metaphorically. That meant if a text did not accord with what we know about the world via reason, it could not be interpreted literally. But the texts that talk about the earth being “fixed” and “immobile” etc did seem to accord with reason, thanks to the Ptolemaic paradigm that dominated up until Galileo’s time. And there were still serious objections to the heliocentric model that would not be cleared up until the end of the Seventeenth Century and no clear consensus on any of the various competing models of the time, which included both geocentric and heliocentric versions. So Galileo’s teaching was considered “philosophically false” and contrary to both science and scripture.
I have read the charge sheet too. A pity that there doesn't appear to be a proper transcript of the trial available though. I don't agree that this "philosophically true/false" claim is anything other than a sham to disguise their real problem with it. Does anyone seriously believe that if Galileo had fronted the trial with a copy of the Principia and said here is the "philosophical" justification for my teaching they would have said "Oh jolly good you are free to go and teach away!.