It is June 22, 1633. An unsteady old man is on his knees before the court of the Roman Inquisition. He is a man of science, one of the best known of the day. His scientific convictions are based on long years of study and research. Yet, if he wants to save his life, he must renounce what he knows to be true.
He was a mathematician, an astronomer, and a physicist. He discovered, among other things, that Jupiter has moons, that the Milky Way is composed of stars, that the moon has mountains, and that Venus has moonlike phases. As a physicist, he studied the laws governing both the pendulum and falling objects. He invented such instruments as the geometric compass, a kind of slide rule. Using information received from Holland, he made the telescope that opened the universe before him. By means of it, he interpreted what he saw as support for a notion that was still hotly disputed in his day: The earth revolves around the sun and therefore our planet is not the center of the universe.
Conflict With Rome
As early as the end of the 16th century, he embraced the thinking of another great discoverer by the name of Copernicus who theorized that the earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa. This is also called the heliocentric system. After using his telescope in 1610 to discover celestial bodies that had never before been observed, he became convinced that he had found confirmation of the heliocentric system.
In 1611, he traveled to Rome, where he used his telescope to show high ranking clergymen his discoveries. But things did not turn out as he had hoped. By 1616, he found himself under official scrutiny.
Theologians of the Roman Inquisition labeled the heliocentric thesis heretical, since in many places it expressly contradicts the Holy Scriptures according to their Holy Fathers and doctors of theology.
After a meeting with cardinal Robert Bellarmine, he was formally admonished to stop promoting his opinions on the sun-centered system.
He tried to act prudently, but he did not renounce his support of the Copernican thesis. Seventeen years later, in 1633, he was summoned to appear before the Inquisition court because of writing a book entitled “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems”. In effect, it advocated heliocentrism. Cardinal Bellarmine was dead, but now his main opposer was Pope Urban VIII, who had in the past been favorable. Being ill and almost 70 years old he delayed and made the trip to Rome the following year, after being threatened with bonds and forced transportation. By order of the pope, he was interrogated and even threatened with torture.
It is not known for certain whether he was actually tortured. As recorded in his conviction sentence, he was subjected to “rigorous examination.” According to Italo Mereu, a historian of Italian law, that phrase was the technical expression of the day used to describe torture. A number of scholars agree with that interpretation.
At any rate, he was sentenced before the members of the Inquisition on June 22, 1633. He was found guilty of “having held and believed false doctrine, contrary to the Holy and Divine Scriptures, that the Sun . . . does not move from east to west and that the Earth moves and is not the center of the world.” (Eccl. 1:4,5)
He did not want to become a martyr, so he was forced to recant. After his sentence was read, the elderly scientist, kneeling and dressed as a penitent, solemnly pronounced: “I do abjure, curse, and detest the said errors and heresies [the Copernican theory] and in general all and any other error, heresy, or sect contrary to the Holy Church.”
There is a popular tradition—unconfirmed by solid evidence—that after abjuring, he stamped his foot and exclaimed in protest: “And yet it does move!” Commentators claim that the humiliation of renouncing his discoveries anguished the scientist until his death. He had been condemned to jail, but his sentence was commuted to perpetual house arrest. As blindness descended upon him, he lived in near seclusion.
His adversaries also referred to Joshua’s statement, “Sun, stand thou still,” which, according to their reading, was to be understood literally. (Joshua 10:12, King James Version) But does the Bible really contradict the Copernican theory? No
The contradiction lay between science and an incorrect interpretation of Scripture. He wrote to a pupil: “Even though Scripture cannot err, its interpreters and expositors can, in various ways. One of these, very serious and very frequent, would be when they always want to stop at the purely literal sense.”
He further claimed that two books, the Bible and the book of nature, were written by the same author and could not contradict each other. He added, though, that a person could not “with certainty assert that all interpreters speak under divine inspiration.” This implicit criticism of the church’s official interpretation was likely considered a provocation, leading the Roman Inquisition to condemn the scientist. After all, how dare a mere layman interfere with ecclesiastical prerogatives?
Pope Urban VIII rigidly insisted that he refrain from undermining the centuries-old church teaching that the earth is the center of the universe. But that teaching came, not from the Bible, but from the Greek philosopher Aristotle.
His name was Galileo, considered by many to be the “father of modern science.”
In reality Galileo defended the Bible against a misinterpretation. But the church, by defending a man-made tradition at the Bible’s expense, did the opposite.
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