Great post, Mr. johncalvinhall! :first:
Prisca's Pick 01/19/2009
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Great post, Mr. johncalvinhall! :first:
Evoken
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The Church holds, and rightly so, that there can arise no true opposition between the findings of science and revelation. That said, where are you getting this stuff from? The Church did not teach that the earth was flat.
Both Aristotle (On the Heavens) and Plato (In Phaedo) said that the earth was a sphere. Long before Christ, the pagan philosophers had known this for quite some time. A sculpture of Atlas from the 2nd century before Christ shows him holding a spherical earth. So, if your opinion is that belief in a flat earth came about due to the influence of Pagan Philosophy, you are set on the wrong foot.
You are accusing some of the Church Fathers of believing things they never did. St. Augustine, for instance, states in the City of God (Book XVI, chapter 9) that:
“...although it be supposed or scientifically demonstrated that the world is of a round and spherical form, yet it does not follow that the other side of the earth is bare of water; nor even, though it be bare, does it immediately follow that it is peopled.”
St. Clement of Alexandria, whom you also name, said the earth was a sphere in the end of Book III of The Instructor:
“Winter and summer, spring and autumn, each Should come, according to well-ordered plan; Out of a confused heap who created This ordered sphere, and from the shapeless mass Of matter did the universe adorn...”
St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, who studied Aristotle extensively, wrote in the the Summa (Part I, Q. 1):
“Sciences are differentiated according to the various means through which knowledge is obtained. For the astronomer and the physicist both may prove the same conclusion: that the earth, for instance, is round...”
Even in early Christian art you can see the earth represented as a sphere. A mosaic in the San Vitale Basilica from the 6th century shows Christ sitting on a spherical earth.
All this was before the time of Christopher Columbus. The idea that during the middle ages The Church believed that the earth was flat is a popular myth (see: The Myth of the Flat Earth). The belief in a spherical earth in The Church didn’t come after the time of Columbus or Galileo, it was known long before then. The claim that Christians believed in a flat earth is a modern invention, take it from a Reformed website: “...people knew that the world was round. [...] The inventor of the flat earth error was a writer named Washington Irving...in 1828...” (source).
Did some of the early Christians believe in a flat-earth? Maybe. St. John Chrysostom seems to be one of them. It seems that he believed the earth actually floated over the waters and did not sink because God upholds it. He appeals, however, to Scripture and not to Greek Philosophy to support his case (Homily 9, On the Statues).
The issue with Geocentrism and Galileo is one clouded with myths about Galileo being a martyr for science (see here). But the situation was a bit more involved than it is usually made out to be. Not to throw bones around but there seems to have been a strong opposition to Heliocentrism from the Reformed camp. Copernicus ideas were not received by Luther, Calvin and Melanchthon (as far as I know).
When it comes to Geocentricism, it could be argued that since according to General Relativity there is no absolute centre for the universe, wether Geocentrism or Heliocentrism is true would depend from which spatial reference we are looking from.
Evo
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Spitfire
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In all fairness, blame ought to be laid on the Roman Church as well for things like the formation of the doctrine of the Trinity, the preservation of manuscripts and the compilation of the Holy Bible, and defending Christ's divinity against numerous heresies, all things which have also had a major impact on modern Evangelicals.
Good luck backing up your claim that it's all Rome's fault with any actual statement by a pope or council that proclaims all Catholics must accept as dogma that the Earth is flat or that there is this hard dome in the sky or whatever.
Good luck backing up your claim that it's all Rome's fault with any actual statement by a pope or council that proclaims all Catholics must accept as dogma that the Earth is flat or that there is this hard dome in the sky or whatever.
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