{"id":4040,"date":"2024-09-26T07:12:02","date_gmt":"2024-09-26T11:12:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4040"},"modified":"2024-09-26T07:12:02","modified_gmt":"2024-09-26T11:12:02","slug":"follow-the-clues-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/26\/follow-the-clues-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Follow the Clues"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

The Italian scientist Galileo and the Catholic Church had a bit of a falling out in 1633.\u00a0

Despite being acclaimed today as \u201cthe father of observational astronomy,\u201d \u201cthe father of physics,\u201d and even \u201cthe father of modern science,\u201d Galileo was tried by the Inquisition and found \u201cvehemently suspect of heresy.\u201d\u00a0

He was forced to recant his discoveries and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.

And you thought you <\/em>had trouble getting people to believe in your new ideas.

For centuries Galileo has been Exhibit A in what has become a widely-embraced narrative in Western culture.\u00a0

The narrative goes like this:\u00a0The Church is obstinately opposed to truth and progress, and historically has thrown its weight around to punish those who dare to contradict its opinions.\u00a0<\/em>Furthermore, even when the evidence becomes overwhelming, it takes a very long time for the Church to come to its collective senses.\u00a0John Paul II finally offered the Church\u2019s apology to Galileo in 1992 \u2013 a mere 350 years after his death.

But there\u2019s a lot more to this story than first meets the eye.

Galileo and the Church were enthusiastically on the same side.\u00a0Both believed in God and both believed in Truth \u2013 the bedrock conviction that reality is always preferable to fantasy, and that what is Real can indeed be discovered by people of good will who choose to go wherever the evidence leads them.

Unfortunately both Galileo and the Church, in their respective spheres, were battling deeply entrenched ideas \u2013 ideas that ultimately proved to be false.\u00a0

Galileo embraced heliocentrism \u2013 the radical new opinion that the sun is at the center of the solar system rather than the earth.\u00a0

A great majority of scientists in Galileo\u2019s day adamantly disagreed with him.\u00a0What could be more obvious than the daily motion of the sun around our planet?\u00a0Besides, the Egyptian philosopher Ptolemy had taught the centrality of the earth 1500 years earlier.\u00a0The crushing weight of tradition and scientific opinion were firmly set against Galileo.

The Church was also up against a bad idea.\u00a0Medieval Bible scholars had taken a rigid view of what we now call phenomenological language.\u00a0\u00a0

We still say, \u201cThe sun rises and the sun sets.\u201d\u00a0In truth, of course, it\u2019s the earth that is moving with respect to the sun, not the other way around.\u00a0We literally don\u2019t take our own language literally. Nor should Bible students conclude that Scripture teaches that the earth is flat or lies at the center of the solar system.\u00a0Phenomenological language should not be confused with scientific affirmation.

Belief in false ideas \u2013 one embraced by the scientific establishment, the other by religious traditionalists of the 17th<\/sup> century \u2013 doomed Galileo.\u00a0

Science quickly realized Galileo had been right.\u00a0And so did religious authorities, notwithstanding a rather delayed official apology from the Vatican.\u00a0

The old Galileo vs. God showdown is often used to support the modern false idea that Science loves Truth while the Church runs in the other direction with its fingers in its ears.

But there is no inherent conflict between science and spiritual conviction.\u00a0God has provided two books for us to explore:\u00a0the Book of Nature and the Book of Scripture.\u00a0Galileo himself said, \u201cGod is known in nature by his works, and by doctrine in his revealed word.\u201d As the old saying goes, \u201cWe consult the Bible to learn how to go to heaven, and consult Nature to discover how the heavens go.\u201d

At any given historical juncture we may be momentarily perplexed as to how the two fit together.\u00a0But \u201cthe truth meets at the top.\u201d\u00a0Both books are describing Reality.

So what should we do?\u00a0

We must follow the clues. And go where the evidence leads.\u00a0And offer honest answers for honest questions.

Above all, we must live in quiet confidence that the Creator and his creation are not telling different stories.

The universe is just way too fascinating for us to waste time on needless conflicts.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here The Italian scientist Galileo and the Catholic Church had a bit of a falling out in 1633.\u00a0 Despite being acclaimed today as \u201cthe father of observational astronomy,\u201d \u201cthe father of physics,\u201d and even \u201cthe father of modern science,\u201d Galileo was tried by the Inquisition and found \u201cvehemently suspect of heresy.\u201d\u00a0 He… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4041,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[809],"class_list":["post-4040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-science-vs-faith-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4040"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4042,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4040\/revisions\/4042"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}