Galileo When Galileo Made, Through

Galileo When Galileo made, through his own study, the discovery that the earth was mobile and the sun was fixed at the center of the universe with the earth and all other planets revolving around it, this was not the first time the idea had been introduced to science or the public. Years prior, other astronomers and scientists of that mold made the discovery and published their findings, the most notable of which being Nicholas Copernicus, who Galileo describes as the "author.

restorer and confirmer" (pg 2) of this opinion of the construction of the celestial bodies. Despite the fact that this idea was not novel, there arose contenders of Galileo's studies who would wish to shut down the very notion involved with that kind of thinking, their defense being that stating the sun to be fixed and the earth mobile constituted heresy. According to Galileo's letter he considered his opponents to be certain "professors" (pg 1) who professed themselves to be experts in theology, and of course religious leaders in the church.

Galileo's discovery that the earth revolves around the sun stirred up such controversy, discussion, and anger because many passages in the Bible state that "the sun moves and the earth stands still. Since the Bible cannot err; it follows as a necessary consequence that anyone takes a[n] erroneous and heretical position who maintains that the sun is inherently motionless and the earth movable" (pg 3).

Understandably, those who took the most literal translation of the Bible as truth would be taken aback by the allegations that what the Bible states is not true, but Galileo brings to light the fact that the Bible "is often very abstruse, and may say things which are quite different from what its bare words signify" (pg 3). Therefore, the Bible says some things plainly, certainly, but in many cases the true meaning of the passage lies behind what can be inferred from the words, not what they actually say.

This being the case, Galileo reasons that discoveries (like his) that can be made with "sense-experience" should help scholars to interpret the Bible more clearly, and it does not follow that the Bible, being sometimes unclear, should be used to interpret the laws of the universe. There were, on the other hand, opponents who reason could not reach, and those were the men Galileo believed to be "hostile not so much toward the things in question as toward their discoverer" (pg 1).

The motive of these particular men was unclear, other than that their motives were personal and passionate, and "quite different from the sacred intention of the holy Church," (pg 3) which is to speak truth for the salvation of souls.

For whatever reason, these men who condemned Galileo, condemned his book, and pronounced him a heretic, did so without having read his book or listened to the statements or arguments he made, and these same men used to their advantage "passages taken from places in the Bible which they had failed to understand properly" (pg 1). Concerned by the threat of opponents such as these, Galileo was hesitant to make his discoveries public, but Kepler encouraged him to make.