Galileo Quadricentennial
Myth vs fact, by Jonathan Sarfati
https://creation.com/the-galileo-affair-refuting-the-falsehoods
Unfortunately, Galileo was largely a victim of his own arrogance and insulting writing style, as well as his unfortunate friendships. Galileo was once a close friend of Maffeo Barberini, the future Pope Urban VIII (1568–1644), who was a great admirer of this work, and shared his high self-opinion. But this mutual adulation came to a bitter end when Galileo wrote his classic 1632 book, The Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo). This was an imagined debate about the geocentric v geokinetic systems. The former was defended by the character “Simplicio”, who was made to look foolish, and Urban recognized his own arguments in Simplicio’s mouth. Urban was outraged at the seeming betrayal by his close friend, and he was the one who initiated the trial while the Inquisitors were apparently indifferent.
Two problems with the part I emphasised:
- you give no source
- Simplicio was not named Urban VIII, he was not named Maffeo, he was not named Barberini - his own memories of using the same argument with Galileo were memories of private conversations not known by all of the Catholic world - Urban VIII would have been quite an incompetent idiot to be furious about it and make a big scene because of that.
For another claim, the opposite reference is actually available.
Unfortunately, the church was led astray by the scientific establishment, so tried to read the then current model into Scripture, although, as shown below, the Bible doesn’t teach it.
Here are a few reasons against this:
- the ones giving an alarm against geokinetism were some Dominican disgruntled at seeing certain Bible passages mangled by Foscarini and Galileo, let's name Tommaso Caccini and Niccolò Lorini, and while their friend Lodovico delle Colombe was a layman and Aristotelian philosopher, his brother Raffaelo delle Colombe was another Dominican;
- the book of Joshua (chapter 10) is explicitly mentioned;
- even if verse 13 could admit an interpretation as phenomenological language, this goes against verse 12, where otherwise we would for the sole time have a miracle worker obtain the desired practical effect while being mistaken about what he physically commanded - it's as if Jesus had healed purely soul-internal mental illnesses while thinking he ejected demons;
- while the consideration inspired by what I know progressive Lutherans in the late 19th C. made out of a "theory of accomodation" was absent to the Dominicans, the fact is, the geokinetic reading is the less intuitive or plain reading of verse 13 and untraditional (Trent Session IV tied Bible exegesis to patristic consensus, arguably meant to mean, where such a thing existed).
In footnote 6, Sarfati cites Russell Grigg - a huge fan of the reformers and able to misconstrue Catholicism.
But first and foremost, I'd like either a retraction or a source for the attack on the character of Pope Urban VIII./HGL
