The year is 1543 and the scene the fortified town of Frauenburg, the present day Frombork of Northern Poland.
A dying man
A man is dying: paralyses and with lost memory, he is a pathetic shadow of his former self. As his life ebbs away, a messenger arrives from Nuremberg, 600 miles distant, with a package. It contains the final pages of the book from the hand of that frail figure insensible on the bed.
Although Nicholas Copernicus can no longer read his own words, it is he who is responsible for one of the most challenging scientific books ever written: De Revolution ibus orbium coelestium (Concerning the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies). Indeed, it was to be revolutionary in more ways than one.
His revolution
Copernicus was born 70 years earlier at Thorn, a border city between Germany and Poland. He studied at Cracow and Bologna where, as part of the classic education of the time, he would learn astronomy. His chosen vocation was the church and for this he acquired Greek. This skill was to open up to him the writing of the classics, most significantly the astronomical theories of the ancient Greeks.
He began to realize that besides the earth-centered (i.e. geocentric) model of the universe that had become the accepted orthodoxy, there had been other speculations that contrasted with it. Some ancient philosophers had proposed a heliocentric universe with the sun rather than the earth at its center. Its notable proponent was Aristarchus (c. 310-230 B.C.) sometimes dubbed “the Copernicus of antiquity.”
The ancient astronomy
As in Copernicus’ time, the dominating picture of the ancients stemmed from Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) and was refined by the Egyptian mathematician Ptolemy in the second century A.D. On this scheme, the earth was motionless in the center of a series of concentric spheres which were crystalline and invisible. Embedded in these were the sun, moon and planets.
The sphere of the moon represented a fundamental division of the universe of Aristotle. Beyond this were the incorruptible heavens but inside was the corruptible earth, subject to change and decay.
This simple picture was complicated by a series of imaginary motions of the heavenly bodies to account for what was actually observed.
The strait-jacket of Aristotle
The earth-centered approach was based on reason alone (the theoretical approach of the Greeks) and clashed with the sun-centered idea based on the evidence of observation (the Bible-based empirical approach). But this was not a simple matter of choosing the model that best fit the facts. There were vested interests for the church to maintain the status quo earth-centered theory, as Aristotelian thinking had become the accepted and required tradition within its doctrines.
Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1275 A.D.) was largely responsible for this as he linked Aristotle’s astronomy with Biblical texts. Passages were cited as evidence of the centrality and immobility of the earth (e.g. Psa. 96:10; 102:25; Eccl. 1:4,5; Isa. 48:13; Zech. 12:1 and most notably Joshua 10:12,13).
So ingrained had these interpretations become that they were regarded as part of the divine revelation. Indeed, to depart from them was seen as heretical and would bring down the ruthless wrath of the authorities.
To publish or not to publish?
No wonder Copernicus was wary of publicizing his quite revolutionary scheme to replace the earth with the sun as the center of the universe. As an official of the church, he doubtless felt a particular responsibility to defend orthodoxy and suppress his findings. Yet his search for scientific truth had led him into this dangerous dilemma.
Was it right to remain silent?
It is not the purpose of this article to describe the heart searching that finally led to his cautious publication
with the support of stalwart friends such as Tiedemann Giese (1480-1550 A.D.). Our concern is to highlight the problem when “private interpretation” becomes imposed on Bible truth so that the two become indistinguishable.
Reaction to Copernicus
As we noted, Copernicus was not to live to see the effects of his work. Indeed the opposition after his death was for a number of years varied and on the whole muted. To a large extent, this was due to the understandable reluctance of many of his disciples to come into the open.
But the issue of supposed challenge to authority did not go away. It was to surface dramatically with Galileo, a man of much higher profile than Copernicus. Even before that crisis, however, all declared followers of Copernicus were subject to criticism, if not persecution.
Objections based on common sense and supposed scripture
Some objections were on “common sense” grounds. Doesn’t our very experience teach that the earth is stationary? How else is it that we are not pushed off by the air sweeping over us? Why do stones thrown in the air not land a distance away?
More serious was the accusation that a moving earth violates scripture. It was claimed that to displace man physically from the center of creation was to displace him spiritually.
World pictures and world views
Such critics had committed the serious error of confusing a world picture with a world view. A world picture merely describes the world and offers a physical model. On the other hand, a world view asks more fundamental questions of evaluation such as how the earth is controlled and what is its purpose.
With our hindsight, we can see that the charge against Copernicus was false. He was not changing the world view, but merely the world picture which was no pronouncement about God’s purpose with man.
The precise physical location of men and women in the universe is irrelevant spiritually. Psalm 8 states the paradox that man, dwarfed by the expanse of the heavens, nevertheless has been made “a little lower than the angels.” And Christ, the very center of God’s purpose, was not born into the hub of society but rather in a stable on the outskirts of the Roman empire.
“God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the mighty” (I Cor. 1:27). Rather than undermine faith, maybe Copernicus was indirectly pointing to a vital emphasis in God’s purpose.
Lessons for us?
Do we always distinguish between spiritual truths essential for salvation and interpretations of the physical world that are not?
How do we react in general when others advocate views that differ from those we have long held? Do we dig in our heels and defend our stance by confrontation and sometimes dubious use of scripture? Or have we the grace humbly to acknowledge that others may be able to enhance our appreciation of the words and works of God by their insight?
Faced with the majesty of the divine purpose, each of us can only echo the apostle Paul: “0 the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!”
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One