Darwin, Creationism, and the Galileo Question

I used to sell encyclopaedias for a living, among the many and varied jobs in my life. The Encyclopaedia Britannica, to be precise. The cheapest set was around £1,100 and the leather-bound set some £3,500. Of course, that was a long time ago, I don’t know how much the last ever printed sets, produced in 2010, would have cost.

For that sort of money you might expect some pretty accurate and trustworthy, unbiased and factual articles. In a piece in The Atlantic announcing the end of printed copies Katherine Mangu-Ward observed,

“The beginning of the end for the authoritative print encyclopedia was [a] 2005 Nature study, which found that in entries about science topics Wikipedia contained an average of 3.86 mistakes per article--but that Britannica contained 2.92 mistakes per article, putting the "free encyclopedia anyone can edit" within earlobe flicking distance of the shelf-bending gold standard.”

Bibliophiles and especially autodidacts have always entertained romantic notions about encyclopaedias and reference works in general but they are not, nor were they ever, infallible. I have a two volume Odhams Encyclopaedia dated 1953 in which the entry for Mormons reads, “followers of Joseph Smith, hold that Christ, Mohammed, Smith and Brigham Young are manifestations of the Deity and create souls.” Need I say this is not what Mormons believe? And, of course, there is always the classic Britannica entry for Wales from some 150 years ago which read, “Wales see England.” (Reader see right)

Perhaps Clfton Fadiman was right when he wrote in his introduction to The Treasury of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, “The very idea of an encyclopaedia is crazy. Even if condensed, how can all that we know (What is “"’all’? What is ‘we know’?) be funnelled into a set of books bound in brown buckram? Absurd…”

Yet, here we are in a new century with digital versions of what once was confined to print. Today, everyone’s go-to reference work is Wikipedia and, although it has been a popular sport to sneer at it, as the Atlantic article shows, it is as reliable now as anything on your shelf, so long as you understand that whatever is on your shelf is less than perfect. These things inevitably reflect the prejudices, gaps in understanding, and errors and blind spots of even the most qualified contributors.

Encyclopaedists

When the great French Encyclopaedists of the 18th century produced their Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts, it represented the thought of the Enlightenment and, according to Denis Diderot, its aim was to change the way people think. Indeed, it not only changed the way people think, it told people what to think inasmuch as it contained “information” that best advanced the Enlightenment cause. Regarding religion in all its forms as superstition, the invention of predatory priests, these enlightened rationalists portrayed Galileo as the symbol of the age to come and the victim of the last hurrah of Catholic intransigence in the face of scientific progress.

We all know the story. Galileo said the earth orbited the sun. The church panicked as Galileo removed the earth, and thereby the pope, from the centre of the universe. Galileo was put to the Inquisition, thrown into a cold, dank cell to rot and, according to popular lore, was made to recant what reason showed to be true. From William Lecky to Carl Sagan, from Bertolt Brecht to Bertrand Russell, the intelligentsia have portrayed the events surrounding Galileo as a clash between faith and reason, and Galileo as a martyr to rational humanism. The trouble is most of what we think we know about the story is untrue.

But what has this to do with Evolution and Darwinism? The connection is neatly summed up by the science writer James Newman in his book Science and Sensibility, vol.1:

“It will never be known when man first became convinced that he was of cosmic importance, but the date this pretension was disposed of is pretty clear. The De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium of Nicolaus Corpernicus was published in 1543…Nestled in the Mathematics…was a concept that put man in his place in the cosmos, as Darwin’s concept was to put him in his place on earth…Looking backward in history, it is easy for us to see that a moving earth and sun-centred universe gravely subverted Christian theology. If man’s abode was not at the centre of things, how could he be king?” (Quoted in Six Modern Myths, Philip J Sampson, IVP, 2000)

Simply put, just as Copernicus and Galileo had dragged the world kicking and screaming out of the Middle Ages, so Darwin had pulled it further into the light of scientific rationalism. Both stories show two protagonists, faith and reason, battling over the hearts and minds of men. Both elicit from those parties strong reactions. On the one hand a determination to bury religion once and for all under a mountain of reason, on the other a settled resolve to shore up the edifice of faith against the attacks of modernity. It is this latter that I particularly wish to address. Is there something we might gain, as Christians, from the story of Galileo that helps us deal intelligently with the story of Darwin?

Galileo and Darwin: The Real Problem

When Dante Alighieri wrote his Divine Comedy his location of hell in the bowels of the earth was based on the Aristotelian model of the universe that had held sway for a thousand years. According to Aristotle, the earth was not only at the centre, but at the bottom of the universe. The spheres above the earth were increasingly perfect while all matter, the detritus of creation, fell to earth, the most self-evidently corrupt planet. Science, or what was then called natural philosophy, held this view and the church, relying on what science told it, adhered to it, seeing this model reflecting the fallen nature of man.

Rather than removing the earth from its imperial position at the centre, the new thinking promoted it from what was considered its rightful and fallen place. The irony in the story as it has come down to us is truly rich. Far from being put in his place as Newman insists, man, sitting at the apex of the evolutionary tree, has become the measure of all things. His words define “life, the universe, and everything,” and he trucks no opposition in his stately splendour. This was the dilemma faced by the church which, informed by the scientific wisdom of the day, saw Divine Judgement in the order of things.

Just as, today, some Christians worry that evolutionary science challenges the very foundations of our faith, making the Genesis account a fiction, and the story of creation, fall, and redemption insupportable, so too did the church back then have to deal with the implications for the gospel of this new thinking. The Copernican revolution was as serious an issue for them as is evolution theory to many today. But, the earth isn’t at the centre of the universe (neither is our sun but that is a question for another time), our position in the cosmos doesn’t reflect our fallen nature. In light of this, has faith left the stage, leaving it to those who “know better?” Certainly not!

Remember, the church’s view of the cosmos in Galileo’s day was shaped and coloured as much by the science of its day as by its theology. The scientific community found it just as difficult as the church to accommodate this revolutionary world-view. But accommodation had to be made and we are better and wiser for it. In the same way, the church is informed today by a scientific community that is not always in agreement over evolution theory. Back then Copernicus and Galileo were vindicated, the faith community had to change its understanding, yet faith itself remained firm, Christ is still Lord, of the explicable as well as the inexplicable. Might it be also the case today that, far from needing to fear what science tells us, the church must be prepared to consider that its understanding of things might be mistaken? That, if such a revolution were admitted today, it needn’t shake our foundations any more now than it did then?

We will disagree, of course, but what is new in that? My aim is not to persuade someone to some form of evolutionary creationism. Rather, it is to encourage an openness to new understanding, instead of the usual dogmatism that portrays as enemies those that have, historically,often been friends, from Doctor Luke in the New Testament to the Christians today who, with a scientific background, might help us to think biblically about science, and scientifically about our Bibles.

If you want to read further on this subject I recommend Six Modern Myths, by Philip J Sampson, a book that ought to be on the book shelf of every thinking Christian. I am indebted to this book for the background to this post.

Galileo, Darwin and the Law of the Medes and Persians

When Galileo presented the inconvenient truth that the Sun did not orbit the Earth the people for whom it was most inconvenient was not the Pope and his cardinals but the scientific community. For some two thousand years the Aristotelian view that the Sun orbited the earth had prevailed, was the received wisdom of scientists everywhere and was not seriously challenged except by the odd nutcase who received short shrift from those who knew what they were talking about.

However, Galileo was not the first serious scientist to make the claim. Copernicus had already discovered the truth but, for fear of ridicule by other scientists and the possible ruin of his reputation he had his work published posthumously. Galileo was not so coy, indeed he was rather loud, abrasive and temperamental, as is the way with those who work on the edges of knowledge. It's so frustrating waiting for everyone else to catch up!

The story is popularly told in terms of science verses faith but this is not quite true. The church never was and still isn't as anti-science as people like to believe and, as in all ages of the world, scientists were as subject to dogmas and prejudices as anyone. Galileo was throwing over the received wisdom of the scientific world and the church was cautiously interested while the scientific community was positively hostile and reactionary. It was the scientific community that eventually persuaded a reluctant Rome to get involved in the controversy.

Of course Rome was cautious and questioning about scientific progress and its implications. There are often spiritual and theological implications to scientific discoveries and experimentation; witness today's hot topics of embryology, saviour siblings, IVF treatment and fatherless families, not to mention larger issues such as climate change. Contrary to popular myth, however, the received wisdom of the day was not that the earth was at the centre of Creation with science daring to question its elevated position and that of the church, but at the bottom of Creation, reflecting the biblical view of its fallen nature. Galileo was not demoting the earth but elevating it above its true and fallen station in the order of things. In today's sceptical, cynical and decidedly two-dimensional world this may seem trivial but people's world-view can't be simply overturned based on new and untried science and people trusted the church for guidance in these things. It's not just religion that shouldn't mess with people's heads.

No one comes out of this story covered in glory. Science showed itself as capable of prejudice and stubborn dogmatism as anyone as it silenced Copernicus and bullied the church into getting more involved than it really wanted to be. Galileo was an irascible and bad-tempered man who would never have won friends and influenced people. But he had often discussed his theories with his friend Pope Urban VIII, who was cautiously interested and encouraging, asking Galileo to give arguments for and against heliocentrism in a book, but cautioning him to be careful not to advocate heliocentrism because that theory had no decisive proof and was contrary to the literal meaning of Scripture. Hard to imagine these days but Galileo's claims were still considered no more than a hypothesis even by the scientific community.

Unfortunately, when he finally presented his theories to the world in the form of a classic Greek dialogue he advocated his theories as fact and, to add insult to injury, he put the Aristotelian view including the ideas of his friend the Pope in the mouth of an incompetent adversary he named Simplicius. Thus he lost the support of a strong and powerful advocate and supporter.

The church finally lost patience and overreacted, taking an entrenched position and reinforcing a not altogether deserved reputation for being anti-science and imperious in its attitude, keeping his books on the index of prohibited books until 1835. In 1990 Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, spoke about Galileo in Rome and observed, "The Church at the time of Galileo kept much more closely to reason than did Galileo himself, and she took into consideration the ethical and social consequences of Galileo's teaching too."

"The Law of the Medes and Persians" is a reference to a verse of the Bible and is a term used to describe that which is unalterable:

"Now, O King, establish the decree, and sign the writing, that it be not changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not" (Daniel 6:8)

It is easy to see how things can seem unalterable, either because the powers that be, like the scientific community or the state, seem to be beyond challenging or because everyone 'just knows' the truth and any alternative to the received wisdom is unthinkable. For many Christians, today's geocentrism is Darwin's theory of evolution and it seems that, despite its failings, gaps and missing links, it is beyond challenging. History teaches us otherwise but we must be careful to learn the lessons of history.

It was science that stood in the way of progress but it was also science that made that progress and we mustn't dismiss her findings because they don't suit our preconceptions otherwise we will fall into the same trap as Galileo's scientific contemporaries.

The church was much more involved in encouraging that progress than popular perception will allow but in doing so it did try to exercise reason and counsel caution. We too must be careful not to present what we believe as scientific or our pet theories as proven facts. We must also not overreact to what science seems to tell us because she is a good servant and we don't always give her the credit she is due. We should remember this when next we board a plane, take a painkiller or even now as we read this off a computer screen. We should work with her, always seeking to remain faithful to the God whose thoughts, Einstein once said, science is thinking after him.

We should never say never for where is the Law of the Medes and Persians today? Where is Aristotle's geocentrism? The truth is only God is unchangeable and even our understanding of God is subject to revision as we grow in our knowledge of him and his creation. Darwinism is still a minority view in the world and evolution is a hypothesis that is still being tested, revised and reviewed. The last thing needed is a stubborn scientific community that will not allow for the possibilities of alternatives as this process goes on, or a church that is backed into a dogmatic ghetto and has nothing positively scientific to contribute to the debate. There needs to be humility on all sides because history teaches us that, in the rush to progress, we can all be wrong yet still capable of finding and appreciating the truth eventually.