Why do Some Christian People Find my Geocentric View of the Universe Heterodox?

Some may suppose or pretend to suppose that it is a sham stance, a provocation, a way to ironise over Christianity. And no doubt some people have attacked Christianity on account of isolated phrases from my defense of Geocentrism. That does not mean that I render Christianity attackable. If it is attackable not to be able to prove Totally Heliocentric views of the Solar System (or Totally Endoheliocentric or Periheliocentric views of it) involving the Earth as one of the bodies moving according to its laws of gravity masses and inertia, as of Newton-Laplace, and to to prove Acentric or Agnostocentric ones of the Universe, then Christianity is more attackable than Atheism, and would remain so even if I renounced Geocentrism. Because when Parallax was discovered, Heliocentric literature was simply allowed from the side of the Vatican, but Geocentrism was not in anyway banned. In Providentissimus Deus, Pope Leo XIII probably was referring to Biblical support of what is traditionally seen as Geocentrism, vs. Scientific support of negation of same Geocentrism. But he certainly did not mention this particular case any more than any other similar (though he gave an indication that phrases merely generally descriptive may refer to what is seen by the eye), and he did not either take a direct stance on whether in such or such a particular case one should prefer the scientific support and deny the exegesis as necessarily following from a Bible passage or several, or accept the exegesis and deny that the scientific theory really follows logically from the evidence. John Paul II did in the third and reversing trial of Galileo say he was innocent because he was right: but there is a doubt on part of at least some Catholics whether he was Pope, and even so, if he could declare a dogma in the process of a person, so could of course Urban VIII, and if Urban VIII did that, then he was a heretic for opposing a definied dogma. If however Urban VIII did not define dogma by condemning two theses of Galileo (the fixed sun, the moving earth), then even less did John Paul II do so by saying "Galileo was right". So, whether it is scandalous or not that Christianity cannot dogmatise Modern Science (as Heliocentrism/Acentrism is dubbed), Christianity cannot.

The Christian faith is not tied to lack of logic, but it is tied to propositions opposed to some of those really used in informal debates by scientific atheists defending Heliocentrism/Acentrism. With propositions A, B, C, you can conceivably end up with conclusion H. But with propositions non-A, B, C, the proposition H may not be a valid conclusion, those propositions (with non-A instead of A) may leave H and G in an equal balance. Or even prefer conclusion G to H.

Now, in my world-view, the one I prefer so long as no new proof refutes it, God is every day turning the outmost starry heaven by more than 360° degrees each 24 h., and the sun, lagging behind that, makes 360° in exactly 24 h. And the sun is an angel plus a light held by that angel. What we see is the light. What decides whether it moves around or stood still over Gabaon or danced over Fatima is its angel, as it is also its angel who deprived earth of light during three hours after crucifixion up to the Death of God at the hands of ungrateful man. The Sun shineth over good and evil - but not those hours. And that angel is not a lord independent, but a servant of God, as proven by the fact that the two men he honoured before Our Lord, the first bore Our Lord's name (Joshua and Jesus is the same name in Hebrew), the other was one of Our Lord's Ancestors, when to stepped back "two lines" on some kind of sun watch in Judea, probably in Jerusalem. So, when I say that the sun is held in its place by an angel, I am not introducing polytheism. St Thomas Aquinas and St Francis of Assisi also thought of the sun as a servant of God. And noone is calling them polytheists. St Thomas somewhere says that the heathens in taking the heavenly bodies for gods are like people seeking for the king and taking first servant they meet around the palace for king, because he is well dressed. So St Thomas calls the heavenly bodies servants of God, and only persons can properly speaking serve. As for St Francis, he praises God "for/through our Brother, Mister Sun" and a few more of them, down to our sister corporeal death.

Then again, some say I am subjectivist - because I prefer a world-view. But a subjectivist properly speaking would be someone who did not give two straws about proof and believed anything he preferred to believe, even if totally disproven. I wonder if some of my critics are not the real subjectivists. I for my part have a preference, but I also have arguments.

Others would remark that I am denying secondary causes and a certain autonomy of them. But the autonomy of secondary causes is not such as to preclude direct actions of the first cause, that is of God. And that God can do all he wants is all I need for it to be possible that he is each day turning the outer stars more than a full circle around us. And - here comes my argument, besides scripture: if it is possible it is preferrable, since it makes the evidence we see more directly true.

Now, these same would also remark (at least in oral debates) that in that case God would be preferring miracles breaking the order he made to the order he made at creation. Not at all. If I am wrong, I am wrong, but if I am right, I am not right in saying God created an Acentric Universe only to break its laws to make it Geocentric, but rather that God made it Geocentric from the start and keeps it that way. This argument against me actually depends on conflating two definitions of the word miracle. In one sense a miracle is such a thing as only God can do, as restoring the dead to life. In an other sense it is something which shows his power by doing something only He can do on occasions where natural causation usually makes for another result, as in restoring dead to life on occasions outside the origin of Resurrection, which is Christ's resurrection today, and outside the accomplishment of resurrection on the last day, i e like when Christ called Lazarus back to life or when Elisaeus' and Martin's relics and the Holy Cross restored corpses to earthly life, and afterwards they died again: this second kind of miracle is not what God would be doing if keeping the Universe Geocentric. But it is because this is a miracle according to the first and looser definition that Geocentrism and daily motions within it figure as the most obvious elaboration of via prima of proving God.

Primo autem ponemus rationes quibus Aristoteles procedit ad probandum Deum esse. Qui hoc probare intendit ex parte motus duabus viis.

Contra Gentiles, lib. 1 cap. 13 n. 3 Quarum prima talis est: omne quod movetur, ab alio movetur. Patet autem sensu aliquid moveri, utputa solem. Ergo alio movente movetur. Aut ergo illud movens movetur, aut non. Si non movetur, ergo habemus propositum, quod necesse est ponere aliquod movens immobile. Et hoc dicimus Deum. Si autem movetur, ergo ab alio movente movetur. Aut ergo est procedere in infinitum: aut est devenire ad aliquod movens immobile. Sed non est procedere in infinitum. Ergo necesse est ponere aliquod primum movens immobile.

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Quarum prima talis est. Si in motoribus et motis proceditur in infinitum, oportet omnia huiusmodi infinita corpora esse: quia omne quod movetur est divisibile et corpus, ut probatur in VI Physic. Omne autem corpus quod movet motum, simul dum movet movetur. Ergo omnia ista infinita simul moventur dum unum eorum movetur. Sed unum eorum, cum sit finitum, movetur tempore finito. Ergo omnia illa infinita moventur tempore finito. Hoc autem est impossibile. Ergo impossibile est quod in motoribus et motis procedatur in infinitum.

[23593] Contra Gentiles, lib. 1 cap. 13 n. 13 Quod autem sit impossibile quod infinita praedicta moveantur tempore finito, sic probat. Movens et motum oportet simul esse: ut probat inducendo in singulis speciebus motus. Sed corpora non possunt simul esse nisi per continuitatem vel contiguationem. Cum ergo omnia praedicta moventia et mota sint corpora, ut probatum est, oportet quod sint quasi unum mobile per continuationem vel contiguationem. Et sic unum infinitum movetur tempore finito. Quod est impossibile, ut probatur in VI physicorum.

[23594] Contra Gentiles, lib. 1 cap. 13 n. 14 Secunda ratio ad idem probandum talis est. In moventibus et motis ordinatis, quorum scilicet unum per ordinem ab alio movetur, hoc necesse est inveniri, quod, remoto primo movente vel cessante a motione, nullum aliorum movebit neque movebitur: quia primum est causa movendi omnibus aliis. Sed si sint moventia et mota per ordinem in infinitum, non erit aliquod primum movens, sed omnia erunt quasi media moventia. Ergo nullum aliorum poterit moveri. Et sic nihil movebitur in mundo.

Contra Gentiles, lib. 1 cap. 13,
n. 2, 3 et 12-14
http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/scg1010.html#23581

In these passages (for those of you who do not read Latin) St Thomas basically is saying that Water like Equatorial Streams are moved by Air like Winds of Passage, are moved by sphere of moon and so on to the first moved thing which is the starry heaven, which must be moved by something unmoved which is God. But if there were a regress to infinity, that would imply all universe turning each day in an infinite movement - which is impossible. Since movement has to be finite, so does universe, since universe has to be finite, its order of moved movers must have and end, like the starry heavens being the outermost and most primary moved mover having no moved mover outside itself and therefore depending on an unmoved mover, God.

What has been refuted therein is pretty little, excepting a solid contiguity between all spheres. Since the basic scenario of Earth being ruffled in mobile edges but not moved from its place in the middle and everything above it moving the faster the further you get outward is one which has, as far as I can see, not been subverted except possibly very recently. I asked a person from NASA having a FB account of the trajectory of Voyager 10 can have disproven Geocentrism: I have gotten no answer. I have asked and got negative answer about parallax observed from Mars disproving Geocentrism. Back in 2006 instruments of astronomic observation as present on Mars were not presented by the official channels as having measured parallax or even as having the capacity to do so. I was trying to find some on stellar aberration as observed from Mars, have not been able to check up. In my book, the obvious stays obvious till disproven, and is not disproven before the disproof is at hand. It does not suffice to disprove our eyes and middle ears about solar, lunar, stellar movements and earth being still, that there might be a disproof around the corner, as long as that disproof is not there.

What astronomers do to disprove the scenario given by St Thomas, the very few times that they are caught in any kind of discussion with me, is to suppose it as a given fact that the only causes are physical. That is not obvious, and that is not only not obvious, but to a Christian (or any other supernaturalist), it is even obviously false. If masses and gravitation and inertia (and uniform movement being a form of inertia), were all that was involved, Geocentrism might not be possible, but then again, if these were all involved in movements between football field and socker ball, and no players existed, the movements the socker ball does in a game of socker would not be possible either.

But some people are not swayed by argument at all, and classing this idea into the associations of esotericism, because basically not as much atheistic as hylotheistic and dynamiotheistic scientists would think so, or because that is not what their teacher in catechism said (probably a decent man or nun, who was just not interested in polemising against modern science), may not be assured about me. Sorry.

But to worthier things, since Resurrection is not just a Miracle but the New Creation in its fulness: Happy Easter, Christ is Risen!

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Georges Pompidou Library
Easter Sunday 2012