Galileo and the Oratory: Science and Faith

It seems a fight that has been going on for centuries; science in the blue corner of the ring and religion in the red corner, and the crowd cheering for their man and booing the opponent. For the Christian scientist or mathematician it seems as though you are in a fix; you have got to choose one or the other team, drawing out proofs to support your man and trump or out-narrate the other guy. It can be tough when your head tells you one thing and your heart tells you something else, when what you do at your desk or in the lab and what you do on your knees in church seems like two irreconcilable worlds. Mathematics and science become the place of integrity and truth, whereas faith becomes a sentimental, inarticualte experience of whatever, constantly in need of being proped up by feel-good sound bites about love, family or other such nebulous nostrums.

The popular presentation of science and religion can often enforce this either/or scheme, and sometimes the presentations by Christains of the faith can do the same. This choice is a false choice for the Catholic, and the famous Oratorian and historian, the Venerable Cesare, Cardinal Baronio (1538-1607) was instrumental in deliniating the rights and limits of each discipline. He was a disciple of St Philip, succeeding him as Superior of the Roman Oratory, and found himself in the centre of an interesting circle of intellectuals, including Galileo (1564-1642), at the time of major scientific and mathematical developments.

2009 marks the fourth centenary of the first telescopic observations made by Galileo, and has been designated the ‘Year of Astronomy’ (cf, Edoardo Cerato, of the Rome Oratory, Baronio, Galileo e l’anno dell’Astronomia, which serves as the basis for this article). The Holy Father, Benedict XVI, recalled this during his homily on the Solemnity of the Epiphany, when he commented that it was a star that guided the Magi to the Christ Child. This year then, can serve to further our understanding of the relationship between science and religion.

The Holy Father said that, “There is a distinctive cosmological concept in Christianity that has found its highest expression in philosophy and mediaeval theology. In our times too, this gives interesting signs of a new flowering thanks to the passion and faith of not a few scientists who, following in the footsteps of Galileo, renounce neither reason nor faith. On the contrary, in the end they find value in both, in their reciprocal inventiveness. Christian thought compares to a ‘book’ - Galileo also said the same, and considered it to be the work of an Author who is expressing Himself by means of the symphony of creation.”

The other book in which God reveals Himself is Sacred Scripture. Galileo, alluding to his opponents who maintained that the Copernican theory was erroneous precisely because it conflicted with these Sacred books, wrote in his letter of 1615 to Madame Christine of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, that it was first necessary to know how to interpret a sacred text. To clarify his point he uses a quotation from St Augustine’s De Genesi ad litteram concerning the Holy Spirit’s intention in inspiring the Sacred Scriptures, culminating in the statement, “The Spirit of God did not want to teach people things that would be of no help to their salvation”.  Galileo writes, “It is clear from a churchman who has been elevated to a very eminent position that the Holy Spirit’s intention is to teach us how to go to heaven, and not how the heavens go”. The churchman to whom he was referring was the Venerable Cardinal Baronio, whom Galileo had met several times, and in their conversations helped Galileo to see how his work as a mathematician and scientist squared with his life as a Christian.

Galileo came to Rome in 1587 to meet with the professors of the Roman College, an important Catholic University founded by the Society of Jesus in 1551, now called the Gregorian University (after its founder Pope Gregory XIII). Following the established pattern of university teaching reaching back to the thirteenth century, Sacred sciences were taught alongside the natural sciences, but now they had to accommodate themselves to the new world view, where it had been established that the earth revolved around the sun. And so contemporary scientific questions were dealt with, as the lectures and text books of the professors show, with mathematics as an integral part of the course of studies. The Jesuit responsible for the programme of mathematics at the College was the eminant German Christopher Clavius, who was so impressed by Galileo’s work on the centre of gravity of solids that he sought to find him a university teaching position. Galileo was dedicated to continuing Clavius’ programme in applying mathematics to the study of nature and producing a mathematical physics that could provide valid explanations for the causes of phenomena, whether astronomical or physical.

 The course of studies at the Roman College was wide ranging, and Baronio was particularly active there through the influence of the General of the Jesuits, his friend, Claudio Acquaviva (1543-1615). The Jesuits and the Oratorians collaborated greatly during this period, the latter often pursuing historical studies using the skills gained from the scientific rigour and clarity of the former. Baronio had been librarian of the Roman Oratory since 1584, an important postion in Rome given the extent of the scholarly works collected there. He published the revised ‘Martyrologium Romanum’ in 1586 and the first volume of the ‘Annales Ecclesiastici’ in 1588. Both these great works combined rigourous study and evaluation of anceint documents, as well as a clear presentation of material for contemporary needs. With them Baronio’s fame spread, and he was sought as an authority in universities all over Europe.

 It was during this time that Galileo met Baronio on several occasions, and from the quotation from Galileo’s letter it is clear that Baronio’s intellectual integrity made a strong impression on the mathematician’s mind. It was the Oratorian’s “bare-bones, down to earth consistency” that was worthy of mention (Corrado Dollo, 2003, Galileo Galilei e la cultura della tradizione, Rubbettino, ed., p.232).

Another occasion when they would have met would have been during the state visit of the now Cardinal Baronio, together with Cardinal Robert Bellermine, to Ferrara in 1598, as members of the court of Pope Clement VIII. The cardinals disappeared from the suite in order to take an incognito vacation in Venice and Padua. They introduced themselves to Vincenzo Pinelli, a man of letters and correspondent of Baronio, who pretended not to know the these famous cardinals without their costume, and showed Baronio Bellarmine’s portrait and Bellamine that of Baronio, extolling both of them. It was during this visit to Padua that Galileo and Baronio met again, through their mutual friend Pinelli, in which they discussed important matters of science and faith.

 Some years before these meetings, Martin Luther had condemned the Copernican theory that the earth travelled around the sun as contrary to the Scriptures. Luther called him “that madman [who] wants to throw the art of astronomy into confusion”, while going on to say, “as Sacred Scripture proves, Joshua told the sun and not the earth to stand still [Joshua 10.12-13].” On the Catholic side the question of the compatibility of Sacred Scripture with the Copernican system emgered more clearly, at least for most scholars, although some in the Dominican Order viewed the theory of Copernicus and Galileo with suspicion, standing as it did against the received idea of the universe as presented by Aristotle and taken up by St Thomas, the significant authorities for the Order.

Other writers, less bound to the Aristotelian cosmos and scriptural literalism, and having authorites other than St Thomas, were able to use older and more sophisticated ways of the interpretation of Sacred Scripture to reconcile the seemingly rival claims of science and religion. Those earlier ways of interpreting the Sacred Scriptures had been developed by the Fathers in a pre-modern or classical age. They taught that as well as a literal sense, the Scriptures also have an allegorical sense, which shows how various things and people point towards the Paschal Mystery of Christ; a moral sense, which shows how the events help us to live virtuous lives; and an analogical sense, which points towards heaven and the last things.

Among the writers who were influenced by these earlier modes of interpretation were Baronio and some of the Jesuits at the Roman College, who were interested in working with Galileo’s theories. With them some Dominicans, like the Spaniard Melichor Cano, took the scriptures used by the Protestants who argued against Galileo, and showed that they had to be understood in their historio-scientific context and should not used as scientific proof texts centuries later (De locis theologicis, 7.3).

In this they returned to the teaching of St Augustine who affirmed in his Commentary on the Book of Genesis, the importance of keeping distinct religious truths that are guaranteed by divine revelation as the object of faith and are thus for salvation, from those which are of other distinct categories. He taught that when dealing with particularly difficult questions, and above all astronomical questions, one should never cause confusion by invoking the authority of Scripture on a purely mathematical matter. Sacred Scripture is not intended as a substitute for scientific theses, “We do not read in the Gospel that the Lord said, ‘I will send the Paraclete to teach you the course of the sun and the moon’, in fact He wanted to create Christians not mathematicians” (De actis contra Felicem manichaeum, 1.10). St Thomas too was to rule out the invocation of the authority of Sacred Scripture when dealing with questions related purely to the natural sciences (De caelo et mundo, 2.17).

The place of Baronio in the middle of this controversial world of the end of the end of the sixteenth century, and the strong impression he made on the mind of Galileo, demonstrates the necessity of solid scholarship and its clear expression. Often the world of scientific scholarship seems at odds with the claims of faith, Sacred Scripture and revealed dogma. In fact this is not the case, but it is essential to know the limits of each discipline, and the modest contribution which each may make to the other.

 The Oratorian Cardinal Baronio in his day, like the Oratorian Cardinal Newman in his, found themselves dealing with similar questions around the relationship between science, reason and faith. In this 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species, the similarites of the problems and misunderstandings facing the Christian engaged in the scientific world are striking. Baronio and Newman maintained the rights, duties and limits of each discipline, and both helped Christians to understand and articulate their life of faith clearly in the modern or post-classical world. Here faith and reason, religious belief and the natural sciences, have been split into distinct operations and disciplines, and as we noted, are often set aginst each other. They spoke to the world on these matters as Oratorians, living and working in the centre of important cities, in daily contact with minds and hearts. Their churches were not built away from the centres as a challenge against the world, arrogant signs of a ‘higher’ counter-culture, or as ghettos of the frightened faithful, but in the centre of the city where grace can influence minds and hearts, always seeking what is good, true and beautiful in the world around them in an unobtrusive and gentle way.

This picture was taken recently, opposite the Holy Name by the Manchester University museum, and it indicates the proper relationship that ought to exist between the claims of science and those of religion. Both coexist in the same locality in their proper spheres, speaking truthful language that is proper to them. What is important is that they should not be viewed as an either/or controversy; The Autobiography of St Therese should not be used as a text book in the Natural Science department, and the the works of Darwin should not replace the Sacred Scriptures. However, both can norm the other: the saint gestures to the ’sacrifice of self’ which is needed for supernatural flourishing; and the the scientist maintains that it is here and now in our biological nature that God gives his grace, warning of flights of fancy in the language of religious experience which is often simply self-indulgence, and so avoiding the usual temptation of the religiously inclined to dis-incarnate the ‘higher’ soul from the ‘lower’ body.

It is in the Christian scientist and mathematician, in the context we have been discussing, that these two forces should operate. She will possess the grammar of the Word, the Author of all things true, spiritually and temporally, in faith and in science, in such a way as to move freely and harmoniously in both spheres. This can be said of the Christian thinker in most branches of the academy; the one who holds together in a sophisticated, logical way, what would be placed conflictually by less nuanced thinkers.

So, both the Venerable Cardinal Baronio and the Venerable Cardinal Newman through their example, writings and prayers can help us in our day, loaded with similar concerns and pitfalls. They can help us to be faithful both to the rights of faith and the rights of scientific study, which should not fight each other by misapplying categories from one to the other, but should be modest in their claims, showing in their own fields the Author of all things.

Fr Christopher Hilton

In a later article we will look how Cardinal Newman showed that the Christian can have certitude in matters of faith, against the seeming monopoly of scientific reasoning. Here we will use his Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (1870), which he wrote to help the Christian scholar, and all believers, to understand how we hold the claims of faith.