Bible and Geocentrism

Bible and Geocentrism · Jimmy Akin Up to Tycho Brahe

DEBUNKING Geocentrist Bible Verses
Jimmy Akin | 29 April 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofrMEpo70Qw

3:18 Here is my first objection.

You have cited "science" painting the Sun as an object with neither conscious agency in itself nor attached to it, subject to only inertial prolongation of a movement already commenced, and graviational "acceleration" (including decelerations and changes of direction°

You have then written off the description in the psalm as poetic because it does NOT describe the Sun in such lifeless terms, but in terms of a personal, vaguely male character.

Have you checked out that:

• St. Thomas considered each heavenly body was moved by an angelic mover
• Riccioli concurred (though differring much on detail from St. Thomas on other items)
• so, this has not been refuted. Astronomers proceed to reason as if this idea could have no impact on reality, i e as if it is a false idea. An idea that accurately describes a reality, is obviously an idea that describes sth that can impact reality. And the angelic movers have not been refuted by some counterproof. They have just been ignored.

3:36 Your question in its wording presumes the mechanical account would be scientific, presumably accurate, and that deviating from the mechanical account would be non-scientific, therefore presumably inaccurate.

3:58 I would say the language is far more literal than you give it credit for.

The praise is undoubted. I just think it sticks far closer to actual facts about the sun. Whether it refers to the daily motion as Riccioli would say, or the annual motion, as St. Thomas would say, both would argue, angelic beings are very properly compared to athletes, like the guardian angel who lifted a wheel which was running over a child, so the child survived unhurt, so an angelic being is any day of the week very comparable to an athlete. Now, if the scientists are correct that the Sun is very heavy, the angel of the Sun would be a very great athlete on this comparison.

In Daniel 3, we Catholics have and the Protestants do not have the actual song of the three young men.

62 O ye sun and moon, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 63 O ye stars of heaven, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever.

This, both St. Thomas and Riccioli would consider as on the most literal level (not denying there are others) referring to the angelic movers of celestial bodies.

Now, before sun and moon, the three young men have already mentioned angels in verse 58 and powers in verse 61. Now check these verses:

85 O ye servants of the Lord, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 86 O ye spirits and souls of the just, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever.

Servants would clearly include angelic beings. When beasts are mentioned, let's be clear that they have some kind of angels attached to them too, probably most usually not one per individual though, more like one per herd.

One could even argue in verse 86 that "souls of the just" are the reference to human spirits, while "spirits" refers to angelic beings.

In other words, Daniel 3 is stating that Sun and Moon are part of the angelic entities, if not bodies of angelic beings, relating to these as my face relates to me, at least bodies moved by angelic beings, relating to them as my keyboard relates to me (when I borrow one).

What Animism holds to be true about visible things on earth has not been per se condemned as false. Where animists go wrong is in worshipping for instance the spirit of a stone you happen to like (or even dislike) as the Japanese and the Lapps do. But telling the stone (meaning it's spirit, if it has one) to worship God would presumably be fine.

6:31 I note, you have not gotten into whether the book of Joshua gives a historically accurate picture of what happened on Joshua's long day, specifically what led up to it. Joshua chapter 10.

You want to explain verse 13 with "phenomenological language" ... well, falls afoul of the backreference in Habaccuc, seems awkward in relation to the other miracle in the time of Isaias and Hezechias, but one might ignore those and say your view could pass.

Now go back to verse 12. We do not have phenomenological language, because we do not have description. We have Joshua's miracle working prescription. Joshua first prayed to God, in words that are not given, and then, inspired by God, adressed himself to Sun and Moon. Those, not Earth, was what he told to cease their rotation.

Note, I am very much harping on the fact, the words adressed to Sun and Moon were not his prayer to God. If Joshua had simply asked "God, let the Sun and Moon stand still" and it had stood still, well, you could be welcome to say God had made an allowance for Joshua's ignorance and changed the behaviour of what would really need to change behaviour, namely the rotation of Earth.

BUT, this is not simply what Joshua asked God. The actual words of Joshua in verse 12 are not his prayer, they are his miracle working words.

If you can pretend that a miracle working word could involve some kind of error shared by the contemporaries, you could equally pretend that Jesus' words to demons were in reality without a real object and what Jesus really performed was sudden healings of perfectly intrapsychic or sometimes intrabrain conditions. Now, that is a route which some Lutherans in Sweden, in the late 19th C. took. An evil route. I do not want to share in it.

I think the safest or perhaps the only logically stringent way of avoiding it is, Joshua's words also did not involve any kind of error about what it is that moves each day. Or at least, not the kind of error a Heliocentric would say.

If Joshua had a kind of Riccioli view (the Sun's movement across the sky is the Sun's movement, performed by an angel) and the reality is more like a Thomasic view (the Sun's movement is a composite, God moves the heavens westward each day, and the Sun also moves a 1/365 to the East each day, by his own movement), there would be two entities per heavenly body obeying Joshua, and God would be one of them, verse 14, while the Sun's angel and the Moon's angel would be the other, as in Habaccuc.

"as 6:49 Cardinal Caesar baronius said back 6:51 during the Galileo controversy the Bible 6:54 teaches us how to go to heaven not how 6:58 the heavens go"

Now, did Caesar Baronius say so when getting involved in the controversy?

Or did Galileo say so, and Baronius simply cite him?

You might want to check out his lifespan.

Cesare Baronio, C.O. (as an author also known as Caesar Baronius; 30 August 1538 – 30 June 1607)

Galileo was in controversy twice. 1616 and 1633. On both occasions, Cesare Baronio was already dead. I think you have promoted a canard.

"the Bible 6:54 teaches us how to go to heaven"

Which presumes there is a heaven to go to.

Where is it?

If Geocentrism is true, fix stars could be no further up than 1 light day.

In that case, heavenly Jerusalem is arguably the coordinates of earthly Jerusalem, but 1 light day further up, plus some.

It is a real physical place, it is above the stars we see, and if we get there (where Satan can't get, though he had liked to) we can look down on the stars.

But if Heliocentrism is true, with lots of other modern cosmology, where is it?

If earth rotates, the coordinates of earthly Jerusalem are not much help, at least not East / West, and the next question is, is heaven 13.8 billion light years away, or is it a kind of spaceship, surrounded by stars on all sides? Or is it a parallel universe? Or is it non-physical?

The last of these is clearly totally off limits for a Catholic, since two risen bodies are there, Our Lord and Our Lady.