Will Fr. Jenkins be Able to Defend Heliocentrism?

Father Jenkins, Very Fortunately, Does Not Try to Defend Theistic Evolution · Will Fr. Jenkins be Able to Defend Heliocentrism?

I did not watch the whole video, but went directly to the start of the episode on "Is heliocentrism heresy?"

Negative modesty? Heliocentric heresy? Christ's siblings? Vote for good! Francis' Soviet Church.
What Catholics Believe - Full Episodes | 23 Oct. 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cop1OPpIZbs

I've started to comment:

I

24:49 "the fact that the Earth revolves around the Sun"

Observed? No.
Proven? How?

II

"24:52 geocentrism says essentially that the sun revolves around the earth with the idea that all the celestial bodies 25:00 revolve around the earth because the Earth is the center of the universe"

Geocentrism does not say that all celestial bodies revolve directly around earth in their periodic orbits. In their daily circuit, yes, all revolve around earth full circle 23 h 56 minutes or for some bodies a bit variation around that, like 24 h for the Sun. But in Geocentrism, a body need not move directly around the Earth in the periodic orbit.

Io revolves around Jupiter, which revolves around Sun, which revolves around Earth, and when we speak of the periodic orbit of the Sun, it's the c. four minutes slower than the fix stars each day we are talking of, it's a movement Eastward. The reason the Sun is moving Westward each day is, it goes along with the Universe, apart from those c. 4 minutes.

"the fact that 25:42 the uh Earth revolves orbits around the Sun is that a 25:49 heresy uh no it is not a heresy it was not condemned as a heresy by the church"

That's what Dimond Brothers like to say in comparison to the Father Feeney case ...

"because he was maintaining a 26:07 Geocentric view okay that the Earth revolves around the Sun"

That's a Heliocentric view, and he was indeed required to abjure it.

Galileo never said that the entire Universe revolved around Earth, up to the abjuration.

"so 27:15 heliocentrism not only appeared to be a rejection 27:21 of what was written in sacred scripture right descriptions of the sun 27:26 standing still as Joshua was leading battle you know um but uh even of all 27:33 previous science right that it was a rejection of all previous science"

The Church is generally speaking not responsible for scientific truth or protocol.

There is no Inquisitorial procedure for denying Harvey or Pasteur.

And frankly, the idea is a bit projecting back to St. Robert and Pope Urban the kind of deference to science some Catholic clergy have today.

26:45 "By the Fathers of the Church"

You mean the criterium of Trent Session IV?

27:47 Heliocentrism was not the "rejection of all previous science".

Copernicus hearkened back to a Pythagorean, and Pythagoreans did things one could call science.

Again, in Galileo's day, Copernicanism was still a minority view, but Tychonian Geocentrism was an even smaller minority.

The Inquisitors, whether the process involving The Assayer in 1616 or the process about himself in 1633, were not insisting on the majority view of science, Ptolemaic Geocentrism. They were instead in 1616 suggesting the even smaller than Copernicanism Tychonian view.

One reason according to some scholars (who could be wrong), why Copernicanism with modifications won, was, Tychonianism was the one Geocentrism that was logically viable, and it was less widely known, at least to the general public, than Heliocentrism.

But another reason why it was not the "rejection of all previous science" is ... there was no such thing. Science as a university institution was a relatively new thing, and everyone still recalled that astronomy and other things had been differently explained by different philosophers.

28:53 I suppose your bias against Geocentrism made you say Geocentrism instead of Heliocentrism.

It was actually the efforts to harmonise it with Sacred Scripture which put people in Florence on the guard in the years leading up to 1616.

Two Dominicans, Tommaso Caccini and Niccolò Lorini were involved in saying NO, that harmonisation does not work.

Now, for Josue 10:13, one might argue, "phenomenological language" as the narrator describes what already happened.

But in the previous verse, Josue gives a word on behalf of God to the creatures involved in the miracle. The Israelites were not the ones the words adressed, they were only the audience. If Heliocentrism were true, and if it was Earth that stopped rotating, it would have been the ONLY time in Sacred Scripture or in known to me Church History, that a miracle worker adresses the wrong thing and the miracle happens.

It's as if someone said "God cures you of your cold" and God then cured AIDS. Instead, not on top of. Hasn't happened. The words of a miracle worker are inspired to God and are God's words through the mouth of the Thaumaturge to creature.

The idea of this being stated backwards in accordance with popular but erroneous beliefs of the then Israelites, well, it has by 19th C. Swedish Lutherans been taken further. Some of them have stated that with similar accomodations God cured epilectics and people with mental problems when He cast out (according to the words in the miracle!) demons. That's one of the reasons I converted FROM Lutheranism, and it is one of the reasons why now I would not endorse Heliocentrism or see it very lightly if others endorse it.

29:16 In 1633 the Church gave reference to the formal pronouncement from 1616.

29:28 "that was what we all observed"

Still is what we still observe.

29:49 Are physics books not meant to be understood humanly?

Are physicists supermen of some other race?

30:27 Thank you for misspeaking again. Or was it what you meant?

Yes, all of the observations he made and we make to this day point in the direction of Geocentrism.

Nothing in Heliocentrism is from pure observation, everything is from reinterpretation and that reinterpretation from some roundabout logic, which may very well turn out to be bad logic, or else to be very binding logic on Atheists, but not at all so on Christians, who do not share, as you will admit, that there is no God and no angels who could perform the movements in Geocentrism, specifically Tychonian such.

"as St Robert Bellarmine the Cardinal told him you know when you 30:33 demonstrate as as a fact then of course you know we accept it as a fact it can't 30:39 be a scientific fact it is contrary to Divine truth so we say we just have to 30:45 adjust our interpretation we don't adjust sacred scripture we adjust our understanding of 30:51 it and was what it was really meant to tell us"

1) I looked up St. Robert's letter to Father Foscarini. His language is not quite what you present it as being.

Third, I say that if there were a true demonstration that the sun is at the center of the world and the earth in the third heaven, and that the sun does not circle the earth but the earth circles the sun, then one would have to proceed with great care in explaining the Scriptures that appear contrary; and say rather that we do not understand them than that what is demonstrated is false. But I will not believe that there is such a demonstration, until it is shown me. Nor is it the same to demonstrate that by supposing the sun to be at the center and the earth in heaven one can save the appearances, and to demonstrate that in truth the sun is at the center and the earth in the heaven; for I believe the first demonstration may be available, but I have very great doubts about the second, and in case of doubt one must not abandon the Holy Scripture as interpreted by the Holy Fathers. I add that the one who wrote, “The sun also riseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose,” was Solomon, who not only spoke inspired by God, but was a man above all others wise and learned in the human sciences and in the knowledge of created things; he received all this wisdom from God; therefore it is not likely that he was affirming something that was contrary to truth already demonstrated or capable of being demonstrated.

So, King Solomon was an Inspired Great Scientist. Holy Writ says he was both a scientist and inspired. And, as St. Robert points out, he was a Geocentric.

2) I suppose you'll next come up with "the fact was later demonstrated" but ... it wasn't. The rulings of 1820 and 1822 and even the one from 1836 were made before the observation of Bessel. It was also not a decision involving the Church changing interpretation, the Church just made room for both.

The observations of Bessel did not demonstrate Galileo's position.

Pope Leo XIII in Providentissimus Deus studiously avoided going directly into this specific question, preferring to give general directions. Up to the reader of the encyclical (and that may involve individual bishops or even conferences) to figure out whether Geocentrism came on the side of Scriptural exegesis being certain or instead Heliocentrism came on the side of what was certainly proven in science.

Pope St. Pius X never mentioned the subject as far as I know, I'm welcoming any news about his writings, and Benedict XV in In praeclara summorum on Dante mentioned that Geocentrism might not be true, in a context of "but Divina Comedia is still highly edifying" ... so we have a series of three Popes refusing to interpret Providentissimus Deus as a reinterpretation of Joshua 10 or things.

31:07 No, it was NOT the Geocentric theory they proposed, and the ones proposing Heliocentrism, neither Galileo nor Father Foscarini subjectively speaking were opposing it to Sacred Scripture, according to both, only to a faulty interpretation of it.

And that is precisely what they were finally told that they couldn't. Because it was faulty. NOT because it involved any frontal attack on the authority of Scripture.

31:27 "and that's not true"

Well, that's good news for the Feeneyites, then. Galileo and Fr. Feeney were condemned under Urban VIII and Pius XII in the exact same degree of authority.

31:59 It's somewhat illogical of you to lump Geocentrics and Feeneyites in the same category.

I just checked the Dimond brothers' response about "aut voto ejus" and they were unusually inept at translating from Latin in this regard.

But as said, it was Fr. Feeney and Galileo who were condemned the same manner. Not Galileo and Cardinal Newman (who certainly believed BoD). Not Father Feeney and Robert Sungenis (who certainly believes Geocentrism).

32:24 Look here, as little as Heliocentrism is humanly speaking a science, as little is psychology.

You are to the best of my knowledge not Father John Mary Vianney. You do not have any charismatic gift of reading someone else's conscience.

It is even not the most likely motive.

I have my own reasons to not be a Feeneyite, so much that I have sometimes suspected it could be true and I'm blinded by my bias, but I think some Feeneyites have shared an experience with us Geocentrics.

There is a more plausible explanation even psychologically.

1) They and we have come across an idea that seems plausible from the pov of orthodoxy.
2) Then been treated like heretics.
3) Then concluded that the other guys, by their lack of moderation in the issue, are shown to be the actual heretics.

But retaliation or narcissism, the point is, neither, even if the motive be ever so bad, even if it were enough to damn, neither of these motives by themselves make the thesis incorrect.

"if you correctly 32:33 understand the church on the question of baptism of desire you see it is not a 32:40 heresy you see it is actually the church's teaching"

Not just St. Thomas, but also Trent, "aut voto ejus" confirmed ...

As I commented under the Dimonds' video.

"we know 33:29 now um that the Earth is not the center of the universe the Earth is part of a galaxy 33:37 and is kind of On The Fringe of a galaxy and that Galaxy is not in the center of the 33:43 universe"

That's conjecture, not knowledge.

"it's all very muddled because actually modern 33:51 astrophysics can be quite a muddle"

Indeed.

And they do not fulfil a normal definition of science.

You can't make tests on the solar system within a controlled environment, since you do not control it.

35:26 The supposed speeding away of all celestial bodies from each other can be traced to his interpretation of the red shift.

However, that kind of Doppler effect is physically speaking just one of the ways to explain the Red Shift.

The idea that all objects behave like objects exploding from each other has been exploded by Creationists. Citing Dominic Statham:

Creation scientists, however, point out that this background heat is actually a major problem for big bang theory. This is because its temperature is virtually the same across the universe and this would not be expected from a big bang. A conventional ‘explosion’ would leave behind an uneven pattern of heat, not the extremely even pattern actually observed.

I suppose we are also dealing with parts of the theory on star formation, citing John G. Hartnett:

For the initial molecular cloud to collapse, and eventually form a star, the cloud must eliminate any magnetic fields (due to unpaired charges) that oppose the collapse. The alleged process, which removes any magnetic field induced pressure from molecular clouds, entails the ions that carry the magnetic fields slowly diffusing out of the cloud, taking the magnetic fields with them.

But these same magnetic fields are invoked to shuttle the angular momentum from the newly forming star, at the centre of the cloud, outward into the disk region of the solar nebula, to overcome another unsolved problem. This is the angular momentum problem, where the putative central star should have 99% of the angular momentum of the collapsing cloud, but in real observed solar systems like our own, 99% of the angular momentum resides in the planets, hence in the disk of material around the central star.

36:19 The fact that an enemy of the faith appreciates a Catholic doesn't automatically or always mean he's a bad Catholic, they would value some good things too.

The fact that an enemy of the faith attacks a Catholic doesn't automatically or always means he's a good Catholic, they could be objecting to things that are genuinely bad, and they could take their hatred of creation beyond the actually Catholic views on it, meaning Lemaître's view is not necessarily Catholic.

38:52 to 46:45 I refuse to go over all, since all of it is a discussion presupposing Big Bang and Multiple Galaxies to be true, with no discussion at all whether it be so, and with a kind of strawman on how (apart from Narcissism) a Geocentric could be unduly concerned and would rationally speaking rally to Heliocentrism and Big Bang if he got over these opposite strawmen.

Here is a somewhat central part:

"that is what really matters in the in the in the mind of God He 46:14 created us He created us to do that to know His Universe from this from this 46:20 vantage point that makes it the center of the universe as far as we're concerned even Einstein who said that 46:26 all motion is relative and it depends upon the inertial system you're in of 46:31 the Observer well here you are here you are this is the Divine 46:39 perspective okay"

So, centrality of Earth only matters because of the importance we have in God's eyes, which could be fixed with relative Geocentrism ...

How about proofs of God?

Big Bang is nice enough for a Kalam, but a Kalam is compatible with Deism.

Absolute (not just relative) Geocentrism is however good for a Prima Via. Indeed, this is how Riccioli took the Prima Via and he rejected it, because he considered Heaven as a whole had no unified movement East to West of which God were the author, only individual Heavenly Bodies had diverse movements East to West, so the Geocentrism he believed would only prove angels, but not God Himself. Hence, he preferred Descartes' or Pascal's Ontological argument.

However, there is another comparison, and that is, what was already discovered in St. Paul's day. Lemaître discovers Big Bang (he thinks) and deduces a Kalam, unless it's just Pius XII doing it for him. Jonathan Sarfati speaks of the flagellum of the bacterium and Robert Carter of the astounding complexity of the DNA code. Each of these is, if verified with perfect certainty (not the case with Big Bang) some kind of proof of God. But none of these was discovered in the days of St. Paul. What was he talking of? Here:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and injustice of those men that detain the truth of God in injustice Because that which is known of God is manifest in them. For God hath manifested it unto them For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity: so that they are inexcusable
[Romans 1:18-20]

What exact argument for God has been visible from heaven since the beginning of the world? Geocentrism, obviously.

"He 46:14 created us to know His Universe"

If Geocentrism is the true shape of the Universe, and it is limited so it has a true geometric centre, and we are in it, this holds true, not of a very select club of very late comers onto the cultural stage, but in fact of all men since the creation of the world.