You also get error if you wrongly interpret Scripture, whether the resulting errors are contrary to philosophy or science.
Knowledge from reason and the natural world is still truth. We have that with us when we read Scripture, and it does put boundaries on interpreting Scripture. For example, we read in Genesis 3:9 that God was "walking in the garden", but I assume you don't take from that that God has legs and (literally) walks. No, we know from philosophy - natural reason - that God is not material, so we understand "walking in the garden" as a metaphor.
Geocentrism isn't the only obsolete notion commonly held by the ancient world. Consider spontaneous generation. Scripture has passages consistent with this, and the Fathers support it. Does that mean we have to hold it? No. While the Scriptures use language consistent with spontaneous generation, they do not teach it ex professo. Likewise, very few (if any) of the Fathers explicitly teach spontaneous generation is a revealed truth; they believe it as the common science of the time. Someone who held spontaneous generation as a Scriptural truth NOW would, I think, fall under St. Augustine's warning above (even though St. Augustine himself seems to have believed in spontaneous generation in parts of his Literal Meaning of Genesis.)
My point was to emphasise how the Earthmovers since Galileo in his Letters to Castelli and Christina use St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas and even the now St Robert Bellarmine to support the old Pythagorean heresy defined and declared as such since 1616. I quoted St Augustine emphasising his geocentrism, and I have pointed out that St Thomas and other saints were biblical geocentrist:
Andrew White writes: ‘This doctrine [of geocentrism] was of the highest respectability: it had been developed at a very early period, and had been elaborated until it accounted well for the apparent movements of the heavenly bodies; its final name, “Ptolemaic theory,” carried weight; and, having thus come from antiquity into the Christian world, St Clement of Alexandria demonstrated that the altar in the Jєωιѕн Tabernacle was “a symbol of the Earth placed in the middle of the universe:” nothing more was needed; the geocentric theory was fully adopted by the Church and universally held to agree with the letter and spirit of Scripture. Wrought into this foundation, and based upon it, there was developed in the Middle Ages, mainly out of fragments of Chaldean and other early theories preserved in the Hebrew Scriptures, a new sacred system of astronomy, which became one of the great treasures of the universal Church – the last word of revelation. Three great men mainly reared this structure. First was the unknown who gave to the world the treatises ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite. It was unhesitatingly believed that these were the work of St Paul’s Athenian convert, and therefore virtually of St Paul himself. Though now known to be spurious, they were then considered a treasure of inspiration, and an emperor of the East sent them to an emperor of the West as the most worthy of gifts. In the ninth century they were widely circulated in Western Europe, and became a fruitful source of thought especially on the whole celestial hierarchy. Thus the old ideas of astronomy were vastly developed, and the heavenly hosts were classed and named in accordance with indications scattered through the sacred Scriptures.
‘The next of these three great theologians was Peter Lombard, Professor at the University of Paris. About the middle of the twelfth century, he gave forth his collection of Sentences, or statements by the Fathers, and this remained until the end of the Middle Ages the universal manual of theology. In it was especially developed the theological view of man’s relation to the universe. The author tells the world: “Just as man is made for the sake of God – that is, that he may serve Him, - so the universe is made for the sake of man, that is, that it may serve him; therefore is man placed at the middle point of the universe that he may both serve and be served.” The vast significance of this view, and its power in resisting any real astronomical science, we shall see, especially in the time of Galileo. The great triad of thinkers culminated in St Thomas Aquinas – the sainted theologian, the glory of the mediaeval Church, the ‘Angelic Doctor,’ the most marvellous intellect between Aristotle and Newton; he to whom it was believed that an image of the crucified had spoken words praising his writings. Large of mind, strong, acute, yet just – even more than just – to his opponents, he gave forth, in the latter half of the thirteenth century, his Cyclopaedia of Theology, the Summa Theologica. In this St Thomas carried the sacred theory of the universe to its full development. With great power and clearness, he brought the whole vast system, material and spiritual, into its relations to God and man.
Then there is the Council of Trent:‘The sacred and holy, ecuмenical, and general Synod of Trent, - lawfully assembled in the Holy Ghost, the Same three legates of the Apostolic See presiding therein, -the synod decrees that no one who relies on his own judgment in matters of faith and morals, which pertain to the building up of Christian doctrine, and that no one who distorts the Sacred Scripture according to his own opinions, shall dare to interpret the said Sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which is held by holy Mother Church, whose duty it is to judge regarding the true sense and interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers, even though interpretations of this kind were never intended to be brought to light. Let those who shall oppose this be reported by their ordinaries and be punished with the penalties prescribed by law.’ -- (Denzinger – 783/786)Next is St Bellarmine;‘
Second. I say that, as you know, the Council of Trent prohibits expounding the Scriptures contrary to the common agreement of the holy Fathers. And if Your Reverence would read not only the Fathers but also the commentaries of modern writers on Genesis, Psalms, Ecclesiastes and Josue, you would find that all agree in explaining literally (
ad litteram) that the sun is in the heavens and moves swiftly around the Earth, and that the Earth is far from the heavens and stands immobile in the centre of the universe. Now consider whether in all prudence the Church could encourage giving to Scripture a sense contrary to the holy Fathers and all the Latin and Greek commentators. Nor may it be answered that this [geocentrism] is not a matter of faith, for if it is not a matter of faith from the point of view of the subject matter (
ex parte objecti), it is a matter of faith on the part of the ones who have spoken (
ex parte dicentis). It would be just as heretical to deny that Abraham had two sons and Jacob twelve, as it would be to deny the virgin birth of Christ, for both are declared by the Holy Ghost through the prophets and apostles.’ --- Letter to Foscarini, 1615
But then came Galileo with his Letters to Castelli and Christina and his Dialogue, mouthing all the stuff Stanley says above as though he knows more about how to read Scripture and its revelations than all the Fathers and popes who defended a geocentric revelation.
But worst of all is that Fr Robinson SSPX, a so-called expert on Thomism, faith and science, with his book poisoning so many souls with his and its naturalism based on his FAITH in the Big Bang rather than the dogma of supernatural creation of all immediastely or over 6-days, complete in all its substance. No, not for them this faith, as they think human reason can do better that all the Fathers.
Topic: Fr Paul Robinson SSPX. v Young Earth Creationists (Read 29246 times)