Long forgotten are all the other ancient heresies condemned by the Fathers over the first three centuries of the Catholic Church; an era recalled and described in books written by Professor A. A. Martinez who tells us ‘Saint Hippolytus (170-235AD) [a martyred Christian theologian], ridiculed the doctrine of infinitely many suns, moons and worlds, some inhabited.’
The Professor records ‘in 384CE’ Philaster, Bishop of Brescia condemned the ‘heresy that says worlds are infinite and innumerable…whereas Scripture teaches us that it is one. In 402 St Jerome complained that one of the most heretical claims of all was that ‘worlds are innumerable. St. Augustine even composed a list of 88 such heresies; the 77th was innumerable worlds.’
In 748AD, Pope Zachary I declared heretical the belief that stars were suns with similar worlds like Earth around them and that on these bodies are other intelligent beings.
In 1459 Pope Pius II rejected the doctrine ‘that God created another world than this one.’
In 1591, Pope Gregory XIII’s Corpus of Canon Law was expanded and included the heresy ‘having the opinion of innumerable worlds.’
‘Other theologians too cited this heresy for centuries. They explained the problem, “we cannot assert that there exist two or many worlds, since neither do we assert two or many Christs [the only begotten son]” Aristotle had insisted that many worlds cannot exist since it would require more than one First Cause.’--- Prof. A. Martinez.
Today, churchmen like to be more scientific. As Pope John Paul II said,
‘(8): It is necessary to repeat here what I said above. It is a duty for theologians to keep themselves regularly informed of scientific advances in order to examine if such be necessary, whether or not there are reasons for taking them into account in their reflection or for introducing changes in their teaching.’--- Pope John Paul II.
‘Father Funes described the discovery as ‘great news.’ Writing in the Vatican’s daily newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, he said: ‘Our galaxy contains more than a hundred billion stars. ‘Considering the number of exoplanets discovered, it seems that the vast majority of stars in our galaxy, at least potentially, can have planets where life could develop.’ He said that if there is intelligent life found on another planet, he does not see it as a contradiction to the Christian faith. He said: ‘The Bible is not a scientific book. If we look for scientific responses to our questions in the Bible, we are making a mistake. It is just over 380 years since the Catholic Church condemned Galileo for arguing that the Earth was not the centre of the universe. But it seems the Vatican has relaxed its view of mankind’s place in the cosmos and even believes there may be intelligent alien life out there. Astronomers at the Vatican Observatory, which has been studying the heavens since 1582, have said discoveries of new Earth-like planets have strengthened their belief that there could be life on other planets.’--- Mailonline, 8th Feb, 2018.
Topic: NASA says there are trillions of Earth's and life out there. (Read 1420 times)