INS 280, Spring 2008
Worlds In Motion: Galileo’s political problem
Be ready to discuss: Impact of the reformation on Italy, including Galileo’s efforts, whether or not Galileo might have been able to succeed if he had more political savvy, and how Galileo symbolized the emergence of the age of reason out of the age of faith.
Assignment: Galileo’s work took place as the renaissance faded into what we now call the baroque. It also ushered in an era where we actually started to think differently. Science was emerging, and a man born the year Galileo died, Sir Isaac Newton, would set forth the vision of the clockwork universe, governed completely by laws of nature discernable to humans. Write a bit about how Galileo symbolizes this transformation, what it means, and how our very world changed because the way people were thinking changed.
Background: Luther and the reformation (1517)
Although the notes here will talk about some of the scientific work Galileo did, this seminar will focus primarily on his political problem, namely, why he got himself in trouble and ended up under house arrest. Galileo was writing at a time when the old system was crumbling – not just the Aristotelian scholasticism and cosmology he was attacking, but also the power of the Roman Catholic church. So, some background on that before we get to Galileo.
Luther: German monk, who changed Europe, altered Christianity, and set the stage for the future political and in many ways intellectual developments in the West – though that wasn’t his intent at all!
Young Luther worried about grace: The teaching at that time is that grace leads to faith, but how do you get grace? The answer, according to Augustine, whose ideas shaped early Christian theology (and still are profoundly important for Catholics and protestants) is to do “all that lies within us” to receive grace. We must love god as much as we can, and then god, noticing that, will give the gift of Grace. Only then would you be saved. But Luther was worried. Augustine had distinguished between slavish obedience to avoid punishment vs. filial obedience which comes with true contrition. But Luther wondered if he was truly contrite? Was it presumptuous to believe he had received grade? A vicious circle, which Luther said terrified him, gave him a terrified conscience, a sense of failure. Am I really in love with God, or am I trying to be because I want paradise? He was confessing multiple times a day, in a constant state of terror.
As he goes through this torture, he is aware of an indulgence seller named Tetzel working in the area. Indulgences were promises of remission from sin and thus time off from purgatory for a price. Luther realized that the average people thought they were buying their way to heaven, or buying the right to sin – they not only weren’t doing all they could to have faith, they simply were trying to get to heaven. How horrible! These people will be damned, this is hurting their souls rather than helping!
Luther was not only a monk, but also a university professor, in Wittenberg Germany, teaching Old Testament. He decided he wanted to debate this amongst the academic community at the Wittenberg university, so he nailed to the door (which acted as the university bulletin board), 95 theses, in Latin, making complaints against the theology of the church. But to his surprise (and against his will) these were translated to German and spread throughout Germany. This shows the technological power of the printing press, which created an information revolution that changed the world. (One wonders: will our internet/computer information revolution lead to just as profound a set of changes in our world).
At first this was not meant as defiance; he was originally respectful of the Pope, it was not an effort to create a new church. Yet that’s what happened. A firestorm is released, with many siding with Luther on indulgences, and others siding with the Church. Luther’s break with Catholic theology, however, only got more pronounced over time.
Law and Gospel. Law is meant to terrify us to recognize our inherent inability to merit salvation. Thus we turn to the Gospel. There he argues that the gospel makes a promise: have faith and you are saved. Paul’s justification through faith and faith alone. Believe it and you have it because god says you have it. To doubt it would be to call god a liar.
Moreover, this was a personal justification between you and God through the Gospel. So the Catholic church’s rites, ability to excommunicate, and claim to speak with the authority of God was seen by Luther as doing the “devil’s work,” since it undermined faith. Rather than saying ‘this is between you and the Lord,’ the Pope is seen as claiming that the church guards access to salvation. Luther labeled him an ‘anti-Christ,’ for this reason, and of course by that point the two could not be reconciled. The Pope was trying to take from Luther the Gospel – his personal promise and relationship with god – and say he can control that.
The result would be nearly a century and a half of warfare and violence, as thanks to the printing press the bible (and other things) would be printed in local languages, literacy would spread, ideas would spread, and the hold of the church over information would disintegrate. Gunpowder was allowing more powerful weapons, and political leaders started to demand real power, no longer subservient to the church. The church was fighting to hold on to its authority, but it was doomed to lose. Note: Machiavelli was writing at about the time this started to unravel, if you take that seminar, you’ll see how Italian politics was changing as well, with the church decadent and corrupt. In 1527, ten years after Luther’s these were printed, Rome would be sacked. It was a violent time.
1618-48: The Thirty Years War. It engulfed all of Europe, though mostly northern Europe. The Church in 1648 would yield, and the protestants would gain real power, and the modern sovereign state would be born. Even though places like France would remain Catholic, political power would no longer rest with the church. The era of church dominance would be over. Galileo was writing during this war, as the church was trying to hold on to power for dear life – and the biggest challenge was the theology that said an individual could question the interpretation of scripture, rather than the church having that power.
Galileo’s life
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was born on February 15, 1564 in Pisa. His father was Vincenzio Galilei, a musician. He wanted his son to be in a more financially lucrative career, and arranged to have him go to the school of medicine at the University of Pisa. This meant starting his preparatory schooling at the Monastery of Villombrosa near Florence when he was 12 years old. He apparently became a novice, on the way to Priesthood, but his father pulled him out. He studied Latin, Greek and logic.
In 1581, at 17 years old, he finished his pre-med course of studies with a degree in the Liberal Arts from the University of Pisa. However, he switched to studying mathematics and science rather than medicine, and at the age of 22 invented a hydrostatic balance.
After teaching privately in Florence and Siena, and failing to get a position at the University of Bologna, in 1589 at the age of 25, he became a Mathematics Professor at the University of Pisa. He quickly made enemies, as he was dissatisfied with the prevailing school of thought, Aristotelian scholasticism (we’ll discuss that in the Aquinas seminar more – basically it’s adherence to the knowledge that has withstood the test of time, rather than efforts to think critically and question existing beliefs). He was also dissatisfied with Aristotelian cosmology, and legend has it that he dropped objects of different weights from the tower of Pisa to prove that objects of different weight will fall at the same speed (contrary to what Aristotle taught).
Aristotelian cosmology: Aristotle believed that there were two kinds of motion, terrestrial and celestial. Celestial motion was perfect, and governed all objects from the moon outward. Objects moved in perfect circles, with crystal spheres defining these orbits. Ptolemy, as astronomer who later realized that this created predictions that did not agree with reality, posited epicycles in the orbits, essentially circles within circles. When the Catholic Church, which originally had fought Aristotelian ideas in the 13th and 14th centuries, finally embraced Aristotelian thought in the 15th century, they adopted this view of how the heavens work. Terrestrial motion was straight line motion towards the earth. Warriors would find fault with that (canons would shoot in curved motion), but Galileo’s focus was on noting that celestial motion was not perfect, nor necessarily different from terrestrial.
Relativity: Einstein came up with the theory of relativity, right? Yes, but all he did was apply Galileo’s notion of relativity more broadly. Galileo said that the laws of physics applied to all objects in uniform motion. All Einstein did with special relativity (1905) is extend Galileo’s notion to electro-magnetism. When Einstein published General Relativity in 1923, he removed away Galileo’s proviso that there had to be uniform motion. Relativity was, however, originally from Galileo, not Einstein. (Galileo also wrote about gravity, though the real breakthrough in gravity and their impact on celestial objects would come from a man who would be born the year Galileo died: Isaac Newton – and General Relativity would be a theory about gravity, and how it is caused by the curvature of space-time).
As early as 1590, Galileo decried the lack of effort to “test” to see if Aristotle’s ideas were true. He hinted at the idea of the scientific method, something Galileo certainly used, but would be better described by Francis Bacon in 1608.
Leaving Pisa: Having gotten a lot of people mad at him for his radical ideas, Galileo decided to resign his position at Pisa, and take a job at the University of Padua, where he would be Chair of Mathematics for 18 years. This meant leaving his native Tuscany for the Venetia, but there the philosophical environment was more open and relaxed.
Galileo and MarinaGamba: While living in Padua Galileo lived with a woman and bore three children with her. Yet he refused to marry her, in part out of his rebellious nature against the customs of the day. Most intellectuals who make major contributions are also rebellious against the conventions of their era. Yet when he left, he apparently left her on her own, and his two daughters became nuns, sent to that fate by Galileo while they were really too young to know what they wanted. He stayed close to them (one of them died at age 33, leaving Galileo heartbroken), but since they were born out of wedlock, he didn’t think they should marry.
Galileo and Astronomy
Copernicus: Galileo came to champion the ideas of Nikolai Copernicus, a Polish astronomer, born on February 19, 1473 in Thorn, Poland. Copernicus studied law, math and astronomy at The University of Bologna in Italy, and then in 1514 took on a task given by Pope Leo, aimed at figuring out how best to determine the ecclesiastical calendar. He did this by moving the sun to the center of the universe, and having earth as a planet that circles the sun. Though this was considered heretical, Copernicus put this forth only as an hypothesis or a model that could help solving problems involving the calendar. Officially, the earth was still considered the center of the universe.
Note: Copernicus was wrong. He thought the sun the center of the universe, but it is only the center of the solar system. He thought orbits were perfectly circular. They are not; Johannes Kepler proved in 1609 that they were elliptical.
Galileo first moved in a direction that would create problems after he heard of an invention from the Netherlands. Hans Lippershey of Middleburg invented the telescope. He was lensmaker, and when Galileo heard of this discovery, he wasted no time in developing his own telescope. This was popular with the business people of Venice (who could use it to see ships arriving earlier than others), but Galileo’s troubles started when he pointed it skyward. In 1610, he noticed that Jupiter had its own satellites.
Galileo wrote Sidereus Nunicus or “Starry messenger,” which he dedicated to Count Cosimo II de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. He called the moons of Jupiter “Medician Stars.” He was then given an honorary Chair of Mathematics at the University of Pisa, something which irritated his former foes there. This created an uproar, there were a number of efforts to deny Galileo’s claims, calling them illusions, flaws in his telescope, etc. But he also discovered the phases of Venus, and sunspots, the latter proving that the celestial realm was not immutable (contrary to Aristotle’s claims).
Initial interactions with the Church: Positive. In 1605 Camilo Borghese was elected Pope Paul V, and the church in general found that they could live with Galileo’s work, as long as he didn’t push too hard. In essence, they were afraid that if all at once the essential physics of Catholic belief were thrown apart, with a claim that science had disproven what was accepted theology, the Church would be in crisis.
Elsewhere in Europe: The Church was under attack. In England King James was making Catholics take loyalty oaths. In Germany the reformation was in full swing, and the Church had already enacted the counter-reformation coming out of the Council of Trent. In 1618 the Thirty Years war began, which would decimate much of Europe, and lead to the downfall of the Church as the political force dominating Europe by 1648. This was a crisis for the church in political terms, and also in terms of science and belief. Galileo was pushing something at a very sensitive time, and while the Church leaders recognized that change was necessary, they needed time to integrate it into their teachings. Galileo insisted, however, that truth need not wait, and must be acknowledged. Two letters really started the course of action; the Letter to Castelli, later revised as A Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina were objected to not so much on the grounds that Galileo defended the Copernican theory, but that as a lay man he was trying to tell the church how to interpret scripture.
Note: That may seem minor, but it was not! The essence of the protestant reformation in Europe was that Luther claimed that each individual had to have a relationship with God, and that the meaning of scripture was personal. This was the most significant challenge of the protestant revolt, and Galileo seemed to be veering in that direction. Thus to many it wasn’t just his science – or even primarily his science – that was a threat, but his willingness to question church authority in interpreting scripture.
Galileo essentially argued that nature and Scripture cannot be in contradiction. If the Bible says that God commanded the sun to stop in the sky, and we know from observation that the earth rotates around the sun, then it’s clear that Scripture is not wrong, but our understanding of scripture is off; clearly it is not a scientific truth that scripture gives, but common parlance, not meant to be taken as science.
His view of the world was essentially different, and he claimed that the book of nature was to be discovered by humans using reason, intellect, and mathematics, while the Book of Scripture gave information about things outside of nature (faith, salvation, etc.) God gave us the tools of reason, and the language of mathematics to understand the world, claimed Galileo. He believed this all should be acceptable to the church (and ultimately it would be), but given the circumstances, and Galileo’s refusal to compromise, it set him on a collision course with the authorities. He was suggesting a different way to interpret scripture, and that was seen as more dangerous than treating Copernicus’ theory as fact.
Cardinal Bellarmine: worked out a compromise with Galileo, and in general the Church wasn’t out to get him or silence him; rather, they wished to make the controversy die down through some kind of compromise. Galileo could treat Copernican theory as an hypothesis, even a superior hypothesis/model, but needed to avoid claiming it is true.
March 5, 1616: The Copernican system was officially proclaimed contrary to Holy Scripture. This was not done by an ‘irrefutable’ source, but Congregation of the Index, dealing with prohibited books. The Pope never confirmed it, so it was never infallible dogma. March 11, 1616: Galileo had an audience with Paul V, which seemed to go well. The Church was not convinced by Galileo’s evidence (indeed, he never was able to convincingly prove the Copernican system), and wanted him to be ‘prudent.’ At this point, he had a lot of support, much in the church, and throughout Europe, he was becoming known for his physics and mathematics, and he was exceedingly confident. Disappointed that the church had banned Copernicus, he went back to Florence to keep working.
Il Saggiatore, or The Assayer was Galileo’s next major work, emphasizing the power of mathematics. It is here Galileo claims that the “book of nature” is written only in mathematical language. This separates science from philosophy. Galileo argues that the world is divided into primary and secondary objects. Secondary ones are those like taste, beauty, color – things that are not real, but which our senses interpret, which exist in our own minds. All that is primary is quantity and measurement – mathematics and geometry. This emphasis on measurement became an important part of modern science. This denies Aristotle’s notion of primary traits for all objects; for Galileo, all that is primary is quantity and measurement.
Meanwhile, Pope Paul V had died in 1621, replaced by Pope Gregory XV, who died in 1623, replaced by Cardinal Barberini, who became Pope Urban VIII. Barberini was a friend and former defender of Galileo’s, so this seemed to be good news for Galileo. Galileo dedicated The Assayer to Urban VIII, who approved of it (though it was actually an attack on a Jesuit, Horatio Grassi – something which had started to turn the Jesuits, originally supporters of Galileo, against him). This convinced Galileo that things were going his way.
Galileo then went to work on his next major work: Dialogue on the Great World Systems, which would be meant to show that the Copernican model was valid. It was done in dialogue form, and was an assault on Aristotelian scholasticism and the idea of intellectual authority of existing knowledge. Urban VIII suggested he write this book, and conclude that due to the uncertainties, it was best to give the Church the authority to make the call. He did that, but his book was so powerful in having the dialogue “won” by the Copernican, that he was tried for teaching the Copernican theory not as just an hypothesis, but as truth. Urban VIII felt deceived by Galileo, and believed the book was dangerous not so much by its embrace of a heliocentric theory, but the position it took to the role of Scripture and revealed truth. He recognized the inherent sense that science and reason could rival faith, and saw it as dangerous.
Galileo, simply, had overplayed his hand, and went too far. He agreed to back down (in the face of torture and punishment), and his sentence was reduced to essentially house arrest, in some very nice quarters. He was banned from writing, but still produced another major book Discourses Concerning Two New Sciences, which was perhaps his most important scientific book (and it reflected research he had done decades earlier), laying the ground work for what Newton would do at the end of the century.
Urban VIII was right; Galileo’s ideas were dangerous to the Church. But they were part of a tide that would sweep Europe, and lead to the slow demise of the power of the Christian faith in the face of science, secularism and modernism. Many argue that Galileo symbolizes the move from The Age of Faith to The Age of Reason, coinciding with the start of the baroque era, the birth of the modern state (at the end of the thirty years war in 1648) and the genesis of the modern era. While the story usually told of a curious and inquisitive Galileo being persecuted by a closed minded Church is wrong – clearly the Church was under intense pressure, and despite that had been generally receptive to Galileo for much of his career – the myth helped popularize the idea that science and religion were incompatible. Ironically, Galileo would have strongly disagreed with that; in his mind the Church needed to simply recognize that it had to give way to science on worldly issues where scientific proof was available, while science was to give way to religion on other-worldly issues outside the scientific realm. If the myth of Galileo makes science and religion seem incompatible, the reality of Galileo suggests the opposite; they are compatible if you understand the limits of each.