Re: [asa] Flat Earth in earlier Christendom

> You stated: "Davis Young's book on John Calvin and the natural world shows
> that the idea that the biblical text accommodates to scientific views of the
> day is not new."
>
> No doubt such teleological times would walk hand in hand with natural
> theology, though the height of it may have been after Paley's book. [This
> is an assumption on my part, admittedly. Is it a fair one?]

Calvin's comments (see especially his commentary on Genesis 1) reflect
the ideas that a) the text of Genesis 1 didn't seem to match up so
well with astronomical knowledge of his day (specifically, the sun and
moon are the two lights in Genesis, but the planets were known from
astronomy to be bigger than the moon and thus more deserving of notice
if Genesis 1 were an astronomy text) and b) that Moses wrote in a
manner accessible to the average Israelite and was not writing an
astronomy text.

> The inference seems to be much like the Einstein view of the aether, if it
> is no longer needed then it probably doesn't exist. Of course, they are
> looking at God as being "God the plumber" and are greatly missing what the
> Bible is saying.

This is the key problem, though also God's providence-the general
principle in the Bible that God is at work in every event (regardless
of whether ordinary physical causes are there, too) is being missed
(as it often is by young earth or ID advocates, too). Without
actually counting, I'd say that by far the majority of punitive
actions attributed to God in the Bible were the military actions of
neighboring countries or peoples, also readily attributed to ordinary
politcal manouverings, greed, etc.

> Agreed, but the counter argument I will get is that "imagery" is a form of
> teaching, and if the Bible is inerrant (yes, that word has arisen from him)
> then it should teach a spherical body somewhere. I mentioned the verse
> where God sits upon the circle of the Earth, and he said all maps prior to
> Columbus showed the earth as circular and flat, but never spherical.

No, that would follow only if the Bible is exhaustive and inerrant.
There's no more point in expecting the Bible to teach about the shape
of the earth than there is in expecting it to mention dinosaurs,
quantum mechanics, what I ought to eat for supper, the exact name of
the person I should marry, etc. Again, the claim that Columbus was
the first one for a spherical earth is a blatant fabrication.

Imagery is a form of teaching, but teaching about what? Does he write
disparaging letters to the newspaper when it gives a time for sunrise
and sunset? No, because in context it's clearly a reference to the
time it gets dark, not a discussion of astronomical realities. Much
bad exegesis within the church also stems from not paying attention to
this point, such as trying to build up a doctrine based on background
color details out of parables (I'm especially thinking of a
poorly-acted video strongly promoting a premillineal view where the
host kept invoking by chapter and verse, but not by text, a
particular verse). There's no need for the Bible to teach about the
shape of the earth-people can go out and find out the shape if they
want. As the Westminster Catechism puts it, "The Scriptures
principally teach, what man is to believe concerning God, and what
duty God requires of man." That's because those are the things that
we need to know but cannot find out by our own effort.

> He corrected this gaff.

Yes, but he was clearly careless and wrong before, whereas the Bible
doesn't clearly assert things about the shape of the earth. It is
reasonable to accept his retraction, but it is also reasonable to
accept the idea that interpretation of the Bible can legitimately
change in light of new (or forgotten, i.e., archaeological) data.

> I think I can counter the flat earth view once I am better prepared, as well
> as his other error claiming Bruno was burned for his astronomical views,
> which are presented as being mostly correct views.

Bruno's heliocentrism was probably considered to be a supporting
reason for execution (different accounts disagree), but he was also
vigorously advocating theological heresy and was good at directly
offending people (in that, a bit like Galileo putting the Pope's words
in the mouth of a simpleton character so as to demolish the argument
by another character.)

-- 
Dr. David Campbell
425 Scientific Collections
University of Alabama
"I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"
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