Excerpt from Christianity and the Images of Science
by Granville C. Henry

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, enormous controversy developed among Christians about whether the earth or the sun was the center of the universe. The good Christian and scientist Galileo was tried and condemned for heresy and ordered never to teach the sun to be at center. Martin Luther, the founder of the Prostestant Reformation, railed against the Christian Copernicus, who had reintroduced the sun-centered theory, as follows: "This fool (Copernicus) wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth."

Luther's comment is instructive, for it shows that the previous science of astronomy had been thoroughly accepted into Christian theology. Why else would he claim that Joshua intended to speak about astronomy during a prayer in the midst of battle? Remember, the Israelites with Joshua at their head were in a fierce battle with the Amorites, and Joshua prayed to the Lord: "Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and Moon, in the valley of Aijalon" (Josh 10:12). Does anyone ever seriously consider the scientific structure of the universe, much less proclaim some truth about it, during prayer in a crisis time? I doubt it. I also question whether God was speaking through Joshua about astronomy at such time. Luther could speak of the "fool" Copernicus because he sought to change what everybody believed, including Luther, namely, that the earth did not move. Already "knowing" the truth, Luther felt comfortable quoting a Bible example to confirm it.

The controversy about a helio (sun)-centered universe and a geo (earth)-centered universe did not begin in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It was engaged much earlier in the second century B.C. by pre-Christian mathematicians and astronomers--and settled for all intents and purposes at that time. Good science became geocentric and was accepted, according to our Thesis 1, into the heart of Christian theology. The early controversy among the scientists about a geocentric or heliocentric universe is a more interesting and certainly a more civil conflict that the one that occurred among the Christian theologians 1700 years later.

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