But this small change upended the picture of the cosmos just as much as Aristotle’s revolution. For starters, earth was no longer the geographic center of the universe. Secondly, the earth moved, in contradiction to common experience (we don’t feel the earth moving) and scriptural passages describing the fixed position and foundations of the earth.[7] Famous Christian theologians and interpreters of the time were almost universally skeptical of the theories of Copernicus and Galileo. Cardinal Bellarmine, who in 1616 tried Galileo for heresy for promoting the ideas of Copernicus, thought heliocentrism to be “foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts the sense of Holy Scripture in many places, according to the literal meaning of the words…”[8] In a letter to a supporter of Galileo, he is equally scathing in his condemnation of heliocentrism:

…If Your Paternity wants to read not only the Holy Fathers, but also the modern commentaries on Genesis, the Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and Joshua, you will find all agreeing in the literal interpretation that the sun is in heaven and turns around the earth with great speed, and that the earth is very far from heaven and sits motionless at the center of the world.[9]

Luther and Calvin both clearly rejected the ideas of Copernicus, although neither ever referenced him directly (they both died well before Galileo’s time). As Luther says, “There was mention of a certain astrologer who wanted to prove the earth moves [probably referencing Copernicus]…even in those things that are thrown into disorder I believe the Holy Scriptures, for Joshua commanded the sun to stand still and not the earth [Josh 10:12].”[10] Calvin is even harsher: “We will see some who are so deranged, not only in religion but who in all things reveal their monstrous nature, that they will say that the sun does not move, and that it is the earth which shifts and turns.”[11]

These quotes are frequently marched out by atheists trying to portray Christian history as a showdown between science and faith. This is a gross oversimplification of the situation. The ideas of Copernicus and Galileo were treated with skepticism not just because they challenged biblical interpretations, but because people did not yet understand how they fit observational evidence better than the Aristotelian system. Here’s a later part of the same letter by Bellarmine I referenced earlier:

I say that if there were a true demonstration that the sun is at the center of the world and the earth in the third heaven, and that the sun does not circle the earth but the earth circles the sun, then one would have to proceed with great care in explaining the Scriptures that appear contrary, and say rather that we do not understand them than that what is demonstrated is false. But I will not believe that there is such a demonstration, until it is shown me.[12]

Luther and Calvin are similarly open to re-interpreting Scripture if their views can be shown by science to be demonstrably false. Calvin, in particular, was vocally pro-science, even to the point of accusing Christians of “sloth” if they didn’t take science seriously—regardless of whether it was done by “pagans”.[13] Here, I’ll quote Greenwood at length:

Like Luther, Calvin believed science complemented Scripture. The Bible was to be trusted on all matters, including science, but both men consistently reminded their readers that they were not the original audience of the biblical text…with the assistance of the doctrine of divine accommodation, Calvin was able to reconcile Scripture with science in areas that may have otherwise seemed irreconcilable…[Calvin] demonstrates on a number of occasions his willingness to concede matters of science to those who are trained in such matters.[14]

Thus, quoting these Christians as evidence of their “backwardness” is entirely missing the point. Christians in each era of scientific progress have had to grapple with conflicts between what they thought about the world and what new discoveries were revealing. Given that this is a dynamic history, of course they disagree about how exactly to put the pieces together. What’s important is that nearly every important Christian theologian and interpreter since Christ has believed, to some degree, that it is legitimate to reinterpret the Scriptures in light of clearly established science that challenges our picture of the cosmos. This does not mean that these Christian leaders thought science should overturn Scripture at every opportunity. But they all accepted the validity of a conversation between Scripture and science.

This brings us to the origins debate among Christians today. Greenwood’s depiction of Christian history clearly has today’s conflicts over Scripture and modern science in mind. In particular, he makes frequent references to the common dichotomy of “God’s word vs. secular science”, repeated endlessly by young-earth creationist organizations and leaders. The young-earth movement has convinced millions of Christians that science can only confirm what the Bible says, but never challenge it.

The problem, of course, is that science has been successfully challenging interpretations of Scripture almost as long as Scripture itself has been around. Young-earth creationists, in particular, have to explain how they can insist so strongly on the authority of a plain, literal interpretation of Scripture, when so many well-meaning Christians have used the same Scriptures to argue for cosmologies that everybody now knows are incorrect.

This approach also assumes that there is a way to read the Scriptures without consciously taking into account any of the scientific revolutions since Genesis was written, along with their implications. Putting it bluntly, this is completely impossible. To demonstrate this point, I’ve made a chart of all the major changes to the “biblical” picture of the cosmos spurred by scientific discovery, and marked which ones are accepted or rejected by today’s Christian perspectives on origins. (For reference, YEC is young-earth creationism, OEC is old-earth creationism, and EC is evolutionary creationism, the position of BioLogos.)