Copernicus and Galileo

Religion is based on faith and trust. When Jesus told the fishermen, “Why are you wasting your time fishing for fish? Come with me, and I will teach you how to fish for men,” they immediately left everything and followed him. This act exemplifies faith—believing without questioning. Science, on the other hand, operates in the opposite manner. It is built on skepticism, facts, and constant inquiry. Scientists doubt everything; when a new theory is proposed, it is easier to disprove than to prove. This process of rigorous scrutiny has been crucial to scientific progress—every wrong turn represents lost time and resources, so theories must be tested and refined. 

One of the pivotal moments in this conflict between faith and reason was when Nicolaus Copernicus questioned the long-accepted geocentric model of the universe. Aristotle and Ptolemy had established the belief that the Earth was the center of the universe, a view upheld by the Catholic Church. But Copernicus, troubled by contradictions in celestial observations, began to doubt these teachings. His ideas would eventually ignite a scientific revolution. 

Copernicus: Torn Between Faith and Science 

Copernicus was deeply conflicted. His uncle was a bishop, and his religious upbringing made him hesitant to challenge Church doctrine. Yet, his dedication to scientific truth compelled him to pursue his research. His doubts were fueled by the book Summary of Ptolemy’s Almagest by Johannes Regiomontanus. Regiomontanus had analyzed Ptolemy’s works and found significant errors, such as the claim that the Moon’s distance from Earth should vary by a factor of two, which would cause it to appear to grow and shrink in size each month—something no one had ever observed. These inconsistencies led Copernicus to suspect that fundamental flaws existed in the geocentric model. 

By 1514, based on his own observations, Copernicus proposed a radical shift: from a geocentric (Earth-centered) to a heliocentric (Sun-centered) universe. This meant that Earth was not the center of creation but just another planet orbiting the Sun. Aware of the dangers of contradicting the Church, he circulated his ideas only among trusted friends. He feared persecution—after all, challenging religious dogma could mean execution. 

Over the years, Copernicus refined his theories, eventually completing The Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres in 1532. However, he hesitated to publish it. Word of his ideas reached the Pope and other church officials, but they initially took no action, perhaps hoping to avoid drawing attention to his work. It was only after Copernicus’s death in 1543 that the book was published. Two factors spared it from immediate censorship: first, he had dedicated it to the Pope, and second, the book was so mathematically complex that only scholars could understand it. Over time, however, his ideas spread, and Johannes Kepler built upon them, proving that planetary orbits were elliptical rather than circular. 

As support for heliocentrism grew, the Church felt increasingly threatened. Eventually, it banned Copernicus’s book and declared that promoting heliocentric theory was heresy. Despite this resistance, Copernicus’s work marked the beginning of a scientific revolution—one that championed evidence-based inquiry and the mathematical laws governing nature. 

Galileo: The Rebel Scientist 

Four hundred years ago, a man pointed a homemade telescope at the night sky and made a discovery that changed history. That man was Galileo Galilei. His observation of Jupiter’s moons provided undeniable proof that not everything revolved around the Earth. This discovery dealt a devastating blow to Aristotle’s geocentric model. From Galileo’s time onward, science surged forward, unraveling the mysteries of the cosmos. In the span of 380 years, humanity has gone from simple telescopes to the Hubble Space Telescope, moon landings, Mars rovers, and interstellar probes—driven by the same relentless pursuit of knowledge that Galileo embodied. 

Born on February 15, 1564, in Pisa, Italy, Galileo was torn between two paths: medicine and the priesthood. But fate intervened—one day, he attended a mathematics lecture that changed his life. Realizing that mathematics was the key to understanding the universe, he abandoned medicine and devoted himself to science. 

In 1609, Galileo learned about a crude telescope invented by Dutch lens makers. Inspired, he built his own, refining its design. When he trained it on Jupiter, he noticed what he initially thought were three fixed stars near the planet. But as he continued observing night after night, he realized they were actually moons orbiting Jupiter. This was a groundbreaking revelation—if celestial bodies could orbit something other than Earth, then the geocentric model was fundamentally flawed. 

Galileo’s discoveries threatened the Church’s authority. In 1616, the Church officially declared heliocentrism “formally heretical,” and Galileo was warned to abandon his support for it. But in 1632, he defied this order and published Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, in which he boldly defended Copernican theory. The Church responded with force—Galileo was tried by the Inquisition, found guilty of heresy, and sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life. He was forbidden from publishing further works, and all his writings were banned. 

Galileo died in 1642 at the age of 77. It took nearly 200 years—until 1835—for the Catholic Church to remove his works from the list of banned books. But by then, the scientific revolution was unstoppable. The heliocentric model had led to the study of gravity and its effects, opening the door to modern physics. 

Science and Faith: A Continuing Dialogue 

The conflict between science and religion has shaped human history, yet both continue to coexist. Science seeks answers through doubt and evidence, while religion provides meaning through faith. Copernicus and Galileo stood at the crossroads of these two forces, risking everything to pursue the truth. Their courage and discoveries set the foundation for modern science, proving that knowledge, once uncovered, cannot be silenced.