The concensus of the Holy Fathers .....

I have for a long time been familiar with St Robert Bellarmine's letter to Paolo Foscarini, which provides the good Cardinal's personal commentary on the situation of Copernicanism at the time (1615). It has always struck me because of its witness to both Catholic faith as a source of knowledge of what is true and reason, in this instance, that of science, as likewise a source of knowledge of what is true.

An English translation of the full text of the letter can be found here. The third paragraph could not be a stronger exposition of the obligation imposed by the Council of Trent that Holy Scripture should be understood and expounded in accordance with the Holy Fathers and doctors of the Church.

But the fourth paragraph qualifies this in a quite remarkable way (the part translated below is taken from James Brodrick's two volume 1928 biography of Bellarmine rather than the website linked above):

If there were a real proof that the sun is in the centre of the universe, that the earth is in the third heaven, and that the sun does not go round the earth but the earth round the sun, then we should have to proceed with great circumspection in explaining passages of Scripture which appear to teach the contrary, and rather admit that we did not understand them than declare an opinion to be false which is proved to be true....

I do not think any one today would insist on interpreting the passages from Genesis, Psalms, Ecclesiastes and Joshua according to the consensus of the Fathers and doctors as it existed in 1615.

Applying this to Catholic teaching on the death penalty:

1. Though there is a consensus in favour of the (conditional) legitimacy of capital punishment, I am finding it difficult to find a point at which one can clearly say it became defined teaching. That being the case, the freedom then still exists, in the sense in which Bellarmine suggests, that the cited passages of Scripture might be understood differently without it becoming a matter of heresy. (Indeed, I suspect that the passages of Scripture where the Church has defined one particular understanding rather than another are relatively few.)

2. In this case, the use of reason being suggested by Pope Francis lies in the field of the humanities, and, in particular, our understanding of the nature of the dignity of the human person. One can look, as does Pope Francis ("... No man, “not even a murderer, loses his personal dignity...”), to the inalienable nature of the rights of the person (cf the preamble to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights). And one can also look, as does Pope Francis again and as is recognised to an extent in the Catechism of the Catholic Church n.2267, to studying the injury to human dignity represented by the death penalty (the writing of Sr Helen Prejean provides an evidence that can be considered in this regard).

3. That a definition against the death penalty could constitute a genuine development of doctrine appears to me, in the light of the considerations above, quite possible, as Pope Francis himself suggests.

4. But I suspect that a final definition one way or the other may not be forthcoming and, rather like the question of conscientious objection and the legitimacy of military service in the teaching of Vatican II (cf Gaudium et Spes n. 79), the two strands of Catholic life with regard to the question will continue to exist side by side.

Faith and reason in a letter of Robert Bellarmine

To mark his feast day on 17th September, Thinking Faith have published an article about St Robert Bellarmine by Br Guy Consolmagno SJ, who works at the Vatican Observatory: Bellarmine in Perspective.

In part, the article gives an account of a letter written by Robert Bellarmine in connection with the Galileo affair. Br Consolmagno observes in connection with the letter:

We now recognise that the way science understands the universe is not subject to the kinds of proof that one would demand in mathematics. Rather, science argues from probability to probability, always recognising that no description is perfect or final. 

I suspect that this reading of a letter from the 17th century in the framework of a later time skews Br Consolmagno's way of reading it. I am not sure, for example, that practicing cosmologists do really consider the heliocentric view of our solar system as a "probability". My own reading of Bellarmine's letter, from the days of my youth some 20 years ago when Cardinal Ratzinger was still Cardinal Ratzinger and not Pope Benedict XVI, is offered below. What struck me then, and still strikes me now, about the letter is its profound trust in both human reason and in religious faith as giving access to knowledge. (My translation is, so far as I recall, taken from Part V of Arthur Koestler's book The Sleepwalkers.)

In April 1615, St. Robert Bellarmine wrote a letter to the author of a book which had defended the Copernican view of the universe, clearly addressing the letter to Galileo as well.  St. Robert Bellarmine fulfilled a role in the Church of his time similar to that of Cardinal Ratzinger in our own time.  He was a man of great intellect and profound devotion.  He was well informed about the state of contemporary scientific endeavour and seems to have had quite cordial communications with Galileo.  His letter is strikingly modern, and very concisely presents an answer to the debate as it had come to be presented. 

“..It seems to me that your Reverence and Signor Galileo act prudently when you content yourselves with speaking hypothetically and not absolutely, as I have always understood Copernicus spoke..”

This is a reference to the fact that the Copernican view was an interpretation of astronomical observations.  At least one other successful interpretation was possible, and it is in this sense that the Copernican view represented a “hypothetical” rather than an “absolute” claim.  To accept it as a “hypothesis” in this sense was quite a different thing than accepting it as being the way things really were.

“..If there were a real proof that the Sun is in the centre of the universe ... and that the Sun does not go round the Earth but the Earth round the Sun, then we should have to proceed with great circumspection in explaining the passages of Scripture which appear to teach the contrary, and we should rather have to say that we did not understand them than declare an opinion to be false which is proved to be true..”

This is the critical passage in the letter.  Underlying it is the conviction that the results of scientific study and the content of Christian faith are in harmony with each other.  When science can offer convincing proof, then it is necessary to look again at the way in which Scripture is understood.

“But I do not think there is any such proof since none has been shown to me.....I believe that the first demonstration (i.e. that the Copernican view is a workable hypothesis) may exist, but I have grave doubts about the second (i.e. the existence of proof that the Copernican view is the way things really are); and in the case of doubt one may not abandon the Holy Scriptures as expounded by the holy Fathers..”

This is an important balancing of the previously expressed willingness to look again at the way in which Scripture is understood.  In the seventeenth century there really was not any absolute evidence of the earth’s movement through space.  In the twentieth century there is, and, if he were alive today, St. Robert Bellarmine would accept that proof and be willing to understand Scripture differently as a consequence.

St Robert Bellarmine on faith and reason

Nearly 20 years ago now I encountered the text of a letter written by St Robert Bellarmine at the time of the Galileo controversy. I am reminded by his feast day of the passage in that letter which demonstrates his faith in human reason in relation to his faith in the texts of Sacred Scriptures. The passage follows a previous section in which Bellarmine has insisted on the need to respect the sense in which Sacred Scripture has been understood by the previous tradition of the Fathers of the Church.

“..If there were a real proof that the Sun is in the centre of the universe, that the earth is in the third heaven, and that the Sun does not go round the Earth but the Earth round the Sun, then we should have to proceed with great circumspection in explaining the passages of Scripture which appear to teach the contrary, and we should rather have to say that we did not understand them than declare an opinion to be false which is proved to be true..”

Bellarmine indicates that (at the time at which he was writing) it was not definitively proven by science that the Earth rotated round the Sun, and that therefore the previous interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures on the matter should still be maintained. If he were alive today, and familiar with the evidence of science as we now have it, he would undoubtedly change his mind.

But it is interesting to note the comfortable existence of both a profound trust in human reason and a strong faith in Sacred Scripture.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell

A little while since I did a physics post, so here is one. Travelling to and from Leeds by train gave me the chance to do some reading. The month's edition of Physics World went with me for that purpose. It came along with an issue of Interactions which fulfils the role of a kind of newspaper for the Institute of Physics, highlighting its own work, where the magazine itself addresses news and ideas from across the whole world of physics itself.

It contains a full page profile of Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who is the president of the Institute of Physics for the coming two years. She is the first female president of the Institute. Her career in physics had an unusual start in that her "big discovery" did not come after years of research and as part of a well developed research career. It came during her first venture into research, her PhD work. She was part of the team that discovered pulsars (a type of astronomical object whose emission of radiation varies in a regular cycle - they pulse), and this put her into the public eye. Her supervisor won a Nobel prize for this.

Jocelyn's career was not routine after that. She was married, and moved to follow her husband's job. So getting post-doctoral positions depended on (her own phrase) writing begging letters to universities. With her fame as a discoverer of pulsars, though, this meant "they were at least likely to read it and not bin it instantly, so I wouldn't be here if that hadn't happened to me..".

Asked if her Quaker beliefs have affected her management style (she is an active member of the Religious Society of Friends) she agrees: "One of the Quaker ethics is that there is 'that of God in everyone', which to me means that within everyone there is something really good and positive, and my management style fits with that. I have a very collegiate style, trying to draw out from each member of the team what they can best contribute.

"The Quaker ethic also fits very well with being a research scientist, because in Quakerism there's no dogma or creed but you are meant to sit light to your beliefs and revise them if need be. And when you're being a research scientist you're working with a model or hypothesis that you're meant to sit light to and revise if need be. That's the British style of Quakerism and research science sits very comfortably with that."

I found this interesting as representing a dialogue, lived out in practical life, between a scientist's religious belief and their scientific work. There is much in it that a Catholic scientist could share, with the difference that the Catholic would have an underlying dogmatic/creedal foundation that the Quaker would not have. Seeing that there is something "of God" in everyone would be recognised by a Catholic as growing out of a belief in God as the creator of each individual person in the image and likeness of God, which might be injured by sin, but is not completely destroyed by sin. And it is interesting to see that then developed into the adoption of a management style.

Similarly, the idea of being "light to" your particular scientific theory (model or hypothesis) as you set out on research would be seen as an openness to the ever emerging possibilities of the creative wisdom of God in creation, a recognition and faith in the ultimately rational nature of creation and of our ability to discover that rationality. Indeed, I have posted in the past on St Robert Bellarmine's account of precisely this sort of outlook, in the context of the Copernican revolution in astronomy and the Galileo affair. Robert Bellarmine's argument that science still had not at that time produced the definitive evidence to support a change of perspective on a particular Biblical text explicitly included a recognition that, when such evidence was forthcoming, a "re-think" of both the scientific model/hypothesis and of the understanding of the Biblical text would be in order. I think it is fair to say that he would have us also sit "light to" specific interpretations of Biblical texts that touch on matters of science in exactly the way that we do for the science itself.

The non-dogmatic Quaker approach does contain a couple of hidden hazards, in my humble opinion. There must be a certain, loosely defined as it may be, range of underpinning belief - eg in the existence of God - which is not averted to. And the non-dogmatic approach can be open to a practical agnosticism or indifference to truth. But, that having been said, there is certainly ground to be shared in dialogue, as exemplified by Jocelyn Bell Burnell.

On the current controversies over religion and science, [Jocelyn Bell Burnell] observes wryly:"I think there's a lot of dogmatism around in the debate, which is probably why it gets so heated".

St Robert Bellarmine, Benedict XVI, John Paul II and culture

Many years ago now, I had reason to describe St Robert Bellarmine as being "the Cardinal Ratzinger of his day". The context was a discussion of his part in the Galileo affair, and the deep interest that he had in the new scientific discoveries being made in the late 16th-early 17th centuries. Both Robert Bellarmine and Joseph Ratzinger are men with a deep love for the Church, and a thorough engagement of their Catholic faith with the culture of their times. They both express in their lives the idea that we would now call the "evangelisation of the culture".

During his recent visit to Paris, Pope Benedict XVI delivered an address on the roots of European culture. His theme was that monasticism - that is, the search for God - lies at the roots of European culture. The musical component of that culture has its roots in the singing of the praise of God; the literary component has its roots in the study of the Scriptures; and the educational component, which might be termed the cultural component in its most general definition, has its roots in the schools associated with the monasteries.

In 1980 Pope John Paul II addressed the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) at its headquarters near Paris. The English translation of that address that I have is "Man's Entire Humanity is expressed in Culture". Sorry, the link is going to take you to the French version on the Vatican website as I haven't been able to find an online English translation. The following little quote will give you a flavour:

Man, who, in the visible world, is the only ontic subject of culture, is also its only object and its term. Culture is that through which man as man, becomes more man, "is" more, has more access to "being". The fundamental distinction between what man is and what he has, between being and having, has its foundation there too. Culture is always in an essential and necessary relationship to what man is, whereas its relationship to what he has, to his "having", is not only secondary, but entirely
relative.

Pope Benedict quoted the following from John Paul II's address when he met with the Bishops of France in Lourdes last weekend:

"The Nation is in fact"-to take up the words of Pope John Paul II-"the great community of men who are united by various ties, but above all, precisely by culture. The Nation exists ‘through' culture and ‘for' culture, and it is therefore the great educator of men in order that they may ‘be more' in the community".

The contrast between the (very, very, very) complex phenomenology of Pope John Paul II and the more straightforward historical presentation of Pope Benedict XVI summarises the difference between their two pontificates. It is not that you can say that one is "better" than the other as much as saying that they are different and complementary. The one is a perfectly worthy successor to the other.

St Robert Bellarmine on faith and science

Posting on Richard Feynman brought back to mind a little piece of work I did way back in 1997 - a full ELEVEN years ago - when Benedict XVI was still Cardinal Ratzinger, and we were in the preparatory years for the Great Jubilee. I was looking at the relationship between knowledge achieved through science and knowledge achieved through faith, and referred to a letter by St Robert Bellarmine. My source for the text of the letter is vol.2 pp.358-360 of James Brodrick's life of Robert Bellarmine, published in 1928.

In April 1615, St. Robert Bellarmine wrote a letter to the author of a book which had defended the Copernican view of the universe, clearly addressing the letter to Galileo as well. St. Robert Bellarmine fulfilled a role in the Church of his time similar to that of Cardinal Ratzinger in our own time. He was a man of great intellect and profound devotion. He was well informed about the state of contemporary scientific endeavour and seems to have had quite cordial communications with Galileo. His letter is strikingly modern, and very concisely presents an answer to the debate as it had come to be presented.

“..It seems to me that your Reverence and Signor Galileo act prudently when you content yourselves with speaking hypothetically and not absolutely, as I have always understood Copernicus spoke..”

This is a reference to the fact that the Copernican view was an interpretation of astronomical observations. At least one other successful interpretation was possible [at that time], and it is in this sense that the Copernican view represented a “hypothetical” rather than an “absolute” claim. To accept it as a “hypothesis” in this sense was quite a different thing than accepting it as being the way things really were. [It did not, either, challenge its scientific status - the sense of the word "hypothesis" might today be communicated better using the term"mathematical model".]

“..If there were a real proof that the Sun is in the centre of the universe ... and that the Sun does not go round the Earth but the Earth round the Sun, then we should have to proceed with great circumspection in explaining the passages of Scripture which appear to teach the contrary, and we should rather have to say that we did not understand them than declare an opinion to be false which is proved to be true..”

This is the critical passage in the letter. Underlying it is the conviction that the results of scientific study and the content of Christian faith are in harmony with each other. When science can offer convincing proof, then it is necessary to look again at the way in which Scripture is understood.

“But I do not think there is any such proof since none has been shown to me..I believe that the first demonstration (i.e. that the Copernican view is a workable hypothesis) may exist, but I have grave doubts about the second (i.e. the existence of proof that the Copernican view is the way things really are); and in the case of doubt one may not abandon the Holy Scriptures as expounded by the holy Fathers..”

This is an important balancing of the previously expressed willingness to look again at the way in which Scripture is understood. In the seventeenth century there really was not any absolute evidence of the earth’s movement through space. In the twentieth century there is, and, if he were alive today, St. Robert Bellarmine would accept that proof and be willing to understand Scripture differently as a consequence.