"Two Books"

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In the Bible

as understood historically

"Among the Fathers of the Church, explicit references to the Book of Nature can be found, in St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Augustine, John Cassian, St. John Chrysostom, St. Ephrem the Syrian, St. Maximus the Confessor." q.v. quoting G. Tanzella-Nitti, The Two Books Prior to the Scientific Revolution, “Annales Theologici” 18 (2004), pp. 51-83 (linked in Wikipedia reference)

Christadelphian views

Christadelphians appreciative of the concept of "God's Two Books"

  • Brother John Thomas — As shown by the title page of his Apostolic Advocate Vol 5, Dr Thomas understood that his task in the journal was to advocate for "the Testimony of God as it is written in the BOOKS of NATURE and REVELATION."
Note that bro Thomas gives his own translations of Romans 1:20 (q.v.) and 2 Timothy 3:16 (q.v.), referring to the books of Nature and Revelation respectively.
  • others . . .  TODO!!
  • this wiki!

Christadelphians expressing negative views of the concept of "God's Two Books"

How, then, does the theistic evolutionist reconcile the Genesis account with modern evolutionary thought? One method is by maintaining that the Genesis account of creation was never intended to be understood literally. Man’s modern understanding of science, which is assumed to be correct, dictates that Genesis 1 and 2 cannot be records of historical fact and so, it is insisted, must be understood in a non-literal way. Herein lies the potential danger of the “two books” idea, when pressed too far. If it is assumed that science has a theological function, just like the Bible does, and scientists have “proven” that evolution is true, then it must be our understanding of the Bible that is at fault, and must therefore change.

— Alfree, M and Davies, M, The Deception of Theistic Evolution p10

Galileo

See Geocentrism, Theistic Heliocentrism and Is Heliocentrism analogous to Evolution?.

his own statements

(From his Wikiquote page)

What was observed by us in the third place is the nature or matter of the Milky Way itself, which, with the aid of the spyglass, may be observed so well that all the disputes that for so many generations have vexed philosophers are destroyed by visible certainty, and we are liberated from wordy arguments.

— Sidereus Nuncius (Venice, 1609)

"It seems to me that it was well said by Madama Serenissima, and insisted on by your reverence, that the Holy Scripture cannot err, and that the decrees therein contained are absolutely true and inviolable. But I should have in your place added that, though Scripture cannot err, its expounders and interpreters are liable to err in many ways; and one error in particular would be most grave and most frequent, if we always stopped short at the literal signification of the words."

— Letter to Benedetto Castelli (1613)

Philosophy is written in this grand book — I mean the universe — which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these, one is wandering about in a dark labyrinth.

— Il Saggiatore (1623) As translated in The Philosophy of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1966) by Richard Henry Popkin, p. 65

Statements about him

It is impossible to exaggerate the effects of his telescopic discoveries on Galileo's life, so profound were they. Not only is it true of Galileo's personal life and thought, but it equally true of their influence on the history of scientific thought. Galileo had the experience of beholding the heavens as they actually are for perhaps the first time, and wherever he looked he found evidence to support the Copernican system against the Ptolemaic, or at least weaken the authority of the ancients. This shattering experience—of observing the depths of the universe, of being the first mortal to know what the heavens are actually like—made so deep a an impression... that it is only by considering the events of 1609... that one can understand the subsequent direction of his life.

— I. Bernard Cohen, The Birth of a New Physics (1959)

Galileo was no idiot. Only an idiot could believe that science requires martyrdom — that may be necessary in religion, but in time a scientific result will establish itself.

— David Hilbert, in defense of Galileo's recantation of his discoveries before a tribunal of the Inquisition,
as quoted in Howard Whitley Eves, Mathematical Circles Squared. . . (1972) p.125

From the Church

Whereas you, Galileo, son of the late Vincenzio Galilei, Florentine, aged seventy years, were denounced to this Holy Office in 1615 for holding as true the false doctrine taught by some that the sun is the center of the world and motionless and the earth moves even with diurnal motion; for having disciples to whom you taught the same doctrine; for being in correspondence with some German mathematicians about it; for having published some letters entitled On Sunspots, in which you explained the same doctrine as true; for interpreting Holy Scripture according to your own meaning in response to objections based on Scripture which were sometimes made to you; and whereas later we received a copy of an essay in the form of a letter, which was said to have been written by you to a former disciple of yours and which in accordance with Copernicus's position contains various propositions against the authority and true meaning of Holy Scripture;

And whereas this Holy Tribunal wanted to remedy the disorder and the harm which derived from it and which was growing to the detriment of the Holy Faith, by order of His Holiness and the Most Eminent and Most Reverend Lord Cardinals of this Supreme and Universal Inquisition, the Assessor Theologians assessed the two propositions of the sun's stability and the earth's motions as follows:

That the sun is the center of the world and motionless is a proposition which is philosophically absurd and false, and formally heretical, for being explicitly contrary to Holy Scripture;

That the earth is neither the center of the world nor motionless but moves even with diurnal motion is philosophically equally absurd and false, and theologically at least erroneous in the Faith.

Whereas however we wanted to treat you with benignity at that time, it was decided at the Holy Congregation held in the presence of His Holiness on 25 Feb 1616 that the Most Eminent Lord Cardinal Bellarmine would order you to abandon this false opinion completely; that if you refused to do this, the Commissary of the Holy Office would give you an injunction to abandon this doctrine, not to teach it to others, not to defend it, and not to treat of it; and that if you did not acquiesce in this injunction, you should be imprisoned.

— from his Sentence on 22 June 1633 trans. M A Finocchiaro
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