Conclusively
I agree: there is neither the slightest mythical, nor any scientific or theoretical flavour to the commonplace language Moses employs. And this prosaic, plain, factual report I believe. The Earth has no equal in the space around us, created as she was in the beginning, with only from the fourth day on Sun, Moon, and stars beginning to orbit her for signs, seasons, and days. The inspired text does not contain any hint that thereby the Earth was degraded to one of a set of specks of matter circling a minor star. Whatever astronomers assert to the contrary, they will never be able convincingly to demonstrate this downfall to have happened.
To repeat: I believe and ergo know – particulars subject to further investigation – that the Tychonian view is the true one. But I admit, as already said, that an outcome of my experiment favouring this view will not verify it absolutely. Even holding this outcome to be theoretically and practically untouchable won’t help, for such a positive evaluation of the result also brings grist to the mill of all Stokes-type theories. On the other hand: if the test will affirm Einstein’s hypothesis, then this just as well keeps a number of anti-relativistic theories in the running. In short: whatever the data acquired by any experiment: those who use these data to bolster their proposals will do well to attach a “maybe” rider.
I do not want anyone to be in doubt about my rock-bottom position on this vexing, insuperable last-ditch issue. Evidences in support of my geocentric theory may come forward and multiply. However, I do not build my conviction on any or many affirmative data. We – “on our own” – cannot and never shall absolutely “know” astronomy. Or to reformulate Russell’s Caveat : without accepting Divine input, the queen of the sciences, and all the other sciences also, will forever remain bereft of ultimates.
That input we have, and it being metaphysically qualified is surely not subject to verification. Take it, or leave it!
Even verifications have to be verified, and this in the nature of things here below ad infinitum . Bradley’s discovery of aberration “verified” Newton’s heliocentric theory in the eyes of virtually all his contemporaries, and Berkeley’s objections were brushed aside. But when Airy, already doubtful of the outcome, decided to verify Bradley’s verification he got nowhere. That verification, courtesy of Fresnel, was taken to “verify” the obvious: either we move relative to the stars or the stars relative to us. Pro or contra Copernicus, it was decided, it had substantially nothing to say. What it, and also the Michelson and Morley result, did was to throw doubt on Newton’s neat and tidy model, and in doing that pave the way for Einstein’s theories. Now, A.D. 1988, astronomy lives by the grace of relativity, but is that relativity truly verified by experiments? “Yes”, say the modern equivalents of the Newtonian know-alls. “No”, retort the Berkeleyans of today, and mightily they labour to produce verifications of their dissection of those relativistic verifications.(75)
The matter reminds one of a well-know line from Juvenal’s Satires: “Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?” -But who is to guard the guardians themselves?” Whichever way we turn, we cannot escape an infinite regress. Who verifies our verifications?
That this essay will be judged to be overly repetitive I realize. I confess: it is even purposely so. That many questions remain I do not deny. But to answer these before the central thesis here defended has been vindicated would be premature. For almost twenty years of debate and of discussing the Tychonian theory have taught me that many, if not most, people need time and reflection fully to grasp the crucial importance of the atheist Russell’s Caveat and the Christian Armstrong’s Alert when contemplating the question “how the Heavens go”.
When C.S. Lewis tells us that his lifelong friend, Owen Barfield, “has read all the right books and has got the wrong thing out of everyone”(135), then I must on a number of important issues agree with him. Yet when in a closely reasoned thesis about mankind’s relation to science and God, Barfield castigates our mechano-morphical “new science” outlook, I think he says things relevant to the geocentric approach in astronomy put forward by the present essay.
The modern worldview reducing us to ephemeral objects among objects, to conglomerates of quarks and no more, with at best allowing a distant God in a mode of being not unlike our own… “if incalculable disaster is to be avoided”(136), a re-awakening will have to be brought about of the medieval conception, realizing man to be a microcosmos embedded in the macrocosmos surrounding him. And not only that: the God beyond and above all sensory approach and yet closer to us than our own selves will have to be adored and honoured in every man’s doing. As St. Paul A.D. 51 told the Epicureans and Stoics of Athens; “For in Him we live, and move, and have our being”. In Him, Who has revealed Himself by the Incarnation of the Logos, the Word.”
A reviewer of my Dutch book Houvast aan het Hemelruim (A Hold on the Spacious Heavens), published in 1985, writes that he has “learned from history that we must place not too much confidence in the ‘findings’ of scientists, including those of Galileo”. Therefore he gives me “the benefit as well as the disadvantage of the doubt”. And after confessing that he would be very surprised if I were right, he adds: “I almost hope he is right. It makes me feel a little bit more secure as a universe dweller to know that the Earth is at the centre.”(137)
My reviewer does not almost have to hope this. That the Earth, created in the beginning, hangs immovably upon nothing in space, God’s Revelation considers this for granted. Therefore science cannot disprove this fact, and truly sagacious astronomers, whatever the ontological stance they prefer, very well know that a logically sound refutation of geocentricity is anyway unattainable.