Pope Benedict XVI on Galileo and God

As pope, Benedict XVI has never directly intervened on this topic. But of extraordinary interest for understanding his thought is the reply that he gave in Saint Peter’s Square on April 6, 2006, to a 17-year-old high school student who had asked him “how to harmonize science and faith.”

Here is the pope’s reply:

“THE GREAT GALILEO SAID THAT GOD…”

by Benedict XVI

The great Galileo said that God wrote the book of nature in the form of the language of mathematics. He was convinced that God has given us two books: the book of Sacred Scripture and the book of nature. And the language of nature – this was his conviction – is mathematics, so it is a language of God, a language of the Creator.

This entry was written by Marsilio Facino and posted on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 8:48 pm and filed under General. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

Comments (2) to “Pope Benedict XVI on Galileo and God”

  1. anon wrote:

    “Yeah, Galileo, he’s our friend now….and, uhhhh…he’s a God-fearing Christian, too!!! Yeah, that’s the ticket.”

    Puhlease. Go back to what you do best: overseeing your kiddy-diddling empire.

    Posted on 20-Jan-08 at 12:42 am | Permalink

  2. Realist wrote:

    Did not Galileo say that “To me alone it is given to know the secrets of the heavens”? Did he not maintain like Copernicus that the planets were in orbit round points which themselves were in orbit round the sun? Did he not fail to account for the fact that (at his state of technology) the furthest stars always looked the same and did not appear to shift if the earth had a large orbit round the sun? Did he not fail to account for why (in the absence of belief in gravity) objects were not thrown off a moving earth? How did his system (at the time) account for phenomena any better that the existing system of Ptolemy? Hindsight is indeed a wonderful thing. However he was indeed a Christian and is credited with saying that religion “was to teach us how to go to heaven, not how heaven goes”. Nevertheless Pope Urban was quite as rational as Galileo who was asking people to accept things on his personal authority.

    Posted on 20-Jan-08 at 4:23 am | Permalink

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