Is God fair to scientists?

Is God fair? We have to assume that God will punish, harshly, those who do not believe his word. In which case, why did God design the universe in such a way that those of an intelligent and inquisitive disposition would conclude that the universe was not designed by God in the way he said he designed it?

Take the case of epicycles, of which ‘Belette’ comments.

“The massive difference, now, over say Copernican days is that the observations and calculating ability we have are so much better than before. It is no longer possible tlo believe in epicycles, because observations demonstrate clearly that they don't work, except in the trivial sense that any path can be fit by enough epicycles to an arbitrary degree of precision.”

I agree. One of Galileo’s motivations for his heliocentric theory was his observation of the phases of Venus. These cannot be observed properly without a telescope. Venus is lit by the sun from angles that are not consistent with the Ptolemaic system. There is a good explanation of this in the Wikipedia article on the Ptolemaic system. Why did God design the geocentric system in such a complex way that those of an inquisitive disposition, after inventing telescopes, would observe such apparent inconsistencies? In 1838, Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel successfully measured the parallax of the star 61 Cygni, which is also difficult to explain in the geocentric system. Why did God go to the trouble of designing the geocentric universe in such a complicated way that an detailed observations such those of Bessel appeared to contradict the way God said (in the Bible) that he had in fact designed things?

Note, I am not arguing that the geocentric model is wrong. What I mean is that, if God says it is correct, and if, as seems to be the case, detailed observation and deduction (such as by Galileo and Bessel) suggests that it is not correct, and if God punishes harshly those who disbelieve what he says, then it seems as though God is not being fair. He has designed the universe in such a way that the way it appears to be designed is not the way he has said it was designed, and thus designed it in a way that invites punishment of the inquisitive and intelligent.

What reply can we make to this? Well, we could avoid fundamentalism by distinguish between literal and analogical truths. When it says in Psalm 93 that “the world also is established, that it cannot be moved”, perhaps it does not mean that the earth is literally immoveable. Perhaps it is immoveable in a spiritual sense. Or that it cannot be moved from its orbit around the sun, all things being equal. Perhaps it is a statement about the constancy of physical constants, such as gravitational acceleration etc. Yes, that is a reasonable objection, but then we can turn the whole question around. Why did God make statements that are so easily open to a literalist misinterpretation? If so, then it seems God is discriminating against fundamentalists. Is that fair? Surely not.

Or it could be argued that the inquisitive and intelligent are simply wrong. A careful examination of the matter (see the websites linked to in earlier posts) shows that the geocentric theory is the correct one. I reply: whichever theory is correct, it remains that God’s design has misled an extraordinary large number of people. Either he is being unfair to astronomers and scientists, or he is being unfair to fundamentalists. We have to choose, and either way it seems that he is not being entirely fair.

Or it could be argued that the inquisitive and intelligent have violated a version of the charity principle. They have followed a line of observation and reasoning that leads them to conclude that God has not told the truth. But logic, as well as the principle, should tell them that God would not have designed the universe in such a way as to contradict what he says. If any theory or reasoning of yours leads to a contradiction with sacred scripture or the teaching of the church, there is something wrong with your reasoning. Indeed, as Ockham argues – as discussed in my last post), we should even make exceptions to the laws of logic when this happens*.

So, is God not being fair to someone?  And is that not inconsistent with an essence into which goodness, justice, fairness etc. are built into as though by definition?


* Yes, I realise that Ockham’s point is more subtle than that. But this is internet land, where we lay things on with trowels.

More fixed earth

There is more information about the geocentric theory here. This suggests a problem. The original motivation for the geocentric theory was its apparent simplicity, given that the heliocentric theory requires an extra assumption – a tilted earth – to explain the seasons. But it turns out the geocentric theory also needs an extra assumption to explain the seasons, and the apparent motion of the sun that corresponds to this.

A good way to imagine this is to look at a potters wheel as it turns . . . it turns once every 24 hours . . . at the center is the Earth . . . place your finger in the clay, you make a circle, this is the sun . . . now slowly move your finger out 3% of the radius of your first circle . . . now move your finger inward 3% . . . that is the motion of the sun albeit the sun would also move in a spiral helix up and down while it is moving out and in by 3% of the radius . . . there are two motions here, one is up then down the other is in then out again. So there is the spiral up and down motion to account for the seasons but the size of the spiral is constantly changing to account for changes in the distance over the course of a year.

Yes but why does the sun move that way? The assumption of a tilted earth plus gravity seems a simpler explanation and thus (pace Dr Connolley) should be preferred. Obviously the underlying rationale for neo-geocentricism (‘neo-geo’) is the Bible and God, but that raises another question: is God fair? It seems unfair to create a universe whose nature seems almost designed to be misunderstood, once observed carefully. Observations by Galileo and other astronomers, phenomena like Foucault’s pendulum, and many other observable phenomena, suggest a reality that is quite different from the literal truth of the Bible. Geological observations suggest the Earth is much older than 6,000 years. Why did God create the Earth in a way that seems almost designed to mislead? Why did God create dinosaur bones, without mentioned dinosaurs in the Bible? Was that fair of God?

It could be replied that, correctly understood (where correct understanding means theories like ‘neo-geo’), these phenomena do not contradict the literal truth of the Bible. But then, clearly, many millions or billions of people, including all eminent scientists since Galileo’s time, have not correctly understood the evidence. Was it fair of God to create a world whose true nature misled so many brilliant people?