Summary
Galileo in his letter discussed the issue of planetary motions with father Castelli. He was of the opinion that though the words of the scriptures can never err, but the interpreters of scripture can make errors. He further contends that as the prime objective of the scripture is to provide guidance to the common man, in scientific debates it should only be used as a last resort. In his views, words of scriptures should not always be taken on their literal meanings as this can cause even problems regarding the matters of faith. Finally, debating with Reverend father about a verse in Joshua, he described how the stopping of the Sun to prolong a day is inconsistent with the Aristotelian structure of the universe, and instead it is in accordance with the model of Copernicus. In Ptolemy model, as day and night were caused by the motion of “Primum Mobile” and not of the Sun, stopping the motion of the Sun would have shortened the day instead of lengthening it. However, as in the Copernicus model, the motion of the Sun controls the length of the day, the action of God to stop the Sun in order to prolong the day, as scripture describes it, sits really well with the natural sciences.
As for the personal reflection, Galileo did make a very important point in the letter. Since both the nature and the scripture are from God, i.e. one is the work of God while the other is the word of God, there cannot be a conflict between the two. The scriptures must be interpreted in such a way as to remove the contradictions with scientific facts. The letter revealed the point of view of the learned men of science against the views of the Church regarding the controversies of scientific matters at the dawn of the enlightenment era.
