Galileo, A Scientist Who Believed in God

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Today is the birthday of Galileo Galilei, who was born in Pisa, Italy, in 1564. He was the firstborn of six, or perhaps seven, children. His parents were Vincenzo Galilei and Giulia degli Ammannati. His father was a famous musician who earned his living singing, playing the lute, composing and publishing music for the lute, writing books about music theory, and teaching.

Galileo’s education included reading books and learning to draw. He also became an accomplished musician. He studied at a monastery in Florence and later studied medicine at the University of Pisa, though he never graduated from the university.

Galileo became a mathematician, an engineer, a physicist, a professor, an astronomer, and an inventor.

Print by Galgano Cipriani, After Justus Susterman and Raphael Morghen. Courtesy Smithsonian Institution, Gift of Eleanor and Sarah Hewitt.

In May 1609, Galileo learned of the invention of the telescope. In June he built a better one himself. He became the first person to use a telescope extensively to observe and record what he saw in the sky. Among his many discoveries were that the moon was not smooth, but had mountains and craters, and that the planet Jupiter had four moons.

Eclipse over Tennessee, January 2019.

In order for everyday people to understand his discoveries, Galileo wrote about them in Italian rather than Latin or Greek. His books became immensely popular in his time. Sadly, Galileo’s theories differed from some of the tenets that the Catholic Church held about the universe. Therefore he came into severe conflict with the Catholic Church and endured a trial for heresy in the Inquisition. Galileo was convicted of heresy and remained under house arrest for the last eight years of his life. In 1992 Pope John Paul II officially reversed the Catholic Church’s position on Galileo.

Galileo is considered one of the most important scientists in world history.

Statue of Galileo Galilei, outside the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Courtesy Carol M. Highsmith’s America Project in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress.

When NASA decided to send a spacecraft to examine Jupiter and its moons, the space agency named the spacecraft the Galileo.

Galileo developed a theory that in a vacuum all objects will accelerate in the same way, regardless of their weight or shape. While on NASA’s Apollo 15 mission to the moon, Astronaut David Scott performed an experiment with a geologic hammer and a falcon feather to demonstrate the validity of Galileo’s theory (the mission’s lunar module was called the Falcon). You can watch Scott’s demonstration on the moon in this YouTube video. After the feather and the hammer landed on the moon at the same time, Scott declared, “Mr. Galileo was correct . . . .”

Galileo continues to be an example of a scientist who had a strong faith in God. He wrote: “I render infinite thanks to God, for being so kind as to make me alone the first observer of marvels kept hidden in obscurity for all previous centuries.”¹

The heavens tell of the glory of God;
And their expanse declares the work of His hands.
Day to day pours forth speech,
And night to night reveals knowledge.
Psalm 19:1-2

In a 1638 letter to a friend, Galileo wrote about his theories about tides. At the end of the letter, he wrote: “Courage! Praise be to God! Help me with your prayers, and with reverent affection I kiss your hand.” Two years later, Galileo described his own ill health in a letter to a young friend. He said: “The Lord God wills it this way and we must acquiesce in it.”²

Thank you for teaching your children about the God Who created the universe and about the universe He created.

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes,
that is, His eternal power and divine nature,
have been clearly perceived,
being understood by what has been made,
so that they are without excuse.
Romans 1:20

Sources:

¹https://ian.umces.edu/blog/galileo-galilei-an-experimental-observational-and-theoretical-scientist-who-communicated-effectively/

²”Galileo’s Religion” by O. Pedersen. The Galileo affair: A meeting of faith and science. Proceedings of the Cracow Conference, May 24-27, 1984, Citta del Vaticano: Specola Vaticana, 1985, edited by Coyne, G. V., p. 75.

 

 

 

 

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