The interrogations of Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei as a point of departure to illustrate the strategy of the Church of the Counter Reformation to confront the mixture of faith, philosophy and science on the eve of the Entlightment era.
I should like to focus on the strategy of the roman church in the era of the counter reformation to confront the mixture of faith, science and philosophy on the eve of the Entlightenment. My research will proceed on the basis of the interrogations of the theologian and philosopher Giordano Bruno and the scientist Galileo Galilei.
In order to confront the challenges of the Lutheran Reformation and especially its doctrinal and political consequences, the pope Paul III convened the Councel of Trent in 1545, thus initiating the era of the Counter Reformation. The strategy of The Roman Church to combat the influence of the Lutheran Reformation came to have a notable and longlasting impact on italian society for years to come. A major issue for the Councel of Trent was not only to make clear the dogmatic supremacy and identity of the catholic church but also to regain the respect at national as well as at international level at a time when the transition of Northern Europe to Protestantism had diminished the political power of the Roman Church dramatically.
Hence one of the caracteristics of The Counter Reformation was its effort to control all aspects of society, ecclesiastical as well as secular. Especially two of its remedies of social surveillance proved to be very efficient, The Inquisition and the Index librorum Prohibitorum, Index of prohibited books. With those two powerful ecclesiastical institutions at its disposal the Roman Church succeeded in exercising a profound control of the intellectuals who in the eyes of the Church constituted a potential danger to the ecclesiastical orthodoxy. In fact the Church initiated a kind of Holy War in order to expurgate everything that tended to be heretic, books, religious beliefs, philosofic ideas etc. I should like to take my point of departure in the famous inquisitorial processes against the philosopher and theologian Giordano Bruno and the scientist Galileo Galilei in order to highlight the type of ideas that could bring the Inquisition to initiate such a process.
Another important issue to be taken seriously by the Papal Church was the fact that the Counter Reformation took place during a time period that might be headlined by the term pre-scientific. Thus the western thought on eve of the seventeenth century offered a broad and opaque mixture of philosophy, theology and science and the problem for the Catholic Church was that it needed exactly the opposite: transparency and tranquillity of thought in the wake of the dogmatic revolution set forth by the protestant reformers. It had a high priority for the Church to regain control of thinking in order to block further religious and social turbulence that conflicted with the overall strategy of conservatism and maintenance of existing values prioritized by the Church of Counter Reformation.
Thus the opacity of thinking exhibited not only one of the characteristics of the prescientific era that preceeded the Entlightment era but also it constituted a severe challenge for the Roman Church. It simply wasn´t able to comprehend the new ways of thinking introduced by intellectuals and scientists like Bruno and Galileo. The hitherto dominant religious worldview of the Medieval Church wasn´t ready at all for an opening towards new metaphysics grounded in philosophy or cognitive science and exactly that situation was to prepare the way for the many conflicts between the ecclesiastical institution and the intellectuals. The Roman Church of the Counter Reformation was suspicious to any thought that could be regarded as heretic and diverging from the Truth formulated by the Holy Catholic Church which alone had the divine mandate going back to the time of Christ himself and the apostles to decide between right and wrong, to distinguish heretic from non-heretic thought.
The performance of this divine mandate was more or less in the hands of The Inquisition or the Holy Office and the inquisitorial records from the days of the Counter Reformation seem to be the ideal place to get a detailed and deeprooted insight into the ongoing conflict between the Church and the intellectuals. Furthermore the records quite often deal with subjects of exactly that metaphysical-scientific-philosophical mixture typical of the pre-scientific era of the Counter Reformation where it emerges clearly that the communication - if you could call it so - between the inquisitor and the accused took its point of departure in two different ways. Thus on the one hand the inquisitor was to defend the dogmas and the Truth of the Roman Church and on the other hand the accused was defending his metaphysically-scientific-philosophical based theories.
As already mentioned the emerging notion of science constituted problems for the Church which was not ready for an opening towards the new scientific based understanding of the world. The overall conservative attitude of the Roman Church emerges very clearly from the inquisitorial process of the scientist Galileo who, attempting to convince the Inquisition of the necessity of separating science from religion, run his head against a wall. It seems obvious that the main reason for the outcome of the cases of Bruno and Galileo was the lack of understanding from the ecclesiastical authorities of the day. The men of the Church simply couldn´t embrace the idea of making a distinction between the way of evaluating the notions of science, religion and philosophy but believed in the possibility to find answer on everything in the Holy Scriptures alone.
One of the caracteristics of the era of the Counter Reformation was that it took place at a transitional period from the old baroque world, where was reigning a feudal thought based on the indiscutable hierachical supremacy of the Church, towards a new world based on a liberal search of ideas heralding clearly the Entlightment and the development of the cognitive sciences. That said, it was possible to find persons who tended to symphatize with the new ideas inside the Roman Curia although they didn´t had the courage to manifest it overtly. In fact this was about a struggle for power between two fractions inside the Curia with the conservatives as the dominant fraction. To explain this fact it must surely be taken into account that the Curia of the Counter Reformation was very sensitive to any thought who might imply a revolutionary aspect.
The process of Giordano Bruno belongs together with that of Galilei to the most famous processes of the Inquisition which initiated its anti-heretical activity already back in the early middle ages. An interesting question, however, is whether Bruno was a philosopher or a scientist. When one study his theory of the infinity of the universe it seems that this theory anticipates a modern astronomic conception of the universe. Furthermore the brunian theories encompasses a concept of innumerability of worlds which means that Bruno did intuite the existence of other solar systems apart from ours. Thus he accepts the copernian heliocentric theory although taking one step further compared to Copernicus whose theory only operates with our solar system. Albeit this presentation doesnt leave place for a more deepgoing analysis of scientific methods it must be said that given the fact that the method of Bruno took its point of departure in generality in stead of in specificity it cannot be estimated as scientific in a more strict sense of the word. This for example is the case with his theory of anima mundi, a spirit that penetrates the whole universe.
Considering that the brunian system questioned core catholic doctrines like the Trinity, the divinity of Christ and the existence of a personal and immortal soul, it was no wonder that Bruno came under suspicion for heresy and at his return to Italy after several years abroad his friend Mocenigo, being a friend of Bruno, betrayed him to the Inquisition in Venice that initiated a process against him 1592. It happened often that someone, in order to avoid the limelight of the Inquisition, betrayed someone else, and for Mocenigo it was sufficient to insinuate that Bruno was to found a new sect. Exactly the word sect caused alarm bells to ring for the Holy Office since the main project of the Counter Reformation was to combat whatever might be infiltrated by herecy to any time, in any form and in any place. However that may be, the process of Bruno proceeded for eight years, the first two years in Venice from where he was transferred to the Holy Office in Rome and the end of it was that Bruno was found guilty of the charge of heresy and condemned to death by the secular authorities of Rome.
The process of Bruno exhibits many of the caracteristics of the aforementioned conflict between religious faith, science and philosophy. It was obvious that his theories constituted a severe challenge to the Inquisition. This emerges clearly from a study of the final interrogations in 1599 with their welter of corrections and emissions, which witnesses the general perplexity of the inquisitorial judges of the brunian process. It seems important to underline, however, that in the midst of the conceptual confusion of the prescientific era the question of faith was a core concern of the Papal Church. This might be very well in theory but how did it work out in practice? That was exactly to become the heart of the problem of the brunian process whereas Bruno, in spite of his abjuration of all his theories concerning matters of faith, was forced by the inquisitors, who wished to be on the safe side, to make a total abjuration of all his philosophy, which he refused. Albeit Bruno till the last tried to convince the inquisitorial jury of his fidelity to the Church, it was fatal to him, that his was living at a time, where the liberate research of ideas was incompatible with the biblically founded interpretation of nature sanctioned by the Roman Church.
The process of the scientist Galileo Galilei clearly evidences the problem of the Church of the Counter Reformation to make a distinction between faith and science. Perhaps Galilei was the first person in history to comprehend the importance of this. In 1613 Galileo wrote a letter to his pupil Benedetto Castelli, in which he argues for reading the Bible as a book that concerns matters of faith, but at the same time must not be taken literally when dealing with topics of science. Furthermore the letter mentions the adherence of Galileo to the heliocentric theory of the astronomer Copernicus, and exactly that letter fell into the hands of cardinal Sfondati, the prefect of the Holy Office. Consequently Galileo was summoned to inquiry in Rome to a meeting with cardinal Bellarmino and some other clericals. Galileo was convinced that he could succeed in winning the clergies from the Curia over to his point of view regarding the relationship between faith and science. But the Catholic Church at that time was not ready for an acceptance of ideas that could be potentially revolutionary, for which reason his attempt failed. In stead of sympathy for his ideas, Galileo got an admonition not to sustain in any way the copernican theory, be it in his writings or teaching.
In spite of this Galileo was still optimistic regarding his possibility to win the Church round. This optimism was grounded in the fact that Galileo at that time was a man of international fame, which had ensured him friendships with persons of high range inside the Roman Curia itself. Thus he continued his scientific research writing his Dialogue Concerning The Two Chief World Systems, which was published between 1624 and 1630 and which describes the main differences between the old ptolemaic system and the copernican system. In fact the form of the dialogue was often used to deal with controversial issues in a covert way - the dialogue as code - albeit the dialogue in the era of the Counter Reformation had been made harmless by the Church so as to be a form used only for didactical purposes. The galileian dialogue not only features both purposes, but also this is done in a very elegant way. In it are three persons, one represents the old way of thinking, the two others however represent the new ideas defending the copernican theses. It has been thought that somebody has whispered into the popes ear, that the old school person from the dialogue by name Simplicius, who Galileo had described as a rather naiv person, was meant to be the pope, who in turn was offended and decided to revenge himself on Galileo. However that may be, in spite of that the Holy Office at first made an approval of the book, Galileo one more time was summoned to Rome, where he in 1633 not only got a charge of heresy, but also in a humiliating manner and under the threat of torture was forced to make a total abjuration of his scientific beliefs.
The unwillingness of the Holy Office to accept the ideas of Galileo was almost unbearingly disappointing to the astronomer who until then had been confident about his abilities of bringing the Roman Curia over to his side. Instead, even though he spared his life, together with Bruno he became one more victim of the free thought in the pre-scientific era, in which the Catholic Church, feeling unsecure and anxious about the new emerging ideas, chose the easy and conservative solution, where the answer of everything should be found in the Holy Scriptures alone.
Quale era la strategia adottata dalla Chiesa della Controriforma per fronteggiare la mescolanza di fede, di scienza e di filosofia alle soglie dell´Illuminismo, e perché? Gli interrogatori di Giordano Bruno e Galileo Galilei come luogo per trovarne la risposta.
I should like to focus on the strategy of the roman church in the era of the counter reformation to confront the mixture of faith, science and philosophy on the eve of the Entlightenment. My research will proceed on the basis of the interrogations of the theologian and philosopher Giordano Bruno and the scientist Galileo Galilei.
In order to confront the challenges of the Lutheran Reformation and especially its doctrinal and political consequences, the pope Paul III convened the Councel of Trent in 1545, thus initiating the era of the Counter Reformation. The strategy of The Roman Church to combat the influence of the Lutheran Reformation came to have a notable and longlasting impact on italian society for years to come. A major issue for the Councel of Trent was not only to make clear the dogmatic supremacy and identity of the catholic church but also to regain the respect at national as well as at international level at a time when the transition of Northern Europe to Protestantism had diminished the political power of the Roman Church dramatically.
Hence one of the caracteristics of The Counter Reformation was its effort to control all aspects of society, ecclesiastical as well as secular. Especially two of its remedies of social surveillance proved to be very efficient, The Inquisition and the Index librorum Prohibitorum, Index of prohibited books. With those two powerful ecclesiastical institutions at its disposal the Roman Church succeeded in exercising a profound control of the intellectuals who in the eyes of the Church constituted a potential danger to the ecclesiastical orthodoxy. In fact the Church initiated a kind of Holy War in order to expurgate everything that tended to be heretic, books, religious beliefs, philosofic ideas etc. I should like to take my point of departure in the famous inquisitorial processes against the philosopher and theologian Giordano Bruno and the scientist Galileo Galilei in order to highlight the type of ideas that could bring the Inquisition to initiate such a process.
Another important issue to be taken seriously by the Papal Church was the fact that the Counter Reformation took place during a time period that might be headlined by the term pre-scientific. Thus the western thought on eve of the seventeenth century offered a broad and opaque mixture of philosophy, theology and science and the problem for the Catholic Church was that it needed exactly the opposite: transparency and tranquillity of thought in the wake of the dogmatic revolution set forth by the protestant reformers. It had a high priority for the Church to regain control of thinking in order to block further religious and social turbulence that conflicted with the overall strategy of conservatism and maintenance of existing values prioritized by the Church of Counter Reformation.
Thus the opacity of thinking exhibited not only one of the characteristics of the prescientific era that preceeded the Entlightment era but also it constituted a severe challenge for the Roman Church. It simply wasn´t able to comprehend the new ways of thinking introduced by intellectuals and scientists like Bruno and Galileo. The hitherto dominant religious worldview of the Medieval Church wasn´t ready at all for an opening towards new metaphysics grounded in philosophy or cognitive science and exactly that situation was to prepare the way for the many conflicts between the ecclesiastical institution and the intellectuals. The Roman Church of the Counter Reformation was suspicious to any thought that could be regarded as heretic and diverging from the Truth formulated by the Holy Catholic Church which alone had the divine mandate going back to the time of Christ himself and the apostles to decide between right and wrong, to distinguish heretic from non-heretic thought.
The performance of this divine mandate was more or less in the hands of The Inquisition or the Holy Office and the inquisitorial records from the days of the Counter Reformation seem to be the ideal place to get a detailed and deeprooted insight into the ongoing conflict between the Church and the intellectuals. Furthermore the records quite often deal with subjects of exactly that metaphysical-scientific-philosophical mixture typical of the pre-scientific era of the Counter Reformation where it emerges clearly that the communication - if you could call it so - between the inquisitor and the accused took its point of departure in two different ways. Thus on the one hand the inquisitor was to defend the dogmas and the Truth of the Roman Church and on the other hand the accused was defending his metaphysically-scientific-philosophical based theories.
As already mentioned the emerging notion of science constituted problems for the Church which was not ready for an opening towards the new scientific based understanding of the world. The overall conservative attitude of the Roman Church emerges very clearly from the inquisitorial process of the scientist Galileo who, attempting to convince the Inquisition of the necessity of separating science from religion, run his head against a wall. It seems obvious that the main reason for the outcome of the cases of Bruno and Galileo was the lack of understanding from the ecclesiastical authorities of the day. The men of the Church simply couldn´t embrace the idea of making a distinction between the way of evaluating the notions of science, religion and philosophy but believed in the possibility to find answer on everything in the Holy Scriptures alone.
One of the caracteristics of the era of the Counter Reformation was that it took place at a transitional period from the old baroque world, where was reigning a feudal thought based on the indiscutable hierachical supremacy of the Church, towards a new world based on a liberal search of ideas heralding clearly the Entlightment and the development of the cognitive sciences. That said, it was possible to find persons who tended to symphatize with the new ideas inside the Roman Curia although they didn´t had the courage to manifest it overtly. In fact this was about a struggle for power between two fractions inside the Curia with the conservatives as the dominant fraction. To explain this fact it must surely be taken into account that the Curia of the Counter Reformation was very sensitive to any thought who might imply a revolutionary aspect.
The process of Giordano Bruno belongs together with that of Galilei to the most famous processes of the Inquisition which initiated its anti-heretical activity already back in the early middle ages. An interesting question, however, is whether Bruno was a philosopher or a scientist. When one study his theory of the infinity of the universe it seems that this theory anticipates a modern astronomic conception of the universe. Furthermore the brunian theories encompasses a concept of innumerability of worlds which means that Bruno did intuite the existence of other solar systems apart from ours. Thus he accepts the copernian heliocentric theory although taking one step further compared to Copernicus whose theory only operates with our solar system. Albeit this presentation doesnt leave place for a more deepgoing analysis of scientific methods it must be said that given the fact that the method of Bruno took its point of departure in generality in stead of in specificity it cannot be estimated as scientific in a more strict sense of the word. This for example is the case with his theory of anima mundi, a spirit that penetrates the whole universe.
Considering that the brunian system questioned core catholic doctrines like the Trinity, the divinity of Christ and the existence of a personal and immortal soul, it was no wonder that Bruno came under suspicion for heresy and at his return to Italy after several years abroad his friend Mocenigo, being a friend of Bruno, betrayed him to the Inquisition in Venice that initiated a process against him 1592. It happened often that someone, in order to avoid the limelight of the Inquisition, betrayed someone else, and for Mocenigo it was sufficient to insinuate that Bruno was to found a new sect. Exactly the word sect caused alarm bells to ring for the Holy Office since the main project of the Counter Reformation was to combat whatever might be infiltrated by herecy to any time, in any form and in any place. However that may be, the process of Bruno proceeded for eight years, the first two years in Venice from where he was transferred to the Holy Office in Rome and the end of it was that Bruno was found guilty of the charge of heresy and condemned to death by the secular authorities of Rome.
The process of Bruno exhibits many of the caracteristics of the aforementioned conflict between religious faith, science and philosophy. It was obvious that his theories constituted a severe challenge to the Inquisition. This emerges clearly from a study of the final interrogations in 1599 with their welter of corrections and emissions, which witnesses the general perplexity of the inquisitorial judges of the brunian process. It seems important to underline, however, that in the midst of the conceptual confusion of the prescientific era the question of faith was a core concern of the Papal Church. This might be very well in theory but how did it work out in practice? That was exactly to become the heart of the problem of the brunian process whereas Bruno, in spite of his abjuration of all his theories concerning matters of faith, was forced by the inquisitors, who wished to be on the safe side, to make a total abjuration of all his philosophy, which he refused. Albeit Bruno till the last tried to convince the inquisitorial jury of his fidelity to the Church, it was fatal to him, that his was living at a time, where the liberate research of ideas was incompatible with the biblically founded interpretation of nature sanctioned by the Roman Church.
The process of the scientist Galileo Galilei clearly evidences the problem of the Church of the Counter Reformation to make a distinction between faith and science. Perhaps Galilei was the first person in history to comprehend the importance of this. In 1613 Galileo wrote a letter to his pupil Benedetto Castelli, in which he argues for reading the Bible as a book that concerns matters of faith, but at the same time must not be taken literally when dealing with topics of science. Furthermore the letter mentions the adherence of Galileo to the heliocentric theory of the astronomer Copernicus, and exactly that letter fell into the hands of cardinal Sfondati, the prefect of the Holy Office. Consequently Galileo was summoned to inquiry in Rome to a meeting with cardinal Bellarmino and some other clericals. Galileo was convinced that he could succeed in winning the clergies from the Curia over to his point of view regarding the relationship between faith and science. But the Catholic Church at that time was not ready for an acceptance of ideas that could be potentially revolutionary, for which reason his attempt failed. In stead of sympathy for his ideas, Galileo got an admonition not to sustain in any way the copernican theory, be it in his writings or teaching.
In spite of this Galileo was still optimistic regarding his possibility to win the Church round. This optimism was grounded in the fact that Galileo at that time was a man of international fame, which had ensured him friendships with persons of high range inside the Roman Curia itself. Thus he continued his scientific research writing his Dialogue Concerning The Two Chief World Systems, which was published between 1624 and 1630 and which describes the main differences between the old ptolemaic system and the copernican system. In fact the form of the dialogue was often used to deal with controversial issues in a covert way - the dialogue as code - albeit the dialogue in the era of the Counter Reformation had been made harmless by the Church so as to be a form used only for didactical purposes. The galileian dialogue not only features both purposes, but also this is done in a very elegant way. In it are three persons, one represents the old way of thinking, the two others however represent the new ideas defending the copernican theses. It has been thought that somebody has whispered into the popes ear, that the old school person from the dialogue by name Simplicius, who Galileo had described as a rather naiv person, was meant to be the pope, who in turn was offended and decided to revenge himself on Galileo. However that may be, in spite of that the Holy Office at first made an approval of the book, Galileo one more time was summoned to Rome, where he in 1633 not only got a charge of heresy, but also in a humiliating manner and under the threat of torture was forced to make a total abjuration of his scientific beliefs.
The unwillingness of the Holy Office to accept the ideas of Galileo was almost unbearingly disappointing to the astronomer who until then had been confident about his abilities of bringing the Roman Curia over to his side. Instead, even though he spared his life, together with Bruno he became one more victim of the free thought in the pre-scientific era, in which the Catholic Church, feeling unsecure and anxious about the new emerging ideas, chose the easy and conservative solution, where the answer of everything should be found in the Holy Scriptures alone.
Quale era la strategia adottata dalla Chiesa della Controriforma per fronteggiare la mescolanza di fede, di scienza e di filosofia alle soglie dell´Illuminismo, e perché? Gli interrogatori di Giordano Bruno e Galileo Galilei come luogo per trovarne la risposta.
