In response to this statement…

8. The story of the Ascension assumed a three-tiered universe and is therefore not capable of being translated into the concepts of a post-Copernican space age.

an intelligent netfriend wrote:

Statements like this from Spong really irk me. They suggest to me an ignorance about Copernicus through failure to read primary historical documents. Copernicus did not bring us into the space age; he held us up. His approach was not that of an empirical scientist, but of the rejection of empirical science – a fact readily ascertained from his own writings.

Copernicus promoted helicoentrism, a notion about the Solar System derived from ancient Egyptian and Greek mysticism. Heliocentrism had been around for centuries. It was known not only to the ancient Greeks, but also to the Romans in the time of Christ. Uncannily as close to the truth as it was, it had one major fault. It didn’t quite work.

Copernicus himself had extreme reservations about it. He introduced it in Book I of his “Revolutions” and by Book III his theory was in tatters because it did not accord with observations. Copernicus had made a mere 27 observation (less than the typical amateur astronomer makes in a single night), but these did not accord with his theory.

The reason why Copernicus bothered to make so few observations is revealed in his writings. He held the ancients in high esteem and modern scientists in extreme contempt. Therefore, he could espouse a theory which did not agree with his own data. In his “Letter Against Werner” (1604), Copernicus wrote:

“. It is fitting for us to follow the methods of the ancients strictly and to hold fast to their observations which have been handed down to us like a Testament. And to him who thinks that they are not to be entirely trusted in this respect, the gates of our Science are certainly closed. He will lie before that gate and spin the dreams of the deranged about the motions of the eighth sphere; and he will get what he deserved for believing that he can lend support to his own hallucinations by slandering the ancients.”

This letter clearly states that one must reject scientific data in favour of the ancients and their mysticism. This is the antithesis of science. In like manner, Galileo wrote in his “Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina concerning the Use of Biblical Quotations in Matters of Science” (1615), indicating he shared Copernicus’ faith in the ancients. Both Copernicus and Galileo pursued the belief of the ancient mystics that celestial bodies must move in perfect circles with uniform motion, as the only motion befitting heavenly bodies. In fact, Copernicus explained that it was the failure to adhere to uniform motion that spurred him to reject the earth-centred view. So enamoured was Galileo of this ancient mysticism that one of his defences of heliocentrism included the claim that comets were meteorological phenomenon, long after everybody else had rejected this idea, because he could not accept they had parabolic rather than circular orbits.

The only man to challenge the belief that the motion of celestial bodies was determined, not by ancient ideology, but by physical forces, was Johannes Kepler. His primitive theory of gravity to explain the motion of celestial bodies removed celestial mechanics from the mystical ideology of Copernicus and Galileo and placed it into the realm of physics. He thus proved that the Solar System is barycentric (determined by a common centre of gravity), not heliocentric (with the Sun at the centre. In consequence, the celestial bodies move in elliptical orbits which defy the mystical convictions of Copernicus and Galileo and their ancient mentors. The difference is that between mysticism and physics.

We do not live in an age determined by Copernicus, but by Kepler, the “Father of Celestial Mechanics”. It is Spong’s tendency to follow popular mythology rather than historical accuracy in this regard which I consider undermines his credibility as a whole.

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