Truth and Value Today: Galileo contra Bellarmine

Abstract

In a speech celebrating the centenary of Einstein’s birth Pope John Paul II admitted that Galileo had been treated unjustly by the Church and praised his understanding of the relationship of science and religion. Is such praise deserved? At issue is not so much the truth of the Copernican position, as the meaning and value of truth. There is a sense in which reality is elided by the science inaugurated by Copernicus and Galileo. The Church was right to deny that the truth that mattered to faith should take second place to the truth that matters to science. But it was wrong to think that the former truth be understood as objective truth. Copernicus put the pursuit of objective truth on the right track. But just because he did, we must consider legitimacy and limits of that pursuit.