A Defense of Galileo

...showed that those who forbade the brothers from devoting effort to secular science and eloquence were blind; they failed to see how necessary, let alone useful, the sciences are to the theologian. And therefore, although theology in its own right does not require proofs drawn from human science, it does require them for our sake, so that we may be strengthened and come to understand supernatural things through sensible and natural ones. This is proven by the testimony of Augustine, Jerome, Dionysius, and other Fathers, who taught that this should be done and did it themselves. “So that you do not know,” says Jerome in his letter to Magnus, “what you ought to admire first in them: their worldly erudition or their knowledge of the Scriptures.” original: "Vt neſcias... quid prius in illis admirari debeas, eruditionem ſeculi, an ſcientiam ſcripturarum" He adds that the Apostle Paul read the poets and philosophers for this very reason, and often cites them. And Gregory, in his Moralia, explaining the passage in Job, “He who made Arcturus and Orion,” Job 9:9 says it refers to the wisdom of secular astronomers. Likewise, the Fathers and St. Thomas Thomas Aquinas, the highly influential 13th-century theologian in Part 1, Question 1 [of the Summa], prove this from the saying of Solomon: “Wisdom,”—that is, theology—“has called her handmaidens,”—that is, the sciences—“to the citadel.” A reference to Proverbs 9:3. In medieval thought, all other sciences were seen as "handmaidens" serving the "queen," Theology. Indeed, it is clear that the sciences are commanded to the human race as a whole, though not necessarily to every specific individual. For God made man to know God, to love Him through knowing Him, and to enjoy Him through loving Him; and for this reason, He made man both sensory and rational. If reason is capable of the sciences, then a man acts against God’s natural order unless he uses this gift of God according to the divine plan, just as Chrysostom John Chrysostom, an early Church Father known for his preaching used to argue: it would be like having feet but refusing to use them for walking. Hence Aristotle says: “All men by nature desire to know.” And Moses, in Genesis 1, wrote that “God placed man in paradise to work it and to keep it.” Genesis 2:15 This was not manual labor, nor was it guarding it from animals; for at that time they lived without toil from things growing spontaneously, and all animals were obedient to man. Rather, it was the work of speculating upon things and the observation of celestial and natural matters, arising from wonder. This was so that man, who was bound to venerate God (which cannot be done without prior knowledge, “for the invisible things of God are clearly seen through the things that have been made, as the Apostle witnesses” A reference to Romans 1:20: "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities... have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made."), might practice philosophy in every direction. Although all sciences were infused knowledge given directly by God rather than learned through study into Adam, he nonetheless lacked experimental science knowledge gained through physical observation and experience. And this command was given to him not merely as a person, but as the head of the human race, and therefore to us who descend from him, as the Fathers testify. Likewise, David says, “Seek God, and your soul shall live.” Psalm 69:32 But He cannot be sought by us except in the nature of the things created by Him, just as a cause is sought in its effect. And elsewhere he says, “Your works are wonderful, therefore my soul has searched them out.” Psalm 139:14 And Solomon, in Ecclesiastes 1, declares that he investigated diligently all things that are under the sun, even though he was endowed with infused science; and in Wisdom 7, he says that he knew all natural things, mathematical...