Answering Shaun Doyle on Geocentrism

Today's article on CMI deals with Aliens.

I'm basically not in disagreement on that issue. However, it's a feedback, with questioner and Shaun taking up the issue of Geocentrism.

Aliens and the Bible
By Shaun Doyle | Published 29 Sep, 2018 | Updated 01 May, 2026
https://creation.com/en/articles/aliens-and-the-bible

Here is some sloppy history in the questioner:

The ancient Greeks invented the geocentric view of the universe centuries before Christ. Much later, while there was still no better scientific explanation yet available, the Church tried to interpret scripture in light of the geocentric view. ... However, when the heliocentric view became accepted, the marriage of scripture to the geocentric view became a problem. For those who believe and trust in the Lord, it was simply a matter of adjustment to biblical interpretation to account for new knowledge. ...

Here is the part of Shaun's answer that deals with this:

And on these potential conflicts between science and the Bible, each ‘conflict’ must be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Geocentrism within the Bible was indeed an interpretive overreach, since the Scriptures underdetermine commitment to a geocentric cosmology. Many people think the conflict between Genesis and deep time is likewise merely apparent. We disagree. Why? Unlike the geocentrism issue, there is no other proper way to read the relevant biblical texts, and much of the Bible’s theology of redemption hangs on the historical chronology and event sequence of Genesis 1–11 (The Galileo excuse). We’re saying that the same applies to the existence of aliens. Indeed, many of the biblical theological themes that rule out pre-Adamic people (a major issue in the origins debate) also rule out the existence of sentient aliens for the same reasons. Salvation is in the last Adam, meaning that salvation only pertains to Adamites. That rules out both pre-Adamites and sentient aliens. Thus, it’s not that we regard aliens as “not worth considering”; it’s that we have considered them, and regard them as conflicting with Scripture.

Now, first, you are aware how crucial sentient and intelligent aliens are to the historical acceptance of Heliocentrism?

No?

Check out Kepler's Somnium (dream, in translation). He gives an astronomy that uses the Moon as inertial frame and takes that for absolute reality, then makes the point this is just an inertial frame, and therefore, so is geocentric astronomy.

The problem is, he forgot to prove Selenites actually exist. H. G. Wells provided that (or if it was for Martians) in The War of the Worlds. To imagination, that is. Not quite as much to solid reason, mind you. Since then, George Lucas reprovided it for, inter alia, Tatooinites. So, one thing I sometimes bring up is, if you can trace the story of Star Wars to a spaceship coming from Tatooine, you basically have a Magellan style proof for modern cosmology, including Heliocentrism in relation to all bodies of the solar system.

This didn't stop Euler from nearly reusing the argument in ... looking up Euler als "Astronom" on my German blog ... in "59:sten Brief, vom 17. Sept. 1760."

The closest fix star, as I have proven, is at least 400 000 times further away than the Sun is, and all of them, are like the sun made to have orbitting around them planets which, not unlike our earth, are no doubt all meant to be inhabited.

That one didn't age too well, did it?

4 light years = 37 842 113 600 000 000 m / AU = 149 597 870 700 m = 252 958.9 times, a bit more than half of 400 000. When I say the distance is only 173 times the AU, I'm referring to my own conclusion that the fix stars are one light day up.

But Euler actually gives another argument too. Physical necessity. Newton gives the two-body problem, Euler adds that the gravitation of the fix stars can be left unaccounted for, since too small, then says that there isn't really any many-body problem, since the Sun makes each planet involved in a two body problem which can leave out all of the other planets. In other words, the real argument is, Geocentrism wouldn't work, physically, as a result of gravitation and inertia.

The point is, I agree.

We observe Geocentrism, it wouldn't work as a result of gravitation and inertia alone, it's artistic and therefore needs an agent who can decide with comprehension, not just blind forces that can cause without deciding to do so.

This brings us to a point about the Biblical proof texts for Geocentrism. Did Shaun Doyle include these two? Here:

The man went his way, and told the Jews, that it was Jesus who had made him whole Therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, because he did these things on the sabbath But Jesus answered them: My Father worketh until now; and I work
[John 5:15-17]

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and injustice of those men that detain the truth of God in injustice Because that which is known of God is manifest in them. For God hath manifested it unto them For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity: so that they are inexcusable
[Romans 1:18-20]

What exact work or act of God is indisputably done on a Sabbath? And what exact visible phenomenon can show both that God is Lord of the entire universe, not just locally, and that His power is inexhaustible?

Upholding the universe in existence? Some would argue God put existence into matter so it stays in existence over a Sabbath. And some would not attribute existence as such to God in the first place.

The code of DNA? Not visible to the naked eye since the beginning of creation. And as codes aren't switched every day within an organism, upholding it also doesn't show as done on a Sabbath.

The solar days is c. 5 minutes slower than the stellar day. 24 h precisely for the solar day (because the equinoctial hour is precisely 1/24 of it). 23 h. 56 min. 4. sth sec. ... that's the time between two occasions when Sirius or α Centauri or Vega or whatever are at zenit over a given location. It's not just the Sun and Moon that move, it's th stars way outside them too (plus a few more stars that aren't tied to the sidereal day, but which wander over the zodiac, they are, like Sun and Moon, called planets).

The exegetic solution that might fix Joshua 10:13 would backfire on these two items. And what about Joshua 10:12? Here we are not told what the Sun and Moon did, and would have looked like doing even if it was actually Earth that did the reverse. We are told what Sun and Moon were supposed to do, and we are not told that Earth was supposed to do anything. And as Joshua uttered the words after a prayer, we can presume God inspired him to these exact words.

Many Heliocentric supposed Catholics (some of them with real devotion and belief in all the mainly talked of dogmas, like all of Denzinger, who left out the 1633 decision, but they are not accepting Pope Michael II) will pretend that Pope Leo XIII in Providentissimus Deus defined that phenomenal language was the key to all Geocentric proof texts in the Bible. No, he didn't. He mentioned phenomenal language as a possible key in reconciling the Bible and science, but he definitely did not decide on what issues this was the good key.

Again, Benedict XV is reputed to have confirmed this "koshering" of Heliocentrism in Spiritus Paraclitus from 15th Sept. 1920. Again, he refrained from deciding what issues this applied to or what exegesis the Church had on Joshua 10:12 or John 5 or Romans 1. I've read both of the encyclicals and neither made such a decision. Or directly on Geocentrism or Heliocentrism.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. Simon of Trier
1.VI.2026

Treviris sancti Simeonis Monachi, qui a Benedicto Papa Nono in Sanctorum numerum relatus est.