Page:Galileo Galilei and the Roman Curia (IA cu31924012301754).pdf/83

Rh many places not only admit but actually require a different explanation from what seems to be the literal one, it seems to me that they ought to be reserved for the last place in mathematical discussions. For they, like nature, owe their origin to the Divine Word; the former as inspired by the Holy Spirit, the latter as the fulfilment of the Divine commands; it was necessary, however, in Holy Scripture, in order to accommodate itself to the understanding of the majority, to say many things which apparently differ from the precise meaning. Nature, on the contrary, is inexorable and unchangeable, and cares not whether her hidden causes and modes of working are intelligible to the human understanding or not, and never deviates on that account from her prescribed laws. It appears to me therefore that no effect of nature, which experience places before our eyes, or is the necessary conclusion derived from evidence, should be rendered doubtful by passages of Scripture which contains thousands of words admitting of various interpretations, for every sentence of Scripture is not bound by such rigid laws as is every effect of nature."

Galileo goes on to ask: if the Bible, in order to make itself intelligible to uneducated persons, has not refrained from placing even its main doctrines in a distorted light, by attributing qualities to God which are unlike His character and even opposed to it, who will maintain that in speaking incidentally of the earth or the sun it professes to clothe its real meaning in words literally true? Proceeding on the principle that the Bible and nature are both irrefragable truths, Galileo goes on to draw the following conclusions.

"Since two truths can obviously never contradict each other, it is the part of the wise interpreters of Holy Scripture to take the pains to find out the real meaning of its statements, in accordance with the conclusions regarding nature which are quite certain, either from the clear evidence of sense or from necessary demonstration. As therefore the Bible, although dictated by the Holy Spirit, admits, from the reasons given above, in many passages of an interpretation other than the