Galileo in a sense stands as a culmination, one culmination of a series of scientists who

over 2 1/2 centuries (since the time of the late 14th century when a few scientists began to
question the old view of the universe but especially since Copernicus in the previous
century), Galileo stood as a culmination as this series of scientists [...] challenge the
traditional view of the cosmos

Discredit it, take it apart, question the various parts and discredit the way man had viewed
the universe; as they discredited it they couldn't agree on what they discredited, This
discrediting of the old view without substituting a new, generally accepted and agreed
upon view had a lot of impact on the broader population. As Langford makes clear, for
man in this period of time, science philosophy and theology are all kind of wrapped up
together and to raise questions about science are to raise questions about theological and
philosophical

So you wind up undermining something else you didn't mean to; though Galileo could
divorce science from religion, the church and most people couldn't

The old view of the cosmos, the geocentric view, was an immobile earth in the center and
all the heavenly bodies orbiting in perfect circles around the earth. This view went back to
antiquity with Aristotle etc.; these moved in perfect circles at a steady rate of speed; this
universe was importantly wrapped up in theology. This was a finite universe, everything
that had existed existed and everything that was going to exist already exist, it had finite,
plenitudeness; God had made the universe and had made it whole and it was a complete
universe and further it was an immutable universe where nothing changed

Further, these circles reflected the perfection of god's plan, moving in perfect circles, the
circle became the symbol of perfection. The regularity of their movement, the fact that
they moved in an even, ready manner; angels actually moved these bodies around the
earth in this old geogentric view of the universe. Part of this assurance of god's everpresence in the process. All the universe outside is the celestial, heavenly world which is
perfect and immutable and proof of the presence of god: the "empyrean heavens" where
god and other celestial beings existed; god called the primium mobele god gave everything
movement. It was testimony to god and his creation and the teachings found in scripture. It
was important to man who was concerned with the presence of god and the guarantee of
salvation and etc.

The Earth was quite a different matter; it was the "sublunary," beneath the mood, below
the celestial world. The Earth was very different from the heavens, it had become
imperfect, and this imperfection was the product of man's fall, man's disobedience to god.
Evident in the earth being uneven, the planets were viewed as smooth, even round ball but
the Earth was quite different because it had mountains and valleys and seas and "defects,"
these were seen as a symbol of the imperfection and the fall
















The reason gave man the capacity to recognize what is good and what is bad, what is right
and what is wrong, what he should do and what he shouldn't do, and if he let the senses
dominate, he would fall (further) into sin and therefore eventually penetrate the center of
the earth and eventually drop down into hell, the center, most rotten, basest part of the
universe. On the other hand, if he manages to somehow extinguish his senses and let his
reason to dominate, he has the capacity to become good and rise towards (his inner being)
god's world; wants to ultimately achieve heaven

Man hangs in the balance

Tycho Brahe - 1573, De nove Sella (the New Star)
1589 - comets he noticed moved in this celestial world. This world isn't immutable; new
things (this new star) come into being. These comets are moving around, indeed across
these spheres. And the spheres were supposed to be solid and crystalline with the planets
attached, and the comets shouldn't be able to move past, so Brahe raised questions about
this immutability. He accepted geocentrism, but he had a different opinion of it

Old view, Copernicus' view, Brahe's view

Ca 1600, Giordano Bruno; there may be other worlds, other Earths; he attacks the
finiteness and the certainty of plenitude and maybe if there are other Earths then maybe
there are other systems of salvation; is our way of salvation right, is it the only way, is the
incarnation of christ on Earth unique but proper? is it the only way? ...Bruno was burned
at the stake for his ideas

1609, Johann Kepler; Kepler embraces the idea of a heliocentric universe, and argues that
the heavenly bodies move in ellipses rather than perfect circles, and this you can sense from
a number of indications and thus he questions the old truth of the circularity of the
universe and he further states that they move at different speeds according to their distance

from the Earth and that it isn't the angels that influence this speed but a kind of magnetism
in the Earth and sun that causes it, and thus is challenging the regularity of the movement,
and the celestial beings; it's moved by an inherent force in the object itself and its
movement is controlled by a natural force

Kepler reduced it to a natural force
Defining the universe in terms of matter and mathematics

Galileo comes along and noticed that the heavenly bodies, things like the sun are no longer
like our ping pong ball but he sees sunsports, mountains and valleys on the moon, so the
celestial world is no longer really different than the Earth, it's like the Earth. He then tries
to support the Copernican view

Between 1543-1640, Galileo publishes last work; you had this whole series of scientists/
philosophers questioning various parts of the old view but in questioning it they can't seem
to agree on what the alternative is, they just undermine the old view and left a number of
alternatives and man is left in the position to choose one

Regularity was good, if something was irregular it's somehow tainted or bad... aesthetics

Men stop seeing mountains as a symbol of man's sin but it being proof of god's majesty
and variety

Marjorie Hope Nicolson - Mountain Gloom, Mountain Glory