Why were many Christians hostile to Copernicus' conclusion?

Answer 1

The leaders of the Roman Church were heavily influenced by Greek thought. In the mid 4th to early 5th century AD, the dominant personality of the Western Church was Augustine, who is "generally recognized as the 'greatest thinker of Christian antiquity" (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15 edition, 1975, Micropaedia Vol. 1, "Augustine of Hippo, Saint," pp. 649-650). The article continues by stating "He fused the religion of the New Testament with Platonic tradition of Greek philosophy." So for the next 13 centuries, the standard view of the Roman church was that of the pagan philosophers when it came to explaining the universe.

To this extent, church leaders adopted the 'Earth-centered' view of the universe based upon the Egyptian born astronomer Ptolemy of the 2nd century. "It was...from the work of previous (Greek) astronomers that Ptolemy evolved his detailed description of an Earth-centered or (geocentric) universe, a revolutionary but erroneous idea that governed astronomical thinking for over 1,300 years...(Britannica, 15th edition as noted above, p. 179).

When Nicolas Copernicus made his calculations that the Earth was not the center of the universe, he had to be very cautious about 'challenging' the Roman church and their false beliefs, fearing persecution, ostracization, or possibly death.

Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer said, "When the Roman church attacked Copernicus and Galileo, it was not because their teaching actually contained anything contrary to The Bible. The church authorities thought it did, but that was because of Aristotelian elements had become part of the church orthodoxy, and Galileo's notions clearly conflicted with them. In fact, Galileo defended the compatibility of Copernicus and the Bible, and this was one of the factors which brought about his trial" (How Shall We Then Live?, 1976, p. 131).