Author: Gary Hallquist

While recently reading Post-Christian: A Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture by Gene Edward Veith Jr., my thoughts went on a tangential journey prompted by him talking about the Copernican revolution of the 16th Century. Up to that time, astronomers and scientists thought the Earth was the center of the universe, and that the Sun revolved around the Earth. This makes perfect sense to the observer. The Sun rises in the east, travels across the sky, and sets in the west faithfully each twenty-four-hour period. If the Earth was standing still and not rotating, logic would dictate that the Sun must be revolving around the Earth. Copernicus proposed that the Sun’s “rising” and “setting” was not because it revolved around the Earth every 24 hours. Instead, the Sun was the center of a planetary system, of which the Earth was a part, and the Earth was rotating on its axis every 24 hours while also revolving around the Sun, completing one revolution every year. What Copernicus proposed—which was eventually proven—was nothing short of a scientific revolution that changed human understanding forever. Continue Reading →