[Buddha-l] Re: flat earth?

[Dhammanando Bhikkhu]

Bob Zeuschner:

> You are asserting that the Church officials in the middle ages knew 
> that the earth was a sphere, correct?
> If so, can you produce anything written in that era to support the 
> claim?
>
> I'm fairly familiar with the major theologians of the period 
> (including Aquinas), and I'm not able to recall anywhere that the 
> claim that the earth is a sphere is made.

Aquinas appears to assume the correctness of this view in several parts 
of the _Summa Theologica_:

 From "Whether habits are distinguished by their objects?"

"Objection 2: Further, different sciences are different habits. But the 
same scientific truth belongs to different sciences: thus both the 
physicist and the astronomer prove the earth to be round, as stated in 
Phys. ii, text. 17. Therefore habits are not distinguished by their 
objects."

[to which the Angelic Doctor replies...]

"The physicist proves the earth to be round by one means, the 
astronomer by another: for the latter proves this by means of 
mathematics, e.g. by the shapes of eclipses, or something of the sort; 
while the former proves it by means of physics, e.g. by the movement of 
heavy bodies towards the center, and so forth. Now the whole force of a 
demonstration, which is "a syllogism producing science," as stated in 
Poster. i, text. 5, depends on the mean. And consequently various means 
are as so many active principles, in respect of which the habits of 
science are distinguished."
(First part of the second part, question 54, article 2, objection 2)


And from the Summa's opening page:

"Sciences are differentiated according to the various means through 
which knowledge is obtained. For the astronomer and the physicist both 
may prove the same conclusion: that the earth, for instance, is round: 
the astronomer by means of mathematics (i.e. abstracting from matter), 
but the physicist by means of matter itself. Hence there is no reason 
why those things which may be learned from philosophical science, so 
far as they can be known by natural reason, may not also be taught us 
by another science so far as they fall within revelation. Hence 
theology included in sacred doctrine differs in kind from that theology 
which is part of philosophy."
(First part, question 1, article 1, reply to objection 2)

Best wishes,
Dhammanando