Schaff - History of the Christian Church Vol. 8 - Media Sabda Org

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impious presumption and a satanic delusion. It is right and proper, he
maintains, to study the laws and motions of the heavenly bodies. f983 True
astronomy leads to the praise of God’s wisdom and majesty; but astrology
upsets the moral order. God is sovereign in his gifts and not bound to any
necessity of nature. He has foreordained all things by his eternal decree.
Sometimes sixty thousand men fall in one battle; are they therefore born
under the same star? It is true the sun works upon the earth, and heat and
dearth, rain and storm come down from the skies, but the wickedness of
man proceeds from his will. The astrologers appealed to the first chapter of
Genesis and to the prophet Jeremiah, who calls the stars signs, but Calvin
met them by quoting Isa. 44:25: “who frustrateth the tokens of the liars
and maketh diviners mad.” In conclusion he rejects the whole theory and
practice of astrology as not only superfluous and useless, but even
pernicious. f984
In the same tract he ridicules the alchemists, and incidentally exhibits a
considerable amount of secular learning.
Calvin discredited also the ingenious speculations of Pseudo-Dionysius on
the Celestial Hierarchy, as “mere babbling,” adding that the author of that
book, which was sanctioned by Thomas Aquinas and Dante, spoke like a
man descended from heaven and giving an account of things he had seen
with his own eyes; while Paul, who was caught up to the third heaven, did
not deem it lawful for man to utter the secret things he had seen and
heard. f985
Calvin might have made his task easier if he had accepted the heliocentric
theory of Copernicus, which was known in his time, though only as a
hypothesis. f986
But in this matter Calvin was no more in advance of his age than any other
divine. He believed that “the whole heaven moves around the earth,” and
declared it preposterous to set the conjecture of a man against the
authority of God, who in the first chapter of Genesis had pointed out the
relation of the sun and moon to the earth. Luther speaks with contempt of
that upstart astronomer who wishes to reverse the entire science of
astronomy and the sacred Scripture, which tells us that Joshua commanded
the sun to stand still, and not the earth. Melanchthon condemned the
system in his treatise on the “Elements of Physics,” published six years
after the death of Copernicus, and cited against it the witness of the eyes,
which inform us that the heavens revolve in the space of twenty-four hours;