It was around 150 years after the birth of Christ that the Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy determined that the earth must be at the center of the universe. If the earth was at the center, then the sun and the moon and the stars and the planets must orbit around it. Though many people had observed and assumed such geocentrism in the centuries prior, it was Ptolemy who standardized the view and who proved it to the satisfaction of very nearly all of humanity. It was not until nearly 1400 years later that Copernicus first posited and then proved that it is not the earth but the sun that is at the center of our solar system. The sun does not orbit the earth, but the earth and the other planets the sun. This finding was met with a mix of curiosity and censure and, eventually, for Copernicus’ successors, outright persecution. But over time everyone came to understand and admit that it is heliocentrism rather than geocentrism that properly describes the position and the movement of the stars and planets within our solar system. I once read the words of an old preacher who was indicting Christians for too easily falling into Ptolemaic tendencies when it comes to matters of disputed theology between believers. Christians are prone to take a relatively minor point of doctrine, one we might identify as second- or third-order, and set it like the earth at the pivot point of Ptolemy’s universe. Their love of this doctrine and their conviction that it … Continue reading At the Center of All Things