Various Protestant Theologians Speaking Against Heliocentrism

“…the firmament, by its own revolution, draws with it all the fixed stars…”

— John Calvin (1509-1564), commentary on Psalm 19:3


“Those who assert that the earth moves and turns…[are] motivated by a spirit of bitterness, contradiction, and faultfinding; possessed by the devil, they aimed to pervert the order of nature.”

— John Calvin (1509-1564), sermon on 1 Corinthians


“There is talk of a new astrologer who wants to prove that the earth moves and goes around instead of the sky, the sun, the moon, just as if somebody were moving in a carriage or ship might hold that he was sitting still and at rest while the earth and the trees walked and moved. But that is how things are nowadays: when a man wishes to be clever he must needs invent something special, and the way he does it must needs be the best! The fool wants to turn the whole art of astronomy upside-down. However, as Holy Scripture tells us, so did Joshua bid the sun to stand still and not the earth.”

— Martin Luther (1483-1546), Table Talk


“But some dare say, either because of the love of novelties or in order to appear ingenious, that the earth moves, and contend that neither the eight sphere nor the sun moves while they assign other movement to the celestial spheres and place the earth among the stars. The joke is not new. There is a book by Archimedes called De Numeratione Arenae, in which he reports that Aristarchus of Samos defended this paradox, that the sun remains fixed and the earth turns around the sun. And although clever workers investigate many questions to give expression to their ingenuity, the young should know that it is not good to defend such absurd opinions publicly, nor is it honest or a good example.”

“The eyes are witnesses that the heavens revolve in the space of twenty-four hours. But certain men, either from the love of novelty, or to make a display of ingenuity, have concluded that the earth moves; and they maintain that neither the [stars] nor the sun revolves…Now, it is a want of honesty and decency to assert such notions publicly, and the example is pernicious. It is the part of a good mind to accept the truth as revealed by God and to acquiesce in it.”

— Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560), Elements of Physics


“The stability of the earth is very useful to plants, beasts, and men, that abide thereon. The damages and mischiefs that fall out upon earthquakes give further proof hereof. It is a gross error of Aristarchus, Samius, Copernicus, and other philosophers, who imagine that the earth continually moveth, and that the heaven and the host thereof do but seem to our sight to move, as the banks and trees thereon do to such as are in a boat rowed with oars, or in a ship under sail. This conceit cannot stand with the metaphor of a foundation, here and in other places applied to the earth.”

— William Gouge (1575–1653), commentary on Hebrews, published by James Nichol, Edinburgh, volume I, page 73


“The sun and the moon stood still in their habitation – they stood still in their several spheres wherein they move, for these be their habitations, and note that they both stood still, sun and moon. For the moon borrowing all her light of the sun, had she kept her course while the sun had stool still the length of a day, there had been great irregularity of motion in these celestial bodies, from the constant order set them by their Maker in their creation.

Observe also, he does not say the earth stood still, but the sun: it had been, as some said, the earth and moon stood still as the sun and moon, and our understanding would have soon apprehended, if that new astronomy had been then revealed, which some of our empericks, and journeymen in that excellent science of astronomy have late revived in their almanacs, telling the world that they have long been in a wrong belief, that the sun moves and the earth is fixed, for they believe that the sun is fixed, and the earth is moved.

And to evade the clear evidence of the text, which tells it for a wonder that the sun stood still, they say, this is spoken to our capacity, because to our sight it so seems, that the sun moves and the earth is fixed, but indeed it is otherwise.

Our capacity I think has much wrong done in this, for if the Word of God had told us that God had created the sun to stand still, and the earth to move, it is more likely that we should have taken his word for it, and have believed it as it is, as well as we now believe it, as it appears.

We are neither incapable nor incredulous, but that many against the letter of Scripture have written, and made more believe, that the sun stands still from the creation.

The common defence of this opinion grounded on God’s application of himself, to human capacity, does make figures in a story where is no need, and makes David a man of small judgement in the knowledge of the sun, who says, that God ‘hath set a tabernacle for the sun in the heavens’ (called here) a habitation, ‘which is a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth, as a strong man, to run his race.’”

— Edward Marbury (1581-1655), Commentary on the Prophecy of Habbakuk