Chapter I Socrates and Plato
	Chapter II Corpus Aristotelicum
	Chapter III Weeping and Laughing Philosophers
	Chapter IV Stoicism and Skepticism
	Chapter V Scholastic Epistemology
	Chapter VI Roger and Francis Bacons
	Chapter VII Cosmology and Epistemology
	Chapter VIII Classic Protagonists of Epistemology
	Chapter IX The Sociologists
	Chapter X Galactic Stage of Cosmological Argument
	Chapter XI Logical Positivism and Beyond ...
	Chapter XII Visual Statistics in Search of Meaning

Cosmological Argument and the Solar System
The cosmological proof of God's existence revolved around the question of the Earth's place in the celestial mechanism.

The Hellenic civilization supported the heliocentric world system, proposed by Aristarchus, (c.310 - 230 BCE) who in his book On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and Moon accurately estimated the sizes of the Sun and of the Moon and their distances from the Earth.

With the rise of Christianity, the heliocentric system was replaced by the geocentric world system. The geocentric system prevailed up to the times of Copernicus (1473 - 1543) and Johannes Kepler.
 

The work of Johannes Kepler was a significant factor in lessening of the religious grip on the society. Among his writings are Mysterium Cosmographicum (1596), Astronomia Nova (1609) and Harmonices Mundi (1619). Kepler and his mother had to move from city to a city, as she was accused of witchcraft and in continuous danger of being apprehended and burned at the stake. Kepler was expelled from the Lutheran church and lost his teaching post at Graz. He moved to Prague to work with the Danish astronomer, Tycho de Brahe at the court of the Emperor Rudolf II. After Tycho died in 1601, Kepler inherited his post as Imperial Mathematician. Using the data that Tycho de Brahe had collected, Kepler discovered that the orbit of the planet Mars was not a circle, but an ellipse, with one focus located at the center of the Sun. Johannes Kepler also discovered the basic principles of integral calculus, used logarithms in his calculations before Napier, explained that tides are caused by the Moon, discovered that Sun rotates about its axis, explained the role of both eyes in depth perception, investigated the formation of pictures with a pin hole camera, designed eyeglasses for near- and far-sightedness, coined the word satellite.

Perusing thick wads of Kepler notes filled with computations, one can get a glimpse at the amount of mental effort which was involved in seeing with reason aided by mathematics the relationships among the 3-dimensional objects in the 3-dimensional space from their 2-dimensional projections accessible to an earth-bound observer. The description of the solar celestial mechanics is one of the greatest triumphs of science and reason over pundits elevated to the position of power.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

Galileo Galilei's trial by Inquisition took place during the time the Christian church defended the heliocentric system which was in congruence with the Biblical assertions. The horrors of the threat of being burned alive made Galileo to recant.

Giordano Bruno (1548-1600)

Giordano Bruno did not recant and, in 1600, was burned alive.

Luther's (1483-1546) study

Devil's Concubine  The onset of Protestantism coincides with the time when the advances in sciences, especially astronomy, made the rational proofs of God's existence untenable and they thus had to be replaced by experiential (based on exaltation) and fiducial (based on trust) arguments that God exists.

When advances in astronomy made Biblical fables about the creation of the terracentric world untenable, Martin Luther  was not able to reconcile his incisive reasoning with his faith. Like many others he was unable to renounce his belief even though his reason was telling him that he was wrong. In desperation, he called reason

the devil's concubine

and developed his sotereologic (from Gr. soteri(a) salvation) teaching around the central theme that people believe in Gods existence sola gratia, sola fide, and sola scriptura. That is, through faith given to them as a favor by God, and revealed in the Bible. Luther, who was well educated, had to realize that at his time the classical proofs of Gods existence were no longer tenable. What remained, unassailable by evidence, was belief and faith.

Those who believe God can be known only by belief and faith tend to be skeptical of philosophical proofs of Gods existence and maintain that the proofs of Gods existence by faith or by direct personal experience are more relevant than the rational proofs. The assertions of God's existence by belief and faith are unverifiable, purely personal mental constructs.

Miracle in a town in Arizona  Some time ago there happened an alleged miracle in a southern Arizona town. The television commentator reporting the event asked a Franciscan monk for his opinion. The old man, confident that few would know he is quoting from Franz Werfel's Das Lied von Bernadette (1941) replied:

To those who believe, no proof is necessary.
To those who do not, no proof is possible.