Cosmos, a Space-Time Odyssey

Cosmos, A Space-time Odyssey

"There was no freedom of thought in Italy," said Dr. Neil Tyson in the first episode of the National Geographic series Cosmos, A Space-time Odyssey. Actually, there was no Italy in the 16th Century. Tyson's claim that there was no separation between church and state depends on which church and state you look at: Catholic Church in the city-states of Florence, Milan, Venice, Naples, Rome, the Lutheran Church in the many states in Germany, Calvinism in Geneva, Scotland, the Netherlands, and even Transylvania. No freedom of thought in the Protestant Reformation or the Italian Renaissance? Who's he kidding? If he did some historical research he would have found that Giordano Bruno was not in favor of separating church and state. He was a Neo-Platonist and fashioned himself as a philosopher on a mission to apply his "natural magic" to Christianity.
Giordano Bruno was an ordained priest in the Dominican Order and an outspoken critic of theological doctrine. He wasn't cast out into the street like a criminal as depicted in the Cosmos cartoon, but fled to Geneva when formal accusations of heresy were brought against him. He became a Calvinist, but was excommunicated by the Calvinist Council on account of his disrespectful attitude towards the heads of that Church and was obliged to leave the city. He brought his "Torchbearer" mentality to Lyon, Paris, and even Oxford, but was unsuccessful influencing the academics at the time. He attempted to reconcile with the Catholic Church but failed because of his refusal to return to the Dominican Order.
In 1587, he went to Germany and showed the same arrogance he showed at Oxford. He was eventually excommunicated by the Lutherans. He disliked the religious reformers who "were infesting Europe" and he had a fondness for Catholicism. He was against the separation of Church and state, for the true philosopher had no use for either.
At the invitation of a noble by the name of Mocenigo, who professed to be interested in his system of memory-training, Bruno went to Venice. Failing to obtain the "secret" of Bruno's "natural magic", Mocenigo informed the Inquisition of his heresy. Bruno was arrested, and in his trial before the Venetian inquisitors, he took refuge in the principle of "two-fold truth", saying that the errors imputed to him were held by him "as a philosopher, and not as an honest Christian." Later, however, he solemnly denied all his errors and doubts in the matter of Catholic doctrine and practice. At this point the Roman Inquisition intervened and requested his extradition. After some hesitation the Venetian authorities agreed, and in February, 1593, Bruno was sent to Rome, and for six years was kept in prison.
In 1599, a trial was held before a commission of the Roman Inquisition, and, after the accused had been granted several terms to retract his errors, he was finally condemned, handed over to the secular power, and burned at the stake in Rome. Bruno was not condemned for his defense of the Copernican system of astronomy, nor for his doctrine of the plurality of inhabited worlds, but for his theological errors, among which were: that Christ was not God but merely an unusually skillful magician, that the Holy Ghost was the soul of the world, and that the Devil would be saved.
Bruno expounded a system of philosophy in which the principal elements are Neo-Platonism, materialistic monism, rational mysticism, and the naturalistic concept of the unity of the material world inspired by the Copernican astronomy. He thought Aristotle wrong in his assertion that reason was superior to mathematics in conceiving natural phenomena. Towards the Scholastics he felt undisguised contempt. From the Neo-Platonists he derived the tendency towards monism and Socratic idealism. From the pre-Socratic philosophers (Pythagoreans especially) he borrowed the materialistic and numerical interpretation of the One. From the Copernican doctrine, which was attracting so much attention at the time, he identified the material One with the visible, infinite, heliocentric universe.
Bruno's system of thought was an incoherent materialistic pantheism. God and the world are one. Matter and spirit, body and soul, are two phases of the same substance. The universe is infinite; beyond the visible world there is an infinity of other worlds, each of which is inhabited. Earth has a soul; in fact, each and every part of it, mineral as well as plant and animal, is animated; all matter is made up of the same elements (no distinction between terrestrial and celestial matter); all souls are akin (transmigration is, therefore, not impossible). This unitary point of view is Bruno's justification of "natural magic."
One can readily understand how Bruno's effort to establish a unitary concept of nature commands the admiration of modern cosmologists and physicists. On the other hand, the exaggerations, the limitations, and the positive errors of his scientific system; his intolerance of even those who were working for the reforms to which he was devoted; the false analogies, fantastic allegories, and sophistical reasoning into which his emotional fervor often betrayed him, have justified, in the eyes of many, as being "the knight-errant of philosophy." His attitude of mind towards religious historicity was that of an arrogant obscurantist. He professed half-baked notions and preposterous mathematics as a means to empower his accusations against the Church and then complained of not being understood. He refused to accept the significance of Christianity as a historical reality that outlasted even the Roman Empire.
It is my belief that Bruno knew he had been a failure everywhere he traveled, and unable to be the St. Paul of his time, he sacrificed himself in a final decision to affront the Inquisition. Like Socrates, he was offering himself up as a "beautiful risk," not for an ideology, but for the sake of martyrdom. He was a failure as a philosopher but a genius at drama, a natural hero for today's pop astronomers.
Besides portraying Bruno as a prophetic philosopher when in fact he was a defiant priest, Cosmos characterized the Inquisition as a bunch of bloodthirsty vampires. The Church did not rush to judgment in trying Bruno and gave him six years to contemplate his errors and several attempts at reconciliation. Bruno's resistance was more of a personal vendetta than a defense of freedom of thought. It is interesting that no one came to his rescue or took up his pretentious crusade after his death.
As for the cosmos—outer space full of beautiful stars—one cannot appreciate it when artificial lights illuminate the skies. In the 16th Century one could look at the night sky and be overwhelmed by the bright stars. Today, with so much light pollution and skyglow even in rural areas, black skies are becoming extinct.
The last truly black sky I saw was when I was on ambush patrol in Vietnam. It was a rare treat, since most nights were overcast and rainy. We often used starlight scopes to spot the enemy in the pitch darkness, top secret devices that picked up starlight illuminating the fields.
When I looked up at the stars and saw them in full brightness against the black sky, I felt blessed, for the stars were gifts, not accidents.