Galileo - Christian Encounters Series - Book Review

I just finished the book Galileo by Mitch Stokes from the Christian Encounters Series.  I received this book from BookSneeze.

I am going to start this review by telling you that I immensely enjoyed this book. I don't normally read biographies, but I was drawn to this one because I feel some small amount of kindred with all mathematicians.  I can't say that I had any specific curiosity about Galileo in particular, but all of the historical scientists and mathematicians grab some measure of my attention.

As I started this book, I noticed immediately a couple of things about the author, Mitch Stokes.  First, I noticed the amount of work that must have gone into this book from the immense amount of footnoting.  The book ends with the 16 pages of referenced footnotes.  When an author goes to that much effort to validate what he is saying, you walk away feeling like you have read an accurate account and not simply one author's opinion.

The second thing I noticed about the author is his, for lack of a better word, personableness.  I don't think that is a real word, at least the spell-checker is telling me that it isn't, but that's the best I could do.  I tell you this because I felt, while I was reading this, as if I was hearing the story from a close friend of Galileo's, someone who really knew him, and someone who cared about his story.

To be able to write about someone in such a way that you walk away feeling you got all of the historical facts in an accurate manner and at the same time you feel as though you were talking to an acquaintance is a hefty task.  Whether or not Mitch Stokes was attempting to accomplish that goal or not, I have no idea, but that is how I walked away from this book.  This leads me to my next point, because of this book, I have a new appreciation for Galileo.

As much as Galileo was a scientist and sought to have his mathematics and his science to correlate perfectly with the observable world, he also had great respect for the church.  This book included example after example where Galileo demonstrated his submission to the authority of the church.  This is one area where the legends have misconstrued the reality of the story.  In Galileo's book, titled Dialogue, he begins to draw to a conclusion his arguments for Copernicanism by also stating that there is an argument before which one "must fall silent."

I know that if asked whether God in His infinite power and wisdom could have conferred upon the watery element its observed reciprocating motion using some other means than moving its containing vessels, both of you would reply that He could have, and that He would have known how to do this in many ways which are unthinkable to our minds.  From this I forthwith conclude that, this being so, it would be excessive boldness for anyone to limit and restrict the Divine power and wisdom to some particular fancy of his own.

In other words, Galileo, after arguing for the motion of the earth (which we now know is true) by saying that the tides were caused by the motion of the earth (which they aren't, they are caused by the gravity of the moon) he states that what he has observed could be explained in an infinite number of other ways because there is an infinitely powerful God.

Galileo also argued for the church (or at least the believers) to be able to give a believable account for what they hold to be true from scripture.  He put it this way (by quoting Augustine):

The distressing thing is not so much that an erring man [i.e., the believer] should be laughed at, but that our authors [of scripture] should be thought by outsiders to believe such things, and should be criticized and rejected ignorant, to the great detriment for those whose salvation we care about.  For how can they believe our books in regard to the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they catch a Christian committing an error about something they know very well, when they declare false his opinion taken from those books, and when they find these full of fallacies in regard to things they have already been able to observe or to establish by unquestionable argument?

This way of thinking presents some challenges and hurdles when considering the consensus science that is around today.

Anyway... Read this book.  It is worth the time.

Galileo

Just started my next book from Book Sneeze.  This one is called Galileo by Mitch Stokes.  It is part of the Christian Encounters series from Thoma Nelson Publishers.

The back of the book gives this description:

It's no mystery how profound a role Galileo Galilei played in the Scientific Revolution.  Less explored is the Italian innovator's sincere, guiding faith in God.  In this exhaustively researched biography that reads like a page-turning novel, Mitch Stokes draws on his expertise in philosophy, logic, math, and science to attune modern ears with Galileo's controversial genius.

I have read through the first three or four chapters, and I have to agree that it does read similar to a novel, but the author goes to great lengths to validate everything with the proper footnotes. He also avoids making assumptions about Galileo motives and thoughts, either leaving it up to the reader to decide, or offering a guess, but making sure it is described as a guess.

I am looking forward to finishing the rest of this book during my bus rides!

In Constant Prayer - Book Review

In Constant Prayer (Ancient Practices Series) by Robert Benson is the first book that I received through BookSneeze.

I liked this book.

In Constant Prayer is one book in a series of books called The Ancient Practices that explores many of those ancient practices of the early Christians.  This book in the series, written by Robert Benson, is meant to be a study of the practice of praying the "daily office."

If I understand it correctly, the Daily Office is the practice of praying a set number of times each day.  This practice brings to mind certain monastic settings.  Images of  monks getting up to say their morning prayers, meeting together to say their afternoon prayers, and seeing each other again to say their evening prayers before they head off to their cells.

As far as the author is concerned, Robert Benson is really a very good writer.  As I read through this book I found each page to be enticing and entertaining, but also very personal.  He opened up his life, in small ways, to reveal his desire to pray, his encounters with the daily office, and his understanding of this ancient practice.  I felt compelled, as I continued through the book, to consider taking up this particular practice.

I did find the book lacking in two specific ways.  One was a lack of specific historical examples.  He would make comments concerning the historicity of this practice, but the actual examples to validate the claim seemed to be strangely lacking.  The second area where I found this book to be lacking was in its use of scripture.  Other than at the beginning of chapters, I don't recall one Biblical quote with a reference.  There were passages that were alluded to, but the only reason I knew that was because I recognized the scripture.  Frankly, without proper historical footnotes and scriptural references, this book falls into the category of opinion.  In no way is it improper to write (or read) a book of opinions, but to really sway this particular reader, I need some validation.

New book on the way!

I was just accepted by a website that I found called Book Sneeze. They have a program where they will give free books to bloggers. I'm a blogger and I love books, so I signed up. I was just accepted into their program about an hour ago, so I requested my first book.

Their selection wasn't huge, unless I am just not navigating the site correctly, but I found one that I think I might enjoy. It is called In Constant Prayer and is by a guy named Robert Benson.  I haven't heard of this guy before, so I am a bit skeptical and I will be cautious as I read it.  I believe it comes from a series of books from Thomas Nelson publishers called The Ancient Practices.  Once I am done with the book, I will offer up my thoughts in the form of a book review.

If you have already read this book, let me know what you think... but don't let me know yet!  Wait until after I read it, then let me know.