Me and Jacobus de Bruyn on Heliocentrism / Geocentrism and Sovereignty of God

I

Me to Jacobus de Bruyn

7/19/2025 at 3:58 PM

Some views of God's sovereignty are obviously Calvinist

One of them says, "since God get's everything He decides, He decides everything, and you decide nothing other than what God has decided that you should decide"

That's Calvinism.

And it's condemned, rightly so.

However, some views of Catholicism in its rejection of Calvinism actually basically deny God's sovereignty.

Example: "God's will is bound by God's reason, and man's reason mirrors God's reason, so if man's reason says Heliocentrism holds, that's what God needed to create, because His will cannot go against His reason" ...

First, He did not need to create in the first place.

But second, Geocentrism involves no self contradiction, and it's actually not "man's reason" that says Heliocentrism holds, but the reason of certain specific men.

And the only coherent way in which you can disprove Geocentrism is:

• God couldn't do it (for instance because He doesn't exist) or
• God wouldn't do it (for instance because Tychonian orbits are too ugly or because He has decided to run the universe as a clockwork, without interfering ... other than for miracles).

Prove me wrong.

The debate will be published on my blog: Correspondence de / of / van Hans Georg Lundahl ("van" is obviously Dutch, not because I speak Dutch, but because it's half way between German and Swedish, and because it has the same syntax as "of" or "de" ...).

Hans Georg Lundahl

II

Jacobus de Bruyn to me

7/20/2025 at 4:34 PM

Re: Some views of God's sovereignty are obviously Calvinist

Dear Mr Lundahl,

Thank you for your thoughts and for taking the time to engage with me. Since your message touches on deep theological issues—God’s sovereignty, human reason, and creation—I’d like to offer a Catholic perspective that may help clarify a few misconceptions.

On Calvinism and Determinism

You're quite right to identify the statement:

“God gets everything He decides, therefore He decides everything, and you decide nothing other than what He has decided you should decide”

as a summary of Calvinism.

This is strict theological determinism, and the Catholic Church does indeed reject it as heretical. It undermines true human freedom and turns God into the author of sin—an intolerable blasphemy according to the Councils of Orange (529) and Trent (1545–63).

Calvin's doctrine of double predestination, where God positively wills some to eternal damnation, is contrary not only to Scripture ("God desires all men to be saved" – 1 Tim 2:4), but also to God’s justice and goodness, as taught by the Church Fathers.

So we agree: Calvinism, rightly understood, is rightly condemned.

On God's Sovereignty and Human Reason

You mention that in rejecting Calvinism, some Catholic views “basically deny God's sovereignty,” and then you present an example that distorts the Catholic position.

“God's will is bound by His reason, and man's reason mirrors God's reason, so if man's reason says Heliocentrism holds, that's what God needed to create…”

This is a caricature, not an accurate account of Catholic theology.

The Catholic Church does not teach that God is bound by anything outside Himself, nor that He “needed” to create the world in any particular way. Creation is a free act of God, flowing not from necessity but from love and goodness (CCC §295).

However, in God, will and reason are not in conflict—they are one simple act. So while God’s will is not arbitrary, it is rational, and never opposed to truth. That doesn’t mean that God’s will is determined by human reasoning, but that since we are made in His image (imago Dei), our reason can genuinely apprehend the order He has built into creation.

So, no, Catholics do not deny God’s sovereignty; rather, we refuse to pit God’s will against His goodness and reason, which is what Calvinism often does.

On Geocentrism and Heliocentrism

You raise the issue of geocentrism and heliocentrism as an example of how human reason might wrongly claim to “bind” God. You seem to suggest that rejecting geocentrism is equivalent to claiming that God could not have made the Earth the center of the cosmos.

This, too, is a false dichotomy.

The Catholic view is this: God could have created the universe in any way He chose—geocentric, heliocentric, or otherwise. But by observing the natural world through the lens of reason and the tools of science (which, incidentally, developed in the Catholic Middle Ages), we arrive at models that best explain the observable data. That is the foundation of natural philosophy and science, both of which the Church embraces—as long as they remain within their rightful limits.

You are correct that geocentrism is not logically impossible. But to say it remains scientifically tenable today is not a theological claim—it is an empirical one. And the overwhelming consensus of scientific observation supports heliocentrism or, more precisely, a barycentric model. This is not a denial of God’s power, but an interpretation of how He has actually chosen to govern the universe He freely created.

The Church does not dogmatize scientific models, but it does affirm the knowability of creation and the harmony between faith and reason (cf. Fides et Ratio, Pope St. John Paul II).

A Final Thought

The Catholic tradition is neither deterministic like Calvinism nor irrational like voluntarism. Instead, it safeguards:

• God’s sovereignty as loving and wise, not tyrannical
• Human freedom as real, though wounded by sin
• Reason as a true, though limited, participation in the Logos
• Creation as a gift that reflects its Creator, intelligible but mysterious

In that sense, I would humbly suggest your framing may be trying to force a false choice—either Calvinist determinism or a rationalism that binds God. Catholicism offers a third way: a sacramental cosmos, governed by love, truth, and freedom, all held together in Christ.

I appreciate your interest in publishing this correspondence on your blog, and I’m happy to dialogue further in the spirit of truth-seeking.

In Christ,
Jacobus de Bruyn

III

Me to Jacobus de Bruyn

7/20/2025 at 9:31 PM

Re: Some views of God's sovereignty are obviously Calvinist

I am first of all glad that you find a certain view held among Catholics (like some whom I had thought my coreligionists in Paris and who reacted to Geocentrism and Young Earth Creationism as "Calvinism") as a distortion of the Catholic view.

Meaning you, as little as I, support that false view.

Second, let's leave the canonisation of "John Paul II" out for now, because 1992 is one thing that should have a bearing on it and on whether his successor was such of Peter and able to canonise anyone.

Third:

"And the overwhelming consensus of scientific observation supports heliocentrism or, more precisely, a barycentric model."

No.

You speak of a consensus of scientific opinion, and then presume that scientific opinion is automatically a direct function of observation. It is not.

EVERY observation that's not from a spacecraft, from Mars, Moon, is from Earth. It is therefore, optically, a Geocentric observation. It can not support Heliocentrism other than by reinterpretation.

And for that reinterpretation to be a valid act of reasoned judgement, rather than a flight of imagination, one needs a cogent reason to reinterpret it.

For instance, "all the factors at work in the solar system are inertia / angular momentum and gravitation, but that can only work around the centre of mass, therefore the orbits determined by inertia and graviation move around the centre of mass of the solar system which is close to the Sun."

So, what OBSERVATION proves "all the factors at work in the solar system are inertia / angular momentum and gravitation"? Its equipollent with "none of the factors are direct acts of God or of angels" and therefore it can logically be proven by Atheism and by Deism.

You claimed an observation could prove it, which ones?*

Hans Georg Lundahl

* Or which one.

IV

Me to Jacobus de Bruyn

7/21/2025 at 4:40 PM

(Clarifications)

Dear Mr de Bruyn,
in addition to previous letter, two clarifications could be useful.

1) I perfectly agree we are created in God's image, that creation is knowable, and that our reason enlightened by our senses can attain such knowledge, and that this has been slightly dimmed but absolutely not abolished by original sin.

I only disagree that "modern science" is the best representative of human reason, it has tumbled down some especially the last century.

2) I may not have been clear on what I mean by reinterpretation.

If I sit in a moving train, I will observe hills and trees as moving. Unless I'm simply enjoying the experience as light hypnosis, so, if I analyse what is going on, I will reinterpret the hills and trees as standing where they are, and myself as moving.

We agree this is the reinterpretation that astronomers do of inherently Geocentric observations.

I do not agree they do it with equal justification. I both have outside this experience in the train very good evidence that trees and hills stand where they are, and that trains move from place to place. This is the precise point which I do not think is parallelled, at all, in modern astronomy.

God grant you a blessed day,
Hans Georg Lundahl

V

Me to Jacobus de Bruyn

7/28/2025 at 3:01 PM

Re: Some views of God's sovereignty are obviously Calvinist / published

Notifying:

Me and Jacobus de Bruyn on Heliocentrism / Geocentrism and Sovereignty of God

You are free to add to the debate, the post can be redacted after publication, as I will now add the notification.
/Hans Georg Lundahl

PS, hope you had a blessed day of St. James./HGL