SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS’ COMMENT ON A STATIONARY EARTH BEING NECESSARILY PLANAR

 

Reader, it is well known that Aristotle was a geocentrist but otherwise believed that the earth was spherical.1 However, in his De Caelo et Mundo (On Heaven and Earth), specifically, LECTIO XXI Diversae opiniones de motu, quiete at figura terrae, CAPUT XIII,2 he includes a discussion concerning the shape of the earth, stating:

349. (76) Similiter autem et de figura dubitatur: his quidem enim videtur esse sphaerica, his autem lata et figura tympanilis.3 [There are similar disputes about the shape of the earth. Some think it is spherical, others that it is flat and drum-shaped.4]

The critical argument presented is that of the necessity for a motionless earth to be flat:

352. Sed adhuc apponunt, et dicunt propter quietem necessarium figuram hanc habere ipsam. Etenim de motu et mansione dicti modi multi existunt.5 [But they have another argument. They say that because it is at rest, the earth must necessarily have this shape. For there are many different ways in which the movement or rest of the earth has been conceived.6]

The following is Saint Thomas Aquinas’ comment on Aristotle’s paragraph 352:

493 [8]. Secundam rationem ponit ibi [352]: Sed adhuc etc.; dicens quod adhuc addunt rationem ad idem, dicentes quod necesse est terram, ad hoc quod quiescat, habere figuram latam. Nam figura sphaerica facile mobilis est, quia in modico tangit superficiem; sed figura lata secundum se totam tangit superficiem, et ideo est apta ad quietem.7 [emphasis added] [...] [493. He gives a second argument at [352] and says that they add a further argument for the same, namely, that if the earth is to be at rest, it has to be flat. For a spherical shape is easy to move, because so little of it is in contact with a plane; but a wide shape is totally in contact with a plane, and is consequently apt for rest.8] [emphasis added] [...]

The first sentence in 493 [8] is essentially a paraphrase of the first sentence in Aristotle’s paragraph 352. In the (highlighted) second sentence, however, Saint Thomas Aquinas provides conceptual support to the argument (that if the earth is to be at rest, it has to be flat) by pointing out the dynamical difference between the two shapes in terms of motion or the lack thereof. While his comment on the two shapes is in relation to their behaviour on a plane, the fundamental tendency of each shape remains clear, and hence, whereas it is difficult to imagine a celestial sphere that does not move, then a motionless earth (as suggested by Aristotle) is ontologically planar (as inferred by Saint Thomas Aquinas).

But the error of modern geocentrists proposing (in this case) a spheroidal earth rather than a planar earth is even more obvious. The following quote is taken from our web page titled, Nota Bene: The Fallacy of Spheroidal Earth Geocentrism:

[...] geocentrism necessarily subsumes a stationary and planar earth (not to mention a proximate cosmology) in the same sense that heliocentrism subsumes a rotating and spheroidal (or ellipsoidal) earth (with a distant cosmology), the characteristic of (alleged) spheroidicity or ellipsoidicity being sophistically attributed by Newton to have resulted from the earth’s (alleged) axial rotation; [...] see The Early Modern Period: Copernicus to Newton (1543–1726). Hence, any geocentric model premised on a spheroidal rather than a planar earth is an obvious non-starter since the alleged spherodicity iteself allegedly results from an allegedly rotating earth—a fundamental tenet of heliocentrism. Such a geocentric model is not only sophistical but inherently self-contradictory.

Reader, our cosmology is proximate and geocentric, and geocentrism requires the earth to be a stationary plane. It is just that simple.


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UPDATE May 1, 2024: PLANE GEODESY has undertaken a project to provide a highly readable transcription of The Apocalypse of Saint John the Apostle from the 1582 Rheims New Testament. Check it out. See Blog C: The Apocalypse of Saint John the Apostle.


  1. For a publication of Aristotle’s Heavens, see for example, Aristotle, On the Heavens (De Caelo) (Translated by J. L. Stocks) in Great Books of the Western World, Vol. 8, Aristotle I, Robert Maynard Hutchins, Editor in Chief, and Mortimer J. Adler, Associate Editor, and published with the editorial advice of the faculties of The University of Chicago (Chicago: William Benton, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1952), Book II, Chapters 13–14, pp. 384–389. Here, Aristotle reveals his inherently geocentric views, notwithstanding that Aristotle otherwise believed the actual shape of the earth to be spherical.↩️

  2. See S. Thomae Aquinatis, Doctoris Angelici. In Aristotelis Libros: De Caelo et Mundo ‧ De Generatione et Corruptione ‧ Meteorologicorum Expositio, cum textu ex recensione leonina, cura et studio, P. Fr. Raymundi M. Spiazzi, O.P. (Taurini ‧ Romae: Marietti, 1952), specifically, De Caelo et Mundo, LECTIO XXI [nn. 486-493]; [345-352]. Diversae opiniones de motu, quiete et figura terrae. TEXTUS ARISTOTELIS (Bekker 293b16 - 294a11) (CAPUT XIII), pp. 243–246.↩️

  3. Ibid., 349. (76), p. 243.↩️

  4. Aristotle. On the Heavens (De Caelo) (Translated by J. L. Stocks) in Great Books of the Western World, Vol. 8, Aristotle I, op. cit., p. 385.↩️

  5. S. Thomae Aquinatis, Doctoris Angelici. In Aristotelis Libros: De Caelo et Mundo, LECTIO XXI, op. cit., 352, p. 243.↩️

  6. Aristotle. On the Heavens (De Caelo) (Translated by J. L. Stocks) in Great Books of the Western World, Vol. 8, Aristotle I, loc. cit.↩️

  7. S. Thomae Aquinatis, Doctoris Angelici. In Aristotelis Libros: De Caelo et Mundo, LECTIO XXI, op. cit., COMMENTARIUM S. THOMAE, 493 [8], p. 246.↩️

  8. Saint Thomas Aquinas. In Aristotelis Libros: De Caelo et Mundo (The Heavens), translated by Fabian R. Larcher and Pierre H. Conway. See https://isidore.co/aquinas/DeCoelo.htm, Book II, Lecture 21 Different opinions on the motion, rest, and shape of the earth, 493.↩️

 
Edwin Wright