Abstract

The Earth is a Disc around which the Sun Revolves!

Some Critical Remarks on the Culture of Debate in Contemporary Theology.

An Essay

This essay is about the truth-promoting function of error. The starting point is the debate that erupted in 2015 about the canonicity of the Old Testament. It was argued that questioning this canonicity was as unworthy of discussion as the flat earth-'theory'; this claim was combined with (inaccurate) accusations of anti-Semitism. The author of this text takes this refusal to engage in scientific dialogue as an opportunity to recall the origins of the scientific ethos in Plato and Aristotle, which is based on the possibility of undetected error, even in one's own position. One is never certain of possessing the truth, but the contentious scientific debate is the only way in which the truth can prevail. The author traces this idea from Plato and Aristotle, through the adoption of this idea in scholastic and post-Reformation theology, to Schleiermacher's statement that in theology, individual special opinion and even heresy is indispensable for the understanding of faith. Vf. then shows in the final section of his essay that the conviction that the earth is a disc around which the stars revolve is not simply an error - this appears by the fact that we all even after Copernicus and Galileo still speak about sunrise. This is the origin of an insight: that there are conditions of bodily existence and innate error that cannot simply be eliminated by scientific enlightenment.