archaeologist said:
Willtor said:
Even so, Athanasius[1][2] has been cited. He was called "the Father of Orthodoxy" while he was still alive.
so? that still doesn't prove he believed the sun revolved around the earth and other such beliefs. you are not proving your case by evidence but by inference and assumption.
Athanasius: Against the Heathen, Book I, I, 27
4. For if men are thus awestruck at the parts of Creation and think that they are gods, they might well be rebuked by the mutual dependence of those parts; which moreover makes known, and witnesses to, the Father of the Word, Who is the Lord and Maker of these parts also, by the unbroken law of their obedience to Him, as the divine law also says:
"The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handiwork." 5. But the proof of all this is not obscure, but is clear enough in all conscience to those the eyes of whose understanding are not wholly disabled. For if a man take the parts of Creation separately, and consider each by itself,—as for example the sun by itself alone, and the moon apart, and again earth and air, and heat and cold, and the essence of wet and of dry, separating them from their mutual conjunction,—he will certainly find that not one is sufficient for itself but all are in need of one another's assistance, and subsist by their mutual help.
For the Sun is carried round along with, and is contained in, the whole heaven, and can never go beyond his own orbit, while the moon and other stars testify to the assistance given them by the Sun: while the earth again evidently does not yield her crops without rains, which in their turn would not descend to earth without the assistance of the clouds; but not even would the clouds ever appear of themselves and subsist, without the air. And the air is warmed by the upper air, but illuminated and made bright by the sun, not by itself. 6. And wells, again, and rivers will never exist without the earth;
but the earth is not supported upon itself, but is set upon the realm of the waters, while this again is kept in its place, being bound fast at the centre of the universe.And the sea, and the great ocean that flows outside round the whole earth, is moved and borne by winds wherever the force of the winds dashes it. And the winds in their turn originate, not in themselves, but according to those who have written on the subject, in the air, from the burning heat and high temperature of the upper as compared with the lower air, and blow everywhere through the latter. 7. For as to the four elements of which the nature of bodies is composed, heat, that is, and cold, wet and dry, who is so perverted in his understanding as not to know that these things exist indeed in combination, but if separated and taken alone they tend to destroy even one another according to the prevailing power of the more abundant element? For heat is destroyed by cold if it be present in greater quantity, and cold again is put away by the power of heat, and what is dry, again, is moistened by wet, and the latter dried by the former.
Athanasius: Against the Heathen, Bk 1, Part III, 35
4.
For who that sees the circle of heaven and the course of the sun and the moon, and the positions and movements of the other stars, as they take place in opposite and different directions, while yet in their difference all with one accord observe a consistent order, can resist the conclusion that these are not ordered by themselves, but have a maker distinct from themselves who orders them?
or who that sees the sun rising by day and the moon shining by night, and waning and waxing without variation exactly according to the same number of days,
and some of the stars running their courses and with orbits various and manifold, while others move without wandering,
can fail to perceive that they certainly have a creator to guide them?
Athanasius: Against the Heathen, Bk 1, Part III, 44
For by a nod and
by the power of the Divine Word of the Father that governs and presides over all,
the heaven revolves, the stars move, the sun shines, the moon goes her circuit, and the air receives the sun's light and the aether his heat, and the winds blow: the mountains are reared on high, the sea is rough with waves, and the living things in it
grow the earth abides fixed, and bears fruit, and man is formed and lives and dies again.
Do people today talk about 'the circle of heaven' or think that it and 'the course of the sun' and movement of the stars is because God ordered them, or because God made the earth rotate? Do people today think the sun rises because it is carried around its orbit by the heavens? Do people think the sun rises because God is guiding it? When people today see the stars moving across the night sky, do they think the stars are in orbit and are being guided by God? Do people today think the earth is supported on the realm of the waters and bound fast at the center of the universe?
