Firmament - Christian Views

Christian Views

Augustine wrote that too much learning had been expended on the nature of the firmament. "We may understand this name as given to indicate not it is motionless but that it is solid." he wrote. Saint Basil argued for a fluid firmament. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, the firmament had a "solid nature" and stood above a "region of fire, wherein all vapor must be consumed."

The Copernican Revolution of the 16th century led to reconsideration of these matters. In 1554, John Calvin proposed that "firmament" be interpreted as clouds. "He who would learn astronomy and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere," wrote Calvin. Genesis had to conform to popular prejudice regarding cosmology, or it would not have been accepted. "As it became a theologian, had to respect us rather than the stars," Calvin wrote. Calvin's "doctrine of accommodation" allowed Protestants to accept the findings of science without rejecting the authority of scripture. According to some Catholics, the Bible simply reflects the cosmological ideas that were prevalent at the time it was written.