Pasche's 50 Reasons: Copernicanism Part 19d (Tribute to Pastor F. E. Pasche)

[2023-11-09: this draft post was inadvertently overlooked from June 19, 2016.  It belonged in my Copernicanism series of that year, but, again was overlooked. I am presenting it now, with a few edits, to honor Pastor F. E. Pasche.]

      This continues from Part 19c a series on Copernicanism and Geocentricity (see Intro & Contents in Part 1) in response to a letter from a young person ("Josh") who asked if I believed Geocentricity ... and did not ridicule me in his question.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Fifty Reasons: 
Copernicus or the Bible

      One of Pasche's publications can still be purchased today – his last publication on astronomy: Fifty Reasons: Copernicus or the Bible.  It is available from Anchor Publications for a small cost ($5.50 post paid, 49 pages). [2023: It is now available on Google Books]  While Pasche had a popular book published by Concordia Publishing House in 1926, Daily Bread or Home Devotions, yet his last booklet against Copernicanism was not published by CPH, but by the author himself.  One wonders why?...

      Here are the 50 "reasons" in Pasche's English language booklet:

The earth stands fast; The pendulum experiment; Job 26:7; Our atmosphere; The Trade Winds; A law of nature?; Ocean currents; Contradicting the hypothesis; Earth, the central body; Gravitation against rotation; The flattened poles; Falling bodies; Richer’s discovery; The sun moves; What does "shemesh” mean?; Zodiacal light; Earth older than sun; Waters above firmament; Biblical plan more rational; The vapors of water; Scientists baffled; Conservation of energy; Agrees with chemistry; Copernican difficulties; Comets against them; Orbit around the sun; An impossibility; Sun through space; Attraction and repulsion; Results of theory erroneous; Fundamentally false; Elliptical orbits crushed; Against nature of earth; Motion natural for sun; Very plausible...; Parallax of stars; Roemer’s discovery; Bradley’s observation; Spectroscope favors Bible; Biblical view explains more; They minister to the earth; Bible implies reality; Ps. 74;16; Eccl. 1:4-5; No insignificant things; No erroneous conceptions of men; Only one, the literal sense; We must accept literal meaning; Appearance ("Optice”); Full conviction; Theory and superstition

      Pasche refers to Carl Schöpffer several times.  He also references Valentin Ernest Loescher, General de Peyster, Humboldt, Matthew Henry, Dr. C. W. Siemens, Lindemann senior, Martin Luther, Andrew Dickson White, Prof. George Stoeckhardt, Dr. Robert Woodhouse (Cambridge University Observatory, Google Books, quote- Copernicanism "may be false"), 

Dr. Gerardus Bouw reports (page 375) on Pasche's booklet and is somewhat harsh with the science presented therein:

In 1915 Pasche published a 51-page booklet entitled Fifty Reasons: Copernicus or the Bible. This work was published in English and consists mostly of scientific arguments. Most are easily dismissed, but a few are still valid. In his closing statement, Pasche says this about faith in the majority opinion:

“Many know that there is no proof for the Copernican hypothesis, but they are blinded by the cry: 'It is accepted throughout the civilized world!' (Dr. Carl Pierson, “The Grammar of Science,” 1892.*) The most common objection raised against the Biblical system is the general agreement of the learned. But voices must be weighed, not counted.”

Dr. Bouw is certainly in a position to dismiss most of Pasche's scientific arguments, especially given the decades of further scientific investigation after 1915, yet it is notable that he also concurs with some of them.  It would have been more helpful if Bouw had been specific on which scientific evidences he had problems with and why; after all, if another scientist refutes some of Bouw's science, Bouw would want to see the reasons explained.  In several cases Pasche borrows from other scientists of his time, not using his own research. And it should be kept in mind that in 1915 the "scientific" reasons advanced for Copernicanism were also not so good. — Elsewhere Dr. Bouw acknowledges the efforts of those who have gone before to show that the natural history of the Bible is plausible with the science of the day... which is all that is necessary.  Why?  Because the Bible is a priori true.  And this is exactly how Luther and Chemnitz handled issues of  Biblical chronology and supposed errors in the Bible – all that one needs to show is that it is plausible (see this blog on "Contradictions/errors in Scripture").  And as Walther says, the Bible must be believed even if science cannot definitively prove its natural history – even to the Last Day.

      Perhaps Dr. Bouw is too brief in reviewing Pasche's last book, for although today it may have a few faults in scientific areas, yet it is faultless in its extensive defense of the Inspiration and Infallibility of Holy Scripture.  Dr. Bouw also holds to the infallibility of Holy Scripture in his book, but as a Baptist, he has nothing over the Lutheran Church.  He would do well to acknowledge Pasche's passionate defense of Scripture... to the bare words of Scripture.  However weak some of Pasche's science arguments may be today, yet his scriptural stand is firm, as Prof. John Schaller testifies.  —  And isn't Dr. Bouw perhaps acknowledging his debt to the Lutheran Church? ... to the Lutheran Reformation? ... even if he does not state it and remains a Baptist.

There are two points made in Pasche's booklet that touch on the "flat earth" charge made by many scoffers, like Robert Schadewald, who use this today to discredit the Bible by building a "straw man" argument.

1) Pasche quotes a Prof. Robert Woodhouse, first Superintendent of the Cambridge University Observatory, a Copernican astronomer.  Apparently Pasche obtained his quote from a "flat earth" publication, yet the quote by Woodhouse was not referencing the claim of a "flat earth", but rather Copernicanism versus geocentricity.  What did Woodhouse say in this quote and how does it get associated with the "flat earth" movement?  Go to Robert Schadewald's "Chapter 4", search for "Robert Woodhouse" and you will find not only the quote but also the best explanation of why it gets associated today with the "flat earth" movement.  But now it is not necessary to use this same quote because, thanks to Google Books, one can obtain another quote from Woodhouse's own book (A Treatise on Astronomy, Theoretical and Practical, Volume 1, Part 1, pages 21-22), not a "flat earth" publication, that essentially states the same point:

    The system which has been briefly described is sometimes called, from its author Copernicus, the Copernican. The characteristical point, it must be noted, in his system is the placing the Sun, as an immoveable and the chief body, in the centre of it.

    In the next Chapter we will consider whether, on the proposed hypotheses and the established facts, we are able to account for the vicissitudes of seasons and the different durations of day and night. The only thing aimed at will be something of the nature of a popular explanation, probably accounting for the phenomena, on hypotheses that are simple and consistent with themselves. Independent and rigorous demonstrations belong not to the present subject of enquiry: as far indeed as the establishment of systems and the verification of hypotheses are concerned. The purely mathematical demonstrations which are subsidiary are, indeed, as true in Astronomy as in any other science : but the theory they have acted in aid of, they may have vainly propped, and it may be false. A theory if false may be proved to be so by one instance: whereas the truth of a theory can hardly ever be easily or soon established. — Robert Woodhouse

Let me repeat: this comes from the first Superintendent of the Cambridge University Observatory.  And after all, isn't Cambridge an authority?  — Pasche uses the same reasoning as Franz Pieper used when he referenced another Copernican scientist, Dr. H. A. Daniel of Halle Germany, who also stated that systems like the Copernican system "remain hypotheses".

2) Flat Earth in the Bible?  Figurative or real? [I did not develop this point and will leave it unfinished for now.]

Pastor Pasche
(older years)

I will leave Pastor Pasche with one of the last statements in his booklet:

So let us leave the Copernican tomfoolery, and be it our battle-cry:  Back to Luther!

[I have obtained a copy of the Pasche family history and will be happy to publish it if an authorized family member grants me the right.]

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

[This resurrected post would then be followed by Part 20]

Addendum 2023-09-04: It should be noted that Prof. Raymond Surburg († 2001), in his essay for the anthology C.F.W. Walther, the American Luther, entitled "Walther's Hermeneutical Principles" describes the thinking of "Critical scholars" (p. 102): 

"The many miracles of the Bible… are reinterpreted by historical critics as sagas, myths, legends, and parables and are represented as the unscientific pre-Copernican thinking of writers who mistakenly believed that God could interfere with the laws of nature."

Surburg equates "Copernican" as modern science, implying that he is himself an anti-Copernicanism, i.e. Scriptural, teacher, but he makes no explicit assertion to that effect.