Galileo

Mitch Stokes

Apr 2011 · HarperChristian + ORM

About this ebook

We learn about life through the lives of others. Their experiences, their trials, their adventures become our schools, our chapels, our playgrounds. Christian Encounters, a series of biographies from Thomas Nelson Publishers, highlights important lives from all ages and areas of the Church through prose as accessible and concise as it is personal and engaging. Some are familiar faces. Others are unexpected guests. Whether the person is Galileo, William F. Buckley, John Bunyan, or Isaac Newton, we are now living in the world that they created and understand both it and ourselves better in the light of their lives. Their relationships, struggles, prayers, and desires uniquely illuminate our shared experience.

HERO OR HERETIC? GENIUS OR BLASPHEMER?

It's no mystery how profound a role Galileo played in the Scientific Revolution. Less explored is the Italian innovator's sincere, guiding faith in God. In this exhaustively researched biography that reads like a page-turning novel, Mitch Stokes draws on his expertise in philosophy, logic, math, and science to attune modern ears with Galileo's controversial genius.

Emerging from the same Florentine milieu that produced Dante, da Vinci, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Amerigo Vespuci, Galileo questioned with a persistence that spurred his world toward an unabating era of discovery. Stokes confronts the myth that Galileo's stance on heliocentricity stood astride a church vs. science divide and explores his calculations for the dimensions of Dante's hell, his understanding of motion, and his invention of the pendulum clock.

To read this volume is to journey through Galileo's remarkable life: from his inquisitive childhood to his dying days, when, although blind and decrepit, he soldiered on, dictating mathematical thoughts and mentoring young proteges. 

Ratings and reviews

Aslan is on the move. Our world is being redeemed. Christ's bride is being prepared for the wedding feast of the lamb, he has been preparing us from before time. History displays his majesty and wisdom. Galileo was part of this plan. We are part of this plan. Christianity is a religion rich in history, for what other reason than that it has been written by the most supreme author. A book like this one goes beyond its own scope: the gospel is key. Redemption is inevitable.

About the author

Mitch Stokes is a Fellow of Philosophy at New St. Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Notre Dame under the direction of Alvin Plantinga and Peter van Inwagen. At Yale, he earned an M.A. in religion under the direction of Nicholas Wolterstorff. He also holds an M.S. in mechanical engineering and, prior to his philosophy career, worked for an international engineering firm where he earned five patents in aeroderivative gas turbine technology. He and his wife, Christine, have four children.