For the Holy Scripture and nature both equally derive from the divine Word, the former as
the dictation of the Holy Spirit, the latter as the most obedient executrix of God's commands;
moreover, in order to adapt itself to the understanding of all people, it was appropriate for the
Scripture to say many things which are different from absolute truth...; on the other hand,
nature is inexorable (unalterable) and immutable, and she does not care at all whether or not her
recondite (complex) reasons...are revealed to human understanding, and so she never
transgresses the terms of the laws imposed on her; therefore, whatever sensory experience
places before our eyes or necessary demonstrations prove to us concerning natural effects
should not in any way be called into question on account of scriptural passages whose words
appear to have a different meaning, since not every statement of the Scripture is bound to
obligations as severely as each effect of nature...
...Given this, and moreover it being obvious that two truths can never contradict each other, the
task of wise interpreters is to strive to find the true meanings of scriptural passages agreeing
with those physical conclusions of which we are already certain and sure from clear sensory
experience or from necessary demonstrations... I do not think it necessary to believe that the
same God who has furnished us with senses, language, and intellect would want to bypass their
use and give us by other means the information we can obtain with them. This applies
especially to those sciences about which one can read only very small phrases and scattered
conclusions in the Scripture, as is particularly the case for astronomy, of which it contains such
a small portion that one does not even find in it the names of all the planets; but if the first
sacred writers had been thinking of persuading the people about the arrangement and the
movements of the heavenly bodies, they would not have treated of them so sparsely, which is to
say almost nothing in comparison to the infinity of very lofty and admirable conclusions
contained in such a science.