Du Chevreul rejected the Copernican theories on the system of the universe for many reasons. First, he believed that the Earth was at the center of the universe and did not orbit. He used the teachings of Plato, Aristotle, and other philosophers and astrologers who asserted this geocentric idea and cited Plato in the Timaeus and Phaedo and Aristotle in the De caelo. Second, he looked to passages in the Bible for theological support. One passage stated that when God created the Earth, he did not intend for it to move. Another passage referenced the miracle witnessed by the biblical character Joshua in which God halted the movement of the sun and the moon. The use of Biblical Scriptures was consistent with the 1616 condemnation of Copernicanism by the Catholic Church as well as du Chevreul's own views on religion and astronomy. Du Chevreul also argued that Copernicus's theories were inconsistent with the physics concerning the motion of a simple body because Copernicus believed the simple body- the Earth- would have two motions however simple bodies can only have a single and simple motion. Even though he claimed that Earth was at the center of the universe, du Chevreul also claimed that Venus and Mercury orbited the Sun. The root of this theory was his claim that spots seen on the Sun are actually Venus and Mercury rather than the fact that they have phases like the moon.
