An Examination on the Compatibility Between Nature and Science

Following the medieval period, a divide emerged between the theological emphasis of medieval philosophy and the empirical orientation of modern philosophy. While religion and science can play an important role in explaining the world, the modern era presented irreconcilable differenced between theology and science. Because of the fundamentally different approaches that religion and science take in understanding the world, the two have become incompatible with one another.

Descartes exemplifies the differences that emerged between religion and science during after the medieval period. Descartes’s main contribution to philosophy was that he broke from older philosophical traditions, asserting that it was necessary to rest assumptions only on truths that can be established through empirical evidence (Melchert 297). Further, Descartes asserted that it was necessary to incorporate the findings of scientific methods into one’s worldview (297). Additionally scientists such as Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo contrasted with medieval thinking by contributing astronomical findings that countered the traditional understanding of the universe (297). The atmosphere of skepticism presented by modern science stood in contrast to the approach to understanding endorsed by medieval philosophers.

The medieval period highlighted the distinct approach that theologians took to understand the spiritual and natural world. While scientists believed that nothing could be taken for granted until it was confirmed by the scientific method, theologians held that God was the foundation for knowledge. For example, Anselm believed that the act of philosophy involved “faith seeking understanding” (265). Thus, the belief in God was already assumed by Anselm, and it was up to the philosopher to use methods of reason to confirm God’s truths. Similarly, Thomas Aquinas believed that classical philosophers lacked the wisdom of found in the Christian worldview, which limited the validity of their works (271). Aquinas believed that men were enlightened by God but turned away from God’s truths because of human pride (271). Further, Aquinas believed that while reason alone could confirm God’s truths, revelation was an equally valid method of arriving at the truth (271). Aquinas slightly deviated from theologians of the past by developing extensive works that sought to combine logic with theological doctrines in order to affirm the validity of these doctrines. Yet, as Aquinas’s work demonstrates, religious inquiry operates on the assumption that there is a fundamental religious truth that should be exempt from questioning.

Because of the different approaches that were taken by scientists and theologians, the two worldviews are currently irreconcilable. It is true that both science and religion hold the same goal of providing a broader understanding of how things occur in the world. Yet, while religion allows the inquirer to take the existence of God and other theological truths for granted, science requires that the inquirer abandon these assumptions. This creates a significant impasse between the two systems of inquiry. In a sense, science would not be science if it did not involve the use of a rigorous scientific method that excluded anything that was not confirmed through previous experiments. Also, religion as it is understood today, would lose its purpose if it did not operate on the underlying assumption that the religious truths that are taken as a matter of faith are valid. Thus, while medieval philosophy demonstrates how scientific methods can be used to enhance the theologian’s goal, the two systems cannot be completely intertwined. Because modern science must divorce itself from any untested and unconfirmed claims, it must distance itself from religion in its pursuit of scientific understanding

Work Cited

Melchert, Norman. The Great Conversation: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy. (5th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Print.