Reading the Bible and understanding nature A review of The
Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science by Peter
Harrison Cambridge University Press, New York, 1998 In the
nineteenth century secular activists made an effort to claim a
position of dominance in the academy for the natural sciences,
and sought to unseat the reigning “queen of the sciences”
theology.1 The partisans of secular science painted an image of
warfare between science and religion. By their account,
progressive, inquiring, empirical science was—and always had
been—arrayed against old-fashioned, dogmatic religion. The image
of warfare has been highly influential, but more because it
painted a vivid image than because it was true. Serious
historians of science have come to view the warfare thesis as
overly simplistic at the very least.2 Indeed, a number of
historians and sociologists have come to view modern science
itself as the historical product of Christianity.3 It’s hard to
get much further from the warfare thesis than this.