Stumbling Over a Worldview: Understanding the Root and Meaning of the Controversy between Science and Religion

It has been presupposed that the origin of the controversy between science and religion began with Charles Darwin’s publication of The Origin of Species (1859) and later with his second publication, The Descent of Man (1871). But, in truth, the real origin of the controversy between science and religion, particularly in Western Christianity, began with the speculation that the planet earth was in a heliocentric system as developed by Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543) rather than the conceived geocentric view that was held by the Roman Church of that day. Ancient Greeks had already presupposed such an arrangement of the planets but Copernicus elaborately developed that system of thought. Others followed up on the Copernican model through scientific observation until Galileo Galilee, (1564-1642) applying the telescope to the study of the heavens, offered the truth of the Copernican theory by scientific method modeled after that of Sir Frances Bacon. In his Dialogue of 1632, Galileo offered his explication of the heliocentric formation of the solar system only to be met with fierce ecclesiastical resistance, to the end that Pope Urban humiliated Galileo and forced him to recant his work under inquisition in 1633. Thus was the birth of a long distrust between religion and science, each suspicious of the motives and directions of the other. And yet, who, even among the most religious would consider the Bible as a science book? It speaks nothing of a geocentric formation of our solar system; consequently, the Church’s dispute with Galileo was senseless in its caus