Near the end of the 19th century, scientist and co-founder of the New York University School of Medicine John William Draper penned an influential polemic entitled History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science. In the book, Draper argued that “the history of science is not a mere record of isolated discoveries; it is a narrative of the conflict of two contending powers, the expansive force of human intellect on one side, and the compression arising from traditionary faith and human interests on the other.”[1] Among the various “traditionary faiths” mentioned specifically in the book, it was Catholicism that most attracted Draper’s ire, as he viewed Catholicism, with its hierarchical structure and doctrinal pronouncements, as particularly antithetical to scientific progress. Draper’s book was wildly popular in the United States and was translated into at least ten different languages. The problem with the book, as modern historians of science have adequately demonstrated, was that it was inaccurate in almost every respect.

Setting the Record Straight

As the historian of science Ronald Numbers pointed out in a lecture, Draper’s book “was in fact less of a dispassionate history, which it wasn’t, than a screed against Roman Catholics and what they had [apparently] done to inhibit scientific progress.”[2] Despite the book’s factual problems, it gave birth to the myth that the Church has been diametrically opposed to science—a myth that has remained somewhat prevalent in the culture down to the present time. Certainly, one can find examples of conflict when one searches through the two millennia of interactions between the Church and science (the Galileo episode is one obvious example). However, the reality is that conflict does not dominate this history. In fact, while one can point to churchmen throughout history who have had issues with different scientific discoveries and theories, one is hard-pressed to find any other example besides the Galileo case in which the Church condemned a specific scientific theory.

Not only has this history not been dominated by conflict, but any cursory examination of the actual historical record reveals the sheer magnitude of support and encouragement offered by the Church to those engaged in scientific discovery. In fact, the Church was the primary patron of scientific research from the Middle Ages up through the 17th century. According to theologian Richard DeClue, “The Church and her high-ranking officials were primary patrons of budding scientists, promoting and financially supporting their work of advancing scientific knowledge” during this period.[3] As the historian of science John Heilbron put it, “The Roman Catholic Church gave more financial and social support to the study of astronomy for over six centuries . . . than any other, and probably all, other institutions.”[4] And it was not only astronomy that the Church funded; nearly every branch of science benefitted from the Church’s largesse.

Despite this reality, the popular story of the history of science in the West is that science lay dormant during the Middle Ages because the Church dominated the culture with her backward, superstitious thinking. In this telling of the tale, it wasn’t until the Renaissance fueled the intellectual rebirth of classical humanist thinking that the chains of Church dogma were loosened, and science could finally flourish. The truth, though, is quite the opposite. In fact, one can see that in the Middle Ages the foundations were being established for the rise of modern science, in large part through the efforts of the Catholic Church.