The picture of a persistent conflict between science and faith is bad history. When we revisit the past to look at actual scientists and actual theologians, when we observe what they thought and said about science and faith, we discover that science and Christianity have had a more complex relationship—diverse, subtle, surprising, tangled, and messy. 

Are Science and Faith Always at Odds?

Many of us grew up believing science and faith are at war. We absorbed this belief by cultural osmosis. We imagined theology and science on two ends of the spectrum, as enemies in mortal combat. The Joker versus Batman. Sherlock versus Moriarty. Science versus theology. The secular forces lined up on one side; the angels of light, on the other. This is a civil war, a battle to the death, and may the best man win.

We often think about Galileo’s life in terms of this battle narrative.1 Here was a great scientist surrounded by Biblethumping fundamentalists who believed in geocentrism, the idea that the sun revolves around the earth. Galileo (1564–1642) proved the opposite—heliocentrism—and wrote books defending this truth. His reward? He was captured by the Roman Inquisition, tortured, and then sent to jail, where he spent the rest of his life in disgrace.

If you believe this, I have an oceanfront property in Iowa to sell you! This picture of Galileo is largely a myth; the true story is far more complex. First, Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) and Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) originally had the idea; they gave serious defenses of heliocentrism long before Galileo. Second, some church leaders, including the pope, were initially sympathetic to Galileo’s views. But we often forget that even in 1615 when Galileo went to Rome to defend his views to the Catholic Church, there was no definitive proof heliocentrism was correct (that came decades later with Isaac Newton). Many astronomers and physicists at the time disagreed with Galileo, because other models of the solar system made equally good sense of the data. Galileo’s view wasn’t the only available theory. At that point in history, it was perfectly rational for astronomers and church officials to disagree with Galileo.

The main alternative position was the geocentrism of Aristotle’s cosmology, which the Catholic Church had fully embraced for centuries. Aristotle had become the foundation for Italy’s moral and social fabric. If Galileo was right, then beloved Aristotle was wrong. In the seventeenth century, those were fighting words. That’s probably why a Roman Catholic cardinal allowed Galileo to continue researching his theory so long as he never claimed it was a scientific fact. Galileo had to qualify that he was only speaking hypothetically. He initially agreed to these terms, but sixteen years later, Galileo published a book defending the Copernican view as scientific fact. That got him in hot water.

By now, I hope you have noticed how the warfare narrative oversimplifies and distorts history. Yes, the religious establishment saw Galileo as wrong and even dangerous, but it was not because they saw him as rejecting the Bible or Christianity. He was never tortured, and he did not spend a day in jail. Contrary to popular belief, Galileo was not an atheist, nor was he named a heretic. Galileo the scientist actually cited Scripture extensively to support his views, and he remained a Roman Catholic to the end of his days.

Our assumptions about the Scopes Monkey Trial misrepresent history in similar ways. We have formed impressions based on hearsay and movies like Inherit the Wind, which itself is based on the 1955 play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee. Here is how the film tells the story: John Scopes is the hero, the enlightened scientist from 1920s Dayton, Tennessee, surrounded by ignorant, Southern, Christian dimwits. These people are trapped in old, dogmatic ways of thinking. Scopes comes to the rescue by helping them see the light. He is a beloved teacher exposing his students to evolution.

The town leaders are the bad guys in this story, the religious rednecks. They start protesting that Scopes is teaching evolution in the classroom, and they eventually get him thrown into prison. The case goes to trial. On the side of the angels, we have the defense lawyer Clarence Darrow (1857–1938), an advocate for science, reason, and humanity, a man defending the underdog.

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1. For helpful details on Galileo and the Scopes Monkey Trial, see Maurice A. Finocchiaro, “Myth 8: That Galileo Was Imprisoned and Tortured for Advocating Copernicanism,” and Edward J. Larson, “Myth 20: That the Scopes Trial Ended in Defeat for Antievolutionism,” in Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion, ed. Ronald L. Numbers (Harvard University Press, 2009), 68–78, 178–86.