Opinion, Response, and Critical Notes by Frank Nicholas, January 2025
Magisteria: The Entangled Histories of Science and Religion
by Nicholas Spencer
London: Oneworld Publications, 2023; 467 pages
ISBN 9780861544615, 1st edition, hardcover
AUD$52
Readers of this journal will be aware that James Ungureanu has written a very detailed and informative commentary on Nicholas Spencer’s book Magisteria: The Entangled Histories of Science and Religion;[1] that D. Gareth Jones has written a thoughtful review of the book, describing it as a “tour de force”[2] that provides “a fair examination of the numerous forces at work around each of the science–faith debates”2; and that Ian Harper has also written a thoughtful review, describing the book as being “in equal parts enlightening, entertaining, engaging, and informative.”[3] Here I offer some reflections on some of the issues raised in Magisteria.
Despite the book’s dustjacket declaring in bold uppercase, “THE SO-CALLED WAR BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION IS A MYTH,”[4] Spencer actually takes a far more nuanced approach (as Jones and Harper mention in their reviews). Indeed, Spencer aims to show that “The ‘magisteria’ of science and religion are indistinct, sprawling, untidy and endlessly and fascinatingly entangled.”
Consistent with his aim, Spencer’s major conclusion is that “There is no merit in demolishing one simplistic and unjustifiable narrative—of constant conflict—only to replace it with an equally simplistic and unjustifiable narrative of constant amity” (p. 6). In other words, Spencer concludes that it is “simplistic and unjustifiable” to argue that there is constant harmony between science and religion.
In the next paragraph, he gives examples of the lack of harmony, that is, the presence of conflict between science and religion. His examples include “The Catholic Church did threaten Galileo with torture,[5] prohibit his books and ban teaching of heliocentrism for nearly two hundred years” and “Darwin was roundly attacked by many Christian correspondents, including many clergymen. … And today, millions upon millions of Protestants reject Darwinism, as do an increasing number of Muslims.” Here Spencer clearly provides examples of conflict between religion and science, in the past and in the present.
This is a particularly important message from Spencer, especially for organisations that expound harmony between science and religion.[6]
On page 7, Spencer makes the very important point that there are two major themes underlying situations where there is conflict between science and religion, namely 1) authority “to pronounce on nature, the cosmos and reality,” and 2) “the nature and status of the human.”
In the case of Galileo, religious authority won out (for the first few hundred years) because of the Church’s authority: it could threaten witnesses with torture; it could ban books because they contain what we now call scientific understandings that were judged by the Church to be inconsistent with religious understandings; and it could prohibit the teaching of certain topics. We must, of course, appreciate that there is context to every historical fact; that nothing in human history happens in a vacuum. In Galileo’s case, as has been well documented by Spencer in Magisteria and by others,[7] the whole saga unfolded in the context of the Reformation, in which the Catholic Church was under substantial pressure from outside forces claiming the right to interpret the Bible in their own way; and Galileo was in many ways his own worst enemy, even to the extent of offending the Pope in print, and stretching the truth to breaking point if he felt it would aid his career.[8]
Nevertheless, as the seven Cardinals who signed the official 1633 indictment stated:
We say, pronounce, sentence, and declare, that thou, the said Galileo, by the things deduced during this trial, and by thee confessed as above, hast rendered thyself vehemently suspected of heresy by this Holy Office, that is, of having believed and held a doctrine which is false, and contrary to the Holy Scriptures, to wit: that the Sun is the centre of the universe, and that it does not move from east to west, and that the Earth moves and is not the centre of the universe: and that an opinion may be held and defended as probable after having been declared and defined as contrary to Holy Scripture.[9]
As pointed out by Finocchiaro,[10] it is important to notice that Galileo is here pronounced guilty of being vehemently suspected of two heresies: 1) of believing and holding a doctrine that is false and contrary to Holy Scripture, and 2) believing that it is reasonable to promote an opinion that is contrary to Holy Scripture. Although most attention has been focused on the first suspected heresy, the second one is actually more relevant to the present discussion, because here the Catholic Church was declaring that Holy Scripture can be the sole determiner of whether an opinion can be held or not held. In other words, the only acceptable understandings are those that are consistent with Holy Scripture. As if to drive home this key point, the 1633 indictment mentions “contrary to Holy Scripture” eight times.
This point about authority, so central to Spencer’s arguments, was addressed by the Catholic priest Father George Coyne S.J. (Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, and a member of Pope John Paul II’s Galileo Commission[11]), when he wrote “history continues to show that the differences between authority in the Church and authority in science are persistent.”[12] Having studied the Galileo case in great detail as a Catholic insider, Coyne goes on to say: “In the Galileo case the historical facts are that further research into the Copernican system was forbidden by the Decree of 1616 and then condemned in 1633 by official organs of the Church with the approbation of the reigning Pontiffs.”12
Furthermore, as explained by a Professor of Philosophy and Theology at a Catholic seminary in the USA on the website of the Society of Catholic Scientists, it wasn’t until 1758 that the Catholic Church relaxed censorship of Copernican books, and it wasn’t until 1822 (almost two hundred years after Galileo’s trial) that the Catholic Church decided “no longer to deny the imprimatur to books that taught heliocentrism.”[13]
This is conflict between religion and (what would later be called) science writ large!
Another case discussed at length by Spencer is the Wilberforce–Huxley exchange in Oxford in 1860. Importantly, Spencer stresses that it was the nature and status of the human that was centre stage in this debate. As Spencer clearly explains on page 258, the historical aspects of this exchange are now well documented, thanks to an enterprising American, Richard England—a philosopher from Eastern Illinois University. In 2017, England reported finding an account of the 1860 Oxford meeting that is more extensive than any of the accounts known before 2017.[14] This more extensive account appeared in a contemporary Oxford newspaper, namely the 21 July 1860 edition of the Oxford Chronicle and Berks and Bucks Gazette, on page 3.[15] Why didn’t any of us think of looking in this most obvious place, long before 2017?
To put this in context, until 2017 the most favoured account (regarded as semi-official14) was the one published on 14 July 1860 in the London-based magazine Athanaeum, which made no mention of any exchange between Wilberforce and Huxley. To the surprise of Richard England and just about everyone else, the Oxford Chronicle article includes everything (almost word-for-word) that is in the Athanaeum account, but also includes substantial additional text that, among other things, includes a blow-by-blow account of the Wilberforce–Huxley exchange, and a very clear account of Wilberforce’s religious opposition to Darwin. It seems, therefore, as Spencer explains, that the Athanaeum account was a censored account of the Oxford meeting, omitting the controversial bits!
On page 259, Spencer provides an annotated version of the Oxford Chronicle account of Wilberforce’s question to Huxley and of Huxley’s response. The two key sections of the Oxford Chronicle account are reproduced here:
Glancing at Professor Huxley’s remarks, on the previous day, in a discussion with Professor Owen, the Bishop facetiously asked if he had any particular predilection for a monkey ancestry, and, if so, on which side—whether he would prefer an ape for his grandfather, and a woman for his grandmother, or a man for his grandfather, and an ape for his grandmother. (Much laughter.)
…
Professor HUXLEY followed. In reply to the Bishop’s query he said that if the alternative were given him of being descended from a man conspicuous for his talents and eloquence, but who misused his gifts to ridicule the laborious investigators of science and obscure the light of scientific truth, or from the humble origin alluded to, he would far rather choose the latter than the former. (Oh, oh, and laughter and cheering.)15
So, we now have clear evidence that the Wilberforce–Huxley exchange in Oxford in 1860 is not a myth but is historical reality.
As mentioned earlier, Richard England’s discovery also sheds additional light on the religious objection to Darwin.
Of course, we did not have to wait until 2017 to know that Bishop Wilberforce had expressed religious objection to Darwin. This has been known ever since Wilberforce’s review[16] of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection was published around the time of the Oxford debate. Even though Darwin had avoided directly addressing the implication for humans in On the Origin of Species, those implications were clear for everyone to see. Addressing them head on in his 1860 review, Bishop Wilberforce wrote:
Man’s derived supremacy over the earth; man’s power of articulate speech; man’s gift of reason; man’s free-will and responsibility; man’s fall and man’s redemption; the incarnation of the Eternal Son; the indwelling of the Eternal Spirit,—all are equally and utterly irreconcilable with the degrading notion of the brute origin of him who was created in the image of God, and redeemed by the Eternal Son assuming to himself his nature.[17]
This same theme was addressed by Sir B. Brodie,[18] who, as shown in the Athanaeum account of the Oxford meeting, spoke just before Bishop Wilberforce. Being in the Athanaeum account, Brodie’s understanding has also been in the public domain since 1860:
Sir B. BRODIE stated, he could not subscribe to the hypothesis of Mr Darwin. His primordial germ had not been demonstrated to have existed. Man had a power of self-consciousness—a principle differing from anything found in the material world, and he did not see how this could originate in lower organisms. This power of man was identical with the Divine Intelligence; and to suppose that this could originate with matter, involved the absurdity of supposing the source of Divine power dependent on the arrangement of matter.14
So, conflict between religion and science in relation to the nature and status of the human (to use Spencer’s words) was evident in the initial responses to On the Origin of Species. Given this, the discovery in 2017 of what Bishop Wilberforce said in this regard in the Oxford meeting does not introduce anything new. Yet it does reinforce Spencer’s suggestion that a key issue of conflict between religion and science has been the nature and status of the human. As recounted by the Oxford Chronicle, and as included by Spencer in Magisteria (p. 258), Bishop Wilberforce stated, just a few sentences after questioning Huxley’s ancestry, that:
he did consider it a most degrading assumption—(hear, hear)—that man, who, in many respects, partook of the highest attributes of God—(hear, hear)—was a mere development of the lowest forms of creation. (Applause.) He could scarcely trust himself to speak upon the subject, so indignant did he feel at the idea.15
These words highlight the essence of the initial religious objection to Darwin.
Interestingly, the essence of this particular case of conflict between religion and science, as expressed in 1860 by Brodie and Wilberforce, is still with us now, as shown by the following quotes, to take just some examples.
Pope John Paul II (1996):
The Church’s Magisterium is directly concerned with the question of evolution, for it involves the conception of man: Revelation teaches us that he was created in the image and likeness of God. The Conciliar Constitution Gaudium et Spes magnificently explained this doctrine, which is pivotal to Christian thought. It recalled that man is ‘the only creature on earth that God has wanted for its own sake.’ In other terms, the human individual cannot be subordinated as a pure means or a pure instrument, either to the species or to society; he has value per se. He is a person. … It is by virtue of his spiritual soul that the whole person possesses such a dignity even in his body. Pius XII stressed this essential point: if the human body takes its origin from pre-existent living matter, the spiritual soul is immediately created by God.
Consequently, theories of evolution which, in accordance with the philosophies inspiring them, consider the mind as emerging from the forces of living matter, or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible with the truth about man.[19]
It is interesting to note that the message from this last sentence of Pope John Paul II, namely that the scientific understanding of evolution is “incompatible with the truth about man,” is not unlike the message from the Inquisition back in 1633, namely that the only truth is the truth that is held by the Church.
Returning to modern quotes, Pope Benedict XVI (2005): “We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.”[20]
Francis Collins, founder of Biologos (2006): “But humans are also unique in ways that defy evolutionary explanation and point to our spiritual nature.”[21]
Stephen Barr, founder and President of The Society of Catholic Scientists (2023): “The human spiritual powers of intellect and will are the only realities empirically accessible to us that transcend matter and thus point to the possibility of other realities that transcend the physical world, including God.”[22]
Each of these writers accepts that evolution has occurred. Indeed, on page 396 Spencer quotes from the same document of Pope John Paul II as is quoted here, showing very clearly that Pope John Paul II accepted that evolution has occurred. However, as indicated in the quotes cited in this commentary, each of these writers, while accepting evolution, sees an irreconcilable difference between the scientific understanding and the religious understanding of the nature and status of the human.
We can conclude that the Galileo story and the story of the 1860 Oxford meeting are both real historical examples of the differences between scientific understanding and religious understanding. In the Galileo case, the basis of the difference of understanding still exists (neither the scientific understanding nor the biblical text has changed), but the authority (the Catholic Church) has softened its stance on the interpretation of scripture.[23] In the case of the 1860 Oxford meeting, the difference in understanding of the nature and basis of the human is irreconcilable, and is still as strongly held today as it was in 1860.
Are these differences in understanding really conflicts between science and religion? Well, yes, they are. The OED defines “conflict” as “The clashing or variance of opposed principles, statements, arguments, etc.” And here we have opposed principles, statements, and arguments.
This is best illustrated by considering how a scientist who is a Christian and who accepts evolution would teach/lecture/write about the evolution of humans in a scientific class/lecture/paper/book, compared with in a religious studies class or in a lecture in a seminary or to a Christian meeting/conference or in a paper or a book on the religious understanding of humans.
In the former, the Christian would explain that every aspect of humans has arisen by the same evolutionary processes that have given rise to every other living organism, noting (as stressed by Darwin in 1859) that not every trait has arisen by natural selection; that is, that not every trait is adaptive. There would be no mention of God or God-like phenomena.
In the latter, the Christian would explain that the physical human body has arisen by the same evolutionary forces that have given rise to every other living organism, but that God has acted on every human so as to bestow special attributes that exist only in humans, reflected in the religious understanding that humans have an immortal soul and that humans are made in the image of God.
How can we come to terms with these differences in understanding? What do we tell young Christians who are concerned that studying science will threaten their Christian understanding?
One strategy is to claim that there is no conflict between scientific and religious understandings, despite the evidence to the contrary.
An alternative solution is to accept that 1) here we actually have a double truth,[24] that is, that each understanding is a valid truth in its own context; and 2) St Thomas Aquinas notwithstanding, it is possible for a person to hold to both truths. Indeed, after hearing a talk from ISCAST’s Chris Mulherin on the relationship between science and religion, a school student declared that “I learned that science and Christianity can both be true.”[25]
How can a person hold to two irreconcilable truths? Well, most of us do it every day. On the one hand, we see with our senses, on a daily basis, the sun revolving around the earth. Indeed, it is not just our common sense that confirms this observation every day; daily weather forecasts speak of the sun rising and the sun setting, and forecasts usually include an exact prediction of the time when the sun will rise and when the sun will set each day. On the other hand, almost everyone knows that the scientific understanding is exactly the opposite, namely that the earth revolves around the sun. Most people hold these two irreconcilable truths—the common-sense truth and the scientific truth—without any effort or stress or cognitive dissonance. Surely we can do the same with irreconcilable religious and scientific truths. Both can be held to be true in their respective contexts.
There is long-standing support for this strategy. Doru Costache has argued that a “great realisation of the early Christian and medieval scholars” was that “reality can be perceived from diverse viewpoints.”[26] Physicist and philosopher Basarab Nicolescu has devoted much thought to the concept of levels of reality, each with its own level of perception, this being the key to transdisciplinarity.[27] Also, in his 2015 encyclical Laudato si’, Pope Francis made the important point that science and religion have “distinctive approaches to understanding reality” which enable them to “enter into an intense dialogue fruitful for both.”[28] These sources point to what could be a more acceptable strategy: instead of thinking in terms of two different truths, we can think in terms of two different perceptions or understandings of reality.
As challenging as it may seem to some, surely it is an easier and more satisfying strategy to accept two perceptions or understandings about human nature than to claim that there is harmony between scientific and religious understandings about human nature, in direct contradiction of the evidence. I hope that this strategy may be helpful in coming to terms with the entanglement of religion and science so well documented by Nicholas Spencer in Magisteria.
[1] James C. Ungureanu, “Disentangling the Histories of Science and Religion,” CPOSAT 2 (2023), https://doi.org/10.58913/CCFT3672.
[2] D. Gareth Jones, “Nicholas Spencer: Magisteria: The Entangled Histories of Science and Religion,” CPOSAT 3 (2024), https://doi.org/10.58913/VVHI5786.
[3] Ian Harper, “Nicholas Spencer: Magisteria: The Entangled Histories of Science and Religion,” CPOSAT 3 (2024), https://doi.org/10.58913/CKUL7893.
[4] Given the very clear implications of this dust-jacket quote, it is ironic that in Magisteria, Spencer actually perpetuates a myth (p. 242), namely that the rooms occupied by Darwin in Cambridge were previously occupied by William Paley. Darwinian scholars (present author included) would love this to be true, but there is no evidence for this claim (John van Wyhe, Darwin in Cambridge (Christ’s College, 2009), 30, https://darwin-online.org.uk/converted/pdf/2009_van_Wyhe,_Darwin_in_Cambridge_A2973.pdf).
[5] Spencer does not actually cite the evidence for this claim in Magisteria, but there is convincing evidence, for example Maurice A. Finocchiaro, Retrying Galileo, 1633-1992 (University of California Press, 2005), 11; and Henry Ansgar Kelly, “Galileo’s Non-Trial (1616), Pre-Trial (1632–1633), and Trial (May 10, 1633): A Review of Procedure, Featuring Routine Violations of the Forum of Conscience,” Church History 85 (2019), 724–761, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009640716001190.
[6] One of the aims of Christians in Science is “To support churches by helping congregations appreciate the harmony of science and faith,” https://www.cis.org.uk/aims/; “BioLogos invites the church and the world to see the harmony between science and biblical faith,” https://biologos.org/about-us/what-we-believe (This quote featured on the BioLogos website in the early months of 2024. At the time of publication of this document (early 2025) that quote is no longer on the BioLogos website. However, in late 2024 the website does state that Francis Collins’ book The Language of God shows “that science is not in conflict with the Bible”; https://biologos.org/about-us#our-history); Part of the mission of the Society of Catholic Scientists is “To witness to the harmony between the vocation of scientist and the life of faith.” https://catholicscientists.org/about/.
[7] See, for example, Peter Harrison, “Interviewing Prof. Peter Harrison: Science and faith have a complex relationship.” Interview by Chris Mulherin, ISCAST, August 16, 2017, https://iscast.org/interview/peter-harrison-interview/.
[8] Michele Camerota, Franco Giudice and Salvatore Ricciardo, “The reappearance of Galileo’s original Letter to Benedetto Castelli,” Notes and Records (The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science) 73 (2019), 11–28.
[9] https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1630galileo.asp
[10] Maurice A. Finocchiaro, Retrying Galileo, 1633–1992 (University of California Press, 2005), 12.
[11] More formally known as “la Commission Pontificale d’E´tude du cas Galilee´”; see M. Sánchez de Toca, “A Never Ending Story: The Pontifical Commission on the Galileo Case: A Critical Review,” in The Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena VI Proceedings of a conference held October 18-23, 2009 in Venezia, Italy, ed. Enrico Maria Corsini. ASP Conference Series, Vol. 441 (Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 2011), 99–108, https://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2011ASPC..441…99S. In addition to Father Coyne, the seven-person Galileo Commission included two Cardinals and two Archbishops, one of whom became a Cardinal during the Commission’s tenure of nearly ten years.
[12] George V. Coyne S.J., “The Church’s Most Recent Attempt to Dispel the Galileo Myth,” in The Church and Galileo, ed. E. McMullin (University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), Chapter 13, 340–359,
https://www.vaticanobservatory.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Galileo_ed._McMullin.pdf
[13] Cory Hayes, “Galileo’s Contribution to Theology,” 1 February 2024, https://catholicscientists.org/articles/galileos-contribution-to-theology/ Interestingly, Coyne (footnote 12) states that “the works of Copernicus and Galileo remained on the Index until 1835.”
[14] Richard England, “Censoring Huxley and Wilberforce: A new source for the meeting that the Athenaeum ‘wisely softened down’,” Notes and Records (The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science) 71 (2017), 371–384. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsnr.2016.0058
[15] Anon., “Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science,” Oxford Chronicle and Berks and Bucks Gazette, 21 July 1860, 3. For an edited transcript, see https://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=A1088&viewtype=text&pageseq=1
[16] Anon. [Samuel Wilberforce], “[review of] On the Origin of Species, by means of Natural Selection; or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. By Charles Darwin, M. A., F. R. S. London, 1860,” Quarterly Review 108 (1860), ART. VII, 225–264, https://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=1&itemID=A19&viewtype=text. As was common at the time, the review was anonymous, but its authorship was evident to those who were familiar with Wilberforce as author (Janet Browne, Charles Darwin: The Power of Place (Pimlico, 2003), 114).
[17] Page 257 of the Wilberforce review.
[18] Sir Benjamin Brodie, surgeon and teacher: President of the Royal College of Surgeons (1844), President of the Royal Society (1858–1861) at the time of the Oxford meeting.
[19] John Paul II, “Address to the Plenary Session on ‘The Origins and Early Evolution of Life’.” Message delivered to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences 22 October 1996, https://www.pas.va/en/magisterium/saint-john-paul-ii/1996-22-october.html.
[20] The Holy See, “Mass, Imposition of the Pallium and Conferral of the Fisherman’s Ring for the Beginning of the Petrine Ministry of the Bishop of Rome.” Homily of His Holiness Benedict XVI, St. Peter’s Square, Sunday, 24 April 2005, https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/homilies/2005/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20050424_inizio-pontificato.html. It is worth noting that this is still the Catholic Church’s view, as clearly expressed in item 366 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God—it is not ‘produced’ by the parents—and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.” https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P1B.HTM
[21] Francis Collins, The Language of God (Free Press, 2006), 200. These same words are quoted in full in Chris Mulherin, Science and Christianity: Understanding the Conflict Myth (Garratt Publishing, 2019), 55.
[22] Stephen M. Barr, “Faith and Science in Catholic Tradition: From the Early Church to Pope St. John Paul II,” (1 December, 2003), https://catholicscientists.org/articles/faith-and-science-in-catholic-tradition-from-the-early-church-to-pope-st-john-paul-ii/
[23] John Paul II, “On the Galileo Affair.” Speech delivered at the concluding summary presented by the Papal Commission, 31 October 1992, Rome. https://inters.org/John-Paul-II-conclusion-galileo-affair
[24] For a recent review of the concept of double truth, see Ann Giletti, “Double truth: medieval story reveals how you can believe two conflicting positions at once,” The Conversation, 10 July 2018, https://theconversation.com/double-truth-medieval-story-reveals-how-you-can-believe-two-conflicting-positions-at-once-96033; Also, double truth is mentioned in passing by Ungureanu (2023; footnote 1).
[25] Chris Mulherin, “An important message from ISCAST Executive Director, Chris Mulherin.” Email to the ISCAST community, 24 June 2024.
[26] Doru Costache, “One Description, Multiple Interpretations: Suggesting a Way Out of the Current Impasse,” in Eastern Orthodox Christianity and the Sciences: Theological, Philosophical, Scientific and Historical Aspects of the Dialogue. Science and Orthodox Christianity 2, ed. Christopher Knight and Alexei Nesteruk (Brepols Publishers, 2021), 33–49.
[27] Basarab Nicolescu, “Methodology of Transdisciplinarity–Levels of Reality, Logic of the Included Middle and Complexity,” Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering & Science, Vol 1 (2010), 1732; Basarab Nicolescu, (2014) From Modernity to Cosmodernity: Science, Culture, and Spirituality (State University of New York Press, 2014).
[28] Pope Francis, Laudato si’: an Encyclical Letter on Ecology and Climate (St Pauls Publications, 2015), paragraph 62, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html