Magisteria: The Entangled Histories of Science and Religion

Spencer (Darwin and God), a senior fellow at Christian think tank Theos, surveys the entwined history of science and religion in this dense, ambitious outing. From the classical world until the present, Spencer argues, science and religion have not been locked in an “endless war,” and, conversely, they have often worked hand-in-hand. For instance, the first successful attempt to measure the effect of pressure on the temperature and volume of a gas was “based in the gardens of a monastery, drew on the help of its monks, conducted by the Catholic Florin Périer [and] suggested... by the Catholic Descartes.” Meanwhile, Isaac Newton contended that the solar system “could not have arisen without the design” of an “intelligent” being. Spencer touches on the Islamic “Golden Age” of science and draws links between Protestantism and empiricism in 18th-century Europe, spurred partly by a reading of scripture that posited “humans were created to know.” The most provocative section probes artificial intelligence and the question of “what/who is the human... and who gets to decide?”—a dilemma that has preoccupied religious thinkers over time. While Spencer presents a nuanced account, it sprawls to its detriment and hinges on arguments that often rely on a glut of repetitive anecdotes rather than deeper analyses. Readers will have to be patient to get the most out of this. (May)