Conflict Between Science and Religion - Assignment Example

When the Copernican theory of planetary motion became well known in 1543 through the publication of his book, De revolutionibus, the geocentric model of the universe as implied in the Bible received a great setback. There were also questions raised about the notion that God created the earth and universe in seven days. The scriptures also speak in a plain manner that the earth is stationary, but science proved that the earth was rotating around the sun. To reconcile science and religion became a Herculean task for the faithful and several approaches were adopted to find out a coherent explanation.

“Grant us space from our meditations on the secret recesses of your law, and do not lock the gate to us as we knock. It is not for nothing that by your will so many pages of scripture are opaque and obscure. These forests are not without deer which recover their strength in them and restore themselves by walking and feeding, by resting and ruminating'.There was a group of theologians who still adhered to the literal interpretation of scriptures. This was one of the three major responses to the Copernican model.

According to this group, the first chapter of Genesis was ample proof that God created earth and heaven in six periods of 24 hours and they also rejected the heliocentric model of planetary motion in favor of the geocentric model.There also existed a second approach that tried to interpret the Bible based on its allegorical meaning. This approach says that certain passages of the Bible are not to be taken in their literal sense, as they are written in a way to have an underlying meaning. This approach had originated in the Middle Ages itself and had been put forward in many ways and by many propagators.

The Alexandrian and Antiochene schools of theological thought were the oldest ones in this area. The Alexandrian school, based on the thoughts of Philo of Alexandria, was pronounced for the view that the literal meaning of the Bible had to be understood in terms of allegory. McGrath described the approach of Antiochene school as rather historic, in arguing that the message of each passage in the Bible was relevant only in the historical context and the people to whom it directly talked to.