Articles

Recovering A Lost Theological Genealogy: Science, Religion, and the Protestant Tradition

James C. Ungureanu

Abstract

James Ungureanu traces the historical origins of the "conflict thesis" between science and religion, arguing that the narrative of inevitable warfare was not externally imposed but emerged from a specific trajectory within liberal Protestantism. Tracing a line from seventeenth-century rationalism to nineteenth-century scientific naturalism, he demonstrates how reformers sought to purify religion by dismantling ecclesiastical dogma and tradition. This progressive, anti-dogmatic shift inadvertently privatized faith and hollowed out its supernatural core, paving the way for a secular modern framework. In contrast, the nineteenth-century Catholic tradition offered an alternative trajectory, leveraging its sacramental and metaphysical resources to assert the fundamental unity of scientific inquiry and revealed truth.