When and how did science and religion seperate

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Looking at history, at one point the church was one of the most into science. Backing other’s discoveries and a lot of monks and priests even being considered scientists. But then at one point science became heresy and some of the scientists we know of today ended up in arguments with the church and I’m honestly intrigued at how it all happened.

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It began with voluntarism and nominalism in the 14th century. Up until that time scholasticism focused on God’s intellect. Theologian philosopher Thomas Aquinas proposed that God’s intellect was central and rational. Because of this the creation reflected its creator. The universe was rational and as such comprehensible like its creator. This is really the wellspring of science. One of the basic assumptions of science is that the universe is comprehensible, and all one had to do was to apply rational thought to understand it.

Starting in the 14th century Don Scotus proposed the idea of voluntarism. Voluntarism focused on God‘s will rather than his intellect. Scotus suggested that God could will anything at any time and as such the rational nature of the universe was not necessarily solid. Nature like God would be unpredictable. The sundering of rationality as central to God’s nature was the beginning of the wedge between science and religion.

Keep in mind that scholasticism still existed and was the basis and focus of much of catholic understanding and doctrine. To this day Catholicism and science are not at odds with one another.

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