ABSTRACT
Christianity and philosophy might have been enemies but in fact, after some sharp words by Paul and Tertullian, they reached an accommodation. For a thousand years the accommodation extended to science. In the eighteenth century the chief threat to Christian belief came from philosophy. Science had indeed proved that the Earth is not the centre of the universe and that it turns on its axis, but this seemed less damaging than the arguments of Hume and Spinoza. Before the advent of telescopes and microscopes science was known as 'philosophy of nature' or 'natural philosophy' and regarded as a part of a group of studies which also included what we call 'philosophy' today – logic, metaphysics, ethics and so on. Popular orthodoxy continues to treat the Bible as religion's attempt at science. The Society of Jesus always had a taste for straight astronomy. Others invented sciences of their own: scientific theology, scientific biblical criticism, scientific comparative religion.
