Curiosity and Scientific Knowledge in Opposition to Religious Knowledge

Abstract

This chapter addresses the contrast between the way curiosity is regarded in scientific disciplines and the way it has been regarded in the Christian tradition. In the main part of its discussion this chapter examines the opposition between scientific knowledge resulting from scientific discovery and theoretical advances, and also religious knowledge embedded in doctrine and church teachings. Three historical examples of this opposition are presented and discussed. One relates to the Copernican heliocentric system. The second relates to Darwinism. And the third relates to the cosmological theory of the Big Bang. Various resolutions of the perceived incompatibility between these instances of scientific knowledge and traditionally received religious knowledge are considered.