Traces on a Muddy Shore. Science and religion in Colonial and Early Independent Río de la Plata

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper is intended as a contribution to the study of science and religion in late modern Catholic societies. I explore the treatment of natural philosophy vis-à-vis religious (Roman Catholic) authority, the teaching of Biblical geology, and the use of natural theology in texts from Río de la Plata in the transition from late colonial to early independent times (1770-1815). After reviewing the assimilation of modern science into scholastic teaching and the articulation of reason and religious authority, the article considers the handling of the early history of the Earth in the theses of scholastic teachers and in the geological memoirs of the naturalist priest from Montevideo Dámaso Larrañaga. The core of the paper is devoted to the treatment of natural theology in Larrañaga’s Diary of Natural History and in the speeches and documents of enlightened crown bureaucrats. The conclusion is reached that the harmonious character of the relationships between science and religion in this period and location harboured tensions (such as the blurred frontier between natural theology and natural religion) which could be accounted for in terms of the inherent inconsistencies in the programme of Catholic Enlightenment.