How Not to Link the Reformation and Science: Reflections on Brad Gregory’s The Unintended Reformation

Abstract

This article evaluates Brad Gregory's argument in The Unintended Reformation that links the Reformation with the rise of secular science. I provide an overview of Gregory's claims and make two criticisms, arguing that Gregory's thesis lacks historical evidence to support it and mistakenly implies that retaining the framework of premodern metaphysics would have prevented the rise of scientific naturalism. The paper concludes by pointing to more positive accounts on the connection between the Reformation and science by recent historians.

The Development of the Natural Sciences in the Context of the Reformation

“…In addressing the ideas discussed in this paper, the question of how to analyze the relationship between religion and science in the context of the Reformation process is inevitable. Before the fifteenth century, the natural sciences had already achieved certain developments and laid a considerable foundation [2]. In all the regions affected by religion, the Christian regions affected by the Reformation showed a relatively good development of the natural sciences during the Reformation process.…”