A prominent geologist and author believes that the debate between science and religion is actually a 'conflict within religion' over how to view science.
David Montgomery said in an interview with the Harvard Gazette that he found that the clash was down to how Christians can interpret scientific findings to fit the Bible's teachings on how the world works.
Montgomery is the author of the 2013 book "The Rocks Don't Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah's Flood," in which he attempts to demonstrate that geology is influenced by flood and creation stories in different faiths.
The geologist said that he came to that conclusion while he was doing research for the book. Montgomery noted that science and religion approach natural history from two different directions, and come into conflict only when scientific discoveries come into conflict with what Christianity and the Bible are teaching.
Montgomery added that he was surprised to learn about a long-standing thought in Christian theology that nature and the Bible cannot come into conflict with themselves because they are written "by the same author," which is God.
"In other words, there is a strong tradition in Christianity that what one can learn from the study of nature must inform how one interprets the Bible," he shared.
Thus, he says, Christianity clashes with science because it does not understand how to interpret scientific findings in the context of its own teachings.
"While the collective enterprise of science does not need any particular religion, or religion at all, all religions must grapple with how to interpret their own beliefs in the context of scientific discoveries about how our world works," Montgomery noted.
"I've come to see the war between science and religion as better viewed as a conflict within religion over how to view science," the geologist concluded in the interview.