But as modern "scientific" researchers are beginning to discover, such a conclusion is simplistic at best. The effect of new studies.

             Has been to open up a new range of historiographical questions, questions that lay aside presuppositions about the assumed cognitive superiority of scientific knowledge, or the triumph of western scientific rationality over other thought forms, or the victory of scientists over theologians in the struggle for cultural authority. 1 .

             The origins of Protestantism lie in the battle between different "truths." Even before science had made such strides that traditional, religious explanations of the physical world had begun to be overturned, there existed a battle between the reasoned truth as Lutherans and other Protestants saw it, and the irrational, or perverted "truths" of the Roman Catholic Church. Men like Rene Descartes sought to re-join science and religion in a way that would be acceptable to all. Even if certain dogmatic ideas could not be proved to the satisfaction of everyone, all churches could at least take confidence in the existence of an absolute truth. "Descartes sought to provide foundations for knowledge that were absolutely certain, and thus to stem the tide of doubt that prevailed in his time." 2 The carefully reasoned system of inquiry that Descartes employed was especially appealing to Protestants. So long as an absolute truth actually existed, Lutherans and Calvinists could find solace in the fact that a methodical study of the Holy Bible, and other "authoritative" religious texts, would provide the needed answers. "The Church, as a source for absolute truth claims, came to be substituted, through Luther and other reformers, by the authority of individual conscience and appeal to the Bible." 3 .

             The kind of religion that Martin Luther had preached was an apparently rational creed. Taking into account the level of scientific knowledge that existed in his day - and for a considerable time afterwards - it seemed fully possible to understand the cosmos in rational terms.