Gregory Dawes’ Deprovincializing Religion and Science (2021), which talks about a perennial topic in philosophy of religion regarding the relationship between science and religion, is a 57‐page part of the Cambridge Elements Series in Philosophy of Religion.

Much literature that discusses the relationship between religion and science deals specifically with the relationship between Christianity and modern science—whether promoting a conflict, integration, dialogue, or independence thesis. For example, take Alvin Plantinga's Where the Conflict Really Lies (2015), which offers an integration thesis. Or take Jerry A. Coyne's Faith Versus Fact (2015), which offers a conflict thesis. Both are referring to science in terms of modern science and to religion in terms of Christianity and, specifically, Americanized Christianity. Deprovincializing Religion and Science attempts to understand that particular discourse (i.e., between Christianity and modern science) as a small part of a broader discourse: regarding two different ways humans perceive the natural world (1). For Dawes, modern science is only a part of the process of knowing for humans who, fundamentally, make use of empirical observation of the world; Christianity, on the other hand, is only a part of a process of understanding the world by reference to metapersons—gods, spirits, and ancestors. Thus, the conflict—if there is any conflict—is between what Dawes defines as scientia and religion.

Scientia is a broader term than modern “science.” Dawes describes it as a communal tradition of efforts to understand the world through empirical observations that produce general principles about how the world generally works (6). Dawes categorizes it into four traditions, namely, (1) scientia as traditional knowledge, which we might find in many indigenous or traditional communities, (2) scientia as an integrated cosmology like we could find in ancient China, (3) scientia as natural philosophy, which we might find in Medieval Europe, and (4) scientia as specialized knowledge or what we understand today as modern science.

Likewise, “religion” is defined by Dawes more broadly as a communal tradition of efforts in dealing with metapersons to gain an advantage in the world for oneself or for a group (7). Dawes categorizes religion into two forms, namely, (1) diffused religion and (2) institutionalized religion. Diffused religion differs from institutionalized religion in that it is subtler in people's daily lives either in small‐scale societies (e.g., indigenous communities) or in larger societies such as ancient China.

Later, from Chapters 2–5, Dawes tries to elaborate the relation between those traditions of scientia and traditions of religion along four dimensions. Those dimensions are (1) a cognitive dimension regarding the content of scientific theories or religious doctrines, (2) a teleological dimension regarding the goals of each scientia or religious traditions, (3) an organizational dimension regarding any differing activities of each body, and (4) an epistemological dimension regarding types of knowledge, idioms, and sources of knowledge. In short, Dawes shows us in those four chapters that each tradition in the scientific category is related to religions in a unique way: we must not generalize that there is one thesis that will describe these relations—whether conflict, integration, and so on. It is important to note that for Dawes, a clear distinction between scientific and religious beliefs developed first only in Medieval Europe, influenced by Aristotle, who understood theology as a science that was based solely on divine revelation (27).

The lesson is this. When someone tries to generalize her claims regarding the relationship between science and religion, we first need to ask by quoting David N. Livingstone: “Which Science? Whose Religion?”