Rejecting literal readings of scripture did not entail rejecting religion in medieval thought

Evidence

Bacon was right that Avicenna rejected the more literalist interpretations of the sensual pleasures the Koran ascribes to paradise; he is wrong in thinking that this led Avicenna and other “Saracen” philosophers to reject Islam and seek a better law, any more than Bacon’s embrace of science (which was subsequently to put him in prison) entailed a rejection of Christianity. It is tempting to think that, as he sat in his Franciscan prison cell, Bacon felt a certain solidarity with Avicenna (as he imagined him): both rejecting the certainties of their contemporaries in search of higher truths, both misunderstood and persecuted by an ignorant cadre of clerical purists. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1157

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader theme of misreading philosophical dissent as apostasy — parallels modern conflations of textual criticism with atheism. — connects to: Protestant literalism paid for symbolic power with obedience to the written word; the MOC “The Word Is a Fence: Language as Battleground, Property, and Partition”
• DEEPTHINKING: The parallel Bacon-Avicenna dynamic — philosophical rigor treated as heresy by clerical purists, a pattern of solidarity across religions — resists neat summary.