Roger Bacon treated religious conversion as a rational science

Evidence

Bacon’s ambition is to create a science of religion: a rational basis for Christian truth and a scientific way of understanding the different religions of the world. He affirms that the only two ways to bring in- fidels to the faith are through miracles or through human reason; since we cannot count on miracles, rational argumentation is the only real alternative. He acknowledges that Gregory the Great had affirmed that “Faith to which reason affords a proof has no merit”; this means, Bacon affirms, that Christians should accept the authority of Scripture as superior to human reason; it does not mean that one cannot use reason to bring the infidel to the faith. One of the keys to this scientific approach to religion was astrology, which explained the differences in the world’s various religions and which predicted the ultimate victory of Christianity. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1147

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader theme of premodern rational explanations of religion, and to Bacon’s treatment of astrology as the most rational science.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how did Bacon respond to the obvious tension that if astrology predicts the victory of Christianity it must also have predicted Muhammad’s rise, which served the same causal frame?