The book offers a unique approach to the question of the relationship of religious to scientific thought. Although these two modes of thought are often portrayed as contradictory, Michael Barnes argues that they evolved together and are therefore complementary. He examines the very intracate relationships that have existed, and continue to exist, between the two. Barnes does not shrink from the controversy, but also insists that cultural differences must not be the basis of judgments of superiority and inferiority among human beings.