Augustine has an interesting comment on this:
With the mind and intellect which you have given them, they investigate these matters. They have found out much. (…) People who have no understanding of these things are amazed and stupefied. Those who know are exultant and are admired. Their irreligious pride makes them withdraw from you and eclipse your great light from reaching themselves. They can foresee a future eclipse of the sun but do not perceive their own eclipse in the present. For they do not in a religious spirit investigate the source of the intelligence with which they research into these matters. Moreover, when they do discover that you are their Maker, they do not give themselves to you so that you may preserve what you have made. (V.4)
Augustine, an intelligent and educated man, does not need to forsake scientific explanations of the natural universe to glorify his God. He suggests instead that things of nature can be scientifically explained by man because God had given man the ability to observe, research, and theorize.
In the time of Augustine, belief based on faith was given more import than what might contradict that by scientific thought and findings. Augustine is seeking a way to accept both.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
Galileo will also use this in his own arguments again the church. He knew Augustine well.
Hmm, turning it against religion? Anything can be twisted I suppose; it’d be interesting to read Galileo’s take on it.
I am researching unified theory with interest in proposing that the origins of the big bang, matter, space, time & forces lie in an infinite non-physical dimension. Other than a summary of ‘Grand Unified Theory’ I have found very little. I wonder if you might point me in the right direction with respect to other research in unifying the fields on this basis.
I’m not really well-read on this and asked a friend. He suggested that you might try Unified Field Theory and Theology, something like that.