“How so? Descartes believed in God, believed He was rational and benevolent, maybe more on the deistic side but he was certainly not an atheist. I’m not sure what your criticism of the author refers to.”
Descartes was considered an atheist by many in the church. The church suppressed his writings. They put his books on the banned list.
The author extolled the universities of that time. Descartes revolted against the ‘scientific’ teachings of the universities which at that time were teaching that the sun went around the earth among other things.
All of what you state about Descartes are examples of political conflicts and have no effect on the contributions of this Christian believer to the foundations of science.
Re: “Descartes was considered an atheist by many in the church. The church suppressed his writings. They put his books on the banned list. The author extolled the universities of that time. Descartes revolted against the ‘scientific’ teachings of the universities which at that time were teaching that the sun went around the earth among other things.”
But, what does that have to do with the author’s thesis that the idea of modern science arose from the belief that a rational God created a rational universe that is governed by physical laws which can be studied, predictions made, i.e. The Law of Causality?
Descartes was not an atheist - he plainly said so. Misinformed, sinful, and jealous people, inside and outside the Christian churches, have always existed and have done terrible things in God’s name, but that doesn’t mean that the author’s premise regarding the Christian view of an ordered, rational universe led to the rise of scientific method is incorrect or that the people of science he lists weren’t motivated by that Christian world-view.
They may, and certainly did not always agree, but their underlying premise of an ordered universe created by God still existed.