Science vs religion: Dan Brown’s pursuit to bridge the divide continues

A reader who last encountered Dan Brown in his global bestseller The Da Vinci Code would be surprised to read his latest, The Secret of Secrets. At first casual glance, it would seem that just about everything about the series has changed in the intervening 22 years except the protagonist, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, who has remained curiously, obstinately, and almost literally stuck-in-time.

The Secret of Secrets begins when a manuscript written by Katherine Solomon, the foremost scientist working on the (pseudo)scientific concept of non-localised consciousness, is stolen by unknown persons, and Solomon herself goes missing. Her partner, Langdon, must evade capture by the police for a suspected bomb threat while trying to figure out what the “secret of secrets” that Solomon planned to reveal in her book truly was, in order to find who might want to suppress it and where Solomon herself might be.

As is evident, this is a far cry from Brown’s usual globe-trotting adventure-thriller like The Da Vinci Code or Angels and Demons, where Langdon rushes against time to uncover a long-buried historical mystery following a trail of clues and hidden symbols.

Move away from history

The focus in The Secret of Secrets has almost completely moved away from history, with Brown talking about the historical background of each monument that Langdon visits, but never truly making them a part of the story except as a prop or a backdrop. Brown has also moved away from the usage of a historical and physical MacGuffin, choosing instead the intangible, far-fetched, and scientific principle of non-localised consciousness to drive his plot. Langdon surprisingly never plays an important enough role in the narrative, and his skills as a symbologist are barely tested. It is Solomon’s knowledge that moves the narrative, and her motivations that drive it chiefly. However, a closer analysis may reveal that these changes are not as drastic as they seem on the surface and are actually in line with the core philosophical argument that Brown has always posited through his books.

Two sides of a conflict

Throughout human history, religion and science have been placed at two ends of a spectrum. Since the 19th century, the rapid advancement of science and increased public interest in logic and rationality as a direct result of industrialisation and other developments, such as Darwin’s theory of evolution has gradually led to the loss of the absolute authority of the divine, and hence, in Nietzschean terms, to the death of God. Brown situates his book continually in the chasm that arises out of this socio-historical rivalry — in Angels and Demons, this divide is most on the face: the literal Catholic Church is put under threat by the Gods of Science. While this strain is not immediately pronounced in his other novels, it can definitely be identified as the undercurrents driving the plot. In Inferno, a billionaire geneticist, inspired by Dante’s vision of Hell, creates a global virus to control the problem of overpopulation. Origin deals with the murder of a futurist-scientist on the eve of a revelation that threatens to destabilise the very base of all religions by disproving the source of absolute divine authority – that God created the world. The Da Vinci Code, too, asserts the (scientific) humanity of Jesus by deconstructing his religious image and depicting him as a living, breathing human capable of procreation. As is plainly evident in all his writings, Brown is thoroughly concerned with investigating the basis of the science/religion schism, and thus, his focus on a mystery of science instead of a mystery of religion and history in The Secret of Secrets is not new, and has been, in varying degrees, a common developing thematic concern throughout his bibliography.

Langdon’s role

One might wonder why Langdon, unlike the series’ narrative focus, has not only remained constant but has also not undergone any growth in his personal philosophies or belief systems. This queer stagnation of Langdon’s character and Brown’s frequent, deliberate, almost amnesiac avoidance of the events that have occurred in the series previously is reminiscent of other recurring central characters such as those in detective fiction, where the central character does not need to change or grow with the successive narratives as the primary aim and focus of the writer is on the plot itself, and the intricacies of each individual case. The writer does not need to undertake the heavy burden of specific characterisation beyond a general one as most of their book are plot and not character driven.

Similarly, Brown’s plots themselves carry the burden of entertainment and, albeit veiled, philosophical commentary. While Langdon can be the agent that moves the story along, in most cases, his only contribution is his academic knowledge. He is a man squarely situated in the realm of religion and history, who is continually thrown into a world of science, from which he must barter a peace.

Glorified action hero

A curious by-product of Brown’s gradual shift away from writing an action-adventure book to something that is essentially science fiction, then, is the reduction in importance of Robert Langdon. As the series has moved more and more away from a world of religion into one of science, Langdon’s overall impact on the narrative has decreased as well. Thus, in The Secret of Secrets, dealing almost completely with scientific conflicts and mysteries, Langdon is nothing more than a glorified action hero who occasionally gives lectures on history.

In conclusion, it must be noted that none of Brown’s novels would reach positive conclusions without the amalgamation of Langdon’s religion/history with the opponent’s science. Further, none of the stories themselves has a definitive ending where either science or religion triumphs. Brown always negotiates a temporary peace through which the rivalry, though retained, is momentarily put on hold. Brown has always questioned the creation of binaries, and has been changing his narratives to reflect the evolution of his final, and ultimate philosophical argument — that the two world-views are not inherently oppositional or mutually exclusive. In reality, they are linked in a symbiotic relationship, acting as separate parts of a wholistic socio-historic picture which would be left incomplete without one or the other.

Archisman Ghosh studies English at St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata

Published – February 05, 2026 08:30 am IST