I’m ateist just to be clear, but it’s undeniable that the path that lead to science stems from academia and univirsities rules and funded by clergy.

Leibniz was a fervent (or rather, average for the time) believer and bended backward to include God in each and any of his hypothesis about the world (so much so that in front of the logical necessities of motion he posited that God planned it all in advance, incuding some funny stuff about each of us being already alive in the ballsacks of our ancestors, to go around the fact that I wouldn’t be “godlike” to just spawn new souls every couple of seconds). He invented calculus and mechanical calculators and the likes.

Newton was basically an astrologer.

Bruno hypotized the existence of multiple worlds in space and, to him, that was cool because it meant the domain of God was even wider than previously thought. The Church of the Earth did not like that idea.

On the other hand, Saint Thomas and Saint Agustine both brought back the (relatively) modern approaches of Aristotles and Plato respectively, with a focus on reason as a driving force.

I could agree to disagree but I assume we’d both hate that.

Edit: I guess you stressed the point of “clergy” rather than “fervent believer”. I guess? I don’t find it that relevant since the members of the clergy, monks mostly, were doing their own thing and there was no centralyzed clergy research plan. You think something too weird and too popular, and the pope comes for you.