The paper is authored by the heads of the research project «The Development of a New Methodology for Dialogue and Cooperation between Science and Religion in Russia» (supported by John Templeton Foundation). The paper gives an overview of research results. The traditional dialogue (within Christian cultural tradition), which was largely epistemological, should be made wider and deeper thanks to new approaches — in particular looking comparatively at the very ethos of the scientific and religious communities.

The article examines the relationship between religion and science (or rational activities as a whole) as two irreducible basic aspects of human existence and two subsystems of culture, constituted by different systems of values and norms. Theories postulating their harmonious coexistence are failures, and we need to understand the profound causes of conflicts. These causes are not in the sphere of particular or general cognitive disagreements, but in fundamental difference of spiritual settings, that stand behind both religion and science.

This article deals with the basic models of philosophical understanding of religion, those constitutive characteristics of it that determine its specificity in relation to other forms of human existence. The article outlines several approaches to the description of religion: Kantian, Hegelian, phenomenological, and analytical. The special character of religious thinking is defined by its participation in faith: religious thinking is like a meeting with an object of thought that reveals itself for the thought and thereby determines our thinking.

«Science and religion» discourse plays a significant role in shaping the intellectual landscape of modern European thought. The article covers three topics: (1) it explores the meaning of this discourse in Imperial and Soviet Russia, (2) it overviews institutionalization of this discourse in modern Russia, and (3) it presents recommendations for its further development.