Author Dan Brown this week described the relationship between science and religion as "partners", insisting: "They are two different languages telling the same story".

Speaking at Penguin's Annual Lecture in New Delhi this week, Brown said that for "the first time in history the line between science and religion has started to blur".

As the author of the controversial The Da Vinci Code, which suggests that Jesus had a child with Mary Magdalene, Brown has sparked significant debate about the role of religion in modern society.

His most famous novel depicted Catholic group Opus Dei as a secretive and murderous cult – a move that was denounced by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops as "deeply abhorrent".

Despite the backlash from many conservative Christians, Indian newspaper The Hindu reports that Brown stressed the importance of learning from one another's beliefs.

"The world is getting smaller every day and now, more than ever, there is enormous danger in believing that we are infallible. That our version of the truth is absolute and that everyone who does not think like we do is wrong and therefore our enemy," he said.

"For one's own survival, it is critical that we live without malice that we educate ourselves and that we ask difficult questions and above all we engage in dialogue especially with those whose ideas are not our own."

Brown added that it is imperative that we learn to hold religion and science together, rather than losing one in favour of the other.

"While science dwells on the answers, religion savours the questions," he said. "Ironically, we now turn to God for only for a handful of existential questions which science has never been able to answer like 'Where did we come from? Why are we here? And what happens when we die?"