Fractals

Hidden Beauty Revealed in Mathematics

by Dr. Jason Lisle on January 1, 2007; last featured September 26, 2007
Featured in Answers Magazine
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Did you know that amazing, beautiful shapes have been built into numbers? Believe
it or not, numbers like 1, 2, 3, etc., contain a “secret code”—a hidden beauty
embedded within them.
Did you know that amazing, beautiful shapes have been built into numbers? Believe
it or not, numbers like 1, 2, 3, etc., contain a “secret code”—a hidden beauty
embedded within them. Numbers have existed from the beginning of creation, yet
researchers have only recently discovered the hidden shapes that the Lord placed
within them.1 Such beauty defies a secular explanation but confirms biblical
creation.
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The strange shape in Figure 1 is a sort of “map.” Most maps that we think of are
representations of something physical, like a roadmap or a map of a country. But
the map in Figure 1 does not represent a physical object; instead it represents a
set of numbers. In mathematics, the term “set” refers to a group of numbers that
have a common property. For example, there is the set of positive numbers (4 and 7
belong to this set; -3 and 0 do not).
A few decades ago, researchers discovered a very strange and interesting set called
“the Mandelbrot set.”2 Figure 1 is a map (a plot) that shows which numbers belong
to the Mandelbrot set.
What do these images mean?
Figures 1 & 2

Figures 1 & 2 (click to enlarge)

A “set” is a group of numbers that all have a common property. For example, the
numbers 4 and 6 are part of the set of even numbers, whereas 3 and 7 do not belong
to that set. The Mandelbrot set is a group of numbers defined by a simple formula
which is explained in the In-Depth box in this article. Some numbers belong to the
Mandelbrot set, and others don’t.
Figure 1 is a plot—a graph that shows which numbers are part of the Mandelbrot set.
Points that are black represent numbers that are part of the set. So, the numbers,
-1, -1/2, and 0 are part of the Mandelbrot set. Points that are colored (red and
yellow) are numbers that do not belong to the Mandelbrot set, such as the number
1/2. Although the formula that defines the Mandelbrot set is extremely simple, the
plotted shape is extremely complex and interesting. When we zoom in on this shape,
we see that it contains beautiful spirals and streamers of infinite complexity.
Such complexity has been built into numbers by the Lord.
The Mandelbrot set (Figure 1) is infinitely detailed. In Figure 2, we have zoomed
in on the “tail” of the Mandelbrot set. And what should we find but another
(smaller) version of the original. This new, smaller Mandelbrot set also has a tail
containing a miniature version of itself, which has a miniature version of itself,
etc.—all the way to infinity.
The way to find if a number belongs to the Mandelbrot set is to put it through a
particular formula (the details are shown in the In-Depth box in this article). In
this way, we can check every possible number to see if it belongs to the Mandelbrot
set, and then plot the results on a graph. We color the point black if it does
belong to the Mandelbrot set; we give it a different color if it does not. For
example, in Figure 1 we can see that the numbers 0 and -1 are part of the
Mandelbrot set, whereas the number 1/2 is not.
Evolution cannot account for fractals. These shapes have existed since creation and
cannot have evolved since numbers cannot be changed.
The Mandelbrot set is a very complex and detailed shape; in fact it is infinitely
detailed. If we zoom in on a graphed piece of the Mandelbrot set, we see that it
appears even more complicated than the original. In Figure 2, we have zoomed in on
the “tail” of the Mandelbrot set. And what should we find but another (smaller)
version of the original; a “baby” Mandelbrot set is built into the tail of the
“parent.” This new, smaller Mandelbrot set also has a tail containing a miniature
version of itself, which has a miniature version of itself, etc.—all the way to
infinity. The Mandelbrot set is called a “fractal”3 since it has an infinite number
of its own shape built into itself.
In Figure 3, we have zoomed into a region called the “Valley of Seahorses.” By
zooming in on one of these “seahorses” we can see that it is a very complex spiral
(see Figure 4). If we continue to zoom in, the order and beauty continue to
increase as shown in Figures 5 and 6. As we zoom in yet again, we see in Figure 7
another “baby” version of the original Mandelbrot set at the center of the
intersecting spirals; it appears virtually the same as the original shape, but it
is 5 million times smaller.
Where did this incredible organization and beauty come from? Some might say that a
computer produced this organization and beauty. After all, a computer was used to
produce the graphs in the figures. But the computer did not create the fractal. It
only produced the map—the representation of the fractal. A graph of something is
not the thing itself, just as a map of the United States is not the same thing as
the United States. The computer was merely a tool that was used to discover a shape
that is an artifact of the mathematics itself.4
God alone can take credit for mathematical truths, such as fractals. Such
transcendent truths are a reflection of God’s thoughts. Therefore when we discover
mathematical truths we are, in the words of the astronomer Johannes Kepler,
“thinking God’s thoughts after Him.” The shapes shown in the figures have been
built into mathematics by the Creator of mathematics. We could have chosen
different color schemes for the graphs, but we cannot alter the shape—it is set by
God and His nature.
Evolution cannot account for fractals. These shapes have existed since creation and
cannot have evolved, since numbers cannot change—the number 7 will never be
anything but 7. But fractals are perfectly consistent with biblical creation. The
Christian understands that there are transcendent truths because the Bible states
many of them.5 A biblical creationist expects to find beauty and order in the
universe, not only in the physical universe,6 but in the abstract realm of
mathematics as well. This order and beauty is possible because there is a logical
God who has imparted order and beauty into His universe.
Infinite Complexity?
This sequence of images (Figures 3–7) shows what happens as we continually zoom in
on a very small region of the Mandelbrot set. We start by zooming in on the
highlighted region of the Mandelbrot set called the “Valley of Seahorses” (Figure
3). By zooming in on one of these “seahorses” we can see that it is a very complex
spiral (Figure 4). We continue to zoom in (the region is indicated by the grayscale
inset) in Figures 5, 6 and 7. Figure 7 shows a “baby” Mandelbrot set; it is
virtually identical to the original shape, but it is 5 million times smaller.
Figure 3

Figure 3 (click to enlarge)

________________
Figure 4

Figure 4 (click to enlarge)

________________
Figure 5

Figure 5 (click to enlarge)

________________
Figure 6
Figure 6 (click to enlarge)
________________
Figure 7

Figure 7 (click to enlarge)

In-Depth
The formula for the Mandelbrot set is zn+1 = zn2 + c. In this formula, c is the
number being evaluated, and z is a sequence of numbers (z0, z1, z2, z3…) generated
by the formula. The first number z0 is set to zero; the other numbers will depend
on the value of c. If the sequence of zn stays small (zn ≤ 2 for all n), c is then
classified as being part of the Mandelbrot set. For example, let’s evaluate the
point c = 1. Then the sequence of zn is 0, 1, 2, 5, 26, 677… . Clearly this
sequence is not staying small, so the number 1 is not part of the Mandelbrot set.
The different shades/colors in the figures indicate how quickly the z sequence
grows when c is not a part of the Mandelbrot set.
The complex numbers are also evaluated. Complex numbers contain a “real” part and
an “imaginary” part. The real part is either positive or negative (or zero), and
the imaginary part is the square-root of a negative number. By convention, the real
part of the complex number (RE[c]) is the x-coordinate of the point, and the
imaginary part (IM[c]) is the y-coordinate. So, every complex number is represented
as a point on a plane. Many other formulae could be substituted and would reveal
similar shapes.

Does Math Prove Evolution?

on December 18, 2010
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A new mathematical model “has offered even more evidence of the correctness of
evolutionary theory.” So how does math “prove” evolution?
News Source
* PhysOrg: “New Mathematics Research Proves There’s Plenty of Time for Evolution”
Mathematician Herbert Wilf and biologist Warren Ewens, both of the University of
Pennsylvania, have teamed up to research the claim that even hundreds of millions
of years isn’t enough time for life to have evolved, genetically speaking. Their
model purports to show mathematically that, given plausible mutation rates and a
selection mechanism (akin to natural selection), there would be ample time in
earth’s history for the genomes of complex life-forms to have evolved.
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There would be ample time in earth’s history for the genomes of complex life-forms
to have evolved.
The team’s idea is virtually identical to an illustration originally used by
Richard Dawkins more than two decades ago to argue for the plausibility of
evolution. Thus, the numerous critiques of that illustration apply equally to the
new research; for one prominent deconstruction see Dawkins’ weasel revisited.
The primary flaw in both Dawkins’ model and Wilf and Ewens’ is that the mutation
and selection process occur in what is essentially a biological “vacuum”: a full-
length genome simply exists, and the process of replication and mutation occur by
some exogenous biological process. Thus, even if the genome contains no meaningful
information, the model allows the genome to reproduce without difficulty—and to do
so again and again, with “correct” mutations magically preserved throughout the
process. In reality, a creature can only survive to reproduce if its genome
controls a host of complex biological functions; in the meantime, mutated genes can
wreak biological havoc even if other genes are intact.
Thus, ignoring whether the math in the paper is accurate (though we assume it is),
the model is an incorrect abstraction from reality; the model is basically rigged
because of its flaw. Moreover, scientists and mathematicians on both sides of the
debate have put forward a range of models, each claiming to show how evolution is
possible (or impossible); unfortunately, the models often seem to “talk past” one
another, illustrating points of contention in the origins debate rather than
actually “proving” anything.
Besides, we often make the point that even if evolution had no theoretical
difficulties—even if it were entirely “plausible”—that does not indicate that it
actually occurred and the Bible clearly states in Genesis that God created
everything by His Word in 6 days. Simply put, “could have” does not mean “did”!
Is Math Just a Tool?
Biblical Worldview
by Ron Tagliapietra on January 1, 2014; last featured March 1, 2015
Featured in Answers Magazine
AUDIO VERSION
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Surely there’s one thing Christians and atheists can agree on—math. Like dirt and
rocks, it's not good or bad—it's just a tool. 2 + 2 = 4 no matter what you believe.
You don’t need the Bible to appreciate and use tools properly . . . right?
I’ve often heard Christians, even Christian teachers, say that some aspects of our
lives, such as math, are just tools, neither good nor bad. No “Christian
perspective” is required to fully understand and use them.
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When pressed for a reason, they often say something like this: “Things like math
can be used for good or evil—so they must be neutral. With math, you can build a
bridge to help travelers (good), or you can build an atom bomb to kill people
(evil). So math is amoral, like rocks. With rocks, you can build a house or kill
people.”
This may sound reasonable on the surface, but it fails to consider what the Bible
says about “What is good?”
Jesus said, “There is none good but . . . God” (Mark 10:18), since God alone is
perfect, complete, and without moral corruption. Yet the Scriptures also use the
word good to describe God’s creatures (1 Timothy 4:4) and those who live godly (3
John 11). This broader sense of “reflecting God” in being conformed to the purpose
of God’s design is the sense relevant here.
Everything God made was “very good,” and God wants His glory to be seen in every
little detail of our lives—“whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do” (1
Corinthians 10:31). This truth can transform your view of all human endeavors,
including the liberal arts (the study of language, music, astronomy, biology,
logic, . . . and math).
God’s “Very Good” Creation
The argument that math is neutral like rocks ignores the fact that God called all
creation, even the rocks, good when He created them on the third day (as part of
the dry land; Genesis 1:10–13). At the end of Creation Week, He declared the rocks
very good as part of His creation (Genesis 1:31).
Furthermore, God’s creations are still good, even after the Curse (see 1 Timothy
4:4). Jesus said that if people do not praise Him, the rocks would cry out in
praise of their Creator (Luke 19:40). So rocks are good; they are intended by God
to be used for good purposes. However, like anything else, they can be misused for
evil. In fact, God declared the rocks good before He created a person to use them
for anything at all, whether good or evil.
So did God create math (the rules that govern numbers and equations) like He
created rocks? He certainly made numbers, the basis of math, because He counted the
days of creation. When God declared that everything He made was “very good,” this
included both the visible things and the invisible things, such as language and
numbers.
Numbers, then, are like rocks—both are good! Both are intended by God for good, but
both can be misused for evil.
In fact, all the liberal arts are good. The Bible, either explicitly or implicitly,
contains each before Adam’s Fall: numbers for math, words for speech and language,
days for history, singing for music (see Job 38:7), stars for astronomy, animals
for biology, and conditional statements for logic (if you eat . . . , you will
die). God’s creation (Genesis 1–3) gives each of the liberal arts a good
foundation.
No Scripture supports the neutrality of anything. God made all things good.
Thus, the use of something is different from its nature. Just because something can
be used for good or evil does not make the thing amoral. In fact, no Scripture
supports the neutrality of anything. God made everything good. It is people in this
fallen world that pervert their good purpose. God still intends us to use all our
resources to glorify Him; so they are good and their purposes are good, until we
misuse them contrary to God’s purpose.
The Good Uses of Math
Math is good in many ways, and we should consciously appreciate its value. First
and most important, the characteristics of math reflect characteristics of God, its
Creator. They help us understand Him better. Consider just three examples.1
1. Math is true. Most students know this, since there’s always a right answer. God
is true (Deuteronomy 32:4).
2. Math is orderly. Algebra requires arithmetic, trigonometry requires algebra,
etc. God is orderly (I Corinthians 14:40).
3. Math teaches us about infinity. For any number, no matter how big, you can
always find a bigger number by adding one. Likewise, no matter how small a decimal
or fraction is, you can always find a smaller number by dividing it in half.
Infinity is also involved in repeating decimals, sequences, series, and geometry
(lines extend infinitely). Infinity gets even more attention in calculus (limits)
and sizes of sets (cardinality). Of the liberal arts, math seems best at teaching
us about infinity. God is infinite (Psalm 147:5).
Math is also essential for fulfilling God’s dominion mandate, originally given to
Adam (Genesis 1:28). Math is an important tool in building everything, from
telescopes to dams. God commanded Moses to use math in taking a census of the
nation (Numbers 1), and He also commanded artisans to use math to build the
tabernacle to exact specifications (Exodus 25:9–28). All men exercise God-given
dominion over creation (Genesis 1:28).
We also see the value of math in our lives by its fruit. Jesus said you will know a
“tree by his fruit” (Matthew 12:33). What fruits are harvested from the tree of
math, especially in school? First, math develops a high regard for truth and
accuracy, which reflect God, who is true and accurate (Numbers 23:19; Ezekiel
45:10). Next, every student eventually grapples with a seeming impossible problem.
This develops perseverance, a godly attribute (Ephesians 6:18). Finally, math
develops thinking skills. Despite complaints (“I’m never gonna use this stuff!”),
students will reason and solve problems throughout their lives. God is a God of
reason (Isaiah 1:18) and expects us to hone our minds (Ecclesiastes 10:10; Mark
12:24–27; John 3:10).
How should God’s good foundation be built into our lives? After all, shouldn’t we
study everything in light of God’s purposes? Christian teachers need not take a lot
of time from the mechanics of math but should address its significance. They should
refer to the Bible for the morality, foundations, and philosophy of every subject
(see “God and Math,” Answers, Jan.–Mar. 2012).
Good education doesn’t mean just “leaving out all the bad stuff.” In fact, the
worst error in secular classes is that they leave God out. That evil viewpoint is
at the core of modern humanistic religion. To teach others that truths exist
without God—rather than giving God glory for all He is and does—is idolatry.
Unfortunately, this is not being taught at most Christian schools.2 Moreover, only
a handful of Christian colleges give God and His Word any attention in math
classes. This should not be. Just as The Genesis Flood sparked the modern creation
science movement by decrying the school’s failure to teach biblical creation,
evangelicals need to take a similar stand in the other liberal arts, even
mathematics, which have been similarly taken over by humanistic thinking.
Christian parents and teachers who strive to put God’s Word back at the center of
the sciences should do the same in every discipline, including math. This is the
real mark of a Christian—giving God glory in all things. Where is the Bible outside
of Bible classes, even in Christian schools? There is as much a problem in other
departments as there is in science!
Ron Tagliapietra is an adjunct math instructor at National Louis University in
Chicago, Illinois. He is the author of the math textbooks from BJU Press, as well
as Math for God’s Glory.
Celebrate Einstein’s Birthday with Pi on 3.14.15
by Avery Foley and Frost Smith on March 14, 2015
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Today is March 14, 2015 or 3.14.15. That string of numbers looks familiar to many
of us because they are the first five digits of pi: 3.1415. Pi (π) is a constant
and has a list of digits that goes on for what may be infinity. It’s the ratio of
the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Having the dates of the calendar
match with the numbers of pi including the abbreviated year only happens once a
century on March 14.
This date is also unique because it’s the famous physicist Dr. Albert Einstein’s
birthday today (March 14, 1879–April 18, 1955). Einstein is remembered most for his
general theory of relativity, or his mass-energy equivalence (E=mc2), which has
helped scientists to better understand and predict how the universe works.
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A True and Consistent Basis
Physics and mathematics are only possible because we live in a rational universe.
If random naturalistic evolution were true, then we shouldn’t expect to have
universal constants like pi. Why should things work the same throughout the whole
universe? Why should our universe run in an orderly fashion if it is just the
result of purposeless chance? What gives order to our whole universe? What causes
pi to be the same today and tomorrow? Why do the laws of physics operate in
predictable ways?
We live in an orderly and consistent universe because there is a consistent God who
upholds the universe (Hebrews 1:3). Universal constants and order make sense
because there is a God who never changes (Malachi 3:6) and who has imposed order on
His creation—and this all-knowing God has informed us of this. That’s why we can
know that the laws of nature will operate the same way next week as they did this
week (Genesis 8:22).
In order for us to even be able to do physics or mathematics, we must assume that
the universe is orderly and that laws of nature will operate the same tomorrow as
today. Yet in a naturalistic worldview there is no way to know the future . . . for
all they know, the laws of nature might change tomorrow.
Math and Autonomy
As “concrete” as math seems to be, the works of Kurt Gödel (1906–1978), who
incidentally was a friend of Einstein, and Luitzen Brouwer (1882–1966) have
affected this past assumption. Gödel’s two Incompleteness Theorems basically state
that no logical systems that include counting numbers can have all three of the
following properties:
1. Validity . . . all conclusions are reached by valid reasoning.
2. Consistency . . . no conclusions contradict any other conclusions.
3. Completeness . . . all statements made in the system are either true or false.1
In effect, logic was used to prove that mathematics could not be autonomous,
opening the door to a Creator outside “the system” that could instead be the basis
of autonomy. Obviously, laws of logic are required to exist to make math possible.
And a logical God must exist to make laws of logic possible as even the universe
obeys laws of logic (i.e., you can’t have the moon and not the moon at the same
time and the same relationship).
Later Brouwer “rejected the idea that math is discovered, and he promoted instead
the view that math is invented by men. In his view, the human mind is the
foundation of math instead of God.”2 This philosophy, called Intuitionism, is
favored by many mathematicians, but if math is an invention of many human minds,
then why should there be any consistency and how could it be so ubiquitous and
useful? But this just pushed the conceptual problem of mathematics to another
source anyway. On what basis then does the conceptual human mind exist in a
materialistic worldview?
The fact that there are still areas of math that are a mystery, such as the
Incompleteness Theorem, the supposed problem with the order of prime numbers, and
that irrational numbers and infinity cannot be truly comprehended, is not a problem
at all when we look to a boundless Creator who not only stands outside such
conventions, but indeed created them! Logic, physics, and math are for our use—and
use them we do without fear of incompatibility with others using those same
literally God-given tools, whether they believe in the source of those tools or
not! And whether or not the observer chooses to acknowledge it, God’s character,
which He’s revealed in part to our finite minds in Scripture, is the basis for both
exploring and understanding His creation (Psalm 8). And despite mysterious aspects
about prime numbers and π, there are eloquent associations with both of them that
point to some order beyond our comprehension at this point.3
Objections
Some say the Bible has an error in relation to π. First Kings 7:23 states, “Now he
made the sea of cast metal ten cubits from brim to brim, circular in form, and its
height was five cubits, and thirty cubits in circumference.” If we divide the
circumference (30 cubits) by the diameter (10 cubits), we come up with 3, not
3.1415 . . . , so is the Bible writer wrong or ignorant of the true value of π?
Given that all Scripture is “God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16), this cannot be the
case, so we must look elsewhere for the answer, which is surprisingly simple. The
Bible writer here merely used rounding. Most people, if asked what the
circumference of a cylinder with a diameter of 10 feet is (regardless of the
thickness of the wall), would answer “about 30 feet.” Critics often grasp at straws
to find Bible inaccuracies that simply aren’t there.4
Critics also accuse creation scientists of being anti-science for rejecting
evolution and claim that America will fall behind in technology and innovation if
we raise children to believe in a Creator of the Bible and in the history recorded
in His Word. This misunderstanding really comes from a misunderstanding of the
nature of science. There are two different kinds of science: observational and
historical science. Observational science deals with the present and is directly
testable, observable, and repeatable. Mathematics falls into this category. Any
scientist can repeat the calculations of another scientist, and, assuming they do
it correctly, they will get the same answer. Historical science, however, deals
with the past and is therefore not directly testable, repeatable, or observable.
What you believe about the past determines how you interpret the observational
evidence. Now mathematical principles may be used when we are looking at and trying
to interpret historical science, because math is a tool with principles that were
true in the past and are true in the present. So while creationists and
evolutionists agree on how to do the math and we both use exactly the same
principles, we will not agree on how to interprt the past because we have different
starting points.
God’s Handiwork and Character Revealed
Mathematics, like all branches of science, confirms God’s character and God Word.
Indeed, no matter where we look in the universe or what branch of science we use,
God’s Word is confirmed over and over again because it is true from the very
beginning (Psalm 119:160). God is the Creator who has carefully fashioned this
universe, imposed order on it, and upholds it (Colossians 1:16–17). Pi, logic,
physics, math, and “the heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1)—no amount of
math, science, or technology has ever falsified that. We can trust His Word from
the very beginning.
Evolution: No Chance in a Billion Years
on June 1, 2012; last featured July 16, 2015
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To hear evolutionists tell it, all you need is time. Take a few billion years here
to get galaxies up and running, a gross of millennia there to line up those pesky
organic chemicals the right way for life, and an epoch or two to morph some ape-
like creatures into humans.
See why billions of years wouldn’t help evolution in this clip from Ken Ham’s
Foundations DVD series.
Evolution sounds incredibly mysterious that way, dressed up in decades and
centuries and eons. But all those years really just obscure the deeper issue.
While evolutionists toss years around like a football, they ignore a fundamental
flaw in Darwin’s idea. What’s that? Even trillions of years wouldn’t be enough time
to produce the simplest cell.
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People gamble in hopes to beat the odds and win big. But the slot machine of
evolution has no chance to get the jackpot of life arising from non-life.
Not with All the Time in the World
Foundations

Get the Foundations DVD series.

Secular science textbooks make the origin of life sound simple enough. Throw in
some chemicals, zap them with electricity, and you’ve got organic stew. At some
point long, long ago, one such chemical concoction hit on the magical formula to
succeed. After that, natural selection and genetics took over and marched toward
humanity. Given enough time, these books assure us, it was bound to happen.
But that formula for life is like multiplying by zero. No matter how big the other
numbers, you’ll still end up with zilch. In other words, throwing in as much time
as you like would still get you nowhere. It’s sort of like this:
Darwin’s idea × billions of years × 0 (chance of actually happening) = 0.
When mathematicians crunch the numbers, they come to some pretty staggering
conclusions. The chance of evolution actually happening is about as likely as a
blindfolded person throwing a pebble into outer space and knocking down a satellite
that then crashes onto a target on the back of a truck speeding down the highway.
Even with billions of years, that’s not going to happen. (For those of you who like
math, you can see some numbers here.)
To be sure, Darwinists have tried to massage those impossible odds to work in their
favor, but no amount of number obfuscation can get around the facts. Time is not
their friend.
100 Percent Certain
So, if evolution is impossible no matter the eons, what else is there? The answer
to that is simple. Based on real observations from scientific studies, we have no
reason to believe life started by itself. According to the laws of biology, life
always comes from life. Beyond that, information science shows us that information
(such as the DNA necessary for life to begin) requires an intelligent source.
Finally, without starting from an evolutionary bias, the study of genetics helps us
understand that the variety of animal kinds on the earth could never lead back to a
single ancestor.
Add all that up and you’re left with an inescapable conclusion: there must be a
powerful and super-wise Creator. With such a Creator, you no longer need billions
of years. He could create everything in much less time—say . . . six days.
According to the Bible, this Creator—God—did exactly that. He gave us a clear
record (the Bible) of how He created the world, how long it took Him, how humans
fell into sin, and how God the Son (Jesus) came to earth to save us. And of that
you can be 100 percent certain. After all, God doesn’t leave anything to chance—not
in a billion years (if there had really been that much time, that is).
Chapter 1
Unity
by Larry L. Zimmerman on September 9, 2015
Featured in Truth & the Transcendent
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The Westmont College Horizon reported in 1976 that the faculty had defeated a
proposal to return to an “inter-disciplinary, integrative (i.e. faith/practice)”
program. According to the Horizon, . . .
. . . science is what you more or less know and philosophy is what you do not know.
—Bertrand Russell1
The Westmont College Horizon reported in 1976 that the faculty had defeated a
proposal to return to an “inter-disciplinary, integrative (i.e. faith/practice)”
program. According to the Horizon, “some faculty members felt they were being
pressured into doing something that was not possible in their particular field.”
“Integration is not possible in mathematics,” said Dr. David Neu, Associate
Professor of Mathematics. “In mathematics God’s revelation is silent. There is
nothing to integrate . . . the mathematician is not seeking for truth . . . as far
as mathematics goes there ain’t nuthin’ there.”2
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It is not surprising that Dr. Neu might be led to assume that nothing is there in
mathematics. Since 1850, this has been the majority position of the top
professionals in his field, who turn some strange-sounding phrases when describing
their discipline. For example, Bertrand Russell referred to mathematics as “the
subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are
saying is true.”3 Morris Kline called it “a body of knowledge” containing “no
truths.”4 Henri Poincare’ defined it as “. . . the art of giving the same name to
different things.”5 Alfred North Whitehead thought mathematics “to be the most
original creation of the human spirit,”6 and to David Hilbert it became a
meaningless, formal game.7
It is a mistake, however, to allow the power of these names in mathematics to give
authority to conclusions in philosophy, and the foregoing statements are
philosophical. Some people, Christians for example, tend to think that when a
scientist wanders into philosophy, his conclusions warrant scrutiny. For the
Christian, scientists are suspect in philosophy because, dealing so intimately with
the creation, they fall into the Romans 1 category of those who knew God from His
revelation in the creation, but did not honor Him as God. Kline complains “the true
mathematical God refuses to reveal himself, and now mathematicians must question
whether God exists.”8 They become futile in their speculations and are given over
to outlaw minds. “There is a reason to question reason,” Kline warns.9 (Of course,
we would then have to question the reasonableness of the statement: “There is a
reason to question reason,” and so on; Kline’s proposition is inherently
contradictory, but it’s catchy.) The philosophical base proposed by Russell was a
“firm foundation of unyielding despair.”10
Why are there so many unifying elements such as sets, functions, and vectors,
interlacing what initially appeared to be diverse ideas invented independently by
different people at different times in different parts of the world?
In spite of their assumptions about the nature of mathematics, Russell and his
compatriots, as I will show, talk mathematics and do mathematics as if this nothing
was somehow something, at the least an art form which the mathematician creates as
he pleases. There were two questions that mathematicians historically found
difficult to answer from the perspective of mathematics-as-art, and with which
their contemporary colleagues are still struggling.
First, why are there so many unifying elements such as sets, functions, and
vectors, interlacing what initially appeared to be diverse ideas invented
independently by different people at different times in different parts of the
world? That there is such unity is well established. James J. Sylvester said,
Time was when all the parts of the subject were dissevered, when algebra, geometry,
and arithmetic either lived apart or kept up cold relations of acquaintance
confined to occasional calls upon one another; but that . . . is now happily at an
end; they are constantly becoming more and more intimately related and connected by
a thousand fresh ties, and we may confidently look forward to a time when they
shall form but one body with one soul.11
Raymond L. Wilder talked about “the great generality . . . inherent in formal
mathematical systems.” He went on to say that the evolution of mathematics “was to
compel the development of a method which could encompass in a single framework of
undefined terms and basic statements concepts like group and abstract space that
were appearing in seemingly unrelated branches of mathematics.”12 (italics his)
Showing that unity eventually reigns even when chaos is expected, such as after
daring mathematical innovation, Herbert Westren Turnbull says, “It is remarkable
that, with these trends toward generalization in each of the four great branches of
pure mathematics, the branches lose something of their distinctive qualities and
grow more alike.”13
Further evidence of internal coherence in mathematics is given by Kline, who
states, “The fact that a theorem developed to answer a question in one field so
often turns out to be vital in a completely different one fills the history of
mathematics with surprises.”14 Eric Temple Bell tells of
the intimate way Leopold Kronecker wove together three strands of his greatest
interests—the theory of numbers, the theory of equations, and elliptic functions—
into one beautiful pattern in which unforeseen symmetries were revealed as the
design developed and many details were unexpectedly imaged in others far away. Each
of the tools with which he worked seemed to have been designed by fate for the more
efficient functioning of the others. Not content to accept this mysterious unity as
a mere mystery, Kronecker sought and found its underlying structure in Karl
Friedrich Gauss’ theory of binary quadratic forms.15
Yet Kronecker, who probably was a Christian, would admit only that, “The dear God
has made the whole numbers, all the rest is man’s work.”16 Kronecker is not the
only mathematician whose forays into philosophy could be typified by Winston
Churchill’s description of political rival Stanley Baldwin: “Occasionally he
stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up as if nothing happened.”17
Employing words like “remarkable,” “surprise,” “unforeseen,” “unexpected,” and
“mysterious,” Kline and Bell are tacitly admitting that the unity of mathematics
shears the pins from their assumption that mathematicians invent mathematics. Even
attempts by mathematicians to “force” disunity are rejected by the monolithic
character of mathematics. For example, there is the “ . . . curious paradox [that]
the closer we get to an absolutely patternless series, the closer we get to a type
of pattern so rare that if we came on such a series we would suspect it had been
carefully constructed by a mathematician and not by a random process.”18 It
certainly appears that mathematics is an entity which someone designed, parts of
which mathematicians discover. Often, they then become the poorest judges of the
significance of their discoveries.
The theory of algebraic invariants, developed by Arthur Cayley and James J.
Sylvester, is a case in point.
. . . the earliest instance of the idea appears in [Joseph-Louis] Lagrange, from
whom it passed into the arithmetical works of Gauss. But neither of these men
noticed that the simple but remarkable algebraic phenomenon before them was the
germ of a vast theory. Nor does George Boole seem to have fully realized what he
had found when he carried on and greatly extended the work of Lagrange.19
If there is any topic one would expect to have been finally purged of surprises, it
is the elementary geometry of the triangle and circle which, even in the 19th
century, had been extant for hundreds of years. That century, however, “witnessed
an astonishing reopening of this study. It seems that this field of investigation
must be unlimited.”20
Philip E.B. Jourdain’s assessment of the situation has been labeled “old-fashioned”
and “quaint.” It is also supported, rather than devastated, by the unity found in
mathematics, as anyone will see who is able to set aside what C.S. Lewis called
“chronological snobbery.” Jourdain said,
. . . the nature of Mathematics is independent of us personally and of the world
outside, and we can feel that our own discoveries and views do not affect the Truth
itself, but only the extent which we or others see it. Some of us discover things
in science, but we do not really create anything in science any more than Columbus
created America. . . . Some philosophers have reached the startling conclusion that
Truth is made by men, and that Columbus created America; but common sense . . .
is . . . above being flattered by philosophical persuasion that it really occupies
a place sometimes reserved for an even more sacred being.”21
Charles Hermite, sounding like a Jourdainian echo, said,
I believe that the numbers and functions of analysis are not the arbitrary product
of our spirits; I believe that they exist outside of us with the same character of
necessity as the objects of objective reality, and we find or discover them and
study them as do the physicists, chemists, and zoologists.22
Jacques Hadamard, whom Kline calls “the leading French mathematician of this
century,” said, “Although the truth is not yet known to us, it preexists and
inescapably imposes on us the path we must follow under penalty of going astray.”23
Even Bertrand Russell, referring to “our certainty that the facts must always
conform to logic and arithmetic,” claimed that “to say that logic and arithmetic
are contributed by us does not account for this.”24
Non-Euclidean Geometry
Before 1850, God was often credited with being the inventor of mathematics. Then
the development of the non-Euclidean geometries reached adolescence and caused
mathematicians, as Morris Kline says, “to see that they must stand on their own
feet. They were not recording nature; they were interpreting.”25
It is true that if any portion of mathematics could be classified as human
invention, it is non-Euclidean geometry. But it is obviously not true that the
“inventors” were “interpreting” nature, since these geometries were unveiled during
purely intellectual exercises in abstraction, beginning with, “What if . . . ?”
They were by-products of unsuccessful attempts to prove that Euclid’s fifth
postulate was dependent on his others. One technique was to negate the postulate
and examine the resulting implications for a contradiction.
Before 1850, God was often credited with being the inventor of mathematics.
Euclid’s postulate is equivalent to the assumption that in a plane, through a given
point not on a given line, there is only one parallel to the line. This, in turn,
is equivalent to assuming that the sum of the measures of the three interior angles
of a triangle is equal to the measures of two right angles. The resulting geometry
is sometimes labeled “parabolic.”
John Bolyai and Nikolai I. Lobachevsky independently developed a list of non-
contradictory statements—a new geometry—by postulating at least two parallels to
the line or, correspondingly, that the sum of the angles of a triangle is less than
two right angles. This geometry is called “hyperbolic.” Later Georg F.B. Riemann
discovered another geometry (elliptic) by assuming that there are no parallels, or
that the sum of the angles in a triangle is more than two right angles. This is the
geometry on a sphere. (Riemann actually changed not only Euclid’s fifth postulate
but also at least one other of Euclid’s implicit assumptions.)
These geometries, with their contradictory hypotheses but internally consistent
structures, seemed a flaw in the unity of mathematics. They appeared to support the
notion that a
mathematician is entirely free, within the limits of his own imagination, to
construct what worlds he pleases. What he is to imagine is a matter of his own
caprice; he is not discovering the fundamental principles of the universe nor
becoming acquainted with the ideas of God.26
Denizens of the mid-nineteenth century world of mathematics perhaps could be
excused their lack of vision in their eagerness to parlay the unique new geometries
into a claim of ownership on all mathematics. After all, if the unity of
mathematics was a fiction, then maybe men really did think it up on their own.
Under this assumption, it should reflect freedom and fragmentation, of which new
geometry was “Exhibit A.”
Peering over the edges of history, Kline should know better, and as it turns out,
he does. In his book, Mathematics in Western Culture, a few pages on from his
previous statement, he admits
. . . it is possible to erect projective geometry on an axiomatic basis in such a
way that the theorems of the other three geometries result in specialized theorems
of projective geometry. In other words, the contents of all four geometries are now
incorporated in one harmonious whole.27
He is alluding to the work of Felix Klein who, building on foundations laid by
Cayley and Karl G.C. Von Staudt, proved there are no contradictions among the
“other three geometries” if the mathematical contexts are kept in mind. To use
“parallel” in different frames of reference without identifying them (as some
mathematicians have done) is tantamount to using a word like “drive” without giving
the background—golf? roadway? car? basketball? cattle? The difficulty vanishes when
the contextual framework is recognized. As “Cayley exclaimed, ‘Projective geometry
is all geometry.’”28
Further evidence both for the unity of mathematics and for the view that
mathematicians really are following the vapor trails left by the course of
someone’s powerful thought, without actually knowing where the trails are leading,
comes from H.W. Turnbull. After mentioning that Von Staudt “has revealed the solid
foundations common to all types of geometry,” Turnbull says,
The really remarkable thing about it all is that Pappus and Desargues had actually
hit upon the fundamental theorems of geometry in spite of using proofs involving
unnecessary assumptions. [They] had given wrong reasons for the right results, and
the same thing frequently happened in calculus.29
Quaternions
In Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty, Kline claims that Hamilton’s “invention” of
quaternions was another event which drained truth from mathematics, since it
introduced non-commutability to algebra. But quaternions simply opened the door to
the more general vector algebra and, Kline admits, “did not challenge the
correctness of the real number system.”30
Freedom
More than any other person, possibly excepting the synthetical Nicholas Bourbaki,
Eugene Wigner writes honestly of the conflict posed by the unity of mathematics in
the face of humanistic assumptions about its origin. According to Nobel Prize
winner Wigner, “The great mathematician fully, almost ruthlessly, exploits the
domain of permissible reasoning and skirts the impermissible. That his recklessness
does not lead him into a morass of contradictions is a miracle in itself.” Wigner
then adds the cryptic observation, “It is hard to believe that our reasoning power
was brought, by Darwin’s process of natural selection, to the perfection it seems
to possess.”31
If mathematics is already thought out and constructed by someone, it is logical
that there would be no contradictions
Many mathematicians, like Wigner, believe mathematics is a unified entity “out
there”—they are Platonists. However, they do not feel impelled, as the Christian
does, to account for the origin of this entity, and are content to label it a
miracle. The Christian position is rational here. If mathematics is already thought
out and constructed by someone, it is logical that there would be no
contradictions; the constraints imposed on the structure by the original thinker
preserve its unity and integrity, and nudge the mathematician clear of the “morass
of contradictions.”
Physical chemist Gilbert N. Lewis, while not giving any credit to God, nevertheless
admitted,
We cannot avoid the thought that having embarked upon a certain line of
mathematical inquiry, while we appear to have preserved the utmost of personal
freedom, we seem bound to follow certain paths and make and remake certain
discoveries . . .32
G.H. Hardy, even though he regarded God as his personal enemy, had to agree. He
stated, “I believe that mathematical reality lies outside us, that our function is
to discover or observe it, and that the theorems which we prove, and which we
describe grandiloquently as our ‘creations’ are simply notes of our
observations.”33
In spite of viewpoints like Hardy’s, most mathematicians, contemplating the non-
Euclidean geometries with their seemingly contradictory hypotheses, are led to
assume that any statement may be hypothesized. John W.N. Sullivan speaks for a host
of mathematicians when he says,
The further development of non-Euclidean geometry and its application to physical
phenomena by Einstein have shown that Euclid’s geometry is not only not a necessity
of thought but it is not even the most convenient geometry to apply to existing
space. And with this there has come, of course, a profound change in the status we
ascribe to mathematical entities, and a different estimate of the mathematician’s
activities. We can start from any set of axioms we please, provided they are
consistent with themselves and one another, and work out a branch of mathematics.
The primary definitions and postulates are not given by experience, nor are they
necessities of thought.34
So Russell was not trying to be funny— wry perhaps—when he said mathematicians
don’t know what they are talking about nor whether it’s true. Kline meant what he
said about mathematics being a “body of knowledge” containing “no truths.”35
Richard Dedekind was serious when he claimed that “numbers are free creations of
the human mind,”36 and so was Georg Cantor, who stated, “The essence of mathematics
lies in its freedom.”37 C.J. Keyser, to the question, “Is it true?” answered, “The
mathematician as a man does not know although he cares. Man as mathematician
neither knows nor cares.”38
The weakness here is that while proclaiming their freedom to hypothesize whatever
tickles their fancy, most mathematicians admit that not every statement should be
postulated. As Douglas Gasking claimed, “Mathematics does depend on and reflect the
nature of the world at least to this extent, that we would find certain systems
enormously inconvenient and difficult to use, and others relatively simple and
handy.” Even though he believes this convenience “depends on our psychological
make-up” rather than the “external world,” Gasking admits,
Using one sort of arithmetic or geometry, for example, we might find that our
physics could be reduced to a logically neat and simple system, which is
intellectually satisfying whereas using different arithmetics and geometries, we
should find our physics full of very complicated ad hoc hypotheses.39
Concurring, Einstein said,
A man engaged in solving a well designed word-puzzle may, it’s true, propose any
word as the solution; but there is only one word which really solves the puzzle in
all its forms. It is an outcome of faith that nature . . . takes the character of
such a well formulated puzzle. The successes reaped by science do, it is true, give
a certain encouragement for this faith.40
Mathematics or Merely Mathematical?
Einstein and Gasking are tacitly admitting that not everything mathematical
(logically valid) is truly mathematics. The existence of valid systems having false
conclusions does not imply, as Russell, et al., would have it, that there exist no
valid systems with true conclusions.
A statement by Klein is apropos. He said,
You can hear often from non-mathematicians, especially from philosophers, that
mathematics consists exclusively in drawing conclusions from clearly stated
premises; and that, in this process, it makes no difference what these premises
signify, whether they are true or false, provided only that they do not contradict
one another. But a person who has done productive mathematical work will talk quite
differently.41
Klein’s view is supported by Richard Courant and Herbert Robbins in their book,
What is Mathematics? They warn that
a serious threat to the very life of science is implied in the assertion that
mathematics is nothing but a system of conclusions drawn from definitions and
postulates that must be consistent but otherwise may be created by the free will of
the mathematician. If this description were accurate, mathematics could not attract
any intelligent person. It would be a game with definitions, rules, and syllogisms,
without motive or goal. The notion that the intellect can create meaningful
postulational systems at its whim is a deceptive half-truth. Only under the
discipline of responsibility to the organic whole, only guided by intrinsic
necessity, can the free mind achieve results of scientific value.42
Unity Unexpected
One could believe the calculus was a work of art produced by the free will of man
if one could believe the possibility of a symphony arising from the scores of a
number of composers who supposed they were writing only tone poems for solos or
chamber groups. This symphony comes together without changing even the key, though
the artists wrote during hundreds of years in different corners of the globe
without the knowledge of each others’ work.
To discover many of his theorems, Archimedes used what, in a letter to
Eratosthenes, he called, “The Method.” He then proved these theorems by the
technique of exhaustion. This “method,” which he kept secret because he was not
able to make it rigorous, was essentially what we know as integration.43 As Felix
Klein said, “One can give numerous examples of mathematicians who have discovered
theorems of the greatest importance, which they were unable to prove.”44
Morris Kline points out that “during the centuries in which the major branches of
mathematics were built up there was no logical development for most of it.
Apparently the intuitions of great men are more powerful than their logic.”45 One
example of “mathematical prescience” is Newton’s rule for the discovery of
imaginary roots of equations, which was not proved until Sylvester did it in 1865.
Along this line, Philip Jourdain said, “Mathematicians thought . . . that
imaginaries, though apparently uninterpretable and even self-contradictory, must
have a logic. So they were used with a faith . . . that . . . was only justified
much later.”46
Jourdain had further cogent observations on this subject: “In mathematics it
has . . . always happened that conceptions have been used long before they were
formally introduced, and used long before this use could be logically justified or
its nature clearly explained. The history of mathematics is the history of a faith
whose justification has been long delayed, and perhaps is not accomplished even
now.”47 Jourdain also claimed, “It is a curious fact that mathematicians have so
often arrived at truth by a sort of instinct.”48 Earnest Nagel and James R. Newman
agree, stating,
The use of rules and theorems is an all but unconscious process . . . like
Moliere’s M. Jourdain, who spoke prose without knowing it, mathematicians have been
reasoning without knowing their reasons. Modern students have had to show them the
tools of their craft.49
Jourdain (no relation to Moliere’s) cites as an example the beautiful unity between
geometry and algebra. Specifically, he points out that the curves the ancient Greek
geometricians chose to study were sections of two equal cones with the same axis,
whose only points of intersection were their vertices. As it turned out much later,
these are the very curves (and the only ones) determined by algebraic equations of
the second degree in two variables. Jourdain uses words like “mystery,” “lucky” and
“chance” to describe this phenomenon.
Similarly, in calculus, the integral was discovered before the derivative, and they
developed for some time along parallel paths. They seemed to be completely
different ideas. The big surprise (to those who thought them separate works of art)
came when it was observed that they were actually inverses of each other. Though
appearing to bounce around in history at the whim of its “creators,” mathematics
truly hangs together.
Simultaneous “Inventions”
Spotlighting this fact are the numerous simultaneously produced identical
“inventions.” As Gilbert N. Lewis points out,
. . . the two geometries which were published independently and almost
simultaneously, one by the Russian Lobachevski, and the other by the Hungarian
Bolyai, were so nearly alike that they seem like different drafts of the same
composition. Similarly, [William Rowan] Hamilton and [Hermann] Grassman wrote at
the same time those papers which were to become the foundation of modern vector
analysis.50
William Fielding Ogburn cites many other cases of simultaneous, independent
discoveries, the probability that they are coincidental “inventions” being
inversely proportional to the length of the list. Included are: Law of Inverse
Squares by Newton and Halley, Logarithms by Burgi and Napier/Briggs, the Calculus
by Newton and Leibniz, Principle of Least Squares by Gauss and Legendre—in fact,
Gauss said, “It seems to be my fate to concur in nearly all my theoretical works
with Legendre”51—Contraction Hypothesis by H.A. Lorentz and Fitzgerald, the double
Theta functions by Gopel and Rosehain, the rectification of the semi-cubal parabola
by Van Heauraet, Neil and Fermat, and the geometric law of duality by Oncelet and
Gergone.52 It is as if a diverse group of artists, supposing they were independent
and free, compared their works at a show to find they were identical, down to each
brush stroke and nuance of color.
Is It Culture?
Some have attempted to explain away these annoying “coincidences” by claiming
mathematics to be simply a product of culture. Our minds are like pipes, and the
cultural “soup” flows through them. Since there are quite a few mathematicians, it
is not surprising that two would turn the spigot at the same time. And since the
“soup” is pretty much the same for everybody, it is not surprising that the same
mathematics flows forth.
There is little agreement as to the meaning of “culture.” The simplest
characterizations are “group,” “group mystique,” or “group dynamic.” Does
mathematics flow out of scholastic, governmental, or ecclesiastic interaction, or
it is independent of the machinations of any group? Davis and Hersh, in their book,
The Mathematical Experience, take a middle-of-the-road position, claiming they
“know in [their] bones that culture makes a difference.”53
One fact which militates against this approach is the discovery of “acultural”
mathematics, that is, mathematics preceded by not the slightest cultural hint. This
was true of the “invention” of logarithms, which
came upon the world as a bolt from the blue. No previous work had led up to it,
nothing had foreshadowed it or heralded its arrival. It stands isolated, breaking
in upon human thought abruptly without borrowing from the work of other intellects
or following known lines of mathematical thought. It reminds me of those islands in
the ocean which rise suddenly from great depths and which stand solitary with deep
water close around all their shores.54
Even though the advent of the logarithm was startlingly abrupt, minimizing the
possibility that it was an overflow of the culture, the unity of mathematics
remained serene. While machines have made computation with logarithms obsolete,
logarithmic functions and their inverses, the exponentials, are of critical value
to modern mathematical science. This is true even though “one of the anomalies in
the history of mathematics is the fact that logarithms were discovered before
exponents were in use.”55
E.T. Bell provides another case in point: Charles Hermite’s solving of the general
equation of the fifth degree by using elliptic functions. “It is almost
impossible,” says Bell, “to convey to a non-mathematician the spectacular
brilliance of such a feat. To give a very inadequate simile, Hermite found the
famous lost ‘chord’ when no mortal had the slightest suspicion that such an elusive
thing existed anywhere in time and space . . . totally unforeseen . . . ”56
Hermite, for one, did not give culture the credit for mathematical development.
“There exists,” he asserted, “a world which is the collection of mathematical
truths, to which we have access only through our intellects, just as there is the
world of physical reality; the one and the other independent of us, both of divine
creation . . . ”57 Dr. Bell reminds us also of the Hindu, Srinivasa Ramanujan, who
arrives unexpectedly out of nowhere, even expert analysts hail him as a gift from
Heaven: his all but supernatural insight into apparently unrelated formulas reveals
hidden trails leading from one territory to another, and the analysts have new
tasks provided for them in clearing the trails.58
G.H. Hardy, who was Ramanujan’s mentor/student, said, “[Ramanujan] worked, for most
of his life, in practically complete ignorance of modern European mathematics . . .
” “He had no real teaching at all; there was no one in India from whom he had
anything to learn. He can have seen at the outside three or four books of good
quality . . . ”59
To the Christian mind, it becomes increasingly apparent that Jourdain was right
when he said, “ . . . but Mathematics is eternal and unchanging, and therefore had
no history—it does not belong, even in part, to Euclid or Newton or anybody else,
but is something which is discovered, in the course of time, by human minds.”60
Instinct & Inspiration
The facts support Newman and Nagel’s claim that mathematical truth is often arrived
at by a sort of instinct. “As a young man, Gauss would be ‘seized’ by mathematics.
Conversing with friends, he would suddenly go silent, overwhelmed by thoughts
beyond his control, and stand staring rigidly oblivious to his surroundings.”61 And
it “flashed upon” George Boole “as he was walking across the field, that besides
the knowledge gained from direct observation, man derives knowledge from some
source indefinable and invisible.”62
Since similar inspiration strikes great writers, artists, or composers, it is easy
for a mathematician like Hardy to suppose himself included in their ranks. He
claimed that
A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns
are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas . . . A
mathematician . . . has no material to work with but ideas, and so his patterns are
likely to last longer . . . The mathematician’s patterns, like the painter’s or
poet’s, must be beautiful; the ideas, like the colors or the words, must fit
together in a harmonious way. Beauty is the first test . . .63
Problem: in art “the colors or words must fit together in a harmonious way” only on
each canvas, or in each book or score. Most artists would disagree that even
“internal” harmony is the hallmark of an artistic work, preferring to use words
like “integrity” or “communication.” The ideas of the mathematician, on the other
hand, not only must fit together in his or her individual effort but also must mesh
precisely with every other mathematician’s work, past, present, and future. The
monolithic quality of mathematics simply necessitates interpreting mathematical
truth as discovery rather than invention or art.
Even Kline, for whom mathematics contains no truth, talks as if it were some thing
to be discovered. For example, to describe “the choice of a set of axioms,” he uses
the analogy of “the purchase of a piece of mining land. The riches,” he says, “are
all there.”64
Natural & Simple
One so often reads of mathematicians sifting a morass of ideas until at last coming
upon the “natural” or “right” one.
Hamilton, one of the great mathematical geniuses of the 19th century, records with
Irish exuberance how he struggled for 15 years to invent a consistent algebra to do
what was required until a happy inspiration gave him the clue that a x b is not
equal to b x a in the algebra he was seeking.65 (italics mine)
Gauss, “after many false starts which led to intolerable complexity” in higher
number congruences and corresponding laws of reciprocity, “discovered the ‘natural’
[Gauss’ word] way to the heart of his problem.”66
Both Kronecker and Karl W. Weierstrass, working in algebra and analysis
respectively, never stopped until they were sure they had found the best, or
natural, way of development.67 Hardy notwithstanding, I believe that “beauty” is
not a test at all, but simply the result when true mathematics is discovered. “The
useful combinations,” observed Poincare, “are precisely the most beautiful . . .
”68
As J.A. Dieudonne said, referring to the work of N. Bourbaki (Bourbaki is really
“them,” a group of French mathematicians, mainly Parisians, whose only rule is that
a member must be under 50 years of age),
Bourbaki sets off . . . from a basic belief, an unprovable meta-physical belief we
willingly admit. It is that mathematics is fundamentally simple and that for each
mathematical question there is, among all possible ways of dealing with it, a best
way, an optimal method.69
Dieudonne later made the remarkable statement that while each mathematician feels
“he is working with something real . . . this sensation is probably an illusion.”
Dieudonne admits, however, that this “illusion” of reality “is very convenient.”70
His thinking parallels Albert Einstein’s, who said,
To him who is a discoverer in this field (theoretical physics) the products of his
imagination appear so necessary and natural that he regards them, and would like to
have them regarded by others not as creations of thought but as given realities.71
Einstein also claimed,
The historical development has shown that among the imaginable theoretical
constructions there is invariably one that proves to be unquestionably superior to
all others. Nobody who really goes into the matter will deny that the world of
perceptions determines the theoretical system in a virtually unambiguous manner.72
Herman Weyl agrees, stating,
An outstanding example is Euclidean geometry, which was proved by geodetic and
astronomical precision measurements to be much more exactly valid than could have
been conjectured on the basis of the experiences which led to its erection. But
this is far from being the only example of such a confirmation of the principle of
simplicity. There is an abundance of similar cases in physics.73
The following comparison of mathematics and art by H.W. Turnbull is about all that
can be claimed rationally.
The greatest mathematics has the simplicity and inevitableness of supreme poetry
and music, standing on the borderland of all that is wonderful in Science, and all
that is beautiful in Art. Mathematics transfigures the fortuitous concourse of
atoms into the tracery of the finger of God.74
It is questionable whether “supreme” art is either simple or inevitable, but
Turnbull recognized that “the borderland” is as close as mathematics gets to art,
and believed that only God is big enough to impose a unity on the mathematical
thoughts with which mathematicians are “seized.”
What Is Meant by “Creation”?
The word “create,” for many mathematicians, really refers to processes of
discrimination, selection, and arrangement, even style. To these areas,
mathematicians do bring a creativity akin to the best in art. After calling
mathematics a “creative endeavor,” Kline says, “In divining what can be proved, as
well as in constructing methods of proof, mathematicians employ a high order of
intuition and imagination.”75 Attributing this meaning to “creative” would not
disturb most theists. Nor would Henri Poincare’s definition, from a speech to the
Psychological Society in Paris: “A mathematical proof is not a mere juxtaposition
of syllogisms: It is syllogisms arranged in a certain order, and the order is more
important than the elements themselves.”76 (italics his)
Then Poincare (unintentionally?) exposes the difference between artistic and
mathematical “creation.”
Mathematical creation however does not consist merely in making new combinations of
things already known; anyone [artist] could do that, but the combinations thus made
would be infinite in number and most of them entirely devoid of interest. To create
consists precisely in avoiding useless combinations and in making those which
constitute only a small minority. Invention is discernment, choice.77
It is interesting that, in his book, Science and Method, Poincare duplicates this
portion of his lecture almost word-for-word, except that he replaces the word
“invention” with the word “discovery.”78 And Morris Kline faces no argument from
Christians when he equates “creating” or “inventing” mathematics with:
the patient, hard digging which must be performed, the careful sifting of the
precious metal from the the base rock, the value and beauty of the treasure
obtained, and the pleasure and exhilaration of accomplishment.79
The problem comes when misplaced pride of ownership in a piece of research blurs
the distinction between the mathematics excavated and the tools used for its
excavation, to borrow Philip Jourdain’s analogy.80 Expressing the situation
accurately, G.K. Chesterton said, “The difference between the poet and the
mathematician is that the poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is
the logician [mathematician] who seeks to get the heavens into his head.”81 This is
why there are many different poetic expressions of “the heavens,” but just one
mathematics.
Unlikely Partners
The unity of mathematics is highlighted by equations which connect unlikely
partners in surprising ways. The star of these equations is a statement known as
Euler’s equation, which combines the real number constants e and π, the imaginary
unit, √−1 (symbolized by “i”), with the additive and multiplicative identities to
give eiπ + 1 = 0. For years these numbers led their own lives and appeared
unrelated to each other. After all, e and π are special irrationals (see
Transcendentals, below), i isn’t even in the real number system, and 1 and 0 are
“old hat” integers.
The star of these equations is a statement known as Euler’s equation.
e and 1 are also linked to the set of prime numbers by the Prime Number Theorem. It
can be proved that the limit of the ratio (π(N)/N)/(1/logeN) is 1 as N→∞, where
π(N) is the number of primes between 1 and N.82 Constance Reid calls this “one of
the most totally unexpected things in all mathematics!”83
Although the digits in their decimal expressions follow no pattern, the mavericks e
and π can be laid out in beautiful integer mosaics such as “the striking, simple
connection between π and the set of all odd numbers:
Equation
.”84
Equation
, the reciprocal of Equation .
Others are Equation
and Equation .85
Euler86 also proved that Equation .
David Berlinski, in his book, The Advent of the Algorithm, says this series
revealed “a glittering connection between geometry and arithmetic, the connection
all the more glittering because all the more arbitrary. Why π? Why π2? Why 6? Why
the ratio?
Why indeed.”87
He says that he does “not know the answers, not then, not now. All that the
mathematician in me can see is the jewel.” The Christian knows that God is the only
One with enough power to impose this “arbitrary” unity on mathematics, and delights
to behold His glory radiating from this particular “jewel.”
What about the reciprocal of Berlinski’s gem? I wonder what his reaction was when
he discovered that 6/π2 is the probability that 2 positive integers, taken at
random, are relatively prime.88
I can’t resist giving you one more quote from Berlinski which spotlights the
“glittering” unity of the structure of mathematics. He calls the “fusion” between
λ(lambda)-definable functions and recursive functions “utterly astonishing. No
other word will do. . . . far and away separate stars . . . contrary to every
expectation . . . are inextricably fused . . . and really revolving around a . . .
common core.” [Berlinski, p. 179]
Transcendentals
e and π are the most famous members of a set of numbers called “transcendentals,”
which cannot be roots of algebraic equations with rational coefficients. There are
also transcendental functions, like sine, which cannot be expressed by a finite
number of algebraic operations. Alluding (unintentionally, no doubt) to the
motivation which produced the revealing label, “transcendental,” Bell says,
But it is probably a much more difficult problem to prove that a particular
suspect, like e or π, is or is not transcendental, than it is to invent a whole
infinite class of transcendentals: the inventive mathematician dictates—to a
certain extent—the working conditions, while the suspected number is entire master
of the situation, and it is the mathematician in this case, not the suspect, who
takes orders he only dimly understands.89
Numbers such as e and π serve also as remarkable testimonials to the marriage of
mathematics and nature. From the thin air of relativity and number theory to the
most common measurement techniques, their influence is pervasive. Applications of
the ubiquitous pair in statistics, probability, biology, sociology, and finance
seem far removed from their everyday geometrical setting. It certainly appears that
these numbers are unifying elements in an overall nature/mathematics scheme for
which no human being is powerful enough to receive the credit.
Algebra, Geometry & Arithmetic
As anyone knows who has studied coordinate geometry, algebra and geometry are
closely related; in fact, they are structurally identical, even though for many
years they were thought to be completely independent of each other. Geometry is
also unified with number theory in striking ways. For example, “the limiting value
of two successive terms of Fibonacci numbers, as we go out indefinitely, is
precisely the ratio of the side of the regular inscribed decagon to the radius of
the circumscribing circle.”90
Analysis and Number Theory
William Dunham points out that even the techniques of the “continuous, ‘flowing’
phenomena of calculus/analysis,” which “require the rich continuum of the real
number system,” can be applied to number theory, which “is as discrete as it gets.
The integers are separated, isolated entities which require a very different set of
tools.” Dunham calls this relationship “peculiar.” The Christian says, “I am not
surprised.”91
Infinity
“Infinite” is a term used in every branch of mathematics, part of the “glue”
welding the parts into coherent unity. Nothing in human experience gets one as
close as does mathematics to the meaning of infinity. Even a child tastes its
flavor when he realizes there is no “biggest” number, a fact the child himself can
“prove” by adding 1 to any nominee for “biggest.” The “inventive” mathematician is
beyond his depth when dealing with infinity; despite his best efforts it will not
“behave,” and leads him to embarrassment and consternation. James Pierpont pointed
out the two faces of the problem when he said,
As in the days of Newton and Leibnitz, so now the notion of infinity is our
greatest friend; it is also the greatest enemy of our peace of mind. We may compare
it to a great waterway bearing the traffic of the world, a waterway however which
from time to time breaks its bounds and spreads devastation along its banks.
Weierstrass taught us to believe that we had at last thoroughly tamed and
domesticated this unruly element. Such however is not the case; it has broken loose
again. Hilbert and Brouwer have set out to tame it once more. For how long? We
wonder.92
As Nagel and Newman bring out in their essay on Kurt Goedel’s work,
In attempting to solve the problem of consistency one notices a recurrent source of
difficulty. It is encountered whenever a non-finite model is invoked for purposes
of interpretation . . . the model itself will have to mirror the infinity of
elements postulated by the axioms. The truth (and so the consistency) of the set
cannot therefore be established by inspection and enumeration.93
I think it is evident that man is dealing in mathematics with something bigger than
his thinking. Their confusion evident, Nagel and Newman go on to say,
In certain areas of mathematical research, in which assumptions about infinite
domains play central roles, radical contradictions (or “antinomies”) have turned
up, despite the intuitive clarity of the notion involved in the assumptions, and
despite the seemingly consistent character of the intellectual constructions
performed . . . the apparent clarity of even such an elementary notion as that of
class, does not guarantee the consistency of the system built on it . . . the
intellectual construction . . . of non-finite models generally involves the use of
possibly inconsistent sets of postulates . . . growing apprehension . . . that
established mathematical systems were infected by contradictions, led to new
attacks upon the problem.94
Kurt Goedel showed, however, that none of the “new attacks” did, or could ever,
bridge the abyss from finite to infinite, that the consistency of any deductive
system which encompasses all of arithmetic can never be proved. Even more
astounding, he showed that no set of axioms would be sufficient to account for the
mathematical truth in any one branch of mathematics. There are always theorems
which do not follow from the axioms, but which can be shown to be true by informal
reasoning. According to Kline, “while Brouwer made clear that what is intuitively
certain falls short of what is proved in classical mathematics, Godel showed that
what is intuitively certain extends beyond mathematical proof.”95
Perhaps mathematics really is God’s thought, as was the commonly accepted view
before 1850. The paradoxes wrought by infinity in set theory then would be expected
and, if not explained, would be incomprehensible in a way we could comprehend. To
use C.S. Lewis’ phrase, “ . . . if there exists something beyond personality it
ought to be incomprehensible in that sort of way.”96
I believe that the infinite-personal God of the Bible exists beyond human
personality. I believe that, in the example previously mentioned involving the
Fibonacci numbers and geometry, God may well be telling us:
I will give you some geometry (the side of the regular decagon and the radius of
the circumcircle) which you can see, measure, and compute with, but just to remind
you that mathematics is all one and Mine, I will also show you an infinite sequence
of numbers you can not even write down, but which you can prove is exactly equal to
the ratio of the side to the radius.
A similar example is given by the equation: .999 . . . = 1. Even if there were a
trillion nines following the decimal point, the “equals” sign could not be used;
the result depends on there being infinitely many nines. I believe the right side
of the equation is “ours,” a gift from Him, one of the most important and useful of
numbers. The left side is God’s alone, a number we can not write down, but which we
can prove is exactly equal to 1.
Infinity is God’s unique prerogative, yet here it glimmers at the core of
mathematics.
Infinity is God’s unique prerogative, yet here it glimmers at the core of
mathematics. No wonder mathematicians feel compelled to make statements similar to
R.L. Wilder’s: “. . . the research mathematician sometimes acquires a feeling that
he is being led by the concepts instead of the other way around!”97
Summary
Forcing Berlinski to ask, “Why?”, the unity of mathematics is to Dunhuam
“peculiar,” to Turnbull “remarkable,” to Kline “surprising,” to Bell “unexpected”
and “mysterious,” to Wigner “a miracle,” to Howard Eves “astonishing,” and to
Jourdain “an exceedingly lucky chance.” If the unified character of mathematics
cannot be accounted for rationally from the perspective of mathematics-as-art or
invention, those of this persuasion should ask themselves if their position is
realistic.
Others, including some Christians, who recognize that mathematics is “out there” to
be discovered, but who feel no compulsion to account for it, are obviously able to
exist without a unified field of knowledge. The writing of many of them, however,
reveals that theirs is a precarious environment, reminiscent of Matthew Arnold’s
“darkling plain, swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,” which I
believe stems from ignoring the foundational questions of origin, nature, and
purpose.
Chapter 2
Mathematics and the Natural Sciences
Truth & the Transcendent
by Larry L. Zimmerman on September 16, 2015
Featured in Truth & the Transcendent
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The second question, hard to answer from the standpoint of mathematics-as-art or
human invention, could be posed by Morris Kline: the study of mathematics and its
contributions to the sciences . . .
. . . This world’s no blot for us, Nor blank; it means intensely, and means good:
To find its meaning is my meat and drink. —Robert Browning1
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I. Predictions and Unforeseen Applications
The second question, hard to answer from the standpoint of mathematics-as-art or
human invention, could be posed by Morris Kline:
the study of mathematics and its contributions to the sciences exposes a deep
question. Mathematics is manmade. The concepts, the broad ideas, the logical
standards and methods of reasoning, and the ideals which have been steadfastly
pursued for over two thousand years were fashioned by human beings. Yet with this
product of his fallible mind man has surveyed spaces too vast for his imagination
to encompass; he has predicted and shown how to control radio waves which none of
our senses can perceive; and he has discovered particles too small to be seen with
the most powerful microscope. Cold symbols and formulas completely at the
disposition of man have enabled him to secure a portentous grip on the universe.
Some explication of this marvelous power is called for.2
Kline is echoing a plea which has surfaced continually through history and is still
waiting to be answered by those who believe that mathematics is strictly a human
endeavor. When one reads articles like Nobel Prize winner Eugene Wigner’s, “The
Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences,” one senses from
the title Wigner’s bewilderment over the fact that purely cerebral “inventions,”
the “free creations of the human mind,” have such powerful applications to the
physical world. According to Wigner, “the enormous usefulness of mathematics in the
natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious and . . . there is no
rational explanation for it.”3 Referring to the appearance of complex numbers in
the laws of quantum mechanics, he observes: “It is difficult to avoid the
impression that a miracle confronts us here . . .”4 Other prominent mathematicians
agree. The brilliant John von Neumann referred to the relationship of mathematics
to the natural sciences as “quite peculiar,” even though he claimed it was the
“most vitally characteristic fact about mathematics.”5 There is no doubt von
Neumann’s assessment is accurate. Mathematics discovered purely by thinking has
powerful physical applications, nearly always unforeseen at the time of discovery.
Discoveries Applied Later
The great British scientist, Lord Kelvin, was a brilliant physicist but a poor
judge of mathematical truth or usefulness. He evidently ignored the fact that
. . . by and large it is uniformly true in mathematics that there is a time lapse
between a mathematical discovery and a moment when it is useful; and that this
lapse of time can be anything from thirty to a hundred years, in some cases even
more; and that the whole system seems to function without any direction, without
any reference to usefulness, and without any desire to do the things which are
useful.6
This is certainly true of quaternions and vectors, discovered in the 19th century
by Sir William Hamilton. “Today nearly all branches of classical and modern physics
are represented using the language of vectors. Vectors are also used with
increasing frequency in the social and biological sciences.”7 But Lord Kelvin’s
evaluation at the end of the 19th century was: “[Quaternions] although beautifully
ingenious, have been an unmixed evil to those who have touched them in any
way . . . vectors . . . have been never of the slightest use to any creature.”8
But what if mathematics is God’s thought in the creation?
In the person of his illustrious colleague, Hermann von Helmholtz, Lord Kelvin
found support for another monumental gaffe. James Clerk Maxwell, in modifying
Ampere’s Law, found that his additions did no violence to the mathematics of the
situation, and observed that there was probably a physical phenomenon for which the
new mathematical quantity was a model.
He called this a ‘displacement current,’ and he even suggested a way of producing
such currents in the laboratory. Now this seemed to smack of science fiction, and
the most distinguished mathematical physicists of the day (von Helmholtz and
Kelvin) dismissed it as such. However, 23 years later (and this was ten years after
Maxwell’s death) the German physicist Heinrich Hertz decided to see if such waves
could be generated in the manner Maxwell had proposed.
The result is now history; Hertz’s experiments indeed demonstrated the reality of
Maxwell’s seeming ‘science fiction,’ and the foundation of much of our
communication, navigation and entertainment industries was laid . . . Trying to
give physical meaning to a mathematical term had the consequence of leading to the
invention, by Maxwell, of a physical concept the existence of whose physical
counterpart (radio waves) was not discovered until 23 years later by Hertz.9
It is interesting that Wilder refers to the idea as an “invention,” but calls its
“physical counterpart” a “discovery.” Kline hated to grant even this much. “Radio
waves,” he said, “whose physical nature are still not understood, were discovered,
it might almost be said invented, because mathematical reasoning demanded their
existence.”10 (Italics his)
To claim that radio waves “might almost be said invented” skirts the boundaries of
rational thought, yet it is indicative of the ambivalence many mathematicians bring
to the study of natural law. Ernst Mach, for example, insisted that “these mental
expedients have nothing whatever to do with the phenomenon itself.” Yet he admitted
that “our [mathematical] conceptions of electricity fit in at once with the
electrical phenomena.”11
Earlier in Mathematics in Western Culture, Kline cites another discovery which for
2,000 years was labeled “the unprofitable amusement of a speculative brain.”
However, this “amusement”—conic sections— “ultimately made possible modern
astronomy, the theory of projectile motion, and the law of universal
gravitation.”12
In Men of Mathematics, Dr. Bell includes his example of
. . . a phenomenon of frequent occurrence in the history of mathematics: the
necessary mathematical tools for scientific applications have often been invented
decades before the science to which the mathematics is the key was imagined. The
bizarre rule of ‘multiplication’ for matrices, . . . seems about as far from
anything of scientific or practical use as anything could possibly be. Yet 67 years
after Cayley invented it, [actually Cayley generalized an algebra “invented” by
Hamilton] Heisenberg in 1925 recognized in the algebra of matrices exactly the tool
which he needed for his revolutionary work in quantum mechanics.13
Yet Bell patronizes those who would dare mention “God” and “mathematics” in the
same breath. Searching for the forest while lost in the trees, he cites other
instances of the “peculiar duplicity” between mathematics and nature, but offers no
explanation as to why “ . . . the by-products of these apparently useless
investigations amply repay those who undertake them by suggesting numerous powerful
methods applicable to other fields of mathematics having direct contact with the
physical universe.”14
Speaking of probability, for instance, Bell says,
The humble origin of this extremely useful mathematical theory is typical of many:
some apparently trivial problem, first solved perhaps out of idle curiosity, leads
to profound generalizations which . . . may cause us to revise our whole conception
of the physical universe . . . ”15
As to why many “artificially prepared” problems motivated by investigating analytic
functions of a complex variable “have proven of the greatest service in
aerodynamics and other practical applications of the theory of fluid motion,”16 the
best Bell can come up with is “curious.” Curious, indeed, that this theory
“developed without any chance of immediate use”17 from studies in mathematics for
its own sake should today be used in automobile and aircraft manufacture to
guarantee the streamline form having the least wind resistance.
But what if mathematics is God’s thought in the creation? Then it would be
“curious” if man, created in God’s image, did not discover it by thinking, and
could not use it to “subdue and replenish” the earth and take dominion over it, as
God commands. When mentioning the late-breaking, powerful, unforeseen applications
to physics of such mathematics as Hermitian forms and substitution groups, Bell
credits Hermite and Cauchy18 respectively with the invention of these concepts. Did
these men, great as they were, invent nature? Surely, “discovered” would be the
more realistic label.
Earlier, in Men of Mathematics, Bell essentially admits he is using “invention”
when “discovery” is the more accurate designation. He writes,
the mere spectator of mathematical history is soon overwhelmed by the appalling
mass of mathematical inventions that still maintain their vitality and importance
for scientific work, as discoveries of the past in any other field of scientific
endeavor do not, after centuries and tens of centuries.19 (Emphasis mine)
When Gauss laid the foundation for Riemannian generalization of geometry, he may
have looked upon it as his creation, his property, since its importance in physical
science was not recognized for decades.20 But what of continued fractions, which
“he had developed as a young man to satisfy his curiosity in the theory of
numbers?” Gauss himself, a great scientist as well as mathematician, eventually
applied this “purely abstract technique” to dioptics, especially lens systems.21
With a boldness surpassing even Maxwell’s, Einstein accurately predicted the
gravitational deflection of light and also the red shift of spectrum under certain
conditions. Through mathematics, both men prophesied “totally unknown and
unforeseen phenomena” and “amplified their qualitative foresight by precise
quantitative predictions which . . . were verified experimentally.”22 For Bell, the
experimental verification of these prophecies “precluded any charge of mere
guessing.”23
These facts hardly support the mathematics-is-art theory held by many and typified
by John W.N. Sullivan:
Mathematics, as much as music or any other art, is one means by which we rise to a
complete self-consciousness. The significance of mathematics resides precisely in
the fact that it is an art; by informing us of the nature of our own minds it
informs us of much that depends on our minds. It does not enable us to explore some
remote region of the eternally existent; it helps to show us how far what exists
depends on the way we exist. We are the lawgivers of the universe; it is even
possible that we can experience nothing but what we have created, and that the
greatest of our mathematical creations is the universe itself.24
“Mathematics,” he continued, “is of profound significance in the universe, not
because it exhibits principles we obey, but because it exhibits principles that we
impose.”25 This is Sullivan’s attempt to answer Kline’s deep question, of which
Sullivan, parroting Kant, had his own version: “Why the external should obey the
laws of logic, why, in fact, science should be possible, is not at all an easy
question to answer.”26
It evidently was too difficult for Sullivan to answer, if the best he can do is
make the unsupported claim that “mathematicians are the law-givers of the universe”
and that the universe itself is “the greatest of our mathematical creations.”
Though it fails as an answer, a better statement of the Faith of Religious Humanism
would be hard to find. One is reminded of the caption on the postage stamp
commemorating the Apollo-Soyuz space mission: “Man is his own star.”
Sullivan is reiterating an earlier theme of his in which he maintains,
If [the mathematician] can find, in experience, sets of entities which obey the
same logical scheme as his mathematical entities, then he has applied his
mathematics to the external world; he has created a branch of science.27
Sullivan’s faith-construct, emulated by many, is defective; its consequences do not
fit the facts. Maxwell and Einstein did not shape the universe to fit their
mathematical discoveries. Instead, they predicted quantitatively what until then
were “totally unknown and unforeseen phenomena” which would be discovered in the
future by others. Even Sullivan, in a different Aspects of Science, published in
1927, was impressed with the “inevitability” (italics his) of mathematical
demonstrations.28 He confessed also that “ . . . mathematics . . . has repeatedly
shown itself applicable to real happenings, however little notions of utility may
have played a part . . . in its creation.”29
Crystallography provides other instances of what James R. Newman called
“mathematical prevision.”30 For example, Hamilton “predicted mathematically that a
wholly unexpected phenomenon,” namely, a cone of infinitely many rays of refracted
light, would be found in connection with the refraction of light in biaxial
crystals.31 Newman also claims that
mathematicians . . . decreed the permissible variations of internal structure of
crystals before observers were able to discover their actual structure.
Mathematics, in other words, not only enunciated the applicable physical laws, but
provided an invaluable syllabus of research to guide future experimenters.32
Harvard professor Phillipe Le Corbeiller, in an article worth reading in its
entirety, gives an example: “Mathematicians have proved that the symmetry elements
of crystals can be grouped in 32 different ways, and no others. Crystallographers
have classified every known crystal into one of these 32 crystal classes.”33 Would
Sullivan have us believe the mathematicians created crystals because they predicted
their structure precisely?
Then there is the phenomenon of Gauss, Hamilton, Riemann, Elwin Bruno, Christoffel,
and Hilbert, working independently on parts of what turned out to be the same
esoteric geometry, under the delusion not only that they were creating unique works
of art, but also that their efforts had no usefulness beyond aesthetics.34 As Carl
G. Hempel writes,
The geometrical theory which is used to describe the structure of the physical
universe is of a type that may be characterized as a generalization of elliptic
geometry. It was originally constructed by Riemann as a purely mathematical theory,
without any concrete possibility of practical application at hand. When Einstein,
in developing his general theory of relativity, looked for an appropriate
mathematical theory to deal with the structure of physical space, he found in
Riemann’s abstract system the conceptual tool he needed. This fact throws an
interesting sidelight on the importance of scientific progress of that type of
investigation which the ‘practical-minded’ man in the street tends to dismiss as
useless, abstract mathematical speculation.35
When it comes to the relation of mathematics to the physical sciences, the judgment
of mathematicians, even on their own discoveries, is often no better than that of
the “man in the street.” G.H. Hardy , the militant “pure” mathematician who
regarded God as his personal enemy,36 boasted, “I have never done anything
‘useful’. No discovery of mine has made, or is likely to make, directly or
indirectly, for good or ill, the least difference to the amenity of the world.”37
New parents whose baby suffers from haemolytic disease would bless Hardy while
disagreeing with his evaluation of his work. A principle he established (to which
he attached “little weight”) is “of central importance in the study of Rh-blood
groups and the treatment of [this] disease of the newborn.”38
Also, Hardy was fascinated by Riemann’s Zeta function, which deals with the number
of primes less than a given number. Never in the far reaches of imagination would
Hardy or anyone else connect this esoteric concept in number theory with something
so mundane as the study of furnace temperatures, but such is its application
today.39
Kline at times denigrates modern “pure” mathematics. He quotes, for example,
chemist Josiah Willard Gibbs’ remark that “the pure mathematician can do what he
pleases but the applied mathematician must be at least partially sane.”40 Kline
cannot, however, escape the fact that mathematical concepts “not drawn directly
from nature” and even seemingly “at variance with nature,” with “no reason” for
anyone to look for their applications to physics, work “marvelously well.”41
He goes on to say that
the application made in the 19th and 20th centuries [of ] purely mathematical
constructs are even more powerful and marvelous than those made earlier when
mathematicians operated with concepts suggested directly by physical happenings.42
This is history for which Kline, labeling as “farfetched” belief in a
mathematically designed universe, cannot account. “Why,” he asks plaintively,
“should long chains of pure reasoning produce such remarkably applicable
conclusions?” Kline’s confession is all that is left him: “This is the greatest
paradox in mathematics.”43
Speaking of “paradoxes,” I wonder what Kline thought of Alonzo Church’s calculus of
lambda conversion, which David Berlinski says “at first seems pointlessly complex
and pointlessly abstract.” Many years later, it “turned out to be instrumental in
the development of various computer languages.” The amazing thing is that Berlinski
clings to his assumption that “using . . . his own powerful imagination, Church
proceeded to create a universe out of thin air,” and is forced to refer to it as
“another queer and troubling example of pure thought preceding its instantiation in
matter.”
The Christian recognizes it as another example of the truth of Hebrews 1:3,
transcendent thought upholding the universe, which Church is discovering, not
creating. Berlinski, despite his humanistic assumptions about the origin of
mathematics, sounding quite biblical, calls Church’s work “an opening into a world
beyond the world of symbols.”
Two final examples, which John von Neumann calls “strange,” of pure mathematical
thought having unexpected scientific applications
are given by differential geometry and group theory: they were certainly conceived
as abstract, nonapplied disciplines and almost always cultivated in this spirit.
After a decade in one case, and a century in the other, they turned out to be very
useful in physics. And they are still mostly pursued in the indicated, abstract,
nonapplied spirit.44
A statement by Alfred North Whitehead epitomizes the preceding observations. To
Whitehead,
Nothing is more impressive than the fact that as mathematics withdrew increasingly
into the upper regions of ever greater extremes of abstract thought, it returned
back to earth with a corresponding growth of importance for the analysis of
concrete fact . . . the paradox is now fully established that the utmost
abstractions are the true weapons with which to control our thought of concrete
fact.45
Bourbaki clearly implies that the nature-mathematics marriage is impossible to
explain if mathematics is considered an invention of man’s mind.
That there is an intimate connection between experimental phenomena and
mathematical structures, seems to be fully confirmed in the most unexpected manner
by the recent discoveries of contemporary physics. But we are completely ignorant
as to the underlying reasons for this fact.46
Leaving no doubt about “their” ignorance, Bourbaki goes on to say,
From the axiomatic point of view, mathematics appears thus as a storehouse of
abstract forms—the mathematical structures; and it so happens—without our knowing
why—that certain aspects of empirical reality fit themselves into these forms, as
if through a kind of preadaptation.47
If mathematics is the thinking of the Creator of “empirical reality,”
“preadaptation” is exactly what would be expected. Bourbaki’s ignorance stems from
their assumption either that no personal-infinite God is there, or if He is there,
it does not matter.48
II. Abstractions, Models, and Applications
F.E. Browder of the University of Chicago, writing in The American Mathematical
Monthly, speaks “not about Mathematics simple, but Mathematics I (counting,
measuring, calculating), Mathematics II (applications to other disciplines),
Mathematics III (research or “pure” mathematics), and Mathematics IV . . . the
transcendent ideal of mathematics as a fundamental and universal form of
knowledge.”49
Deducing the mathematical models, the ideas, from natural clues is called
“abstracting.” Carl Allendoerfer presented this process schematically:50
Abstracting

Attempting to define “what is meant by calling mathematics an ‘abstract science,’”

Whitehead points out that
the first noticeable fact about arithmetic is that it applies to everything, to
tastes and to sounds, to apples and to angels, to the ideas of the mind and to the
bones of the body. The nature of the things is perfectly indifferent, of all things
it is true that two and two make four. Thus we write down as the leading
characteristic of mathematics that it deals with properties and ideas which are
applicable to things just because they are things, and apart from any particular
feelings, or emotions, or sensations, in any way connected with them.51
Whitehead also claimed “all science as it grows . . . becomes mathematical in its
ideas.”52
A specific example of abstracting is provided by the swinging pendulum as it slowly
loses energy through friction and finally comes to rest. The scientist by trial and
error can produce a formula which approximates the laws of motion which the Bible
claims God spoke into existence. Depending upon how accurate the scientist’s
instruments of measure, how clear his eyesight, and how closely the actual
situation is modeled by his formula, he can use it to predict results
approximately. Some have called this type of abstraction “descriptive” or
“experimental” mathematics.
Here the matter would rest if it were not for the mathematician making his entrance
stage right, asking his ubiquitous, “What if?” “What if,” questions he, “we ignore
air resistance and other friction, ignore also temperature and so on, and
conceptualize an ideal pendulum under ideal conditions? What equations would
describe this situation?”
Now he is abstracting from the physical, tuning in to the thinking behind the word
of creation and consistence. Many non-mathematicians, some scientists, and even a
few mathematicians, have ridiculed abstract pictures as being valueless, because
the mathematical model is more precise than its physical counterpart. So far as
usefulness goes, they would have been content to stop at the descriptive level,
relegating “pure” mathematics to the world of art or games.
It is now clear, however, that the discoveries which turn out to have the most
empirical power occur in the rarified atmosphere of pure mathematics, free from the
limitations of imprecise measuring instruments and the inability to use them
precisely. As Bell points out, “The problem of finding the mathematical expressions
for the intrinsic laws of nature is replaced by an attackable one in the theory of
invariants.”53
Back at the pendulum, the mathematician begins stringing together “what-ifs” and he
must be watched, for he is like a lover; “grant a mathematician the least principle
and he will draw from it a consequence which you must grant him also, and from this
consequence another.”54 Finally, a description of natural laws is produced which
governs a wider collection of physical phenomena than just pendular motion. Those
who deprecate the value of time spent trying to discover the idea-models behind
nature are dumbfounded when the mathematician introduces them to a scenario which
applies more widely and powerfully, though still approximately, to the workings of
creation.
James R. Newman puts it this way,
Modern mechanics describes quite well how real bodies behave in the real world; its
principles and laws are derived, however, from a nonexistent conceptual world of
pure, clean, empty, boundless Euclidean space, in which perfect geometrical bodies
execute perfect geometrical figures.55
He goes on to say,
Until the great thinkers, operating, in Butterfields’s words, ‘on the margin of
contemporary thought,’ were able to establish the mathematical hypothesis of this
ideal platonic world, and to draw their mathematical consequences, it was
impossible for them to construct a rational science of mechanics applicable to the
physical world of experience.56
Because it is a conceptual world, Newman is led to the erroneous conclusion that it
is “nonexistent” and “platonic.” Otherwise, he could be describing God’s creation
thought and its connection to “real bodies” and “the physical world of experience.”
One of the first to study the motion of the pendulum in this way was Galileo, who
thought that
mathematical abstractions got their validity as statements about Nature by being
solutions of particular physical problems. By using this method of abstracting from
immediate and direct experience, and by correlating observed events by means of
mathematical relations which could not themselves be observed, he was led to
experiments of which he could not have thought in terms of the old commonplace
empiricism.57
Another example of the process and value of abstracting mathematics from the
physical is found in vector, or linear, algebra. It began in the engineering
representation of a force as an arrow drawn on paper, aimed a certain way to
indicate the direction of the force, and of a certain length to describe its
magnitude. In other words, a vector was a scale model of the size and direction of
a force. Then, with ruler and protractor, engineers could approximate the sum of
forces acting on a body, or separate a force into an equivalent system of forces.
“What if?” the mathematician interrupts again.
What if we assume we know the exact measures of these angles of direction, and
lengths of the arrows? What if we replace the drawing of an arrow with an ordered
pair of numbers, the first representing the distance the arrow travels
horizontally, and the second, the distance it travels vertically? What if we could
define an addition operation on these pairs which would correspond to the
‘addition’ of arrows by scaling the drawing? Could we find an identity, and would
there be inverses?”
He exits stage left and behind the scenes discovers an algebra not only for two or
three dimensions, but for n-dimensional space. Between acts, he catches the
engineer backstage and hands him the script to a vastly superior, more powerful
understanding of processes and products of what I believe to be God’s creative
imagination. In fact, center stage—the laboratory—linear algebra, or tensor
analysis, turns out to be the most general picture the scientist yet possesses of
the universe.
Dr. Alfred Inselberg of the I.B.M. Los Angeles Scientific Center no doubt utilized
linear algebra in his construction of a mathematical model of the human ear.
Explains Dr. Inselberg,
We can generate a computer model, based on the mathematical model, that describes
the behavior of the cochlea. We can then do various experiments on the computer
that could not be done on the actual ear. We can then use the computer to discover
what sort of physical defect results in a particular hearing impairment. Since the
defect can be ‘repaired’ mathematically in the model, we could, in some cases, even
suggest appropriate treatment.58
About his research Dr. Inselberg says, “We must remember that no mathematical model
can be as precise as the real thing. But our model is answering questions that
couldn’t be answered without it.”59 It is true that no man-made model is as precise
as the real thing. But I think in God’s mind rests the precise mathematical
description of each individual’s ear, just as He knows the exact mathematics of
each snowflake. Man is allowed to discover the hexagonics which, in general,
describe snowflakes, and can introduce modification to approximate the
characteristics of individual flakes. Dr. Inselberg is involved in a similar
process with the ear, only multi-dimensionally. Cassius Jackson Keyser was correct
when he stated, “Mathematics, even in its present and most abstract estate, is not
detached from life. It is just the ideal handling of the problems of life . . . ”60
It is true that some mathematicians spend their lives making discoveries in
mathematic’s “most abstract estate” without knowing the natural or creational base
from which it springs, and worrying neither about that nor about applications to
the creation of what they are doing. R.L. Wilder’s judgment of such:
I have often observed that among the most capable, research-wise, of new Ph.D.’s,
can often be found the greatest lack of knowledge concerning the background and
significance of their work, as well as abysmal ignorance of the reasons for doing
it and of the general nature of mathematics. In short, they are uneducated
specialists. If you ask them why they are specialists, the best reason they can
give is that this is the way to get results which merit publication and hence a
good job.”61
If what a mathematician discovers is really true, it will be consistent with
previously discovered mathematics which has passed time’s test, and it will be
traceable to natural scientific origins or applicable to the creation. As we have
seen, sometimes there is a considerable waiting period until the horizons of
mathematical discovery widen so that apparently separate, or even contradictory,
systems can at last be seen dwelling harmoniously under a bigger sky.
The great von Neumann proffered some cogent observations on this subject. “I think
that it is a relatively good approximation to truth,” he said,
that mathematical ideas originate in empirics, although the genealogy is sometimes
long and obscure. But, once they are so conceived, the subject begins to live a
peculiar life of its own and is better compared to a creative one, governed by
almost entirely aesthetic motivations, than to anything else and, in particular, to
an empirical science. There is, however, a further point which . . . needs
stressing. As a mathematical discipline travels far from its empirical source . . .
only indirectly inspired by ideas coming from ‘reality,’ . . . It becomes . . .
purely l’art pour l’art. . . . there is a grave danger that . . . the stream, so
far from its source, will separate into a multitude of insignificant branches and .
. . become a disorganized mass of details and complexities. . . . after much
‘abstract’ inbreeding, a mathematical subject is in danger of degeneration. . . .
whenever this stage is reached, the only remedy seems to me to be the rejuvenating
return to the source: the reinjection of . . . directly empirical ideas. I am
convinced that this was . . . necessary . . . to conserve the freshness and
vitality of the subject . . .62
Far from mistaking mathematics to be purely art, the ancient Greeks “viewed
mathematics as an in depth study of physical phenomena.” In fact, the root word,
mathema (μάθημα), means “that which is learned,” as opposed to “that which is
produced” or “that which is imposed.”63
Drs. Kline and Bell are critical of mathematicians and textbook writers who ignore
or downplay the processes of abstracting mathematics from nature or applying
mathematics to nature. Kline decries the fact that “the relationship of mathematics
to the study of nature is not presented in our dry and technique-soaked textbooks,”
and that “mathematics is valuable primarily because of its contributions to the
understanding and mastery of nature has been lost sight of by some mathematicians
who wish to isolate the subject and offer only an eclectic study.”64 Kline
maintains “an undue emphasis on abstraction, generality, and logically perfect
deductive structures has caused mathematicians to overlook the real importance of
the subject.”65
Caution about becoming lost in logic to the exclusion of experience is a recurring
theme of Kline’s. Discussing the development of mathematics, he insists “it was not
the logic . . . but arguments by analogy, the physical meaning of some concepts,
and the obtainment of correct scientific results”66 which determined correct
directions. “Logic,” Kline says, “does not dictate the contents of mathematics, the
uses determine the logical structure.”67 For Kline, “Logic may be a standard and an
obligation of mathematics, but it is not the essence. It is the uses to which
mathematics is put that tell us what is correct.”68
Kline maintains this theme in a book published in 1980. “What preserved the life of
mathematics,” Kline insists,
was the powerful medicine it had itself concocted—the enormous achievements in
celestial mechanics, acoustics, hydrodynamics, optics, electromagnetic theory, and
engineering—and the incredible accuracy of its predictions. There had to be some
essential—perhaps magical—power in a subject which, though it had fought under the
invincible banner of truth, has actually achieved its victories through some inner
mysterious strength.69
Both before and after this assertion, Kline states his philosophical standpoint.
“Mathematicians had given up God and so it behooved them to accept man. . . .
Nature’s laws are man’s creation. We, not God, are the lawgivers of the universe. A
law of nature is man’s description and not God’s prescription.”70
Kline is willing to assign mathematics to the land of the “incredible,” the
“magical,” and the “mysterious,” rather than move from this unrealistic standpoint.
Therefore, to Kline, “the remarkable confirmation and power of what has been
applied remains to be explained.”71
Claiming “intuition and physical arguments rather than logic guided Newton and
Leibnitz along the proper paths,”72 Kline’s presuppositions about the nature of
mathematics force him to label this “a very fortunate circumstance,” though it is
exactly what is expected from the perspective of a Christian world-view.
“The profound study of nature is the most fecund source of mathematical
discoveries. [The] fundamental elements are those which recur in all natural
phenomena.”
In praising Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory which he calls “so profound and
comprehensive that it beggars the imagination,” Kline admits there is “a plan and
order in nature which speaks more eloquently to man than nature’s prancings.”73 So
Kline evidently believes in the existence of some communicative intelligence behind
nature, despite saying elsewhere that man “outgrew” the idea it was God “speaking”
through mathematics. Kline’s comments on Maxwell’s ideas paraphrase those written
many years previously by Heinrich Hertz, after the great scientist in his
laboratory verified Maxwell’s predictions. Said Hertz, “It is impossible to study
this wonderful theory without feeling as if the mathematical equations had an
independent life and an intelligence of their own, as if they were wiser than
ourselves, indeed wiser than their discoverer . . . ”74 The drawstring of the bag
loosens to let the cat wriggle out when Kline confesses that the true value of
mathematical formulas “lies in the fact that they apply to so many varied
situations on heaven and earth.”75
For his part, Bell quotes Fourier as saying, “The profound study of nature is the
most fecund source of mathematical discoveries. [The] fundamental elements are
those which recur in all natural phenomena.”76 Bell then criticizes
pure mathematicians [who] sometimes like to imagine that all their activities are
dictated by their own tastes and that the applications of science suggest nothing
of interest to them. Nevertheless some of the purest of the pure drudge away their
lives over differential equations that first appeared in the translation of
physical situations into mathematical symbolism, and it is precisely these
practically suggested equations which are at the heart of the theory.77
Neither Kline nor Bell give any place to religious or philosophical considerations
when discussing the nature of mathematics. Each claims that mathematics is art,
giving credit for its construction solely to man’s mind. That this assumption leads
to the foregoing contradictory statements deters them not at all.
A prime example of the mathematical base of nature is given in the work of Michael
Faraday, who, as Charles Sanders Peirce observes, “evolved” the mathematical ideas
“requisite” to electricity by pursuing its study “resolutely, without any
acquaintance with mathematics.”78 Yet, as previously stated, it is possible, even
desirable, to tune in to mathematics at the thought level “and then to apply it to
electricity, which was Maxwell’s way.”79
Charles’ father, Benjamin produced a definition of mathematics often misquoted as
“the science drawing necessary conclusions.” As son Charles points out, this is a
definition of logic. The rendering should be, “The science which draws necessary
conclusions,”80 which once more fixes the jewel in its required setting of natural
phenomena.
Another mathematician particularly adept at hearing and recording nature’s
mathematical speech was Joseph-Louis Lagrange,
who with a pen in his hand . . . was transfigured; and from the first, his writings
were elegance itself. He would set to mathematics all the little themes on physical
inquiries which his friends brought him, much as Schubert would set to music any
stray rhyme that took his fancy.81
Joseph Fourier began with actual music and translated it into mathematical
components. He showed that “all sounds, vocal and instrumental, simple and complex,
are completely describable in mathematical terms.”82 Even the “wailing of a cat . .
. is no more complex mathematically than a simple trigonometric function. Those
dull, abstract formulas . . . are really all around us. We give voice to them
whenever we open our mouths and we hear them whenever we prick up our ears.”83
Though Gauss was the “Prince” of mathematicians, he was also one of the greatest
physicists the world has known. His work in geodetic surveying no doubt appeared
mundane to some of his contemporaries, yet this research enabled Gauss to develop
the mathematics of conformal mapping, “which is of constant use in electrostatics,
hydrodynamics and . . . the theory of the air foil.”84
Kepler and Newton saw the light at the end of the tunnel almost simultaneously when
they discovered independently the amazing fact that the derivative and the integral
were essentially inverses. The tunnel was “clearly empirical. Kepler’s first
attempts at integration were formulated as ‘dolichmetry’—measurement of kegs—that
is volumetry for bodies with curved surfaces.”85 Those whose only experience with
integral calculus was in a classroom might never learn that its discovery was
empirical. To them it will always remain “the area under a curve” on a piece of
graph paper. As John von Neumann pointed out,
Newton invented the calculus ‘of fluxions,’ essentially for the purposes of
mechanics—in fact, the two disciplines, calculus and mechanics, were developed by
him more or less together. The first formulations of the calculus were not even
mathematically rigorous. An inexact, semi-physical formulation was the only one
available for over 150 years after Newton! And yet, some of the most important
advances of analysis took place during this period, against this inexact,
mathematically inadequate background! Yet no mathematician would want to exclude it
from the fold—that period produced mathematics as first class as ever existed!86
(Exclamation points are von Neumann’s!)
So mathematics is uncovered in the construction of abstract models of nature, and
these models always form a unity with mathematics discovered solely by intellectual
pursuits. Referring to Laplace’s “equation of continuity,” Bell is astonished that
this “physical platitude, when subjected to mathematical reasoning, should furnish
unforeseen information which is anything but platitudinous.”87
Having gained access to Browder’s Mathematics III and IV through the portals of I
and II (see page 27), mathematicians are able to trace the beautiful patterns of
natural language by thought alone, without reference to the tangible, creational
base of which the patterns are models. Philip Jourdain wrote, “ . . . it gradually
appeared to us quite clearly that there is such a thing at all as a Mathematics—
something which exists apart from its application to natural science.”88 This is
the aspect of mathematics which leads some mathematicians to conclude it is a
creative art, not realizing the possibility they are thinking God’s creation
thought after Him.
But mathematics found by thinking always develops powerful creational applications.
If this is not the case, if “the conceptual system should ever gain ascendency over
actual research, or emancipate itself from the firm control of sensory
experience, . . . as Einstein has said, scientific thinking must degenerate into
‘empty talk.’”89
Here is Philippe Le Corbeiller’s delineation of the mathematical process of
abstraction: “In any new science,” writes he,
purely descriptive knowledge is the first stage of advance. Next comes the
establishment of quantitative laws . . . In the third stage of scientific knowledge
which we might call deductive or axiomatic, the natural laws obtained by
observation are shown to be necessary logical consequences of a few hypotheses or
assumptions.90
This sounds as if he has mathematics under control in a neat, tidy, man-made
corral, with no great Mathematician needed, until one reads his next sentence: “The
surprising thing about the examples of deductive knowledge which we know today is
the extreme simplicity of the assumptions and how rich and far removed are their
consequences.”91 And it is “astounding” to Herman Weyl, “that the laws show such a
simple mathematical structure, while the quantitative distribution of the state
quantities in the world continuum is incredibly complicated.”92
Not only do mathematical models solve physical problems, but the reverse is also
true.
In some cases a physical experiment is the only means of determining whether a
solution to a specific problem exists; once the existence of a solution has been
demonstrated, it may then be possible to complete the mathematical analysis, even
to move beyond the conclusions furnished by the model—a sort of bootstrap
procedure. . . . ‘many of the fundamental theorems of function theory were
discovered by Riemann, [merely] by thinking of simple experiments concerning the
flow of electricity in thin sheets’—without even approaching the laboratory.93
Le Corbeiller’s study in crystallography leads him to similar conclusions: “So here
we have geometry again, and arithmetic, but this time it does not all take place in
our heads. Here nature invents the rules of the mathematical game . . . ”94
Christians believe the Mind partially revealed behind mathematics to be God’s. For
others, it is a “terra incognita” leading to contentless mysticism. An example is
given by the numbers 1,2,3,5,8,13,21, . . . , discovered in the thirteenth century
by the Italian, Fibonacci. To produce a member of the sequence, you add the
preceding two numbers. These numbers are encountered not only by mathematicians and
scientists, but also by artists, musicians and architects. The ratio of two
successive numbers in the sequence, after the 14th, is .618034 to 1. Since the
Greeks practically worshiped this fraction, calling it the “golden mean,” those may
be excused who think its continual reoccurrence in art and architecture is by
design and not because it is “naturally” the most pleasing to the eye. What then
motivates writers like William Hoffer to refer to the Fibonacci quotient as being
“part of a mystical natural harmony?”95 The answer lies in the fact that this
mysterious ratio is also “intimately connected with the strange twists of nature,”
non-human entities like sunflowers, snail shells, and “the great spiral galaxies of
outer space.”96
An example is given by the numbers 1,2,3,5,8,13,21, . . . , discovered in the
thirteenth century by the Italian, Fibonacci. . . . These numbers are encountered
not only by mathematicians and scientists, but also by artists, musicians and
architects.
The intimate connection to which Hoffer refers is the equiangular or logarithmic
spiral, which was discovered by Jacob Bernoulli and whose construction is based on
“golden mean” rectangles. Christians and “mysticists” both recognize, “It is not in
[nature], but in Something far beyond her, that all lines meet and all contrasts
are explained.”97
Why Is Mathematics in Nature
Even Einstein was puzzled. “How can it be,” he asked, “that mathematics, being
after all a product of human thought . . . independent of experience, is so
admirably appropriate to the objects of reality?” Einstein’s “answer,” often
quoted, only muddies the water: “As far as the laws of mathematics refer to
reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to
reality.”98 The Christian would say, “Perhaps, Dr. Einstein, the problem lies in
your assumption that mathematics is ‘a product of human thought.’ If mathematics
really is God’s thought, He being the Creator and Sustainer of the ‘objects of
reality,’ the answer to your question is clear.”
Morris Kline rejects the theistic view of the origin of mathematics as “a popular
[?] fallacy most difficult to dislodge.” Since Kline’s assumptions regarding the
nature of mathematics are similar to Einstein’s, his arrival at a similar
philosophical dead-end is not unexpected. “Though devoid of truth,” says he,
“mathematics has given man miraculous power over nature,” which Kline calls the
“greatest paradox in human thought.”99 He devotes many pages of Mathematics in
Western Culture to an attempt to resolve this “paradox,” failing spectacularly.
In a 1981 magazine interview he admitted, “Today there is no agreement among
mathematicians on fundamental principles . . . the situation is a muddle. In the
end, we just don’t know why mathematics works as it does. We’re faced with a
mystery.”100 This is a strange conclusion if mathematics is, as Kline insists, “a
man-made, artificial subject.”101 In 1981, Kline was still maintaining “it is not
the truth,” and still confessing, “nevertheless it can make rather remarkably
accurate predictions about physical phenomena.”102 As we have seen, “remarkably
accurate” is an understatement.
Evolutionism
Nothing could be more damaging to the theory of evolution than the fact that God
orders the universe mathematically. Evolutionists reject out of hand Kepler’s claim
that “the chief aim of investigations of the external world should be to discover
the rational order and harmony which has been imposed on it by God and which He
revealed to us in the language of mathematics.” Evolutionism demands faith to
believe that from nothing, by time plus chance plus nothing, came everything.
I once asked a professor in a biology class where the first little blob of matter
came from. His answer: “We don’t think about that.” Translation: “I accept the
existence of the first blob on faith.” Implication 1: Evolution is a blob based
religion, and by “blob,” I include the big bang, Miller’s trapped amino acids,
Guth’s “fluctuation in a false vacuum” and all the other desperate attempts by
evolutionists to account for origins. Implication 2: Darwin should have called his
book Post Origin of the Species.
The twin gods evolutionists worship are time and statistics. If you gag at the idea
that a camel, a chrysanthemum, cerise, C-sharp, chromium, and conscience all could
evolve from the same little piece of pre-existent goop, not to worry—just toss in
another couple million years and let statistics work its magic.
In college we used to laugh at the definition which calls statistics the practice
of drawing a mathematically precise line from an unwarranted assumption to a
foregone conclusion. In the years since, however, I have come to realize that this
“definition” is realistic. If a mathematician is handed a sackful of data, he/she
can analyze it mathematically, extracting the statistics (mean, median, variance,
etc.). But what is the point? The sample space from which the data came is affected
by bias, and the results can be tweaked (lop off the outliers, apply “corrective”
factors, etc.) to “prove” any preconceived notion one harbors. I’ve reached the
point where the phrases “statistics show,” “studies show,” “polls show,” “research
shows,” preclude me from believing anything which follows.
Harvard professor and evolutionist Richard Lewontin speaks honestly about the way a
scientist’s assumptions color results, making science not quite so “pure” as its
practitioners would have the public believe. “We take the side of science in spite
of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to
fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the
tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because
we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods
and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of
the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori
adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of
concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no
matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an
absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door”103 Lewontin’s disclaimer
is certainly true of evolutionist “research,” the result of which might more
accurately be labeled—if I might coin a word—“presult.”104
Yes, a spoonful of eons with a dash of statistics makes the random selection
medicine go down, in the most deceitful way. Case in point: Stephen Jay Gould’s
drunk who comes out of a bar and staggers down the sidewalk. He will bounce off the
walls many times, but there is a statistical chance he may fall into the street.
Therefore, evolution is true. This is “scinalogy,” scientific “proof ” by analogy.
When scientists attempt to stuff statistics into the many holes in the dike of
evolutionism, their discourse on the subject is often couched in what E.L. Doctorow
labeled “high-tech baroque,105 the kind of diction that is self insulating and
self-ennobling . . . very often lyric and almost always metaphorical. It suggests
something is there when in fact nothing is there at all.”
Summary
The relationship between mathematics and science to Kline is “mysterious” and
“miraculous;” to Wigner “unreasonable;” to von Neumann, “quite peculiar;” to
Bourbaki “unexpected;” to Bell it is “curious;” to Whitehead “a paradox;” and
Einstein asked, “How can it be?” If the “peculiar” usefulness of mathematics in
natural science cannot be rationally accounted for from the perspective of
mathematics-as-art or human invention, those of this persuasion should ask
themselves if their position is realistic. After all, while these mathematicians
are entitled to their own points of view, they are not entitled to their own facts.
Chapter 3
The Universal Language
Truth & the Transcendent
by Larry L. Zimmerman on September 25, 2015
Featured in Truth & the Transcendent
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There are two directions of mathematical inquiry. It can either penetrate into the
other sciences, making models, maps, and bridges for reasoning; or it can mind its
own business . . . .
. . . Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
And only he who sees, takes off his shoes—
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.
—Elizabeth Browning1
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Descriptions of Mathematics
From the inability of non-theistic assumptions concerning the nature of mathematics
to account both for its unity and its involvement in the natural sciences, comes
surrender in the battle to define mathematics. James R. Newman delineates the
problem when he says,
There are two directions of mathematical inquiry. It can either penetrate into the
other sciences, making models, maps, and bridges for reasoning; or it can mind its
own business, cultivate its own garden. Both pursuits have been enormously
fruitful. The success of mathematics as a helper to science has been spectacular.2
Then, as always, comes the unanswerable. “How,” Newman asks,
is this universality to be explained? Why has mathematics served so brilliantly in
so many different undertakings—as a lamp, a tool, a language; even in its curious,
ape-like preoccupation with itself? What, in other words, is the mathematical way
of thinking?3
Caught up on the same twin horns, von Neumann wrote, “There is a quite peculiar
duplicity in the nature of mathematics. One has to realize this duplicity, to
accept it, and to assimilate it into one’s thinking on the subject.”
“Peculiar duplicity.” Nothing epitomizes both the problem and the despair of
solutions better than this phrase. Von Neumann goes on in his surrender, “This
double face is the face of mathematics, and I do not believe that any simplified,
unitarian view of the thing is possible without sacrificing the essence.”4
Herman Weyl agrees, saying,
We are not surprised that a concrete chunk of nature, taken in its isolated
phenomenal existence, challenges our analysis by its inexhaustibility and
incompleteness. However, it is surprising that a construct created by the mind
itself, the sequence of integers, the simplest and most diaphanous thing for the
constructive mind, assumes a similar aspect of obscurity and deficiency when viewed
from the axiomatic angle.
Weyl then surrenders:
The ultimate foundations and the ultimate meaning of mathematics remain an open
problem; we do not know in what direction it will find its solution, nor even
whether a final objective answer can be expected at all.5
The pessimism of mathematicians like von Neumann and Weyl has not deterred others
from tendering possible definitions, or at least descriptions, of their discipline.
Newman lists several of these attempts.
Felix Klein describes it as the science of self-evident things; Benjamin Peirce as
the science which draws necessary conclusions; Aristotle, as the study of
‘quantity;’ Whitehead, as the development of all types of formal, necessary, and
deductive reasoning; Descartes, as the science of order and measurement; Bertrand
Russell, as a subject identical with logic; David Hilbert, as a meaningless, formal
game.6
Is it any surprise that Newman, considering the range of these differing and
sometimes contradictory responses, throws up his hands and concedes, “. . . any
definition of mathematics, however elaborate or epigrammatic, will fail to lay bare
its fundamental structure and the reasons for its universality.”7
The Theistic Description of Mathematics
There is another description of the character of mathematics, one which flows from
theistic, creationist presuppositions. It is possible that mathematics is an entity
always existing in the mind of God, which for us is the universal expression of His
creative and sustaining word of power. It is clear that the answers to the two
questions plaguing mathematicians come easily out of this definition, judgments
notwithstanding on how “simplified,” “unitarian,” “elaborate,” or “epigrammatic” it
is. It accounts not only for the unity found in mathematics, but also for its
“peculiar duplicity,” as delineated by von Neumann and many others.
What happens when the implications of this theistic description of mathematics
encounter the special revelation of God in the Bible and His general revelation in
the universe?
What happens when the implications of this theistic description of mathematics
encounter the special revelation of God in the Bible and His general revelation in
the universe? Do the implications square with reality? As C.S. Lewis pointed out,
The credibility will depend on the extent to which the doctrine, if accepted, can
illuminate and integrate the whole mass. It is much less important that the
doctrine itself should be fully comprehensible. We believe that the sun is in the
sky at midday in summer not because we can clearly see the sun (in fact we cannot)
but because we can clearly see everything else.8
The thinking of A.N. Whitehead on this topic parallels Lewis’. “In the study of
ideas,” wrote the great mathematician,
it is necessary to remember that insistence on hard-headed clarity issues from
sentimental feeling, as it were a mist, cloaking the perplexities of fact.
Insistence on clarity at all costs is based on sheer superstition as to the mode in
which human intelligence functions. Our reasonings grasp at straws for premises and
float on gossamers for deductions.9
The Word of God in the Creation
One of the major themes of the Bible is that in both the Scripture and the
creation, God is revealed by His word. Many Christians, while trumpeting their
belief in the Bible from cover to cover, including the covers, ignore the whole
counsel of the Word of God on the word of God.
According to the Bible, God spoke all things into existence; the Scriptures have it
that “the worlds were created, beautifully coordinated and now exist at God’s
command; so the things that we see did not develop out of mere matter.”10 “By the
word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of His mouth all their
host . . . for He spoke and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.”11 The
poet begins Psalm 148 by exhorting heavens, heights, angels, hosts, sun and moon,
stars of light, highest heavens and the waters above the heavens, to praise the
Lord, “for He commanded and they were created. He has also established them forever
and ever; He has made a decree which will not pass away.”12 In his next stanza, the
psalmist invokes praise from the creation under the skies, from “the earth, sea
monsters and all deeps” to “young men and virgins, old men and children.” As he’s
listing the components comprising the “lower” creation, he suddenly interjects the
phrase, “fulfilling His word.”13 Not only was creation by the word of God, He
presently “continues to uphold the universe by His mighty word.”14
Echoing the commands of its Creator, the creation itself speaks, not in the
syntactical structure used in the Bible, but in “utterances” nonetheless—in its own
language—as Psalm 19 proclaims.
The heavens are telling the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work
of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard. Their line
[sound] has gone out through all the earth, and their utterances to the end of the
world.15
The work of His hands “pours forth” a message for which men are held accountable.
For ever since the creation of the world, His invisible characteristics—His eternal
power and divine nature—have been made intelligible and clearly visible by His
works. So they are without excuse . . .16
Many Christians live as though Romans 10:18 did not follow verse 17; verse 18
clearly states that nature’s voice is the “word of God” mentioned previously, whose
hearing engenders faith. And yet this word is evidently one and the same with the
“gospel of peace” mentioned in the immediately preceding passage. The word of God
which runs through creation implicitly is the same word which runs through the
Bible explicitly. How could it be otherwise, since God is one?
This truth is beautifully expressed in Psalm 147:
He sends forth His command to the earth; His word runs very swiftly. He gives snow
like wool; He scatters the hoarfrost like ashes. He casts forth His ice as
fragments; who can stand before His cold? He sends forth His word and melts them;
He causes His wind to blow and the waters to flow. He declares His words to Jacob,
His statutes and His ordinances to Israel.17
The poem moves without break or pause from the implicit word in creation to
explicit “words,” “statutes,” and “ordinances.”
A similar stanza is found in Psalm 119, which links smoothly the natural law-word
in verses 89 and 90 with the preceptual law-word in verses 91 and following.
Forever, O Lord, Thy word is settled in heaven. Thy faithfulness continues
throughout all generations; Thou didst establish the earth and it stands. They
stand this day according to Thy ordinances, for all things are Thy servants. If Thy
law had not been my delight, then I would have perished in my affliction. I will
never forget Thy precepts . . .18
The Bible speaks precisely and therefore must be the primary revelation of God to
man; the creation speaks generally and must be secondary, but “primary” and
“secondary” do not mean “different.” Even though the glass of creation is “darker”
than that of the Scriptures, the word of God forms a unity; the general revelation
brings a message to mankind from God which supplements the message of the
Scriptures.
James Olthius is right when he says,
. . . I will argue that creation can only be understood in relation to God’s word
which brought creation into being and which continues to uphold it. It is this word
for creation, as God’s dynamic plan for creation, which is incarnated in Jesus
Christ and which is inscripturated . . . God’s word may not—as is generally done in
evangelical circles—be limited to the scriptures, nor is it the mysterious, dynamic
power of the Wholly Other, a la Karl Barth. God’s word dynamically structures
creation, is experienced in terms of creation—even though it may not be identified
with creation—and is the very condition for its existence.19
The Thought Behind the Word
Obviously God did not create everything He could have created. Out of His thought,
He evidently chose and then spoke. Since His word, unlike ours, is only
quantitatively different from His thought, His creative word of power resulted in
precisely those entities, seen or unseen, which were in His thoughts. Just as a
well-written book is bigger than the sum of its words, opening our mind’s eye to
the author’s thinking, so the word of God in nature broadens our vision of the
powerful mind of the One Who “by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding
established the heavens, and by whose knowledge the deeps were broken up and skies
drip with dew.”20 So, anthropomorphisms notwithstanding (I mean by them what God
means by them), His thoughts can be known truly, though not completely.
Just as a well-written book is bigger than the sum of its words, opening our mind’s
eye to the author’s thinking, so the word of God in nature broadens our vision of
the powerful mind of the One Who “by wisdom founded the earth.”
Edward Everett’s enthusiasm may have gotten the better of him and his eloquence
sound overstated now, but he was no ignoramus. The first American to win a
doctorate at Gottingen, he wrote, “In the pure mathematics we contemplate absolute
truths which existed in the Divine Mind before the morning stars sang together, and
which will continue to exist there when the last of their radiant host shall have
fallen from heaven.”21
The theistic description of mathematics, then, would lead us to expect the deepest
scientific probes into the micro or macro cosmos to reveal a language fabric in
which are woven the forces and relationships governing the tangible creation. This
language fabric itself should be suggestive of an intellectual antecedent, an
orderly, powerful, infinite universe of thought, seen by 19th century economist
Walter Bagehot to be “a region different from our own . . . a terra incognita of
pure reasoning [which casts] a chill on human glory.”22
And this is exactly the case. “Transcending the flux of the sensuous universe,”
wrote Keyser, “there exists a stable world of pure thought, a divinely ordered
world of ideas, accessible to man, free from the mad dance of time, infinite and
eternal.”23
Most mathematicians, however, while acknowledging the existence of an underlying
structure of thought in mathematics, claim it is spun out of their own minds. For
Kline, “mathematics does appear to be the product of human, fallible minds.” “[It]
is not a structure of steel resting on the bedrock of objective reality but
gossamer floating with other speculations in the partially explored regions of the
human mind.”24 This leads Kline to join in Bertrand Russell’s paean to man’s mind:
Remote from human passions, remote even from the pitiful facts of nature, the
generations have gradually created an ordered cosmos, where pure thought can dwell
as in its natural home, and where one, at least, of our nobler impulses can escape
the dreary exile of the natural world.25
Francis Schaeffer pointed out that the man who ignores his Creator sooner or later
elevates his God-given thinking process to shrine status, bestows on it the title
of “Reason,” and bows down in worship before it. Surely Russell has penned a
marching hymn for this religious order, but because of “common grace,” there is
truth here in which the Christian also can rejoice. He need only change Russell’s
word “created” to “discovered.”
Another stanza on the same theme was composed by Jourdain.
Out of the striving of human minds to reproduce conveniently and anticipate the
results of experience of geometrical and natural events, mathematics has
developed . . . and then it appeared that there is no gap between the science of
number and the science of the most general relations of objects of thought.26
Again, this is factual except for the presuppositional code word, “developed.” The
Christian can “desecularize” the statement by substituting, “been revealed.”
In any case, it is obvious that no matter what the philosophical grid through which
they filter information, and no matter what else they would label “mathematics,”
eminent mathematicians, past and present, recognize the “ordered cosmos” of pure
mathematical thought behind nature. Wrote Pierre Duhem in The Aim and Structure of
Physical Theory, “. . . it is impossible for us to believe that this order and this
organization [produced by mathematical theory] are not the reflected image of a
real order and organization . . . ”27
Another example is given by E.T. Bell, who points out
. . . when abstractness and precision are attained, a higher degree of abstractness
and a sharper precision are demanded for clear understanding. Our own conception of
a ‘point’ will no doubt evolve into something else yet more abstract. Indeed, the
‘numbers’ in terms of which points are described today dissolved about the
beginning of this century into the shimmering blue of pure logic, which in its turn
seems about to vanish in something rarer and even less substantial.28
Foundations of the Thought Behind the Word
Bell is alluding to explorations into the foundations of mathematics, motivated by
the maelstrom Goedel created in the areas of completeness and consistency. At least
five schools of thought about foundations are extant. The logicist, intuitionist,
formalist, set-theoretic, and non-standard analytic vie for support, causing Kline
to claim there are now many mathematics.29 He does not really mean this, of course,
since he also says,
Whereas in science there have been radical changes in theories, in mathematics most
of the logic, number theory, and classical analysis has functioned for centuries.
They have been and are applicable.
“The power of mathematics,” he adds, “cannot be abandoned while foundational issues
are thrashed out.”30 What he is really saying is that there are many theories of
the foundations of mathematics.
If mathematics is God’s thinking, it is to be expected that mathematicians would be
able to venture only so far toward ultimate foundations without facing
contradictions and uncertainty. One has only to read a little history to realize
this is exactly the situation. Kline says, “the recent research on foundations has
broken through frontiers only to encounter a wilderness.”31 His response parallels
Bertrand Russell’s testimony: “The splendid certainty which I had always hoped to
find in mathematics was lost in a bewildering maze . . . ”32 Kline adds, “The
tragedy is not just Russell’s.”33
The theist suspects that research into origins and axiomatics is always destined
for mazes and wildernesses. He wonders why, if mathematics is built from cultural
inventions constructed by the mind of man, the inventors are unable to lay its
foundation.
Whether theorizing about instantons proves fruitful or not, it appears that
scientists on the outer, deeper limits are being confronted by a powerful,
intangible cohesive structure, describable only in mathematical terms.
Correctly proclaiming mathematics as “a bold and formidable bridge between
ourselves and the external world,” Kline must add, “it is tragic to have to
recognize that the bridge is not anchored in reality or in human minds.”34
The Testimony of Physics
Physicists, on the trail of the smallest sub-atomic particle, are becoming more and
more convinced that beyond the tiniest, there is something even less tangible than
force, holding everything together. Smaller than neutrons, electrons, or protons,
smaller than the quarks of which the former are composed, is the gluon, which
“glues” the quarks together.35 Yet even more basic to universal solidarity than
gluons is a power which can be described only as pure thought. Gluons, it seems,
need something to interact by. That turns out to be ‘instantons,’ [which are]
solutions to mathematical equations but . . . have no materiality. Instantons are
mathematical, but have a physical effect: in their presence the gluons feel forces.
So nothing can affect something. [Instantons are] mathematical beings that teeter
on the edge of reality and affect the behavior of material objects . . .36
Whether theorizing about instantons proves fruitful or not, it appears that
scientists on the outer, deeper limits are being confronted by a powerful,
intangible cohesive structure, describable only in mathematical terms. Dr. Fritj of
Capra says,
At the subatomic level, the solid material objects of classical physics dissolve
into wave-like patterns of probabilities, and these patterns, ultimately, do not
represent probabilities of things, but rather probabilities of interconnections . .
. subatomic particles have no meaning as isolated entities, but can only be
understood as interconnections . . . Quantum theory thus reveals a basic oneness of
the universe. It shows that we cannot decompose the world into independently
existing smallest units. As we penetrate into matter, nature does not show us any
isolated ‘basic building blocks’ but rather appears as a complicated web of
relations [Werner Heisenberg called them ‘events’] between various parts of a
whole.37
Capra’s group at Berkeley
. . . makes much of [John S.] Bell’s theorem, a hypothesis apparently confirmed by
experiments at their lab in 1972. Bell’s theorem assumes that separate parts of the
universe may be connected at a fundamental level, and that things once connected
remain attached over distance by some unknown force traveling faster than the speed
of light. Bell, a Swiss physicist, called this force ‘that-which-is’—a distinctly
mystical label—and suggested that space, time and motion are all forms of this
unobservable connection.38
The Christian recognizes immediately the phrase “that-which-is” to be a common
grace reflection of the One who claimed “I AM THAT I AM.”
The title of Capra’s lecture series, “The Tao of Physics: Reflections on the Cosmic
Dance;” Newsweek Magazine’s considering “Physics and Mysticism” news of the week;
Einstein’s feeling that “The most beautiful and profound emotion one can experience
is the sensation of the mystical; it is the source of all true science;”39 these
give expression to scientists’ awareness that the thought waves they encounter in
nature presuppose a thinker. For the scientist, a contentless mysticism results; to
the Christian, there comes the assurance that his faith in the God by whose
powerful word all things hold together has rational consequences.
Philosophy
Some mathematicians downgrade not only mysticism but philosophy in general as
having nothing to do with mathematics. Bertrand Russell defined “. . . philosophy
as an unusually ingenious attempt to think fallaciously.”40 In the opinion of Henri
Lebesque, “. . . a mathematician, in so far as he is a mathematician, need not
concern himself with philosophy—an opinion, moreover, which has been expressed by
many philosophers.”41
Courant and Robbins think
. . . Creative minds forget dogmatic philosophical beliefs whenever adherence to
them would impede constructive achievement. For scholars and laymen alike it is not
philosophy but active experience in mathematics itself that alone can answer the
question: What is mathematics?42
In response, we could ask: “How does one know his ‘active experience’ is in
mathematics if one has not established what mathematics is?” A more fundamental
problem is that all of these statements are philosophical—yes, even “dogmatically”
so. No person, no scientist, operates in a philosophical vacuum. Alfred North
Whitehead was right when he said, “No science can be more secure than the
unconscious metaphysics which tacitly it presupposes . . . All reasoning, apart
from some metaphysical reference, is vicious.”43 Facts are never just facts; they
come to life and dance to the tune the scientist plays, and his choice of “music”
is governed by his philosophical filtering system. These mathematicians try to
utilize their specialized philosophical grids to strain out philosophy itself.
Facts are never just facts; they come to life and dance to the tune the scientist
plays, and his choice of “music” is governed by his philosophical filtering system.
One is reminded of the more general statement made by C.S. Lewis, of which the
preceding may be considered a special case:
. . . no account of the universe can be true unless that account leaves it possible
for our thinking to be a real insight. A theory which explained everything else in
the whole universe but which made it impossible to believe that our thinking was
valid, would be utterly out of court. For that theory would itself have been
reached by thinking, and if thinking is not valid that theory would, of course, be
itself demolished. It would have destroyed its own credentials. It would be an
argument which proved that no argument was sound—a proof that there are no such
things as proofs—which is nonsense.44
To claim that philosophy has nothing to do with mathematics is like claiming that
cooking has nothing to do with food. The picture one gets is of a gourmet chef
dedicating his life to the preparation of delectable morsels but starving to death
because he refuses to eat them.
As might be expected, Galileo was one scientist who recognized the philosophical
basis of all truth, including mathematical. He wrote,
Philosophy is written in that vast book which stands forever open before our eyes,
I mean the universe; but it cannot be read until we have learned the language and
become familiar with the characters in which it is written. It is written in
mathematical language, and the letters are triangles, circles, and other geometric
figures, without which means it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single
word.45
For an elementary treatment of the “language” about which Galileo is speaking, see
Anthony Ravielli’s little book, An Adventure in Geometry. Since Ravielli imputes
personality to nature, the Christian reader needs mentally to replace the author’s
word “nature” with the words, “God” or “creation,” depending on the context.
Mystery
Assuming mathematics to be God’s thought, the Christian would be surprised not to
encounter mystery there.
Contrary to E.T. Bell’s belief that “so long as there is a shred of mystery
attached to any concept, that concept cannot be mathematical,”46 no Christian
shrinks from mystery. Assuming mathematics to be God’s thought, the Christian would
be surprised not to encounter mystery there. In fact, when one examines the
bewildering results of human probes into the foundations of mathematics, it is
obvious that mathematicians are encountering not just shreds of mystery, but
shrouds. And the Christian, knowing something of the character of his Creator, is
confident this mystery will not be arbitrary, as Whitehead feared. Again, the
Christian’s expectation is realized; his is the realistic system of belief. As Os
Guinness put it, “Rationalism is the opposite of absurdity, not mystery.”47
Guinness’ observation on faith could be applied here: “We cannot explain it . . .
But because of the evidence neither can we explain it away.”48 The great Christian
mathematician and philosopher, Blaise Pascal, summed it ably: “The last step that
Reason takes is to recognize that there is an infinity of things that lie beyond
it.”49
Suppose you receive a letter written on paper in ink. The paper is torn and worn,
the ink smudged, and your eyesight is none too good anyway. Also, some pages are
missing, among them the beginning and ending of the letter. Finally, it is written
in a foreign language. You dig out a magnifying glass and begin to piece together
the message.
The paper and ink represent the tangible creation, stricken by the Fall; the
arrangement of the words on the paper, the force holding creation together; the
glass is the Bible, or a biblically-saturated mind; the message you receive
initially is Browder’s Mathematics II or Mathematics III (see pp. 33–34); and the
message the writer really had in mind when he wrote, and of which you can discern
parts as you meditate and study, Mathematics IV. Subject to refinement and
generalization, the mathematics discovered in level IV is not the whole picture,
but it is, in Schaeffer’s words, “true truth.”
Platonism
Recognizing the transcendent aspect of mathematics, Kurt Goedel evidently believed
that “only a thoroughgoing Platonic realism” can supply a definition of
mathematical or logical truth.50 Newman describes Galileo as being convinced, “in
the true Platonic tradition, that the mathematical models which led to observations
were the ‘enduring reality, the substance, underlying phenomena.’”51
Though there is an element of similarity between the platonic and the theistic view
of the nature of mathematics, the differences are significant. The latter posits
the existence of the infinite; an abnormal world, due to sin; the importance of
mathematics in obeying God’s command to take dominion over the earth, subduing, and
replenishing it; and most important, a personal and ethical deity who creates ex
nihilo.52 These concepts are foreign to Platonism, which allows for categories but
not for meaning. As Kline observes, Plato “wished not merely to understand
mathematics but to substitute mathematics for nature herself.”53
Browder’s Mathematics I and II are also accounted for by the theistic description
of mathematics; entrée to the “divinely ordered world of ideas” is gained by clues
from the tangible, creational expression of that thought. Professor Synge saw it as
“a dive from the world of reality into the world of mathematics; a swim in the
world of mathematics; a climb from the world of mathematics back into the world of
reality, carrying a prediction in our teeth.”54
We need to be cautious, however, about the use of the word “reality.” Christians
believe the world of God’s creation thought and speech is no less real than the
physical world; perhaps, in the light of 2 Corinthians 4:18, even more real,
because it will outlast the physical and will not change while we sleep. To signify
mathematics as “the language of creation” is obviously realistic. As Kline says,
“The essence of any modern physical theory is a body of mathematical equations.”55
Even Russell once stated that though logic and mathematics are “not the book [of
nature] itself,” they are “the alphabet of the book . . . ”56
The only view of mathematics which allows for a speaker of this language is the
theistic view. Though a person may have faith that his mind is structuring nature
mathematically, the facts seem not to support this belief, which causes its
adherents to resort to mystical analogies for shoring-up. One such was purveyed by
Richard Hughes, who first states his assumption: “Science, being human enquiry, can
hear no answer except an answer couched somehow in human tones.” He then goes into
his analogy:
Primitive man stood in the mountains and shouted against a cliff; the echo brought
back his own voice, and he believed in a disembodied spirit. The scientist of today
stands counting out loud in the face of the unknown. Numbers come back to him—and
he believes in the Great Mathematician.57
Hughes is referring to men like Sir James Jeans who said, “The Great Architect of
the universe now begins to appear as a pure mathematician,”58 and Sir Arthur
Eddington, who “continued to look upon God as the First Cause, the ultimate raison
d’etre.”59
Hughes’ analogy is faulty in at least two respects. First, “primitive man” received
back as many different echoes as there were shouters; but in mathematics, the same
“numbers” come back, no matter who the “counter” is. Most important, as history
demonstrates conclusively, it is simply not the case that the mathematician counts
and numbers come back. Rather, “numbers” come winging out of the unknown (universe)
and force the mathematician to count, his voice blending into a harmonious chorus
with those of his colleagues.
Chapter 4
The Nature of Mathematics
Truth & the Transcendent
by Larry L. Zimmerman on October 2, 2015
Featured in Truth & the Transcendent
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If there is “something there” in mathematics, the Christian cannot escape the
consequences of the universal quantifiers which saturate Colossians 1:15–20.
Just before the Nazis invaded France, many French people subscribed to a fund to
plant rose bushes in front of the pill boxes on the Maginot Line to make life
pleasanter for the troops stationed there; some people interpreted this to be a
hope that if the Maginot Line were covered up with rose bushes, maybe the war would
go away. —“The Sorrow and the Pity”1
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True education is unveiling the all-glorious God of creation. . .in the creation. —
Dr. Mark Fakkema2
If there is “something there” in mathematics, the Christian cannot escape the
consequences of the universal quantifiers which saturate Colossians 1:15–20:
It was through Christ that everything was created in heaven and earth, the seen and
the unseen . . . ; all things have been created through Him and for Him . . .
through Him all things are held together . . . that He alone should stand first in
everything . . . through Him He might reconcile to Himself all things. (italics
mine)
1 Corinthians 8:6 directs attention to the “one God who is the source of all things
and the goal of our living.” And from Romans 1:20, we learn that “since the
creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine
nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made . . .”
Compromise is impossible. In a class at the University of Oregon, a mathematics
professor, half-serious, repeated “Kronecker’s Cliche,” that though God made the
integers, all else was man’s doing. After class, he readily admitted there was no
way that Kronecker could be correct. Because of the obvious internal solidarity of
mathematics, and its “peculiar” relationship with nature, he agreed that either
none of mathematics originates with God or it all does.
The patina of secularization with which mathematics has become encrusted must be
polished away so that its true, God-reflecting nature shines through.
If mathematics is the basic language of creation, its nature is to reveal God, and
its purpose is to glorify God; it must be desecularized. That is, the patina of
secularization with which mathematics has become encrusted must be polished away so
that its true, God-reflecting nature shines through. Nearly always, students must
have this done for them by their teacher until the idea takes root in their minds.
In Christian school vernacular, this process is usually called “integration” of
faith and learning. It has been pointed out that the word “integration” implies
that two separate entities are somehow mixed or married, which is really not the
case. There is just one truth, whether it be in mathematics or elsewhere.
“Integration” is more accurately described as “a re-interpretation of data in the
perspective of a Christian world view.”3
The Association of Christian Schools International admonishes its conference
seminar leaders to give examples of how to integrate, and to deemphasize the fact
that we should integrate, on which everyone agrees. Searching for a flickering
candle of how to in the vast, dark, foreboding forest of we should, is a task which
bears down heavily upon every conscientious Christian school teacher. Especially is
this true in mathematics, which has been called “the hardest subject to integrate.”
Mathematics has acquired this reputation because its content is the same, no matter
who is teaching or what name is painted on the front of the school. No
“reinterpretation of data” is possible, which leads Christian mathematicians to the
conclusion that “God’s revelation is silent” in mathematics. There are no value
judgments or personalities to explore, nothing to preach about.
In other subjects, differences of opinion regarding the nature of the discipline
lead to differences regarding its content, value, and application. The varied value
judgments inherent in the content of these studies provide ample grist for the
“integration” mill. It is impossible for even the creative teacher to exhaust the
rich potential for comparing, contrasting, analyzing, and discussing these
differences. For example, what you consider “good” literature affects the content
of your English course. Even in science, your choice of topics will be influenced
by your views of the origin of the universe.
What you think about the nature of man, and your assumptions concerning randomness
and chance, determine your perception of what should be included in the content of
historical studies. Yankees attending history classes in southern schools begin to
wonder who won the Civil War. In some countries, young people graduate without even
knowing there was a Civil War. Yet, given the topic, mathematics courses are the
same, worldwide.
So the Christian mathematics teacher, listening to his colleagues in social studies
describe eloquently the contrasts between the Christian and non-Christian view, not
only in the nature of the discipline, but also in its content and applications,
sometimes wonders if he or she is doing all he or she should be doing in
“integrating” mathematics. Such a teacher is not satisfied with the outlook of the
head of the mathematics department of a major West Coast Christian university, who
told a group of Christian teacher conferees, “About all you can do is explain to
your students that while mathematics is a tribute to our human intellect, God is
the one who gave us our minds.” He then gave them the “Kronecker cliche” I quoted
earlier.
Small wonder that the mathematics major featured in a magazine advertisement for
this institution unwittingly testified to the dichotomous worldview he received
there. The text of the ad:
Basically I’m a problem solver. I learned a lot about problem solving as a math
major at ————. Algebra, Geometry, Calculus. They might not sound very exciting, but
those classes taught me how to attack and solve problems quickly, logically. Having
Christian professors really made a difference. [You can almost hear him add,
“too.”] By their teaching I learned professional skills. By their example I learned
about Christian living. Practical instruction. Techniques for problem solving.
Christian principles for my life. I’m using them all today—thanks to —.
The implication is that mathematics has no spiritual value and is useful only for
“professional skills.” The Christian air he breathed in the university’s classrooms
constituted the spiritual “side” of his education. Scanning the catalogs of most
Christian colleges produces not even a hint that God has anything to do with
mathematics.
The following is from a Christian college brochure given out at an ACSI convention.
The Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics is designed to provide a practical
application of mathematical principles to a professional career such as statistics,
research work, computer programming or teaching. It would also fit the needs of the
student who wishes to continue in graduate school in mathematics. The curriculum
for the mathematics major pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree is designed to help
the student develop a practical outlook so that he will be able to pursue a future
in applied mathematics such as: industrial mathematical programming, marketing,
insurance statistics and finances. Students considering this major should be aware
that some companies prefer to hire employees with a mathematics background because
mathematics majors have a good scientific vocabulary and they enjoy solving
problems.
A final example, also from a brochure acquired at an ACSI convention, is entitled:
“Purpose of the mathematics department of ———— College.”
1. The Mathematics Department is structured to support the departments of Geo-
science, Biological Science, Teacher Training and Home Economics.
2. This course of study is designed to prepare students to teach mathematics at the
secondary school level.
3. Each course is well founded in mathematical theory, but tempered with good
practical applications to prepare the student to meet the complexities of our
society which is becoming more specialized with each passing day.
4. The mathematics program is designed to develop the skill of logical thought. The
student will learn to identify the problem, isolate, and process its component
parts in a proper order and arrive at a correct conclusion.
Even if I discount the mass of evidence indicating that “training-the-brain-to-
transfer-knowledge” is a fallacy, I am still nonplussed to find Christians devoting
their lives to the study, research, and teaching of a discipline which, as far as
they are concerned, has nothing to do with God, and is profitable only for the
merchandise its practitioners can make of it. Through some chink in logic,
mathematics escapes from the set of all their thoughts, which the Bible says is to
be “brought into captivity to Jesus Christ.”
I tend to agree with Harold Lindsell’s evaluation of evangelical colleges:
Numbers of their faculty members have taken doctoral work in the hard and soft
sciences without an awareness that what they have learned in secular universities
has implications for their Christian faith. Numbers of these professors teach one
thing in the classroom, and believe something else in church on Sunday morning.
They have never put two and two together. Many of them have no awareness that there
is a dichotomy between what they believe in their hearts and what they teach from
their heads. But almost inevitably they have been conditioned in such a way that
the so-called “certainties” of their doctoral disciplines cause them to test
Scripture against these “certainties” rather than testing their presuppositions and
conclusions against biblical revelation.4
It is true that the content of mathematics is the same for atheist or Christian. It
is also true that this could mean God has nothing to say in mathematics. I have
tried to show that the consequences of this assumption do not square with things as
they really are. Another perfectly logical explanation for the universality of
mathematics content is that it is all God’s; this is the realistic position.
If mathematics is an entity which always exists in God’s mind, it would be in no
way affected by the Fall. Since man is affected, his perception of the mathematics
revealed in creation no doubt is distorted and is definitely incomplete.
Nevertheless, there is universal agreement on the content defining mathematics.
If you grant the existence of the “infinite-personal God-who-is-there,”5 this
consensus, existing in no other discipline, can be explained only by acknowledging
the mathematics perceived by man to be nearly identical with the mathematics
revealed by God in creation. Otherwise God has perpetrated a massive hoax, an
action which is not in His character. “God is subtle,” Einstein said, “but not
malicious.”6 An interesting comment on this idea is given in Revelation 21:17,
which states that measurements used by humans are the same as those used by the
angels.
Students must learn that the internal coherence and natural applications of
mathematics preclude the rationality of assuming its origin is humanistic.
The field of dispute is the nature of mathematics, and it is on this field that the
Christian teacher must focus his or her “integration” effort. The students must
learn that the internal coherence and natural applications of mathematics preclude
the rationality of assuming its origin is humanistic. Little or no reinterpretation
of mathematics content needs to be done; given the truth about its foundation, the
student comes to realize that he or she is “thinking God’s thought after Him” when
he or she does mathematics. The spiritual vision of the student gradually is
renewed to perceive the “eternal power and Godhead” of the Creator, blazing away at
the core of mathematics and, in glorious spectra, reflected from every facet of the
discipline.
It is true that the melody of nature’s song can be enjoyed without knowledge of its
underlying mathematical structure. If you are privileged to view the creation
through a microscope or a telescope, to hear the sound of wind or thunder, to hold
a baby duck or a baby person, you come to appreciate the beauty and power in
nature7 whether you are acquainted with “The Mean Value Theorem” or not. But the
lyric of “the music of the spheres” is clearly mathematics, a knowledge of which
unveils not only vistas of beauty and power unsuspected before, but also an order,
symmetry, and infinitude which stuns and awes the beholder.
Beauty, power, order, symmetry, infinitude—though these characteristics of
mathematics are there for anyone, the Christian sees them in their proper light as
reflections of God’s attributes. So there is something to be done with content,
after all; the teacher periodically identifies these qualities for the students and
reminds them that what they are beholding are beams of God’s glory.
A misconception soon arises, one so common in Christian circles that it ensnared
even the great mathematician Leonhard Euler. For Euler, the equation (a + bn) / n =
x was sufficient proof that “God exists after all.”8 It is to be expected that, in
their enthusiasm, students begin to think they have proved that God is the source
of mathematics. They need to be shown their starting point—the assumption that God
exists—from which they expect to see intimations of His glory reflected from
mathematics. Their expectations are realized. And it feels almost as good to find
that one’s presuppositions have realistic consequences as it does for one to
“prove” something. Euler corrected, would affirm, “God exists, therefore (a + bn) /
n = x.”
Lest they feel shame at beginning with faith, students need reminders that the only
people not operating from an initial faith base are those populating the various
cemeteries of the world. Humans believe, then understand, not the other way around.
So, while authors like Lancelot Hogben are wrong to imply that mathematics is
without spiritual significance, they correctly deride the stupidity of using
mathematics to “prove” “Pope Leo X was the Beast of the Apocalypse”9 or “the
creation of the world out of nothing by divine providence.”10
Christians had loaded Euclidean geometry with a burden it was never meant to bear,
practically making the existence of God contingent upon the “self-evident truths”
of geometry.
Cart-pull-horse thinking was also what precipitated the devastating blow to faith
when the non-Euclidean geometries were discovered. Christians had loaded Euclidean
geometry with a burden it was never meant to bear, practically making the existence
of God contingent upon the “self-evident truths” of geometry.
Davis and Hersh cite two other “stunning surprises”—the discovery of space filling
curves, and continuous, nowhere-differentiable curves—which
exposed the vulnerability of the one solid foundation—geometrical intuition—on
which mathematics had been thought to rest. The loss of certainty in geometry was
philosophically intolerable, because it implied the loss of all certainty in human
knowledge. Geometry had served, from the time of Plato, as the supreme exemplar of
the possibility of certainty in human knowledge.11
I reiterate that this loss of certainty was an apparent loss only. The non-
Euclidean geometries, quaternions, and the maverick curves mentioned by Davis and
Hersh were like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle which we put to one side until the puzzle
“catches up” to them. And catch up it did.
The Christian teacher, rightly beginning with the assumption that mathematics
originates with God and consequently possesses a nature which reflects His glory,
has the freedom and responsibility to point out the evidence of God’s hand in the
content of mathematics. For example, the idea of sets is one of the great unifying
strands in mathematics, and infinite sets reflect dramatically the infinitude of
the Creator.
Specifically, the teacher directs the students’ attention to the interval on the
number line between 0 and .00001. This interval has a midpoint x1, the segment
between 0 and x1 has a midpoint x2, and so on. These xi’s form an infinite set, but
are only a “few” of the rational numbers between 0 and .00001. Even if all of the
rational numbers in this interval could be labeled, there would remain infinitely
many irrationals also residing there, filling the “holes” between the rationals.
And this segment which contains these infinitudes of infinite sets is only a
microscopic snip of a number line which itself stretches to infinity. When you
attempt to get your mind around the stunning myriad of numbers God has given us,
you come afresh to the realization that there is “more than man” in mathematics.
Georg Cantor’s ingenious arrangement of the rational numbers given below brings an
appreciation of what “infinite” means, but some of the effect is lost because the
set is not bounded above.
Rational Numbers

However, when you study integration as the area under a curve, you get a dynamic,
almost cinematic display of the rectangles in a closed region becoming smaller and
more numerous; you can almost “see” the ultimate saturation of the area occur, when
there are infinitely many rectangles. An even greater awareness of the meaning of
infinity grows when you derive the actual integration formulas for elementary
functions, using summation and limit theorems and the principle of mathematical
induction. The reflected infinitude of the Creator is nowhere more evident on
earth.
When you solve a system of equations or inequalities, you behold the power of God
Who designed a process which efficiently sifts through infinite sets and quickly
finds solutions, or indicates that none exist. Major chores in algebra are
factoring, canceling, and combining. What have these to do with God? Used to
simplify expressions, these processes are like editing a manuscript, except that
the rules for editing mathematics are precise. Students are reminded that
mathematics is the language of the creation; they edit it to get as close as
possible to His original word. As I have shown previously, mathematicians
acknowledge that there is one “best” way.
The pressures of How To “integrate” force some Christian teachers to the object
lesson approach. The biblical utilization of object lessons demonstrates their
general usefulness, but we must realize that, since the object is never the lesson,
this method can not be used to desecularize a subject. The object is the takeoff
point or illustration of the lesson, but they remain separate entities. So, when
mathematics is used to illustrate biblical truth, nothing is learned about the
relation of mathematics to God, which was the teacher’s purpose in the first place.
In such an approach, the dichotomy between secular and spiritual which exists in
the teacher’s mind is emphasized, rather than healed by a supposed “integration.”
Some examples of object lessons which have been used in Christian school
mathematics classes are:
Vectors
Christians need more than just magnitude, they also need a direction in their
lives.
Substitution Property
Christ’s death for us.
Common Factor
In Christians, Jesus Christ.
One-to-One Correspondence
Christ has a unique place for each Christian.
Absolute Value
God has absolute values which can’t be changed just because of situations.
Although the “lesson” uses the same word which names the mathematical “object,” it
is obvious that a completely different meaning is imputed. No “integration” has
been achieved.
Persons who couch the expression of problems, definitions, or theorems in what
Schaeffer calls “God-words” are likewise not “integrating.” Here is an example:
To illustrate how negative and positive signs affect the quotient of two integers,
let “+” represent the clause, “it is true” as well as the true statement “Christ
lives.” Then let “–” represent the clause “it is false” as well as the false
statement “Christ never lived.” The operation of division can be represented by the
word “that”. Carefully study the combinations of clauses and statements as well as
the conclusions that follow:
A. It is true that Christ lives.

This is a true statement.

+ ÷ +
=
+
B. It is false that Christ lives.

This is a false statement.

– ÷ +
=
–
C. It is true that Christ never lived.

This is a false statement.

+ ÷ –
=
–
D. It is false that Christ never lived.

This is a true statement.

– ÷ –
=
+
The inference could be made that a teacher using this approach does not
really believe that the rule of signs for division has anything to do with God, and
is attempting to remedy the deficiency. I was at an ACSI workshop and was
disappointed (horrified?) to hear the following being used as an example of
“integrating mathematics.”
Natural Law: 4+4=8.
God’s Law: Murder leads to punishment.
Conclusion: Just as 4+4=8, so murder leads to punishment.
What appears to be “integrating” is actually dichotomizing. True desecularization
involves the actual substance of mathematics, what is really there, intrinsic to
the subject. Since it is God’s thinking, it must itself reveal Him.

Chapter 5
The Purpose of Mathematics
Truth & the Transcendent
by Larry L. Zimmerman on October 14, 2015
Featured in Truth & the Transcendent
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Why is it so important for the Christian to behold the glory of God reflected in
mathematics or anywhere else? Simply because beholding the glory of God is the
prime directive for spiritual growth.
Cease from thine own wisdom. Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not?
—Proverbs 23:5
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Father, I desire that they also, whom thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am, in
order that they may behold My glory, . . .
—John 17:36
Instead of our doing something to the subject matter, the subject matter should do
something to us.
—Dr. Mark Fakkema
Why is it so important for the Christian to behold the glory of God reflected in
mathematics or anywhere else? Simply because beholding the glory of God is the
prime directive for spiritual growth. One may as well ask why eating and breathing
are important to life.
What is meant by “spiritual growth?” How is it measured? Toward what, or in what,
are Christians to grow? These questions are answered ultimately in Romans 8:29; the
destiny of the Christian is to become conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. Since
those events God predestines occur with probability one, Christians know that “when
He shall appear, [they] shall be like Him, for [they] shall see him as He is.”1
King David said, “I will behold Thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied,
when I awake, with Thy likeness.”2
Evidently, the agency of change is vision. 1 Corinthians 13:12 reads, “For now we
see a dim reflection in a looking glass, but then we shall see face to face; now
what I know is imperfect, but then I shall know perfectly, as God knows me.”
It is hopeless for a Christian to attempt to change himself into Christ-likeness.
His tendency nevertheless is to hide behind the characteristics of a Christ-like
life, to don a mask of Christ-ness, which only suffocates spiritual vitality. The
battle against this deception is made more difficult because it is often one’s
pastor, parent, teacher, friend, or counselor who, intending only the best,
proffers the mask and urges “their” Christian to squeeze into it.
It is easy to forget that the transformation to Christ-likeness is inward, where
God gazes, in our character, the marrow of our soul. The New Testament lists of
characteristics of Christ are primarily check lists, so the Christian can gauge
whether growth is occurring.
One prominent church prints on its bulletins the motto: “Learning to live like
Christ lives.” It is easy to learn to live like Christ lives, but impossible to
live like Christ lives. A better motto would be: “Learning to live Christ,” or
“Learning to live Christ-lives.” To illustrate this so-called “deeper life,” Major
Ian Thomas uses the hand-in-glove analogy: Christians should simply be the glove,
allowing Christ, the Hand, to use them as He wishes.
Yet this again is “What?” when “How?” is needed. How does a Christian “let go and
let God?” How does one relax one’s self to become the glove when one is pervaded
with human-ness? “Listen,” the Christian is admonished, “Christ is the Vine, you
are a branch. You don’t have to try to bear fruit, you will bear fruit because the
fruit-producing life of the Vine flows through you.”
Yet the cry of the tent maker from Tarsus echoes in the heart of every Christian:
“Nevertheless, I live!” If you live, you must do. The poet-priest G.M. Hopkins
wrestled with this dilemma continually, and wrote:
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.3 (Emphasis Hopkins’)
When a Christian gets a Sunday charge from church and charges from church into the
“real” world, he often carries with him subliminal panic as he anticipates the
confrontations he is certain will face him if he follows through on his Sunday
resolve to “live like Christ lives.” Often he finds himself backing down, resigned
to shouldering his weekly load of guilt, until he gets temporary relief again on
Sunday. Even if he swallows hard and “witnesses” during the week, he is never sure
that this activity is not just a result of his Sunday “high.” It certainly feels as
though he is trying to do it.
One cannot see Christ physically, but one is able to physically view evidences of
His power and glory in the creation, the basis of which is mathematics.
The key to resolving this tension between what is God’s part and what is my part,
as a Christian, is found in 2 Corinthians 3, 4, and 5, the linchpin being 3:18.
“But we all, with uncovered faces, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord,
are being transformed into likeness to Him, from one degree of splendor to another,
even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” I become like Christ by beholding His glory.
This always-painful transformation is powered wholly by the Holy Spirit. The
Christian’s function only is to behold. Someday believers will be like Christ
because they will see Him as He is. Now they should “be becoming” like Him, by
beholding His glory. If beholding is “doing,” this is what they do. The New
Testament lists of hallmarks of Christ are done through the Christian, a function
of the amount of time he spends beholding, and of the quality of his vision. Jailed
by time, the Christian sees not the face of Christ, but views His revelation in
Scripture (Behold the Lamb), and in the “dark glass” of the creation.
What does “beholding” mean? How does one behold the glory of God? Obviously,
physical vision is a part of the answer, and just as obviously, not the whole
answer. One cannot see Christ physically, but one is able to physically view
evidences of His power and glory in the creation, the basis of which is
mathematics.
Annie Dillard, in her Pilgrim at Tinker’s Creek, composed a hymn to the variety,
complexity, and mystery, to the glory of the creation, which she often labels
“nature.” She senses a lurker-behind-the-scenes, shedding transcendence there,
contentless for her, which the Christian knows to be the “invisible things of God,
even His eternal power and Godhead,” constantly reflected in the mirror of His
creation.
When God wanted Job’s attention, He saturated the waiting man’s natural vision with
the majesty of the creation. But realistically, since Christ is Spirit, to behold
Him the Christian somehow must develop spiritual sight. Easter time, when believers
miss most “dearest Him who lives alas! away,” brings it home. Their walk is by
faith, not by sight. The implication: faith is spiritual sight or discernment,
looking through the visible and tangible to the invisible and transcendent. Faith
resolves the scriptural paradox—the Christian is able to look at things not seen,
to clearly see the invisible things of God. Moses “by faith . . . left Egypt . . .
for he persevered as though he were actually seeing Him who is unseen.” (Heb.
11:27) The Author and Finisher of our faith must naturally become the focus of our
spiritual vision if we are to grow like Him.
Dr. Al Greene, a pioneering thinker in the philosophy of Christian education, has
this to say:
The sixth beatitude, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,’ is
double edged. Not only is seeing God a consequence of purity of heart; purity
follows from seeing God. When John says ‘. . . we shall be like Him even as He is,’
he is saying that the unalloyed quality of Christ’s mind becomes ours increasingly
as we see Him, here by faith, later by sight. This purity is referred to in the
Sermon on the Mount in these terms:
‘The lamp of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body
shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body will be full of
darkness.’ Contamination enters the human mind as a person attempts to walk
independently of God.4
It becomes clear that the Christian’s eye of faith is his mind, by whose renewing
the Christian is transformed. His mind is the prism which receives the light of the
glory of God and showers its dazzling spectrum on the wrinkles and caverns of his
soul. Christians have the mind of Christ which, through beholding, becomes more and
more their mind. Setting their minds on things above, beholders are “renewed to a
true knowledge according to the image” of the Creator. After this promise in
Colossians 3, there follows a check list. Before the lists in 1 Peter, and after
the linking of faith with sight, Christians are exhorted to gird their minds for
action. Rather than cruising over the surface of Scripture, the beholder finds some
“deep things” for meditation, even in such deceptively simple verses like: “As a
man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” (Prov. 23:7)
As we learn to walk by faith, our spiritual vision centers down on the future
coming of the Lord, a focus the Bible calls hope (see Rom. 8:18–30). The natural
result of this supernatural process is humility (remember Job’s testimony) and
love. Living in the light of His coming gradually destroys the urge to heap to
ourselves things; the consequent lessening of fear we find replaced by a growing
freedom to give sacrificially, that is, to love. Just as 1 Corinthians13 indicates,
hope is maturing faith which is producing the “greatest,” love.
So . . . Christ is the Truth, revealed through His word in Scripture and in the
world, perceived by the believer with the eye of faith through the agency of his
(His) mind. As the believer looks at “things not seen,” his inner man is being
renewed day by day,” producing for him through affliction an “eternal weight of
glory beyond all comparison.”
We Christians evaluate our growth toward Christ-likeness on the basis of the
checklists in Scripture, which are epitomized by humility and servanthood. When we
judge ourselves lacking, we do not try to be more _______, or less ________,
because we know that the Christian life is not a staccato of good deeds, but a
continuum, Christ’s life. We recognize blindness or short-sightedness as the real
culprit, and we concentrate upon improving the quality and quantity of his vision
of the Father of lights, as explained in 1 Peter 1:9.
Now, rather than being puzzled and condemned by verses such as I John 3:3, we
beholders are blessed. It is not that we purify ourselves by trying to emulate
Christ’s purity. Instead, we purify ourselves by fixing our hope on Christ; by
degrees Christ’s purity becomes ours, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Hopkins’ poem mentioned earlier, so beautifully continues:
I say more: the just man justices; Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—Christ—for Christ plays in ten thousand
places, Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his To the Father through the
features of men’s faces.5
The Truth gives the Christian the potential to do truth, and indeed is setting him
free.
Many Christians read, even study, the Bible, and never look for God Himself to be
revealed. Such a simple question: “What has this piece of Scripture to do with
God?” The answer is deep, big enough to involve a lifetime of prayer, research,
meditation, help from others, and above all, thinking. To the growing Christian,
the insights which seemed so complete and satisfying yesterday, open his eyes to
new trails needing exploration today. The prophetic word really does become “a
light shining in a dark place;” “the day dawns” and “morning arises” in the
believer’s heart. Like David, he seeks “to behold the beauty of the Lord and to
meditate in His temple.” (Ps. 27:4) Hearing God’s command, “Seek My face,” the
beholder, like David, responds, “Thy face, Lord, will I seek.” (Ps. 27:8) Such
Christians are prone to cut through the empty repetition which characterizes much
preaching, teaching, and writing, to demand of themselves and their mentors: “Sirs,
we would see Jesus!”
Many Christians read, even study, the Bible, and never look for God Himself to be
revealed.
In the best of times, however, we find ourselves spending many more hours in
activities other than searching out the revelation of Christ in the Scriptures.
These other projects are carried on in the domain of the creation, the “dark glass”
which also constantly reflects the power and Godhead of its Creator, “and but the
beholder wanting; which two when once they meet the heart rears wings bold and
bolder and hurls for him, O half hurls earth for him off under his feet.”6 In fact,
as I have already pointed out, Romans 10:17 is set in the context of the creation’s
proclaiming, “The Hand that shaped me is divine.”
The year that King Uzziah died, when Isaiah saw the Lord in His splendor, the
attending angels directed attention to the whole earth which, claimed they, was
full of the glory of God. And when God unveiled for Job the panorama of His power
in nature, Job’s response is enlightening: “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of
the ear; but now my eye sees Thee.” Like Isaiah, Job was overcome with repentance
and humility; “. . . therefore I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes.”7
Those blinded to the light of God reflected from the mirror of nature automatically
stumble from rationality into a dream land where “sacred” and “secular” form
mutually exclusive sets. With this false dichotomy— this perversion of reality—
pervading their lives, they lip-serve God on Sunday, but expend most of their
energy in the worship and service of the creation.
This type of pernicious thinking is nothing new. The Bible records a dramatic
instance of it in 1 Kings 20. I realize that many a sermon uses this passage to
(correctly) illustrate that God is with us in our sorrows (valleys) as well as in
our “mountain top” experiences. As history, however, the Syrian king, Ben-Hadad,
was willing to grant God the actual hills, but claimed the actual plains for
himself. Although the children of Israel, in battle array, were “like two little
flocks of goats, while the Syrians filled the countryside,” God allowed the
Israelites to eat Ben-Hadad’s lunch. Why? “Because the Syrians have said, ‘The Lord
is God of the hills, but He is not God of the valleys’”(v. 28). A human involved in
an ownership dispute with the Creator over a portion of His creation is in a no-win
situation. This is true whether it’s the plains of Aphek or the universal language
that is mathematics.
One last observation regarding 1 Kings 20. God is explaining the correct worldview
to His people, not to the pagans. Before I came to Jesus, my worldview was bound to
be wrong. Error is the normal milieu for the unbeliever. But now in Christ, with
the Holy Spirit to lead me into the truth, I have no excuse to cling to a
secular/sacred, compartmentalized, idolatrous perspective of life in the universe,
falsely and futilely trying to exclude God from any part of it.
We pilgrims need to progress from an occasional vague recognition of the God behind
a spectacular sunset, to “lifting up heart, eyes; down all that glory in the
heavens to glean our Saviour;”8 where the visible and invisible creation triggers
constantly conscious praise, thanks, and worship, directed to the Creator and
Sustainer.
I see a rose, dewy in the morning sun. Marveling at the harmony of beauty and
fragrance it exhibits, I “look” through and beyond it in my mind, and remember that
God created it, His beauty more than its own, His majesty and power more also.
Upholding it by His word, He’s presently placing it in unity with all else. If I am
privileged to study the flower microscopically, to go where “lives the dearest,
freshness deep down things,” to view the awesome structural craftsmanship of God, I
come to “see” Him in even newer light.
Ultimately, I may construct in my mind an approximation of the mathematical model
rose which God holds in His mind, “to think His thought after Him” in the language
fabric of nature, mathematics.
These thoughts and memories stir in me gratitude and praise, echoing Revelation
4:11, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, honor, and power, for Thou hast
created all things, and for thy pleasure thy were and are created.”
Thus I “behold” the Creator of the rose.
Beholders appreciate the function and purpose of time, without an accounting for
which a worldview is deficient. In the past God predestined Christians to be like
His Son; now they are becoming like Him by beholding His glory; in the future, they
will be like Him because they will face Him.
To express the beholding principle, Dr. Mark Fakkema used diagrams similar to the
following, where Symbol of Christ symbolizes Christ. Symbol of New Man
represents humans, not only created in His image, but also recreated to new
spiritual life in Him. Christ dwells in them by their personal invitation and
submission to Him. The unsaved person might be represented by Symbol Old Man .
Though still an image-bearer of God, he lies dead spiritually in his trespasses and
sins. The beholding process is pictured next:
Beholding Process

9
The Christian is being completed, made whole, as he beholds the reflected glory of
his Lord. Even in a Christian school, some students exhibit no Christian character.
It may be they are not alive in Christ, a fact which has implications for the
admissions policy of the school. It may be that a shroud of sin covers the
student’s eyes of faith. The scriptural remedy is to confess and forsake sin. It
may be the student is not learning the truth as it is reflected in a particular
subject. Incompetence in mathematics, for example, will blind the student to the
glory of the Creator reflected there.
But perhaps it is simply because worthwhile growth takes time. The parable of the
sower and the seed (Mark 4) makes this clear. It implies also that sowing the
truth, both biblical and creational, comes first, and is the constant. “Behavior
modification”—the fruit—comes second, and is a function of the soil condition.
The amount of exterior control applied to a student body must be continually
monitored, so it remains sufficient and, just as important, kept to the minimum. As
G.K. Chesterton said, “. . . The chief aim of (rule and) order (is) to give room
for good things to run wild.”10
Never should Christian teachers or administrators attempt the fruitless work of
tying the fruit onto the children by rules, meetings, threats, ridicule,
punishment, or other forms of coercion. The only hope for real fruit-bearing lies
in the faithful sowing of the seed.
Though solidly real and indispensably practical, beholding God’s glory bouncing off
mathematics is utterly dependent on faith, which is spiritual sight. How does the
Christian teacher desecularize the whole area of applications of mathematics, the
vocational, tangible aspect? Judged by the course descriptions cited previously,
many Christian colleges either are not aware of the problem or choose to ignore it.
Christian high schools do no better. A typical description: “Mathematics opens the
door to many career opportunities and advanced studies in any of the science and
engineering schools.” Reading this, the student doubts not that, for his Christian
mentors, the only reason to study mathematics is to make merchandise of it. The
latter then are puzzled when the former develops into a worshiper of material, and
a pharisaic one at that.
Applications of mathematics to nature, under which are subsumed, directly or
indirectly, mathematics-oriented vocations, are governed by the principle expressed
in Genesis 1:26–28 and Psalm 8, the so-called “cultural mandate.” God commands His
children to subdue and replenish the earth and take dominion over it. Christians
are governed by this executive order as long as they live on the earth, and it
impinges on every occupation. A minister, referring to a member of his
congregation, proclaimed from the pulpit, “George does dentistry to put food on the
table, but his real vocation is leading his patients to Christ.” George should be
encouraged to provide for his family, and be ready to give an answer for the hope
that is in him. If, however, George (or his pastor, for that matter) is unaware of
the part his profession per se plays in subduing and replenishing the creation; if
he denigrates it; if, in fact, he views it as other than a sacrament in the context
of 1 Corinthians 10:31 or Colossians 3:17, he grievously errs. His God is much too
small. Worse, he has made an idol of his profession, vainly imagining it existing
outside God’s purview.
In contrast, the biographical film, Chariots of Fire, depicts Olympic athlete Eric
Liddell, a Scot missionary destined to die in a Japanese prison camp, telling his
sister, “God made me for a purpose. He made me for China. But He also made me fast,
and when I run, I feel His pleasure. To win is to honor Him.”11 God wants
Christians to do “_______” (mathematics, dentistry, the dishes) to bring Him
pleasure, and to do it excellently, to bring Him honor. At least peripheral to any
occupation, integral to most, mathematics is essential in subduing and replenishing
tasks. Students should be faced not only with their caretaker responsibility, but
also with the futility of attempting it while neglecting mathematics. Without a
working knowledge of the patterns of God’s speech used in the creation, humans are
powerless to replenish the earth and are in danger of being themselves subdued by
it.
It is possible for Christian schools and colleges to graduate students who, rather
than worshiping and serving mathematics, worship and serve the Father of lights,
from whom mathematics comes.
Christian Christian teachers, then, motivate their classes in two valid ways to
learn mathematics. First, mathematics exhibits the glory of God, necessary to
growth in His image, which is the destiny of Christians. Second, mathematics equips
students to care for the creation, under the divine command.
Since this training must occur in the middle of a spiritual battle, its practical
implementation is neither simple nor easy. Morris Kline is more truthful than he
realizes when he says, “The noxious weeds of falsehood may flourish side by side
with the good, the true, and the beautiful. Perhaps the Devil sows his seeds and
raises his harvest along with the God of truth.”12
But greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world. Through His power, in
faithfulness and patience, it is possible for Christian schools and colleges to
graduate students who, rather than worshiping and serving mathematics, worship and
serve the Father of lights, from whom mathematics comes.
Let Thy work appear unto Thy
servants, and Thy glory unto their
children. And let the beauty of the
Lord our God be upon us.
—Psalm 90:16, 17

When a Knot Is Not a Knot

Experiment
by Dr. Don DeYoung on April 1, 2016; last featured December 2, 2018
Featured in Answers Magazine
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Even mathematicians—studying the rules that underlie reality—are tied up in knots
over the surprising twists of “knot theory.”
A stressed-out person may be described as “tied in knots,” unable to relax or make
good decisions. Mathematicians, in contrast, find knots fascinating, and some of
them devote their lives to the math of knots, including computer modeling to
understand all their twists and turns. It may sound like an armchair interest with
no practical value, but read on.
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One of the great pioneer knot explorers was August Ferdinand Möbius (1790–1868), a
descendent of Martin Luther. Homeschooled and gifted in mathematics, Möbius is best
known for his study of a twisted belt of material called a Möbius strip. The
unusual figure somewhat resembles a lazy eight or infinity symbol.
The Möbius shape has several fascinating properties, and the reader is encouraged
to experiment with a ribbon of paper to see it for himself. When constructed, the
two surfaces of the paper ribbon become joined to form a ring with just a single
side, strange but true.
By twisting and tearing a Möbius strip in various ways, you can create several new
novel forms of ribbon. The technical details of Möbius ribbons are analyzed in the
field of mathematics called topology, which has significant uses in modern
industry, computers, and even particle physics.
The Möbius shape has had several practical applications since its discovery. For
example, a large Möbius band makes a good conveyor belt. It will last twice as long
as a conventional belt because it wears evenly along its entire length, both
topside and underside. Farm machinery also may use the Möbius concept of a twisted
belt for longer wear.
Some continuous-loop audiotapes employ the Möbius shape to double their recording
time. The Möbius shape is also popular in sculpture and graphic art, especially the
work of M. C. Escher (1898–1972), who was intrigued by its nearly magical,
otherworldly effects that seemed to defy basic geometry.
Though Möbius is credited with discovering this unusual shape, it already occurs in
nature. For example, some of the vast circulating ocean currents follow the path of
a Möbius loop. The metallic compound niobium selenide, NbSe3, assumes the twisted
curve shape when grown in its crystalline form. Certain organic molecules and
segments of DNA likewise can adopt a Möbius pattern or other types of “molecular
knots.” These result in materials with new physical properties and possible
applications in miniaturized electronic devices.
Mathematicians define knots differently from the knots we see in everyday life,
such as shoelaces or sailing knots. A mathematical knot has no loose ends to tie
up; instead, it is made up of a closed loop that may be entangled in various ways.
If the loop can be untangled into an open circle, it is known as an “unknot.”
(Unknots have their own incredible properties.)
Several creatures are adept at knots:
The moray eel can tie itself into a knot when it needs to hold its body in place on
the seafloor or in a cave.
The hagfish, similar to the eel, can tie itself into a knot, which slides down the
body, cleaning the skin surface.
Weaver birds tie knots in nest material using their beaks and feet.
In contrast to these knot-makers, octopuses have special instincts to avoid
knotting their eight limbs.
Analysis of the Möbius shape and related animal behavior reveals the deep
mathematics that underlies all of creation. This elegant and complex language was
established during the Creation Week.
Job 12:7–9 challenges us to speak to the earth, animals, birds, and fish, “and they
will teach you.” That is, God expects us to survey and study His world, including
the birds, fish, and other animals, to learn more about our Creator and how He
operates. All of creation declares the hand of the Lord, including the knots we
find in nature.
See For Yourself . . .
Materials
A sheet of paper, scissors, masking tape, and a pen or pencil
Procedure
Anyone can construct this simple object with such surprising properties. Begin by
cutting a sheet of paper into four strips, two inches wide. Tape the sheets
together into a single, long strip.
Twist one end of the strip 180 degrees. Now bring the two ends together and fasten
with tape. This should make a twisted, somewhat curled-up loop.
Next, draw a line along the outside of the loop. This can be rough and freehand.
You just want to leave a visible mark along the ribbon until you arrive back at the
starting point. The result is unexpected: the entire strip appears to be lined,
both inside and outside. The conclusion is that the loop of paper, despite its
front and back surfaces, somehow has only one side!
Next, cut a small tear along the pencil line. With scissors, cut along the entire
loop, continuing through the tape. When finished, the result should be a new single
loop that is twice as large as the original!
Start again with a fresh strip of paper. This time give one end a full 360-degree
twist before taping the two ends together. As before, cut the strip roughly along
the center for the entire length. The result should be two linked loops, similar to
a paper chain.
You should enjoy trying other variations, such as making two full turns of one end
before taping the loop. Depending on how many times the original ribbon is twisted
before taping, you will discover a series of unusual results. See, mathematicians
can have fun, too!
Dr. Don DeYoung chairs the science and mathematics department at Grace College,
Winona Lake, Indiana. He is currently president of the Creation Research Society
with hundreds of members worldwide. His website is DiscoveryofDesign.com.
Without God, Math Doesn’t Make Sense
by Dr. Dana Sneed on March 14, 2021
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Most people believe math to be a non-biased subject. There is no interpretation of
evidence or analyzation of literary devices. It doesn’t matter what your worldview
is: 2 + 2 = 4. But if we treat math merely as a tool, we miss an incredible
opportunity to honor the Creator. If the universe were the result of chance, random
processes, why would we expect there to be order and consistency? It is due to the
unchanging nature of our eternal Creator that we can understand the predictable
nature of our universe.
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Math is predictable because our God, who upholds the universe, is consistent—he
does not change.
Math is predictable because our God, who upholds the universe (Hebrews 1:3), is
consistent—he does not change (Malachi 3:6). In fact, we see the foundation of math
in Genesis 1, when God counted the days of creation and marked the beginning of
time. The concept of infinity or even irrational numbers (that have decimal places
that continue on into infinity) remind us that God is beyond measure (Psalm 147:5);
infinity can only exist because God is infinite. Math, like operational science,
depends on the uniformity of universal laws and the certainty of absolute truths,
which depend on the God of truth (Isaiah 65:16).
A strong math curriculum will guide students to think about mathematical concepts
in terms of real life. If I’m allowed to eat half of the pizza, how many slices can
I have? If I give each of my three friends two crayons from my box of eight, how
many do I still have? How long will it take me to fill my pool with water? Word
problems are great for communicating concepts and demonstrating how we use math in
our every-day lives. But any time we are dealing with real world examples, we must
be diligent to consider what messages are being sent to our children.
The truth is that no curricula is without bias. Before the material was assembled,
the writer had a purpose in mind. No matter the subject, the writer approached the
content with a worldview that influences his or her understanding of the topic.
Without a correct view of the Creator God described in the Bible, the writer cannot
adequately explain why math exists or why we can trust it is true. But when we
start with the Bible, we can make sense of the most foundational concepts of
mathematics.
Looking to Teach or Learn?
If you are thinking about selecting a homeschool math curriculum, consider the
opportunity you have to show your student how God’s Word is foundational to every
aspect of life—or to learn (or even relearn) math yourself in light of the One who
created it. Rather than reinforce the idea that math is merely a tool, inspire your
child to celebrate our Creator by discovering how math reflects the nature and
character of God.
Math Lessons for a Living Education features a Charlotte Mason-flavored blend of
stories, copy work, oral narration, and hands-on experience to bring concepts to
life and invite the student to explore the world around them through math.
Principles of Mathematics goes way beyond old-style Christian texts that teach math
with a few Scriptures sprinkled in. This course truly transforms the way students
see math! Find out more about these two multi-level curricula at
AnswersBookstore.com.
s Improbability the Best Argument Against Evolution?
by Ron Tagliapietra on July 1, 2017; last featured May 22, 2022
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Have you ever heard that millions of monkeys typing at random would eventually
produce the complete works of Shakespeare? It’s a common illustration of the
concept that, given enough time, life could evolve from nothing.
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Is that true? Is it remotely possible that monkeys could keyboard all of
Shakespeare without error? Most of us would say: “No, it’s obviously impossible.”
But the mathematical probability is not zero.
Creationists correctly argue that random evolution of life from nonlife is so
improbable it is virtually impossible. But the probability is technically not zero,
which, “given enough time,” leaves a loophole for evolution.
Probability arguments are never conclusive.
Probability arguments are never conclusive. For example, probabilities are used for
predicting weather. Has your local forecast ever been wrong?
Supporters of evolution claim that arguments about the improbability of evolution
are simplistic. Much more is going on, they say, than simple random combinations.
So improbability doesn’t convince die-hard evolutionists to abandon their view.
As a Christian, I prefer deductions (as in geometry proofs) to counter evolution.
No argument will convince a determined skeptic, but unlike probabilities, deductive
arguments are airtight, as long as they start with the right assumptions. Here’s a
good deductive argument:
* Human sin brought death into the world (according to the Bible).
* The theory of evolution requires millions of years of death before humans were
alive.
* Therefore, the theory of evolution and the Bible cannot both be true.
If you believe the Bible, this deductive argument disproves evolution.
What good are probability arguments, then, if they’re not conclusive proof? Let’s
return to weather.
The farmer seeks the truth about tomorrow’s weather. An occasional error is better
than no forecast. Likewise, people seeking the truth, who are looking at both sides
of an argument, can use probabilities to weigh possible outcomes.
I remember when I sought the truth. I grew up immersed in evolutionary ideas,
starting with a book about dinosaurs I read in first grade. However, a picture in
the book left doubts. It showed ghostly dinosaurs with the caption, “No one knows
why dinosaurs disappeared.” In my twenties, the probability argument swayed me to
consider creation as an alternative. Probability helped me recall my doubts and
reconsider my assumptions.
Could monkeys ever produce all of Shakespeare? No. Consider just the first five
keystrokes. From 64 common characters (uppercase and lowercase letters, space, and
punctuation), a monkey must select all five characters. The probability is 1 in
1,073,741,824 (645). For 50 characters, it’s 1 in 2.037 x 1090. Imagine the
probability for Shakespeare’s complete works!
God’s Word and the Holy Spirit are necessary to sway hearts, not simply arguments
about probability.
Biological evolution is much more complicated and far less probable. But these
improbable numbers won’t convince a hardened skeptic to reconsider his foundational
assumptions. God’s Word and the Holy Spirit are necessary to sway hearts, not
simply arguments about probability.
Dr. Ron Tagliapietra earned his EdD in math education from Bob Jones University in
1996. He is the author of the math and logic textbooks from BJU Press, as well as
Math for God’s Glory.