"The Divinity of Number"

In the search for some reverent notion beyond ourselves but resisting the idea that it is God, there is a philosophy in which the divine is mathematics. Yeah, it's true.

"Ewwww," you say, "I hate math."

You may just check out now and decide this blog is not worth your time. I can see that. But you don't have to love or even understand math to see how this philosophy has influenced human thinking for 3000 years. It may even explain why you think as you do now.  Maybe why you may agree with friends and family on ideas about God - deep down the lack of physical evidence may make your faith (unseen evidence) difficult to rely on. After all, the divinity of number is quite rational and can be compelling. In fact it has for a long time and here is the reason why.

It started way back around 500 BC with a guy named Pythagoras. Some say he is the first philosopher and influenced the theories of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Here's his view of reality. All natural objects that exist are created by the power of formal mathematical relationships, which are abstract, immutable and eternal. Reality as we know it is created out of something it that is not material, but an architect for all that can be known as material. The abstract idea upon which all reality is constructed is "number." Note a right triangle is governed by properties Pythagoras found that existed n the abstract. We call it "the Pythagorean theory." 

Music, geometry, physics, chemistry, the human body, etc. are all based on formal relationships abstractly conceived. Mathematics predicts, predates and in fact creates all natural existence. The math for everything man has discovered in the natural world existed before the object existed. Since number has such power, it is in a sense "divinity," something reverent, respected and to be worshiped. This philosophy claims the cosmos (physical universe) is authorized by differential equations that are disinterested in its existence, an impersonal creator bound by reciprocity. 

"Sin" occurs when the harmonic rational relationship of abstract entities is violated by natural forces. Sin is the awful sound of playing the wrong note in a musical performance or obesity that abuses the body's natural order. BTW, earthquakes, floods, forest fires, tornadoes and the like that we may consider evil are not sin, according to "the Divinity of Number," because these outcomes are created by mathematics to restore equilibrium.

Opposing philosophies, such as those of Aristotle, take the opposing idea. Naturalists believe that the physical world is what is real and the abstract ideas just represent, not cause, natural relationships that exist. Mathematics has been created by man, not the creator of man, to explain what is observed as real in the natural world.

In either case the defining theme of mathematics, whether creator or explainor, is the "=" sign. All natural phenomena exists in equilibrium. Characteristic of all relationships is ultimately "the equation." Nothing personal. Whether reality is in the natural world or in the abstract, human nature assumes a nonnegotiable requirement for explaining anything is the presence of equilibrium.

Now can you begin to see why the Christian faith, based on unseen evidence of redemption, is outside of human rationale. The Gospel is rational for sure, but a different kind of "mathematics." Grace violates the requirement for equilibrium. Grace governs relationships beyond material things. The laws of natural world is maintained by mathematical equations, BUT the relationship He has with you and me is different. Jesus emptied Himself of his privilege to be equal with God.

Grace is a disequilibrium and defines the eternal characteristic in which anything can only be "real," containing qualities bestowed on it by a Sovereign Creator.  

The only number we need to grasp is 3 to worship the eternal Divine. The Trinity is a number that defies natural mathematics and causes us to endlessly ponder ......