Did the Catholic church teach the number 0 as being unBiblical?

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I’ve heard differing accounts of this, one by Christopher Hitchens and also in Islamic sources but the general jist of the story is that in medieval times the Catholic Church taught against the use of the number 0 in mathematics. This was either because:

a) of the supposed Muslim origins of the number (even where it’s actually Sanskrit) which could corrupt Christian thinking.

b) it was deemed unbiblical.

Anyone care to clear this one up? Was the Church really against the number 0?
 
I can find no historical evidence to collaborate that. I did find a few comments online, I’ll quote one of them.
What about the charge that the Vatican opposed the use of zero?
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In a discussion group I participate in, Bede’s Journal’s Religion and Science Group, the issue of zero had been raised and a knowledgeable contributor stated that he was not aware of any evidence of papal resistence to zero, although there may have been some local opposition scattered about. There was opposition to zero by some traditionalists, who preferred the Roman system (which lacked zero) and the use of the abacas. As this article notes, adoption of zero “seems to have been slow, for institutions such as the Medici bank and the English Exchequer (the pioneer of the abacus) did not adopt them before the sixteenth century.” I have done some online searching and found no evidence of official Vatican opposition to zero.
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From Cadre

It’s true that the number system the church used for a while had no zero in it, but there is quite a bit of difference in not adopting a new system of math when presented without further study, and ‘teaching against the use of zero.’ It sounds like a trumped up charge by misrepresenting the facts without evidence.
 
I’m going to see if Hitchens gives any sources in God Is Not Great for his claim. Surely an academic like him would back his idea up with evidence.
 
Conservative mathematicians of one culture resist innovations from another culture for a while. Must be the result of their religion! :rolleyes:
 
Aelred_Minor said:
Conservative mathematicians of one culture resist innovations from another culture for a while. Must be the result of their religion! :rolleyes:
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I’m only quoting Hitchens. But as far as I can tell, he’s angling it that yes, it was the CHURCH that preached against 0, meaning it IS a religious issue.
 
Kouyate42 said:
I’m going to see if Hitchens gives any sources in God Is Not Great for his claim. Surely an academic like him would back his idea up with evidence.
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Ha! That’s one of the best jokes I’ve heard all year!:rotfl:
 
Kouyate42 said:
I’m only quoting Hitchens. But as far as I can tell, he’s angling it that yes, it was the CHURCH that preached against 0, meaning it IS a religious issue.
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It would be helpful to have the citations from his footnotes. Presuming Hitchens wanted to come of as a scholar, he would have included references to actual church documents. Without them, he would just be practicing sensationalism.
 
NotWorthy said:
Ha! That’s one of the best jokes I’ve heard all year!:rotfl:
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I personally find Christopher Hitchens to be a very credible and intelligent writer.
SonCatcher said:
It would be helpful to have the citations from his footnotes. Presuming Hitchens wanted to come of as a scholar, he would have included references to actual church documents. Without them, he would just be practicing sensationalism.
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This is true…
 
Kouyate42 said:
I personally find Christopher Hitchens to be a very credible and intelligent writer.
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Writer? I don’t know.

Debater? I found him to be arrogant, condescending, and bending the truth to fit his own pre-conceived notions.
 
NotWorthy said:
Writer? I don’t know.

Debater? I found him to be arrogant, condescending, and bending the truth to fit his own pre-conceived notions.
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Nonetheless, despite his pomposity, he did have some brains. Glory to him if by some grace he made it to Heaven or purgatory.

I do hope he provided some sources for his writing, though. Otherwise that’s just a tad tacky.
 
TarkanAttila said:
Nonetheless, despite his pomposity, he did have some brains. Glory to him if by some grace he made it to Heaven or purgatory.

I do hope he provided some sources for his writing, though. Otherwise that’s just a tad tacky.
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Glory be to God if Hitchens makes it to Heaven. But I get your point.
 
As I understand it… Dividing by 0 can render infinity. The Scholastic theologians didn’t like infinities because there was no place to put a First Cause.
 
kepha1 said:
The notion that the Church was ever opposed to scientific or mathematical advancement is a myth.
How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization

The real objectors to science were the reformers.

Early Protestant Hostility Towards Science (Revised and Expanded)
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And this isn’t the current trend, either? 😉

Not to say that ALL Catholics are rational scientifically minded people, or that ALL Protestants are backwards, anti-scientific Luddites. But generally speaking the Protestant groups seem to be scared of things like evolution, while the Catholic Church… isn’t.
 
The medieval period extends from 500 AD to 1500 AD. The Arabic numeral system that includes zero was not used in European mathematics until 1202. It was introduced to Europe by the Italian Catholic Leonardo Pisano Bigollo who is better known by the name Fibonacci, as in Fibonacci Sequence.
 
I think it is disingenuous to claim that the Catholic Church interfered with the use of zero when it was a famous Catholic mathematician who introduced the concept into European mathematics in the first place. This inversion is a representative example of the hyperbole that guys like Hitchens love to engage in.
 
If God created everything from nothing (zero) how can zero be against the faith? Its right there in the Catechism that God created everything from nothing 🙂
 
BobCatholic said:
If God created everything from nothing (zero) how can zero be against the faith? Its right there in the Catechism that God created everything from nothing 🙂
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Ah, but zero isn’t nothing, it’s the lack of something. (Throw me a bone, I am horrible at math)
 
I don’t even know what “unbiblical” means.

No offense to the OP but people throw that word around and it really means nothing.

Does unbiblical mean that it is not in the Bible? If thats the case then fire departments, radial tires and pizza are unbiblical.

🤷

-Tim-
 
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