God and Mathematics

[Arturo_Ortiz]

I have always had a fascination with mathematics. It has made me make sense of things, and I believe it even helps me to understand God in someway. I was wondering why it’s like this? Is mathematics related to God in someway?

As far as I have seen mathematics has always made sense and has always worked. The formulas behind math are always working. Is math a universal truth that can help to explain things including God, or is it just a man made tool that has faults and problems?

 

[buffalo]

Might want to take a look at Godel’s Incompleteness theorem.

 

[Poseidon]

I have always had a fascination with mathematics. It has made me make sense of things, and I believe it even helps me to understand God in someway. I was wondering why it’s like this? Is mathematics related to God in someway?

As far as I have seen mathematics has always made sense and has always worked. The formulas behind math are always working. Is math a universal truth that can help to explain things including God, or is it just a man made tool that has faults and problems?

It seems to me that math is a representation of the physical universe. It could be stated that physics (and therefore every other science, since they’re all ultimately applied physics) is nothing but applied math, but I’d argue that math is simply quantified physics.

 

[ricmat]

I have always had a fascination with mathematics. It has made me make sense of things, and I believe it even helps me to understand God in someway. I was wondering why it’s like this? Is mathematics related to God in someway?

Everything about God is good in the infinite.

Everything God created was good and beautiful. Except man and woman, who were very good.

We are made in God’s image, which includes the gift of intellect, and the ability to recognize good (and beauty).

So the universe, and it’s laws should appear to many of us as beautiful, and good.

Many of the psalms tell us to see God’s works, and to appreciate them, and praise them. (Especially - also see Wisdom 13).

God’s works include the mathematical design and functioning of the universe.

Therefore, yes, math is related to God.

As far as I have seen mathematics has always made sense and has always worked. The formulas behind math are always working. Is math a universal truth that can help to explain things including God, or is it just a man made tool that has faults and problems?

It’s a man made tool, but one that our God given intellect allowed us to discover and use. And just as everything God gives us is to be used to proclaim his glory and majesty - and to be used to further his Kingdom, so also is mathematics.

It’s so sad that many attempt to use math and science to pull God down rather than proclaim his glory.

Or so it seems to me

 

[mab23]

It seems to me that math is a representation of the physical universe. It could be stated that physics (and therefore every other science, since they’re all ultimately applied physics) is nothing but applied math, but I’d argue that math is simply quantified physics.

interesting and I agree

 

[PeterJohn]

I have always had a fascination with mathematics. It has made me make sense of things, and I believe it even helps me to understand God in someway. I was wondering why it’s like this? Is mathematics related to God in someway?

As far as I have seen mathematics has always made sense and has always worked. The formulas behind math are always working. Is math a universal truth that can help to explain things including God, or is it just a man made tool that has faults and problems?

God, being wise to the infinite, designed this universe according to his logic.
Likewise God, created us in his image, and bestowed on us a infinitely small portion of his divine logic. With this gift we are able to see, piece by small piece his awe inspiring design of complete and universal perfection. Some would venture to say God our heavenly father gave us logic, so that we may, in the absence of his church, and evangelization efforts, be able to see natural law, and abide by it. In conclusion, God allows us to see his wonderous design to inspire us for many reasons.

 

[maltmom]

It’s so sad that many attempt to use math and science to pull God down rather than proclaim his glory.

Or so it seems to me

It is sad. The more I learned in post-grad about biology, the more in awe I became of God’s creation

 

[Arturo_Ortiz]

Originally by Ricmat
It’s a man made tool, but one that our God given intellect allowed us to discover and use. And just as everything God gives us is to be used to proclaim his glory and majesty - and to be used to further his Kingdom, so also is mathematics.

It’s so sad that many attempt to use math and science to pull God down rather than proclaim his glory.

Or so it seems to me

This is true and I do see something like math as beautiful. It’s beautiful to use something for good reasons, such as seeing how God works and how the universe that he created works and functions.

Originally by Ricmat
It’s so sad that many attempt to use math and science to pull God down rather than proclaim his glory.

Or so it seems to me

This is true. Many people especially in modern times have used science math and logic to try to show people why God can’t possibly exist. They use these things as methods of disproving God.

I actually use these things to show how he works, and to prove his existence rather than disprove it.

 

[wcknight]

I love Math and I majored in it… and yes, when you think about the infinte… you approach God.

When I consider the vastness of the universe, it makes me marval at just how terrific God made things.

Just think about how many trillions of atoms there are in just one humna body, and there are billions of humans. Then think about how our earth and sun is just one star among the billions of stars in our galaxy… and our galaxy is just one of many billions of galaxies…

And God started all this in one fraction of a second from one point in time 13 billion years ago. Some people look that the incredible vastness of the universe and say, this all happened on its own, like some random event that occurred naturally. I just say, IF it did then why has not happened again after 13 billion years, why didn’t another explosion destroy what’s out here now.

 

[Poseidon]

I love Math and I majored in it… and yes, when you think about the infinte… you approach God.

When I consider the vastness of the universe, it makes me marval at just how terrific God made things.

Just think about how many trillions of atoms there are in just one humna body, and there are billions of humans. Then think about how our earth and sun is just one star among the billions of stars in our galaxy… and our galaxy is just one of many billions of galaxies…

And God started all this in one fraction of a second from one point in time 13 billion years ago. Some people look that the incredible vastness of the universe and say, this all happened on its own, like some random event that occurred naturally. I just say, IF it did then why has not happened again after 13 billion years, why didn’t another explosion destroy what’s out here now.

There very well could have been many more big bangs since our universe began. There is no reason to think that there hasn’t and there is reason to think there has. However if one of them happened it wouldn’t be in our universe, it would be an entirely different universe beginning.

I think you have a misunderstanding of what the big bang was. It wasn’t an explosion, it was the entire universe expanding at a terrific rate from a singularity. The big bang is still going on today, in that the universe is still expanding. So it couldn’t happen again in our universe. It wasn’t even really in the universe. It was the universe.

 

[nfreak141]

My courses in college include physics and math. Every time I walk out of physics, I always have this thought:

“So THAT’S how He did it…”

Honestly, math and science is the greatest gift God could give to mankind, and I say this on purely logical grounds, not because I’m in the field or anything.

…Okay, MAYBE because I’m in the field.

 

[Arturo_Ortiz]

Originally by Nfreak 141
My courses in college include physics and math. Every time I walk out of physics, I always have this thought:

“So THAT’S how He did it…”

Honestly, math and science is the greatest gift God could give to mankind, and I say this on purely logical grounds, not because I’m in the field or anything.

…Okay, MAYBE because I’m in the field.

Exactly anytime I walk out of any scientific or math class like that I get that thought

 

[maltmom]

Exactly anytime I walk out of any scientific or math class like that I get that thought

I’ll second that. I wish there was a “Like” button for the forum.

 

[TS_Aquinas]

There very well could have been many more big bangs since our universe began. There is no reason to think that there hasn’t and there is reason to think there has. However if one of them happened it wouldn’t be in our universe, it would be an entirely different universe beginning.

I think you have a misunderstanding of what the big bang was. It wasn’t an explosion, it was the entire universe expanding at a terrific rate from a singularity. The big bang is still going on today, in that the universe is still expanding. So it couldn’t happen again in our universe. It wasn’t even really in the universe. It was the universe.

Multi-verse theory: Unobservable, violates Ockham’s razor, requires a beginning still and requires just as much fine tuning for our universe to exist given Penrose’s calculations of a low entropy universe by chance… Perfect! Package it, sell it and hope no one notices the gaping holes in it.

 

[PeterJohn]

There very well could have been many more big bangs since our universe began. There is no reason to think that there hasn’t and there is reason to think there has. However if one of them happened it wouldn’t be in our universe, it would be an entirely different universe beginning.

No there realy is not any reason to think there was many big bangs in reality. It’s just a theory. Just a thought in people’s heads, it’s only as real as Peter Pan or the Easter bunny. I’m a huge fan of the BB theory but I disagree with multiple bangs for a variety of reasons.

There is more proof of God then of the big bang.

 

[Anselm33]

I have always had a fascination with mathematics. It has made me make sense of things, and I believe it even helps me to understand God in someway. I was wondering why it’s like this? Is mathematics related to God in someway?

As far as I have seen mathematics has always made sense and has always worked. The formulas behind math are always working. Is math a universal truth that can help to explain things including God, or is it just a man made tool that has faults and problems?

Galileo wrote “The laws of nature are written by the hand of God in the language of mathematics”
and Eugene Wigner, one of the great founders of quantum mechanics, wrote of
“The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences.”

 

[greylorn]

I have always had a fascination with mathematics. It has made me make sense of things, and I believe it even helps me to understand God in someway. I was wondering why it’s like this? Is mathematics related to God in someway?

As far as I have seen mathematics has always made sense and has always worked. The formulas behind math are always working. Is math a universal truth that can help to explain things including God, or is it just a man made tool that has faults and problems?

You are right.

If one makes the interesting assumption that God can think (i.e. create new ideas) then it follows that in the past He knew less than he knows now (yes, a thinking God cannot also be an omniscient God). Thus, there was a time before creation at which God had his first thought, followed by other thoughts.

What could those early thoughts have been other than mathematics? After all, there were no things to be aware of and wonder about, no language in which to express concepts.

In this context, mathematics is the perfect thought form. It is a language onto itself, a perfect logical abstraction that requires no material references for its validity. (2+5=7 even if there are only three things available to count.) I expect that God is a superb mathematician, a master of all mathematical arts from simple addition through five dimensional topology.

Surely the elegant mathematical forms which describe physics are not an accident of the silly Big Bang.

 

[wcknight]

There very well could have been many more big bangs since our universe began. There is no reason to think that there hasn’t and there is reason to think there has. However if one of them happened it wouldn’t be in our universe, it would be an entirely different universe beginning.

I think you have a misunderstanding of what the big bang was. It wasn’t an explosion, it was the entire universe expanding at a terrific rate from a singularity. The big bang is still going on today, in that the universe is still expanding. So it couldn’t happen again in our universe. It wasn’t even really in the universe. It was the universe.

BUT it was in fact an explosion, NOT just an expansion of space time. Energy-matter and anti matter was released with such force that matter and energy were constantly being converted to each other. Matter and anti-matter were coliding thoughout the process generating even more explosions until just about all anti matter was consummed.

It was in every sense of the word a huge cataclysmic explosion. The heat generated was in the billions if not trillions of degrees, the sound of the explosion echos throughout the universe even to this day. How in your description was it not an explosion.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

Here’s all you have to do to combine math and God. I noticed this in 2001.

Look back at your life, and at all the disasters – including deadly ones – that you have avoided. Go back to the conditions just before them, and assess the chances you’ll get out of it alive. Then combine them all and see, statistically, whether you should be alive or dead.

When I did this exercise, it took only a few instances until my odds against still being alive were greater than the odds against a random lottery ticket winning.

Somebody is stacking the deck, or loading the dice, or whatever, to a very high degree of statistical evidence.

I have many more ways of looking at math and God, as a frustrated electrical engineer and former math teacher, that I’ve thought of since then. Also I consider “math” as a mindset and way of solving problems and looking at things, not just arithmetic itself. If math were all arithmetic, then computers would know it all and we wouldn’t need to think.

Alan

 

[AlanFromWichita]

BUT it was in fact an explosion, NOT just an expansion of space time. Energy-matter and anti matter was released with such force that matter and energy were constantly being converted to each other. Matter and anti-matter were coliding thoughout the process generating even more explosions until just about all anti matter was consummed.

It was in every sense of the word a huge cataclysmic explosion. The heat generated was in the billions if not trillions of degrees, the sound of the explosion echos throughout the universe even to this day. How in your description was it not an explosion.

I don’t know if “began” is a good word for the universe. How do we know that black holes aren’t God’s vacuum cleaners, sweeping up old realities to “Big Bang” them into a new existence? And since God is without time, the Big Bang and right now are not different points in time except as perceived by us mortals.

Alan