Religion and Mathematics

The great modern enemy of Religion is usually thought to be Science, but, as previously discussed, the two are not antitheses, but are merely differing admixtures of Faith and Rationality. However, for at least millennia, it has always had a more formidable rival. One of the earliest formulations of the latter was presented by Plato in the Euthyphro. To slightly paraphrase the problem that he poses there--Is something Good because it is commanded by God, or does God command it because it is Good? The former reduces adherence to God to blind obedience to moral arbitrariness, while the latter entails that God is less powerful than the Good, either of which is a challenge to the presumed omnipotent goodness of God. Plato is here being more than a casuistic gadfly; his notion of the Good is based in his Theory of Forms, of which Pythagorean mathematics is the paradigm. To pose the problem in mathematical terms: Could God alter 2+2=4? It seems unthinkable that he, or any entity, could do so, which, again, imposes a delimitation on his powers. Furthermore, the presumed Divine characteristics of Eternality and Perfection seem pre-eminently true of mathematical propositions, and once Descartes showed how to quantify Geometry, Physics mathematized spatial relations beyond Pythagoras' wildest dreams, rendering Mathematics omnipresent as well. Voltaire might have had trouble finding God at the Lisbon earthquake, but geologists can find an easy explanation for it. So, what could be more Divine than Mathematics? Not a 'God' who is himself subject to it. One other recourse is to attribute Mathematics to the Mind of God. But Spinoza tried this, to the general satisfaction of neither the Faithful nor the Rational Secularists.