Pythagoras

Though Socrates is often credited with being the first Philosopher, he was preceded in similar endeavors by the so-called 'pre-Socratics', including someone that coined the term 'philosopher'='lover of wisdom, whose name is probably the first philosopher that most people have heard of, and, arguably, is the most influential philosopher in history. That would be Pythagoras, whose Pythagorean Theorem is a centerpiece of most secondary school Geometry courses. From what little of his original work survives, it is known that he held that all reality is fundamentally mathematical in nature. Plato's 'Theory of Forms' is one representation of that doctrine, and Aristotle's theory of Moderation in Ethics is an application of the Pythagorean, Mrs., more precisely, concept of the 'Golden Mean'. The modern quantification of Physics likewise represents Nature as fundamentally mathematical, while Pythagoras himself pioneered the mathematization of Music. Since the cognition of these characteristics is possible not through the senses, but via Reason, he is also the founder of Rationalism--even proto-Empiricist Locke conceded that the world beyond the senses consists of quantifiable particles and motions. And, though not usually associated with Rationalism, Numerology likewise treats numbers as the secret language of the world. Indeed, Kabbalism interprets Torah as a numerical code, and casts the universe in a numerical structure, just as Plotinus characterizes God as 'The One'. Now, to some such might provide a clue to the reconciliation of Mathematics/Science and Faith, of current debates. But Biblical Literalists cannot accede to such a reduction of their living God, which would be tantamount to subordinating Jehovah to the Pythagorean divine system of Numbers, which is plainly not monotheistic, just as One is not the only number.