This year, I’ve focused all my newsletters on mathematics, attempting to boil down each of Boethius’ categories of math (plus Algebra) into easily-digestible explanations, and to give the historical context for each one. What’s the benefit of seeing how each mathematical art has been treated historically in the West?
To put it concisely, when you look at the history of any mathematical art, you see that it is a history of studying real things. The main focus was not mathematical algorithms and not proficiency in calculation, but rather how we can accurately speak of the real, physical Creation. Of course, mathematical algorithms have always been helpful, and proficiency in calculation is non-negotiable, but if you were to ask anyone like Pythagoras, Boethius, Euclid, Newton, or Euler, I think they would all agree: to do math is to describe the world and to discover the central rules which the world seems to closely follow. This is the idea behind the title of the most famous math book ever to be published: Euclid’s Elements. This title uses the same word (“stoicheia”) the Greeks had for earth, fire, water, and air: the literal elements which supposedly composed the entire world. In explaining the core ideas of geometry, Euclid was explaining what seemed to be at the core of creation. Once you have that classical view of math, you can’t help but become a little more excited about it!
The Greeks of the Pythagorean cult felt the same way—too much the same way. They literally worshiped numbers, subscribing to the creed “All is number.” Down the philosophical road, this idea played a significant role in the formation of the Greek Christian heresy of Gnosticism. This heresy claimed that everything physical is evil, that the way to heaven should be secret, that Jesus isn’t God, and other disgusting doctrines that I don’t want to write out. This is probably the heresy Paul has in mind when he writes to the Colossians, “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.” Gnosticism isn’t the only philosophy that runs “according to the basic principles of the world”; we see this any time human reason takes precedent over the Word of God. False ideas about the two genders God has created, the evil doctrine of man’s evolution rather than God’s creation of him, the lie of materialism—all these are worship of the elements of the cosmos in place of the Creator and Mover of those elements. And if that’s not enough to give you chills about learning math and science (and it should), Paul’s word for those dangerous “basic principles” is the same word, “stoicheia,” which Euclid chose to name his famous geometry book 300 years prior!
If human reason, and therefore math, is so prone to becoming such an idol, why pursue it at all? Because it is still God’s gift. The key is to understand the entire cosmos not on math’s terms, but instead “according to Christ.” When we who use the mathematical arts read and listen to the Word of God, and when we understand that Christ is the only true person by which we live and move and have our being, we can be free to explore what He has waiting for us to discover in Creation. We can discover more about counting, numbers, and arithmetic; we can pursue ideas behind measurement of angles, shapes, curves, and volumes; we can theorize about ratios, proportions, and musical instruments; we can wonder at the intricacy and seeming infinity of outer space. And whatever we do learn by our reason, we can be humbled that we will only have scratched the surface of the workings of the world, yet we can also be excited that this means we will never reach the end of exploring the beautiful fractal that is God’s Creation!
In Christ,
Mr. Hahn
Painting: Among the Sierra Nevada, California by Albert Bierstadt, 1868
