In education, we parents and teachers make it the primary goal to teach our children and students truth. This has always been the case in the tradition of Western education, but for Christians, teaching truth means something different than it did for, say, the pagan Greeks. Western culture throughout time has assumed that there is an absolute truth, or an idea of the ultimate Good. The philosopher Plato, who propagated that idea of the Good, taught that as a person is educated, he attains more wisdom and works his way up towards that ultimate revelation of the Good. He moves from the “cave” of ignorance to the “sun” of highest knowledge, the ultimate truth.
Of course, this is a highly distorted version of what Christians from the beginning have always believed: not that we work our way toward some abstract and impersonal “Good,” but that the Word of God is the source of truth. We can’t trust in anything besides the Word to hold true. So, in a Christian education, we put that Word above all else, and keep it at the foundation of all we teach. Only Christ gives life and salvation. He is the source of wisdom and knowledge.
For someone learning math, the question then becomes, where’s the truth in it? “One plus one equals two” isn’t written in the Bible, so why can we assume it’s true? Why do we Christians, in a sense, put our trust in math when, for instance, we trust that a chair will hold our weight, or that the physics involved in a building will keep it from collapsing? Are we trusting in something other than God? Are the students learning some alternative Greek source of truth separate from God’s Word in math class?
Not at all! In fact, God is the only reason math, logic, physics, chemistry, or any other mathematical study holds true in the first place. If God removed his hand from caring for the universe for only a millisecond, the world of math, logic, order, and beauty we often take for granted would utterly vanish and crumble into chaos. So, when we study something like trigonometry, arithmetic, or geometry, we are studying something legitimately true, because we are studying something sustained by God.
The difference between the Christian and the pagan studying math is that the Christian recognizes the source of the truth in math. The pagan views math and logic as a source of truth (although nowadays, even that view is disintegrating). We sit in our chairs without fear of them collapsing because we know God is the one sustaining the physics behind them. The pagan is merely conditioned to behave as though he trusted the chair will not collapse. If he were consistent with his own theology, he would test that chair every time he sat down, because he does not believe there’s a God holding it together.
I suppose in a way, the order of math is part of our daily bread. God graciously sustains that order so that we can go about our day without worry of collapsing chairs and buildings. We teach math because it truly describes many of the ways our loving God holds the universe together.
In Christ,
Mr. Hahn
