Journal

Mathematics as the Language of Faith

№ 9, 2021

Mathematics as the Language of Faith

Georgios D. Mouzakis

master of Theology, National and Capodistrian University of Athens (Athens, Greece)

giorgos-m_99@hotmail.com

Number DOI: http://doi.org/10.33209/2519-4348-2707-9627-2021-9-104

VB. – № 9, 2021. – P. 223-252

Summary

The interdisciplinary marriage of Mathematics with Theology offers a great insight into both inconceivable numerical truths (such as infinity) that God’s personal relation helps us realise and God’s unknown nature that is depicted schematically within His creation. As the philosopher, Plato has said “Great God is always using geometry” wanting to depict the importance of geometry in the understanding of the Cosmos and to describe God’s features. This phrase is used as a mnemonic for Pi number (3,14159) since the letters of each word give the aforementioned number (Αεί=3 ο=1 Θεός=4 ο=1 μέγας=5 γεωμετρεί=9). Many ancient Greek philosophers share this idea such as Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Democritus, Thalis and others. This passion has passed to me spiritually rather than biologically and will be depicted in this paper despite the difficulties met during the research and the writing of this dissertation. More specifically, the access to the library was limited, not to say forbidden due to the pandemic and the lockdowns that followed. As a result, finding the right books, and the necessary information for my paper was challenging. However, the product seems satisfying and more changes are to come when the whole pandemic settles down. The main difficulty of this paper lies in the fact that the writer needs to be objective and equally distanced from either Science. There is a wide variety of mistakes that could occur. One could be the polarised support and preference of one Science over the other. Another one could be the alteration of mathematical facts in order to achieve an analogy between God and Mathematics. Last but not least, it could also be possible to “downgrade God to earth’s level” so one could easily define mathematics as something Divine or even God’s language, leading to a pantheistic view of the Cosmos and the world, something that is not compatible with Orthodox Theology and its doctrines. In the introduction, I will try to smoothly induct you to the topic and give you a taste of this proposed interdisciplinary combination without, of course, depleting it.

Key words: Science, God, Mathematics, Orthodox Theology, Greek philosophers

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