I like to think to myself that the pursuit of knowledge, the attempt to discover more about the physical universe, is, in itself, an act of worship. That is, ‘science is worship’. Ergo, mathematics is worship.
I understand that this is a nicely self-aggrandising theory for a mathematician to have. Still, consider the following scripture:
“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, But the glory of kings is to search out a matter. ” (Proverbs 25:2, NKJV).
If, as a Christian, I believe that the very structure of the universe and the order that we see there is a reflection of God’s nature then the search to understand this structure and order, the act of ‘searching out’ those matters which God has concealed within nature, is surely in some sense tantamount to learning more of God himself. God is revealed to us through his creation and the study of his creation is in some way the study of the creator.
Furthermore, mathematics is the language of God. Right? :)
It confers a certain nobility on the work of the scientist. Not that I’m arrogant about it, I have no delusions about how my trifling work in abstract group theory ranks as theology, or mathematics for that matter. And there are more direct ways to learn about God than science, of course. But the view of science as a form of worship puts science in its proper context – too many worship science rather than he whom science reveals.
I suppose this must sound like the dribblings of a Philistine to the non-believer. Oh well.
p.s. – I really need to simplify my sentences. I can hardly read the above for all of the commas.
More power to your mathematical elbow! I’m a Church of Scotland minister and I’ve just been thinking about how science is either feared by people (in case it disproves their faith) or just ignored. It’s such a shame. On Sunday I’ve got a physics teacher in the congregation explaining how amazing water is as a lead in to the sermon. I thought about doing the Fibonacci series – isn’t it great?
Who do you think has free will? You might say everyone; I would say no one. The Wikipedia Encylopedia describes free will …. The question of free will is whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions and decisions. Addressing this question requires understanding the relation between freedom and cause, and determining whether or not the laws of nature are causally deterministic.
To the average person that is probably correct. But that in reality barley touches the answer. Free (Not in bondage to another) will (Faculty by which a person decides or conceives himself as deciding upon & initiating action). The first requirement to having free will is to be able to think and be aware of yourself as an entity (I think therefore I am). That would rule out all of the animal kingdom. The second requirement would be intelligence (that is understanding not cleverness) or the question is meaningless. The third would be to yourself to question and ask yourself if you had free will. The forth would be not let emotions have any bearing on all actions and decisions. For example, a parent has an adult child that has carried out many horrendous evil acts and is obviously mad. The way the parent views her/his child is very much influenced by the emotional fact that he/she is the parent. The parent does not have free will; the parent is in bondage to the fact that they are a parent. It is clear that if you have a mental problem you do not have free will. You cannot have free will for part of the time only. To have free will means that you have it continuously. It is logically correct to say that if you are not interested to know if you have free will you do not have it by definition. At this point, I would guess that I have eliminated 95% of the world’s population as not having free will. If you react instantly with an emotional response to ANY situation without correction, you do not have free will. I would say that raises it to 99% of the population without free will.
At this point, consider the importance of free will. Without it all the ugliness and badness in the world is explained. Without it what is the difference between you and ALL the ugly predators that have inhabited the planet since life started here. You might say I am good and believe in God or I am a good atheist who wants the world to be better. But without free will, you are only a pawn/player in this world of ugliness.
If you are an adult you have been in affect been severely brainwashed by everything that has taken place in your life. Your country of origin, culture, parents, friends, religion, education, books read, films, art, music, radio, TV, newspapers etc have all played a major part in your identity and how you view the world and your existence. Imagine that you suddenly came into existence with no previous identity or memory but you could think intelligently, read write and talk. You would have NO preconceptions at all. If in that theoretical situation and with free will what you make of the world and civilisation, what obvious conclusions would you come to? What would your first impressions of the world be? Would it be a world of intelligence, harmony, love or the complete opposite? Would each individual be concerned and want the best for every other individual. Would all share lovingly? Would there be no anger, hatred, murder, torture. Would there be an absence of greed? Would there be an absence of nonsense puerile religions? The answer is obvious. You would find a world of chaos with an awesome history of violence, pain and suffering. THINK, in your theoretical uncontaminated position could you possibly say that any one of them had free will? Do you think that the person who designs and makes nuclear weapons has free will? Do you think that the men and women in Russia who make the hundreds of thousands of Kalashnikov rifles that are used to kill have free will? Do the millions of men and women in the west who buy their pampered pets expense food while people starve have free will? Does the leader of a country or the head of a religious organisation living in luxury while others have only poverty with no hope have free will? Does the suicide bomber who blows himself up and everyone in his vicinity and thinks that he is going to paradise to be served by servile virgins have free will? Do the millions who smoke, over indulge in alcohol or are addicted to drugs have free will? Do ALL the six billion plus people on this planet who go about their daily lives and cannot see anything clearly have free will? The list could go on and on and I’m sure that you would be in there somewhere.
If a just one person said to me..this world is ugly and worthless and if I could not change it completely I would without pain to anyone remove it I would know two things. The first is that the person would be intelligent. The second is that while he might not have complete free will he/she would be more than half way there.
If you reply that, the answer is a man called Jesus or Muhammad not only have you not understood any of the previous and have no free will but you also have no intelligence.
Why is the world as it is? Why do people cling on to the lie that there is more good than bad when it is obviously not so. Why do people think that they have free will when they do not? That is catch22. Only by having free will can you know and understand the answer to that question. If you do not want to know, you do not have free will and you are the same as the lion, tiger, monkey, dog, flea etc.. What a sorry uncorrectable state you are in.
Robert robert77@fsmail.net
Robert,
I’m not sure where your comment is coming from, seeing as I didn’t mention free will in this post at all.
Nevertheless, I would be quite happy to agree with you that, due to environment, upringing, etc., man doesn’t have free (or, at least, unimpeded) will.
I would argue for free agency — the freedom to make *actual* choices even if the choices likely to be made are constrained by upringing, situation, culture, etc.
Still, your comment seems more than a little confused to me, as well as occasionally logically incorrect and even insulting every now and again.
Still — thanks for commenting on my blog. :)