"If God is sovereign, then his lordship must extend over all of life, and it cannot be restricted to the walls of the church or within the Christian orbit." Abraham Kuyper Common Grace 1.1.
The separation of mathematics and theology is a relatively recent development.
Throughout history people have viewed the pursuit of mathematical study as a way of communing with the divine, pursuing something completely beyond the created world we see around us.
... man counts by tens, his ten fingers will remind him of the human origin of this most important phase of his mental life. So may the decimal system stand as a living monument to the proposition: Man is the measure of all things."
Counting, written numbers, comparing and grouping numbers, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, decimals, percents, ratios, proportions, number sets, exponents, roots—all the concepts we refer to as “arithmetic” are useful methods to help us count and work with quantities! These methods only work because a faithful, all-powerful God holds all things together predictably.
Teaching math from a biblical worldview means so much more that saying over and again "God created and sustains a consistent universe and math records it".And yet at times, there is a tendency for Loop to do exactly that.
You cannot evade the issue of God, whether you talk about pigs or the binomial theory, you are still talking about Him. Now if Christianity be. . . a fragment of metaphysical nonsense invented by a few people, then, of course, defending it will simply mean talking that metaphysical nonsense over and over. But if Christianity should happen to be true - then defending it may mean talking about anything or everything. Things can be irrelevant to the proposition that Christianity is false, but nothing can be irrelevant to the proposition that Christianity is true.Mathematics is relevant because in Jesus everything matters.
Chapter 3 of the Book of Ecclesiastes begins with a poem, ‘For everything there is a season: a time to be born and a time to die;’ and concludes ‘a time of war and a time of peace’.
This is very thought-provoking and clear, but verse 5 is not; ‘A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them’.
After puzzling over this I saw that ‘calculus’ is Latin for stones and things became clear. The second half of the verse must mean the collecting of small stones into a heap. Since integration is the summation of many small elements, the second half can be translated ‘there is a time for integral calculus’, so the first half must mean ‘there is a time for differential calculus’.
Ecclesiastes was a teacher of mathematics!
37. Hence, we must admit that when astrologers speak the truth, they are
speaking by a mysterious instinct that moves a man's mind without his
knowing it. When this happens for the purpose of deceiving men, it is the
work of evil spirits. To these spirits some knowledge of the truth about
the temporal order has been granted, partly by reason of their keen and
subtle senses, since they possess bodies of a much more subtle nature than
ours, partly because of their shrewdness due to the experience they have had
over the long ages they have lived, partly because the good angels reveal to
them what they themselves have learnt from Almighty God, at the command of
Him who distributes man's merits by the right principles of His hidden
justice. But sometimes these wicked spirits also feign the power of
divination and foretell what they themselves intend to do. Hence, a devout
Christian must avoid astrologers and all impious soothsayers, especially
when they tell the truth, for fear of leading his soul into error by
consorting with demons and entangling himself with the bonds of such
association.
Brian D. Beasley, Where, Oh Waring? The Classic Problem and its ExtensionsDetails of other ACMS conferences are here.
Ryan Botts, Lori Carter, Lesson's Learned: A Journey in Computational Science
Robert L. Brabenec, Thinking Philosophically about Mathematics
Jeremy Case, PK Mathematicians
Loredana Ciurdariu, Pascal's Thoughts Seen in the Light of Scripture
Eric Gossett, The Search for Hamilton
Nathan Gossett, The Need for a Graphics Programming Course in CS
Wayne Iba, Real Simulations and Simulated Reality
Stephen Lovett, Bringing Undergraduate Research into the Classroom
Nathan Moyer, Connecting Mathematics Students to Philosophy and Faith
Judith Palagallo, Calculus Communication Circle .
Doug Phillippy, The Study of Mathematics: A Text from a Christian Perspective
Donna Pierce, Math History Study Abroad Program
Michael Rempe, Google and the Mathematics of Web Search
Gordon A. Swain, The History of the Area between a Line and a Parabola
Mary Walkins, History of Mathematics: An Exercise in Strengths
Samuel P. Wilcox, A Bayesian Secondary Analysis in an Asthma Study
Josh Wilkerson, What we can Learn from Process Theology
Nicholas J. Willis, Two Faith Integration Projects for Freshman Majors
Maria Zack, Using Original Historical Mathematics Texts in the Classroom
Nicholas C. Zoller, The Mathematics of Cubic Sudoku
Math is not a neutral subject. God’s invisible qualities are clearly seen in math. If we are not worshiping God in math, we are unconsciously worshipping the creation, in this case, math itself. We are exchanging God’s truth for a lie. Our attempts at neutrality only harm us and open up our hearts to worldly, independent thinking. p 27.The strength of the book is its simplicity and accessibility. That is also its weakness as some of the arguments are glossed over and they wouldn't convince a skeptic, but then that probably isn't the aim of the book.
Simply adding Bible verses or thoughts to our math lessons does not make math biblical. Math still comes across as independent from God.She discusses some common textbook approaches to division and shows how they are lacking and then develops her own approach using 'cookies' and splitting them (dividing) them into groups and then concluding:
Guess what? Because God holds all of creation together so consistently, if you take twelve objects and put them into three piles, you will always end up with four objects in each pile! God’s consistency makes it possible for us to do division without actually touching the objects we are dividing. Just as we did with multiplication, we can memorize our division facts and be confident they will always work because of God’s faithfulness. (p. 32)The book is obviously geared to a North American context. This is obvious by the use of terms like math and cookies but also for example we have statements such like 'Most students learn the long division method without really understanding why the method leads to the right answer.' This rote learning approach is very much frowned upon in the UK (not to say such a pragmatic approach doesn't exist this side of the pond), the emphasis in the UK is not on learning by rote but more on understanding and encouraging students to use their own methods - and this approach is advocated by those who aren't Christians as well as Christians. Such an approach that Loop rightly criticises is merely bad maths pedagogy.
But a biblical math presentation will always introduce the concept as a practical tool dependent on God’s continual faithfulness. [my emphasis]This is stated rather than justified. In what way is this biblical? And why always? What if there is (at present) no practical application to the maths? What image of maths does this give us? Is it merely a tool - an instrument? This approach could lead to a utilitarian view of maths.
Just presenting math practically does not teach math biblically. What a tragedy it would be to know how to use math practically while remaining blind to the One who makes practical math possible! Yet practical math is the natural outcome of a biblical view of math.So, practical maths is necessary but not sufficient for it to be a Christian approach.
