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31 May 2019

Math as a Window to God's Character




I got asked today about how it is that I came to see math as a window into the character of God. I'm not sure how to show what I've learned, other than to tell how I came to know it.

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I did not enjoy math in school.

The way I was taught, math was arbitrary: a never ending pile of largely unrelated formulas that must be memorized perfectly and then worked flawlessly. Close doesn't count; it's right --or it's wrong. Teachers seldom had an answer for "When are we going to use this?" They assured us that the upper math has value, but never seemed able to articulate what that value was.

I graduated from high school with a huge sigh of relief: the pre-calculus course I'd taken that year had not gone well, and the hit to my grades carried a heavy cost at scholarship time, and I figured that I'd reached the ceiling of what I was capable of in math. Though I briefly flirted with studying astrophysics, in the end the math intimidated me out of the dream, so I went with Japanese, which required no further math at all.

Then we decided to homeschool.

This meant starting over in math, from the beginning. I was intimidated, not considering myself to be very good at the stuff, but I figured that if I had a particularly "mathy" child, we could outsource math classes when I started feeling like I was in over my head.

But elementary math shouldn't be so hard. I headed to the forums to read about various math curricula. In the process, I ended up discovering how it is that people come to love math: math is patterns. And patterns are both beautiful and fascinating. Math is patterns that can be approached in many different ways, taken apart, and played with, and put back together. On occasion, I got so into a problem -a pattern- that I continued to work it even after my son's interest was spent. (This emphasis on patterns is also the core of the "new math" that everybody hates: my experience was far from unique, unfortunately, and the new "constructivist" approach to teaching math is difficult for parents who were taught with the algorithms only method, like I was.)  We started with Miquon math, which in spite of some weaknesses, taught me as much as it did my children, and then when my oldest outgrew it we continued with MEP, first because it's free, but then afterward we stayed with it because it's just excellent at teaching the kids to find the patterns. And we've all learned a lot about how to see the patterns. I find that I'm actually excited to find out what happens as my oldest gets into the "higher" maths: I am looking forward to the chance to try my hand at it again, this time realizing that there is an underlying pattern, a Real Idea, some bit of reality, that is being described by each type of problem.

I should not have been so surprised by the beauty; math is full of Truth about the world around us, and Truth, Beauty, and Goodness fit together, so where you find one, you'll usually find all three. But the idea that math could be beautiful was so different from the grind of algorithms that I'd always experienced. The reality is, algorithms are only a relatively small part of the story, and if you can work the formula, but you can't see the pattern that makes it function, then you don't really get it, and you haven't learned what it has to teach.


This new ability to see the patterns and the beauty in math took me partway in learning to find God in math, but it was really only the beginning of the journey.

As I relearned math, I also was studying Classical education, with particular attention to Charlotte Mason's style of Classical Christian education. I love her gentle expression of the Classical tradition! And I love that she's laid out twenty principles, ready for us to study and (attempt to) absorb. Principle 20 was a game changer for me:


We allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and 'spiritual' life of children, but teach them that the Divine Spirit has constant access to their spirits, and is their Continual Helper in all the interests, duties and joys of life.
-Charlotte Mason, volume 6, preface.


Basically, education ought to be thoroughly Christian. No part of our life should be separate from our faith. Education is not just a practical pursuit of a comfortable living, rather it's a lifelong pursuit of a more godly character. Once again, this line of thinking brings me back to one of my favorite quotes from David O. McKay:



A man may possess a profound knowledge of history and mathematics; he may be an authority in psychology, biology, or astronomy; he may know all the discovered truths pertaining to geology and natural science; but if he has not with this knowledge that nobility of soul which prompts him to deal justly with his fellow men, to practice virtue and holiness in personal life, he is not a truly educated man. Character is the aim of true education; and science, history, and literature are but means used to accomplish the desired end. Character is not the result of chance work but of continuous right thinking and right acting. True education seeks, then, to make men and women not only good mathematicians, proficient linguists, profound scientists, or brilliant literary lights, but also honest men, combined with virtue, temperance, and brotherly love --men and women who prize truth, justice, wisdom, benevolence, and self-control as the choicest acquisitions of a successful life."
-David O. McKay, Gospel Ideals, pp. 440-441, emphasis added



Math is like the Law of Justice: it's demanding. Exacting. Everything must be precise, or it's wrong. Realizing this has deepened my appreciation of my need for Grace. Realizing that Christ never once slipped, never once worked the "problem" incorrectly, not once in His whole life, deepens my awe of Him. One of my kids is struggling to consistently rise to the level of precision demanded by multi-digit multiplication; it's hard to get just a sheet of these problems all the way right, all the time! Math underscores just how far it is that Christ carries us.

But there's more, as amazing as those realizations are; math isn't just arbitrary: it's how we describe Creation. It's how we describe what He did when He made this beautiful world. Math is notation for certain types of Truth.

1 + 1 = 2 isn't just something that happens most of the time, it's a fundamental Truth about the world that our Father has made for us: each time we put one item with another, we will have two: Every. Single. Time. Our Father has made it so.

a 2 + b 2 = c 2 (Those are supposed to be superscripts for squares; that's meant to be the Pythagorean Theorem), it's a fundamental Truth: it will work. Every. Single. Time.  Our Father has made it so.





When we learn math, we are learning a way to describe the world around us, which means we are learning to describe God's work. Fractals are a specific class of pattern. The Golden Ratio and Fibonacci Sequence. They're all a part of His work.




To find a pattern in Creation is to find order, and order is evidence of God: one of the things that science tells us is that, left to itself, the universe devolves to the least ordered state. Relatively quickly. Order is never accidental. Chance creates randomness; lack of order. Disorder spreads (how's your kitchen look after you have ignored it three days?), but order must be made. Our Father, the Great Creator, has left His fingerprints all over His work, and they are there for us to see if we will just look. In math, His fingerprints are particularly obvious.

So, when we teach our children arithmetic, we're not just teaching them necessary and practical skills for balancing a checkbook someday (though that is a happy by-product), we're giving them an opportunity to see the order and patterns that our Father has put into the world that He made for us, the order and patterns that grow out of His perfections. When I tell my kids that not only must they be quick at their math facts, they must be accurate (timed tests are a thing at our house), we are giving them an opportunity, in this small way, to grow to be more like our Father. This type of growth and learning will, of course, be a life-long pursuit; you can't be done with an education, and even with a lifetime of effort, it's still impossible without the Grace that Christ offers us all. But that's no excuse for not trying.

They are God's children first (Rom. 8:16); to gently point them towards emulating His character (always using persuasion, long-suffering, meekness, and gentleness as we teach), is to point them toward the end that He means for them: to become like Him (Matt 5:48), and not only like Christ, but joint-heirs with Him (Rom. 8:17), is to point them toward their heritage and destiny.

Math can be a tool for that journey.
It is a window to the character of God.


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