Ekeko is a god of good luck in Peru and the surrounding region.
Photo by Marjorie Manicke.
The relationship between God and mathematics has been discussed, admittedly
in a casual way, by authors earlier than Philo. “All is number,” said
Pythagoras. “God is a Mathematician,” is a modern formulation
meaning that the way of the world is mathematical, that mathematics provides
the key to the universe, that God, as the Prime Mathematician, set up the
universe according to the principles of mathematics. This view may be slightly
egocentric, perhaps, and not necessarily subscribed to by theologians.
It is a view widely held today by physicists (who may or may not use the
word “God”) in order to answer the unanswerable question of
why mathematics is such an effective tool in theoretical physics. It is
a view which lies behind a great deal of the recent mathematizations of
a variety of disciplines, history, sociology, psychology. The world is
mathematical, and hence, to interpret it properly, one must use mathematics.
There is a related view, also of recent advocacy, which
turns this around somewhat and asserts that the “total science of
intellectual order” is,
automatically, mathematics. We have now arrived at a complete equivalence:
what runs the world is mathematics. What is mathematics? What runs the
world. (p. 233)
...
There is a strong craving for permanence, for certainty in a chaotic world, and many people prefer to look for it within a mathematical or scientific rather than a religious context. They are, perhaps, not aware that underlying both mathematics and religion there must be a foundation of faith which the individual must himself supply. (p. 235)
Davis, Philip J. & Hersh, Reuben. Descartes' Dream: The World According to Mathematics, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1987.
