The Evangelical Outpost
Several years ago I made the assertion on this blog that evangelicals should "think Christianly" about their work and fields of study. I also claimed that we are merely fooling ourselves if we believe that we can approach our vocations with a sense of religious neutrality. Naturally, some people were skeptical. Even those who agreed with my general point did not see, for example, how there could be a particularly Christian view to hard subjects like mathematics.
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Even the concept that 1 + 1 = 2, which almost all people agree with on a surface level, has different meanings based on what theories are proposed as answers. These theories, claims philosopher Roy Clouser, show that going more deeply into the concept of 1 + 1 = 2 reveals important differences in the ways it is understood, and that these differences are due to the divinity beliefs they presuppose.
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A belief is a religious belief, says Clouser, provided that (1) It is a belief in something(s) or other as divine, or (2) It is a belief concerning how humans come to stand in relation to the divine. The divine, according to Clouser, is whatever is "just there." He contends that self-existence is the defining characteristic of divinity, so that the control of theories by a belief about what is self-existent is the same as control by a divinity belief and thus amounts to religious control of all theories.
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Different traditions, religions, and belief systems may disagree about what or who has divine status, or whether such an ontological concept should be considered a "religious belief." But what they all agree upon is that something has such a status. A theist, for instance, will say that the divine is God while a materialist will claim that matter is what fills the category of divine. Therefore, if we examine our concepts in enough detail, we discover that at a deeper level we're not agreeing on what the object is that we're talking about. Our explanations and theories about things will vary depending on what is presupposed as the ultimate explainer. And the ultimate explainer can only be the reality that has divine status.
Returning to our example, we find that the meaning of 1 + 1 = 2 is dependent on how we answer certain questions, such as: What do "1" or "2" or "+" or "=" stand for? What are those things? Are they abstract or must they have a physical existence? And how do we know that 1 + 1 = 2 is true? How do we attain that knowledge?....
Leibnitz's view -- When Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, an inventor of the calculus, was asked by one of his students, "Why is one and one always two, and how do we know this?" Leibnitz replied, "One and one equals two is an eternal, immutable truth that would be so whether or not there were things to count or people to count them." Numbers, numerical relationships, and mathematical laws (such as the law of addition) exist in this abstract realm and are independent of any physical existence. In Leibnitz's view, numbers are real things that exist in a dimension outside of the physical realm and would exist even if no human existed to recognize them.
Russell's view -- Bertrand Russell took a position diametrically opposed to Leibnitz. Russell believed it was absurd to think that there is another dimension with all the numbers in it and claimed that math was essentially nothing more than a short cut way of writing logic. In Russell's view, logical classes and logical laws -- rather than numbers and numerical relationships -- are the real things that exist in a dimension outside of the physical realm.
Mill's view -- John Stuart Mill took a third position that denied the extra-dimensional existence of numbers and logic. Mill believed that all that we can know to exist are our own sensations -- what we can see, taste, hear, and smell. And while we may take for granted that the objects we see, taste, hear, and smell exist independently of us, we cannot know even this. Mill claims that 1 and 2 and + stand for sensations, not abstract numbers or logical classes. Because they are merely sensations, 1 + 1 has the potential to equal 5, 345, or even 1,596. Such outcomes may be unlikely but, according to Mill, they are not impossible.
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What all of the explanations have in common, what all non-theistic views share, is a tendency to produce theories that are reductionist -- the theory claims to have found the part of the world that everything else is either identical with or depends on. This is why the Christian view on math, science, and everything else must ultimately differ from theories predicated on other religious beliefs. (more)
