As math teachers trying to reclaim a Christian culture, we sometimes force elements of our Christian identity into the curriculum unnaturally. While praying before lessons, including math trivia, and remaining open to teachable moments are important, we must first realize that math is already a theistic subject! Topical word problems and biographical diversions into Christian mathematicians will never match the intrinsically theological power of math. The study of abstractions, the observation of the world around us, and the discovery of the constancy of truth is part of what it means to trust in both fides et ratio (faith and reason). These two go hand-in-hand, and a firmer appreciation for reason, especially of mathematics, allows for faith to proceed with confidence in the face of opposing ideologies. No subject can take the place of a theology course, but math forms the mind of the child in a particularly Christian way. Christian teachers should appreciate math for its intrinsic value and not as a necessary evil with the potential for intermittent propaganda.
Mathematics is a study of God’s creation solely as number and shape. This numerical quality in creation, as modern science has demonstrated with vigor, is knowable. Identifying universally applicable principles among numbers is the basis of all mathematical studies. However, math only exists in God’s creation, and it depends entirely on His creative act. Although He is infinite beyond our ability to know, we are still somehow able to know His works despite our limited nature. God creates intelligible objects because He is intelligence itself. We are made in His image and therefore are designed with the ability to comprehend those intelligible acts. A key element of that intelligibility is its consistency. Self-contradictory statements such as, “The triangle has four sides,” have no meaning. By definition, a triangle has three sides, so the statement means nothing. God, being Truth itself, cannot contradict Himself. Therefore, creation must also obey this law of noncontradiction. The chair must either exist or not exist—not both. To draw a more relevant conclusion: if there are two of something, they will remain two until something is added or taken away from them. All arithmetic proceeds from God’s creative power and the internal consistency that he built into it. Without the assumption that God is constantly upholding His logical consistency, we could not perform the simplest calculations. The rules we trust would change at any (and every) moment.
For the mathematically literate, these principles of mathematics seem so obvious that we hardly think they need stating, and we often ignore or assume them. However, these realities have a profound influence on the way children see the world. So many students live in a world that makes no sense. In their home lives, their friendships, or their society at large, the universe appears to have no internal consistency because each sphere of their lives has conflicting and often capricious rules. With this nihilistic view of the world, people fall away from the Church because they see God as one more rule-giver among many.
As Christian math teachers, we must seize the opportunity to illuminate and emphasize the universality of mathematical principles. No matter the numbers, no matter the configuration or situation, the conclusions we come to are consistent; that is, they are eternal and universal. With a worldview built upon this manifestly real stability, children can trust that other things in the world obey eternal and universal laws too. As they develop, this creates a structure for morality, law, and theology to present themselves with similar veracity. We can even lay the groundwork for this issue before it enters the child’s mind. Understanding the logical, intelligible, and predictable nature of the created world allows the child to take the first step toward understanding the relationship between creation and the Creator Himself.
Truth is on our side! When we describe and teach math as if it were a list of algorithms to memorize (“number crunching” or “plug-and-chug”), the student associates math not with the divine intellect, but with an interminable set of rules. While the ability to work basic computations is certainly essential if the student hopes to gain true mastery of the subject, classroom discussions must, at all costs, fight to extend the scope of the subject. We must illuminate—through beautiful geometric images, word problems, critical thinking, and discussions on deeper arithmetic principles—the mysteriously supernatural quality of mathematics. No matter their facility with calculation, everyone has the capacity to appreciate math’s extension outside of time and space into a realm of pure thought.
In this way, while not being a theology curriculum itself, mathematics can open the student to a deeply and fundamentally religious worldview. The Christian identity of math should always be, first and foremost, found in its principled stand for the world’s intelligibility. God has made us to know Him and to understand His creation. Through studying math, we come to understand some of the most foundational truths about that creation, from which we derive and in which we discover the basic axiomatic truths of mathematics.
