The great 20th-century mathematician Kurt Gödel (1906-1978) is known in nerdier circles today for his incompleteness theorems, which helped reshape modern maths.

Less well-known, though, is his ‘Ontological Argument’ for the existence of God.

It’s super complex, and relies on a bunch of confusing equations and mathematical logic, but when distilled down to a philosophical statement, the final working runs along these lines:

If there is a possibility that God exists, God must exist in a possible world.
If God exists in some possible world, then God exists in every possible world.
Therefore, God necessarily exists.

Kurt Gödel believed there was a mathematical pathway to proving the existence of God

…and here is part of said pathway

Gödel is far from the only mathematician to have believed that maths was the creator’s leftover fingerprints. 

Blaise Pascal, Gottfried Leibniz, and even Isaac Newton are just some of the Enlightenment-era thinkers who saw maths as evidence of a divine mind.

Indeed, in the seminal mathematical text Principia, Newton wrote:

This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent Being. […] This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont to be called “Lord God”

Satyan Devadoss, a professor of applied mathematics, disagrees … to an extent.

It’s not because he thinks maths is too powerful to leave room for the divine, but because maths is too weak to find God. 

Maths deals with simple things, he says; science deals with complex things; philosophy and theology deal with the most significant things. 

‘I don’t wanna put myself in the shoes of saying I finally have some tools to defend God,’ Satyan said, speaking on Undeceptions.

‘Science doesn’t deal with anything outside of this world. It is only designed to measure things in the world. Maths (also) makes its own world, so that’s not it.

‘But linguists, historians, artists, musicians, and my own life and my friendships- this embodied life that we live- those are other pointers to far more complicated and beautiful things.’

Despite his misgivings though, Satyan is quick to point out that his work in maths still has a tangible impact on his faith.

‘The reason I’m putting my chips in the theist bucket is not because of mathematics, but mathematics does have confirmation towards many things,’ he said.

‘It’s interesting (to me) that even after 150 years, Albert Einstein is asking some questions that mathematicians are going “Oh, we’ve been thinking about that”. 

‘The connection between the real world and the mathematical world is fascinatingly close, and so to me that’s something interesting that moves me to say that something else is going on.

‘To say “It has to be theism and there’s a God” isn’t enough. But there are these pointers.’

The aforementioned Einstein agreed that maths was a pointer to something far more vast and mysterious working in the universe – but, like Satyan, he believed the study of maths could only give us a dim glimpse of what’s really going on.

In an interview with the great journalist and author George Sylvester Viereck in 1929 Eisnetien famously equated the universe to books in a library.

‘The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe,’ he said. 

‘We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library, whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues.

‘The child knows that someone must have written those books (but) it does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written.

‘The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. 

‘That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God.’

Einstein wasn’t a Christian – but he suspected there was something bigger at play

Maths might not be able to prove the God of the Bible.

But what it has done is reveal a mysterious order behind the universe – an order which has led many to conclude that there must be a creator behind the scenes.

Adapted by Alasdair Belling from Undeceptions episode 181, ‘Beautiful Maths‘. You can listen to the full episode here.

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