“As we look out into the universe and identify the many accidents of physics and astronomy that have worked together to our benefit, it almost seems as if the universe must in some sense have known that we were coming.”
A professor of maths once mused that mathematics seems to exist
outside space and time. Numbers do not wear out. Equations do not decay. The
Pythagorean Theorem, like a star in a cloudless sky, shines just as brightly in
the mind of a child today as it did among ancient Greek philosophers. Why is it
that 2 + 2 equals 4—not just here, but anywhere, always? And why can this
abstraction—unseen and untouchable—describe the ticking of atomic clocks and
the spiralling arms of galaxies?
It is a question that mathematics itself cannot answer.
Mathematical truths are often treated as self-evident, but
that assumption doesn’t explain their existence. Where did the truths
come from? They are not physical. You cannot trip over the number two on a walk
through the forest. You cannot bake “addition” in an oven. And yet, these
invisible constructs govern everything from the flutter of a sparrow’s wing to
the orbit of Jupiter. The universe obeys them—not because we’ve imposed them on
it, but because they were already there.
That, to me, suggests more than order. It suggests intention.
Perhaps we are not inventing mathematics at all. Perhaps we are discovering it,
like explorers who stumble upon a world that was already drawn into the map of
existence.
This insight forms the beating heart of intelligent design.
The idea is not that science should be replaced with religion, but that the
coherence and beauty of natural laws—especially those so immaterial and exact
as mathematics—point to a rational origin. As the physicist and devout
Christian Johannes Kepler once said, in discovering the laws of planetary
motion, he felt he was “thinking God’s thoughts after Him.”
From a biblical standpoint, this makes sense. Genesis does
not describe a chaotic, senseless cosmos but a world created by a logos—a
word, a reason, a mind. The opening of John’s Gospel echoes this: “In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God...” That
word, logos, is the same root from which we get “logic.”
C.S. Lewis pointed out that humans became scientific not in spite
belief in God, but because of it. Belief in a rational Creator gave them reason
to believe the world could be understood. The laws of nature are not simply
“there”; they reflect a Lawgiver.
Without such a mind behind the math, we’re left with mystery
upon mystery. Why does math work? Why can something so abstract describe a
universe so concrete? Why is it not otherwise? As Einstein asked, “The most
incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.”
It is here that intelligent design offers not a scientific
formula, but a philosophical and theological explanation: because it was
designed to be understood. Because behind the symbols and the logic, there
is a mind. A person. A Creator who speaks in the language of order, and who
invites us to understand—not just the equations of the world, but the heart
behind them.
So yes, 2 + 2 equals 4. Not just as a rule, but as a whisper.
A quiet voice pointing beyond time and space to the One who wrote the rules in
the first place.
In the Beginning Was the Equation
“As we look out into the universe and identify the many accidents of physics and astronomy that have worked together to our benefit, it almost seems as if the universe must in some sense have known that we were coming.”
Freeman Dyson
Image kindly provided by Antoine Dautry (@antoine1003) | Unsplash Photo Community
A professor of maths once mused that mathematics seems to exist outside space and time. Numbers do not wear out. Equations do not decay. The Pythagorean Theorem, like a star in a cloudless sky, shines just as brightly in the mind of a child today as it did among ancient Greek philosophers. Why is it that 2 + 2 equals 4—not just here, but anywhere, always? And why can this abstraction—unseen and untouchable—describe the ticking of atomic clocks and the spiralling arms of galaxies?
It is a question that mathematics itself cannot answer.
Mathematical truths are often treated as self-evident, but that assumption doesn’t explain their existence. Where did the truths come from? They are not physical. You cannot trip over the number two on a walk through the forest. You cannot bake “addition” in an oven. And yet, these invisible constructs govern everything from the flutter of a sparrow’s wing to the orbit of Jupiter. The universe obeys them—not because we’ve imposed them on it, but because they were already there.
That, to me, suggests more than order. It suggests intention. Perhaps we are not inventing mathematics at all. Perhaps we are discovering it, like explorers who stumble upon a world that was already drawn into the map of existence.
This insight forms the beating heart of intelligent design. The idea is not that science should be replaced with religion, but that the coherence and beauty of natural laws—especially those so immaterial and exact as mathematics—point to a rational origin. As the physicist and devout Christian Johannes Kepler once said, in discovering the laws of planetary motion, he felt he was “thinking God’s thoughts after Him.”
From a biblical standpoint, this makes sense. Genesis does not describe a chaotic, senseless cosmos but a world created by a logos—a word, a reason, a mind. The opening of John’s Gospel echoes this: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God...” That word, logos, is the same root from which we get “logic.”
C.S. Lewis pointed out that humans became scientific not in spite belief in God, but because of it. Belief in a rational Creator gave them reason to believe the world could be understood. The laws of nature are not simply “there”; they reflect a Lawgiver.
Without such a mind behind the math, we’re left with mystery upon mystery. Why does math work? Why can something so abstract describe a universe so concrete? Why is it not otherwise? As Einstein asked, “The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.”
It is here that intelligent design offers not a scientific formula, but a philosophical and theological explanation: because it was designed to be understood. Because behind the symbols and the logic, there is a mind. A person. A Creator who speaks in the language of order, and who invites us to understand—not just the equations of the world, but the heart behind them.
So yes, 2 + 2 equals 4. Not just as a rule, but as a whisper. A quiet voice pointing beyond time and space to the One who wrote the rules in the first place.