The Marvel of Mathematics

Every discipline in academia has its place as far as practical application is concerned. For instance, when scientist Alexander Fleming studied penicllium fungi and discovered that penicillin could be derived from it, it in turn revolutionized the production of antibiotics. From the study of a certain fungus, came tangible healing to a sick human body.

Not only does every discipline in academia have tangible and practical application, but also, every discipline if studied with objectivity has its place in the grander scheme of the universe. There is a greater metaphysical truth that that all physical study points to. In the case of penicillin, that a particular disease can be cured only by a specific medicine shows that specific problems are rectified by particular, not all, solutions.  Many disciplines accomplish this, but none does it quite like mathematics.
The language of numbers is a language that allows for no ambiguity whatsoever. You may love math, or you may hate it. Irrespective, we should be very thankful for it, because it proves like nothing else can, a lot about the universe and about human existence. This is especially true for a skeptical mind, looking for incontrovertible evidence for the claims of any belief system.  

I want to focus on one particular facet of reality that mathematics helps us understand—the facet of the absolute.

When you add two and two together, the answer, wherever you are in the world, is four. This is absolute, this is indisputable, truth. You cannot argue it or have theories about why two plus two under different circumstances may add up to five. What’s true for me must be true for you, in the case of two plus two. You may choose to dispute this, but you do it to your own disadvantage. If you think two plus two equals five, you are deluded. You need to add two and three, or four and one, to get five. You can never, ever, ever, get two and two to add up to five. Two plus two will always equal four. This proves that there is never a relative sum to the addition of two numbers, but that it is always an absolute numerical product.

The fact that 2 + 2 = 4 is incontrovertible evidence that the nature of all truth is absolute, and you and I cannot have it our own ways. The problem is many people never reach the absolute answer, because they have chosen the wrong numbers to add up. They add up two and three, and expect it to add up to four, when it never can, and never will, as much as they may try. This simple equation of 2 + 2 = 4 not only proves that there are absolute numerical answers but, and now metaphysically speaking, that there is an absolute answer that exists to the greater questions of life.What, or who, is the absolute answer to all the questions about reality? The answer is God. What numbers should people add up to reach that answer? Let the Bible speak.

“For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time.”

—    1 Timothy 2:5-6

God is the end of the equation—“one God.” He is the Answer. What are the numbers that add up to give the Answer? One of the numbers is all human kind. But all human kind does not add up to reaching God who is the Answer. We are inadequate, and there is a gaping discrepancy in the equation. Only two plus two can add up to four. We need another number to bridge the difference, and complete the equation so that the Answer makes sense. That other number, who stepped into time to complete the equation, is “the man Christ Jesus,” who is the “one mediator between God and men.” In the equation, we have “one God,” who is the Answer, and “all men” who are one of the factors in the equation. The only other factor that can complete the equation is the “one mediator,” and He is Jesus Christ. Allow me to illustrate the equations:

Man + other gods and gurus = God not reached 

Man - Jesus Christ = God not reached 

These equations don't accomplish reaching God.

  

Man + Jesus Christ = The One God reached

Try substituting any other person in the place of Jesus Christ, and what we end up having is an incomplete equation. In fact, any other person apart from Jesus Christ renders the equation wrong. Not only is Jesus factor that completes the equation, but He is the mediator, the equal sign, that bridges the gap between God and man.To know the Answer to life—God—you must have Jesus Christ in your life, and then life will begin making sense. This equation is as absolute, as incontrovertible, as two and two adding up to four. However, it needs an openness to truth, and a humility of heart so you are willing to call out to God and ask Him to show you this absolute Truth, if you do not already know Him. The Good News is that He is willing to hear and answer you if you call and seek Him genuinely, because He “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”—1 Timothy 2:4

© Kenny Damara, 2014.