How do I know what to title this entry?

I was just guessing at numbers and figures
Pulling the puzzles apart
Questions of science, science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my heart
-Coldplay

I know it may be the saddest song ever written, and it may make me cry when I hear it...but it hits on something of math and science.

Math is an attempt to tear apart and put together again our world, to disassemble it into its component parts, see how it works, and reassemble it exactly as it was, but with a better understanding of it. Consider the most basic functions in mathematics: addition, or putting together, and subtraction, taking apart. Multiplication and division hold the same underlying themes. Think of prime factorization where numbers are broken down into their smallest possible factors so that we can see all the possible factors that could create such a number. Division, by its very name, implies splitting numbers into smaller pieces. Math, at its most basic level, pulls apart the puzzle of our world and puts it back together.

I hated science in high school. It was probably more because of my dislike for blood, needles, and dissection than anything else. Chemistry would have been fun with a good teacher, and Physics was fun because of a crazy teacher, but I finally saw in those how math and science interact. (I wish my biology teachers had talked about phi more, it's fascinating to me.) It amazes me how math can lead science to explaining our world. Again, it seems that God has provided us with a method for better understanding Him, yet limiting math so that we cannot fully comprehend him. This is why I see math as providing only limited truth.

If you think about it, math is really nothing more than a house of cards, standing on definitions and suppositions that, in a postmodern world, could collapse at any second. We have arbitrarily defined or accepted a system that seeks to prove, yet cannot be proven. Definitions and axioms establish our system, and we either accept them or reject them. I see math as nothing more than man's best guess to understand the world in which he lives. It provides a rationale for such estimates, which makes it more believable than unsupported theories, but it's still just a guess.

I especially find it ironic that I would view math this way. I have always loved math, from the time I was three and would ask my mom and dad to write me math problems on the back of the placemats at restaurants, just because I got bored with connect-the-dots, through my retirement from Calc II three years ago, and still love it today. I think my love stemmed from my belief that there was always one right answer. In art, I can say blue, you can say red, and we can both be correct. Even in science, there is room for alternative explanations as to why and how things work. In math, 2 + 2 = 4, and it can never change...or at least I thought so.

There is truth in mathematics that isn't present anywhere else. It is the most consistent of all ways of thinking, especially when working with a universally accepted system (I vote for Euclid's) but even when systems change. However, the ultimate truth, that which is transcendant of systems and philosophies, is not found in math. It's still our best guess, but it doesn't get us to Truth. We can know truths about our world, about ourselves, and even about those things that are beyond our understanding, but Truth, the kind of thinking that leads to all things perfect, is beyond man's grasp.

So how do we really know what we know? Moderns say science. Postmoderns say we don't. They usually follow that up with "but I do." I think the best way to know what we know is to combine our perceptions and experiences (postmodernism) with our ability as human beings to be rational, use logic, and think (modernism.) We have to always be open to new understandings and revelations of truth just because we are people and we mess up a lot. Skepticism provides the humility we need to constantly re-evaluate our beliefs. We knew the world was flat until someone doubted it enough to prove it false. Same for geocentrism and many other things we have known in the past.

I think skepticism is looked down upon for two reasons, especially in Christianity. First, we are afraid to put God up against our doubts. I will freely admit that there are times I doubt that God is real. There are times that I question if He is really working in my life or if He even cares. And so I let him have my doubts. He can handle them. If He can't stand up to my skepticism, and if He can't prove Himself greater than my doubts, then I'll really question His existence and His presence. But if I believe He is who He says, the Great I AM, the creator and sustainer of the universe, then He will, or already has given me the evidence I need. Maybe not all I need to know, beyond the shadow of doubt, that He is, but all I need to, in the shadow of a doubt, believe that He is.

Secondly, skepticism leads to change. We accept what our parents, teachers, and in some specific cases, our schools tell us because it's easy. I came here with a worldview that I bought into. I didn't question what I knew was right or wrong. Then one day I did. It's lifechanging when that happens. Some things I believed in lost all importance. Others that were minor became fundamental. My life changed.

I wish everyone would have that experience. I now question my beliefs every day, although on a much smaller scale than two years ago. I anticipate that at some point in my life, maybe several, I'll have to drastically re-evaluate what I know. But I was tired of blindly subscribing to the magazine of "my parents said this..." and "my church said that..." so i stopped reading. I developed a worldview that is mine. A lot of it agrees with my parents. A little less of it agrees with my church (please notice I say my church, not Christ's Church, with which my entire worldview needs to be in agreement.) It seems that very little of it agrees with my school. But it's mine. It still has God over it, changing it daily to make it better, sometimes with me fighting against Him to leave it alone because I like it my way, but it's mine. It's a work in progress that no one else can claim. And it all came about because I doubted everything I'd been told. Now I don't. Trust your beliefs, at least the ones worth keeping, to beat your skepticism. Then put them up against each other and see which wins.

Thanks for Reading!