One of the biggest stumbling blocks in our effort to believe in God is the scale of our experiences. In our lifetime, there is a consistent pattern of cause and effect, and we are direct witnesses to that principle. When it comes to the belief that there is one omnipotent being, responsible for all that exists, it is a stretch beyond human comprehension. So, we struggle and we doubt.
To believe in something that we cannot see, touch, hear, or feel is a challenge. It requires a personal deep dive into a state of mind where logic has no apparent value, where science is just another consideration.
But, it just may be that science and logic are the human tools that allow us to fully embrace our faltering faith. As it turns out, there is a tool that we routinely use that may be the key. It is a tool that is fundamental to both logic and science.
Mathematics.
Over the course of centuries, mankind has increasingly used mathematics to describe and understand concepts that cannot be observed using basic human senses. When we want to visualize the diameter of a blood cell or the size of a virus, we plunk down a decimal point and a bunch of zeros and we are satisfied with that description.
When it comes time to grasp the number of stars in the universe or the distance between them, we invent new categories of numeric stages or create new categories altogether, such as light-years.
Ultimately, we create new standards to understand concepts that are beyond the grasp of human comprehension.
When it comes to accepting the idea that there is such a thing as a God, who has created and oversees all the vast and infinite number of elements of our universe, from the smallest component of an atom to the number of stars and other heavenly bodies in the universe, we struggle.
We struggle because the math just doesn’t work for us. The math may work in one category or another, but when it comes to imagining an entity capable of managing the entirety of the universe, in all categories, we struggle. It just seems like too much.
Perhaps math and logic can actually come to our rescue.
There is a mathematical formula that is routinely used and yet has no certain value. It is called Pi – the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. The miracle of pi is that humanity has never calculated the value of pi to a final number. It seems to go on and on, indefinitely.
The value of pi, like the existence of God, seems to have no end, yet we continue to accept and use the value of pi.
Perhaps we need to view God the same way. He exists beyond our ability to comprehend, just as we cannot find the end of pi. Perhaps the simplest view is to accept God’s self-definition “I am” – beyond our ability to comprehend, just as the value of pi is beyond our ability to solve.
Pi