Mathematics proves the existence of God?

eplovejoy · #1 01-25-2008, 10:59 AM

The renowned atheist Antony Flew sparked some discussion in 2004 when he announced that he had become a believer in God, or as he put it, in an "infinite Intelligence." Now Flew has released a book, There is a God: How the World's most Notorious Atheist Changed his Mind, written with -- or perhaps mostly by -- Roy Abraham Varghese.

One of Flew's arguments is there must be a divine being because nature observes precise mathematical laws. But isn't that backwards? People developed those laws. They could have done so by observing how nature works and then fashioning the laws to fit what they observed.

Math can be elegant, but it doesn't prove the divine. Right?

_____

By the way, in his December New York Times Book Review critique of There is a God, Anthony Gottlieb says the book is mushy and only in part -- if even that -- written by Flew. Gottlieb has a great line: "Far from strengthening the case for the existence of God, it rather weakens the case for the existence of Antony Flew."

erik_kosberg · #2 01-25-2008, 11:07 AM

It's a New Age Platonist music of the spheres argument. Sometimes smart people can be dumb.

It's similar in a way to the Creationist/I.D. spiel that since nature is so elegant and complicated it must have a divine designer.

rmthunter · #3 01-25-2008, 11:40 AM

Known formally as the argument from incredulity -- i.e., "I can't imagine such a thing, so there must be a god."

**mjfrombuffalo**[$] · #4 01-25-2008, 11:47 AM

Lots of other questions about whether Flew even understands there's a book out there claiming he converted to theism at all.

**hadassahchana**[$] · #5 01-25-2008, 01:08 PM

MJ, intersting article. I'm going to read the whole thing later on, but the bit about Flrew recommeind ght ath ID be taught in the British science curriculum just made me fume. I am so annoyed that any scientist would do such a thing.

**pippadaisy**[$] · #6 01-25-2008, 06:09 PM

You had me at phi.

**drmomentum**[$] · #7 01-26-2008, 01:14 AM

Incompleteness haunts any formal system of number theory. See Godel's Incompleteness Theorem.

Essentially, once a system becomes powerful enough to be self-referential (and it must to be anything but trivial) it introduces paradoxes.

So, if you're looking for perfection or God, you're not going to find it in mathematics! One could just as plausibly claim that this flaw in mathematical systems proves there is no perfection (and therefore no God) in the universe. But I wouldn't try to pull that leap, and fall into the same narcissistic, self-deluding trap as Gottlieb. Proving there is a God? What an embarrassment.

-JP