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It was the mathematicians who stayed after to talk in my biblical integration teaching at Liberty University. The math department was especially interested in my quote from Herbert E. Huntley, The Divine Proportion: A Study in Mathematical Beauty:
In the classroom where science and mathematics are taught exists the feast of beauty unlimited both in abundance and variety. Every discerning teacher knows that in the sphere of the created world, Beauty is an utterance of the divine voice.”
I believe math is one of the great bases for Christian apologetics. The exactitude of Divine Design is a marker of what Paul said:
“For what can be known about God is clearly seen in creation” (Romans 1.19-20).
It is the Created Order that allowed me the opportunity to suggest the distinctive, biblical approach to life in the university. [Don't miss the Afterword!]
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Thanks for spending this minute with me, Dr. Mark Eckel.
Mark Eckel (MA English, ThM Old Testament, PhD Social Science Research) is Executive Director of the Center for Biblical Integration, Liberty University.
“Give Me a Minute” is an ongoing effort to simply, clearly, and quickly explain aspects of true Truth.
Gratitude, as always, to my longtime friend, videographer, and tech guru Josh for his continued service. [First published at MarkEckel.com]
AFTERWORD More on mathematics and apologetics:
A Biblical Philosophy of Mathematics
G.K. Chesterton on Apologetics
10 Practices of Commending and Defending the Christian Faith
Discussion (11)
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I've always thought God wants us to study His creation and learn from it . . .
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Science keeps uncovering ever more complex order in biology, the stars and subatomic behavior which makes it harder to keep thinking of it as a big pointless accident.
When I was a kid, the biology textbooks said that the Miller-Urey experiment (in which some amino acids formed when a beaker with water, ammonia, methane and hydrogen was hit with an electric charge) was proof of the accidental origin of life. It has been 70 years and nobody has come up with an abiogenic origin of a protein much less a system of replicating proteins. And our knowledge of biochemical complexity has greatly expanded.
Aristotle/Plato/Socrates said that all philosophy (and all other intellectual endeavors) begins in wonder. Do we try to teach kids to suppress wonder while instilling technological proficiency?
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Graph of harmonic series & and an x-ray of a conch shell
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God tells us to love him with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. He gives us the tools of mathematics and science to observe and study his creation to make his power and creativity known so that we may love him with our minds. Thus we are not left with instruction we have no capacity to follow (if only the desire to do so exists).
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This Universe is the best one I've ever scene. Many are possible and few are theoretical workable, but this one is my favorite. I am thankful.
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