God and Math

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Life is so complicated, it’s like there is a maze in just the living of life. There are choices we make, steps that we take that are so calculated that it’s shocking when we walk into brick walls. Who told us that life was so formulaic, that 2+2 = 4 in all cases? Math is an exact science…and for that reason, life can never be analogous to math.

As a Christian, I think it’s strange that I ever thought life was formulaic. All the rules: math, science, time, have been continually frustrated by the Word of God. What do I mean?

Case #1: Adam and Eve

Eve was made from Adam, and they were equally in the image of God. YET, God didn’t cut Adam in half to make Eve. He put broseph to sleep and took a rib. A rib! In math, the only way to get two equal parts from one is to halve it. God can make two equals parts by taking a hundredth of something. Crazy or what?

Caveat - The adult human body has 206 bones, so even more fractional than I noted above.

Case #2: Marriage

This one is like unto the first. How in mathematics, do you get back to one? Division! i.e. 2 ÷ 2 = 1. However, per the Bible in marriage God makes one flesh from two…through the process of addition. Me added to my future husband is ONE (1 +1 = 1). Okay, okay…perhaps we can think of that in terms of multiplication (i.e. 1 x 1 = 1) and thus my argument falls to pieces, but this is MY blog, and I do what I want! Deal with it.

Case #3: Time - Abraham & Sarah

Time means nothing to God, there is a scripture that says, “a day is like 1000 years, and 1000 years is like a day” (II Peter 3:8). Also, we look at Abraham and Sarah who had Isaac in their NINETIES. Way after the eggs were dried up, and long after the spermies were swimming super slow. In fact, they were probably too exhausted to swim…they just floated. But that didn’t matter! God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah was based on His time, not on their perception of time which was limited to the ticking of their biological clocks.

What is the point of this? The point is, even though I’ve talked much about disappointment, and trust… I find that my trust was somewhat in the “mathematics” of life. If I eat right, if I exercise, if I don’t smoke, if I study, if I get good grades, if I only socially drink (in moderation), if I laugh a lot, if I floss, if I never drink coffee/tea/soda, if I love my Mom, if I read my Bible, if I pray at night…then the sum of all that good = health, wealth, and happiness. And in all cases 2 + 2 will equal 4.

Around 25, my quarter-life crisis, I started to get this irritating notion that 2 + 2 did NOT equal 4…but that was ridiculous, and so I cast it from my mind. The past 21 days of fear, needle pricks, incisions, bleeding, and crying (so much crying), have driven it home; that somehow, the math of life doesn’t proof. It just doesn’t proof! So when you can’t depend on the logical result, then what? Then all you have left is faith. It seems like so little, but it is everything. It can seem so intangible, but yet it’s the one thing in this life that you have to hold onto. Right?

And so it makes sense to note that life doesn’t make sense. Or maybe it makes sense that it doesn’t make sense to me, because life is in the hands of God. And God is not limited and/or boxed in by the human concepts/constructs of math, science, time, medicine, space, etc. I have no concept of limitless and borderless creativity and power. As such, I have to lean back on: “My thoughts are not your thoughts; my ways are not your ways (Isaiah 55:8-9)” God is beyond. And so my faith has to be beyond as well.

Sometimes I fear that my faith is in a box, limited by the “mathematics” of life. I want to consider that 2 + 2 can equal 3, or 7, or 15. After all…with 5 loaves and 2 fish thousands were fed. What kind of division is that?!