Opus 2022-069: Trust Me

One of the common mistakes that people make is that things like science are based solely on indisputable facts and religious belief is based only on blind faith.  I am qualified to make a statement like that because of two pieces of paper I have in my files.  One says that I am qualified to teach life science and general science from kindergarten through 12th grade.  The other says I was ordained as a minster of the gospel in a Bible believing denomination.  I am aware of my ignorance but I am even more aware of the ignorance of many people I listen to.

Mathematics is rooted in faith, or it was when I was in high school.  Someone decided that I had a high math aptitude and enrolled me in the experimental program that was developing what became the New Math.  I never had a commercially printed textbook from 7th grade on.  What we used had been run off with mimeograph machines and bound with staples.  We were supposed to be cutting edge.  I share that because part of what we covered were the foundations of mathematics.  We eventually would get around to working through proofs of everything we were learning but before that they gave us some startling information:  There were some foundational concepts that could not be proven, they had to be accepted as fact.  I don’t remember how they structured the hierarchy.  I can’t remember if the lowest level was postulates, theorems, hypothesis or something else but we were told to take them on faith.  Of course they didn’t say “faith” but that is what they meant.

My guess is that in every area of study you will eventually get back to that something that you just have to accept.  In the process of study you will come across areas that you cannot prove and must move on.  There will be concepts that appear impossible but they work when the picture is put together.  Some things cannot be answered.  Any five year old knows this.  That is the reason they keep asking, “Why?”

So keep asking, “Why?”  It is a good question whether you are wondering what caused the Big Bang, what the square root of -1 could be or how Jesus could be fully man and fully God.

homo unius libri