Conversations with Sarah

How did you get involved in math and religion? I've always been attracted to the more esoteric side of mathematics. In the middle 1980s, when I was teaching calculus in a small Midwestern religious college, I found myself trying to explain how God was like the definite integral of calculus. Gradually, I began to realize that I was seeing relationships between mathematics and religion which I wanted to explore further. What Number Is God? was one outcome of that exploration. My seminar series, "Science of Spirit: A Mathamphorical Tour," is an extension of this work for a wider audience. Why do you say we are moving into a new sort of consciousness? Scholars from a wide range of fields have suggested that we are moving into a new sort of consciousness -- there is much precedent for this idea. There is also a great deal of latitude when it comes to describing the precise nature of that new consciousness. My personal conviction that something new is emerging stems from my brief glimpse of another kind of reality, a more mystical experience of reality. It is my belief -- and hope -- that we are moving into an era of mysticism for the ordinary person, when more and more people will experience what traditionally has been relegated to only a few. We can all benefit. Explain "facts are a matter of taste." Our perceptions, our cultural conditioning, even our humanness dictate facts as we know them. A simple example, once considered fact, is the notion that the sun revolves around the earth. Today, most educated people consider this fact erroneous, choosing instead to believe that the earth rotates around the sun. But maybe this "fact," useful as it has been for our day and age, is erroneous, too. I suggest everything is spirit and that spirit exists as chaos until, through some force roughly akin to God, it takes "shape." I like to use the metaphor of a kaleidoscope to explain this "fact" because, as you turn a kaleidoscope, different "realities" come to the surface. Yet like spirit, everything is there - some of it just temporarily hidden so that one particular reality can be experienced.

How do you combine math and religion? What is the connection? The connection is basically metaphorical, which is what I mean by the term "holy mathaphors." When Plato said that "God ever geometrizes," he drew a metaphorical likeness between God and a mathematician. When modern cosmologist John Barrow asks "Is the universe a computer?" he is suggesting that the computer is a metaphor for the universe. When the British writers of a couple of centuries ago said "It is as certain that God exists as it is that the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to 180 degrees, they were using mathematics as a metaphor for universal certainty. When I propose that religious pluralism is like Cantorian set theory, I am using mathematics metaphorically to elucidate a religious concept. How do you use mathematics in your role as a minister? For me, mathematics is a tool to use in promoting spiritual inquiry and growth. It's useful, beautiful, and just a bit gimmicky. With "holy mathaphors" I believe we have a chance at genuine dialogue. We know what it means if we say "God is a woman" or "God is Christ"; maybe we like what it means and maybe we don't. We may even be passionate about it. But who knows what it means to say "God is a definite integral of calculus?" Well, I do. And maybe I can convey that idea well enough that you'll agree with me when I offer the metaphor as a way of thinking about God that is particularly relevant to modern-day society.