Numbers and God

Summary: Many numbers and mathematical ratios are associated with religion and the notion of deity.

Numbers and religion have been linked since at least the beginning of recorded history. Many societies throughout the world have associated numbers with their spiritual beliefs. Some of these numbers still play a role in the fabric of society’s belief systems, religious rituals, artistic renderings, and symbolisms. They continue to be explored, evaluated, and recognized in the religious teachings and traditions of many of the world’s religions. As early as 1150 b.c.e., Indian mathematician Bhaskaracharya attributed the creation of the base-10 numeration system and zero to the Hindu god Brahma. Many ancient cultures and societies believed that certain numbers had spiritual significance. Historians, mathematicians, religious scholars, and others interested in such connections have found evidence of such beliefs in civilizations and religions like ancient Babylonia, the Society of Pythagoreans, Greece, Hellenistic Alexandria, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Many of these same beliefs continue into the twenty-first century.

Numbers of Pythagoras

Pythagoras of Samos (570–495 b.c.e.), who is often called the first pure mathematician, and his followers, the Pythagoreans, are well-known for their mathematical, philosophical, and religious beliefs. In antiquity, philosophy was believed by many to encompass the very essence of mathematics and religion. The perceived link between mathematics and the spiritual or divine world is succinctly stated by the Pythagoras maxim “All is Number.” Among the legacies associated with Pythagoras are the theorem that bears his name; the creation and study of musical harmonies, which may have originated in Babylon; and concepts of sacred geometry, such as the divine proportion.

The “Divine Proportion” (or “Golden Ratio”) is often seen by mathematicians and other scholars in nature’s designs and natural phenomena. The Greeks widely used the principle in sculptures and architecture. Phidias (490–432 b.c.e.), who is counted among the best Greek sculptors, used the Divine Proportion in designing the Parthenon, a temple to the goddess Athena. In honor of Phidias, the Divine Proportion is usually symbolized by the Greek letter ϕ representing the first letter of his name. To understand the Divine Proportion, consider a rectangle. The rectangle is said to be in Divine Proportion if the ratio of its length to its width has the following value

Rectangles with these proportions are called “Golden Rectangles.” This proportion (about 8/5) continues to be used by artists and architects in designing structures for aesthetic appeal.

The Number “12”

The Greeks considered the number “12” to be significant since it represented the number of gods on Mt. Olympus: Zeus, Hera, Athena, Poseidon, Apollo, Artemis, Demeter, Hermes, Aphrodite, Ares, Hephaestus, and Hestia. The significance of “12” probably originated with the Sumerians in Mesopotamia. Later, the Babylonians used the number “12” in developing their calendars and their clocks. They developed the zodiac by dividing the heavens into 12 equal sections named for constellations, one for each calendar month. These sections continue to be the 12 signs of the zodiac, an idea that was passed down from society to society throughout the ages. The Babylonian zodiac impacted many societies in the Western world. In Christianity, the 12 disciples of Jesus are usually considered to be symbolic of the 12 tribes of Israel, which may have been influenced by the 12 signs of the zodiac. The number “12” also has significance in Buddhism. For example, the Buddhist Wheel of Life, which depicts the world and the human condition, has 12 stages. In this tradition, life is composed of 12 stages, which keep the wheel of life turning.

The Number “7”

The number “7” is a significant number in Judeo-Christian and Islamic religious traditions. The creation story in the book of Genesis states that God made the heavens and the Earth in six days and rested on the seventh day. The number “7” is associated with divine completion and perfection. There are also references to 7 spirits, 7 churches, 7 stars, 7 seals, 7 trumpets, 7 vials, 7 thunders, 7 plagues, 7 mountains, and 7 kings, and many more references. The number “7” occurs frequently in Muslim architecture, art, and literature. The Qur’an often couples the number “7” with references to Allah as the all-powerful creator as well as with concepts like the 7 heavens, the 7 Sleepers of Ephesus, and the 7 periods of creation.

The Number “19”

In 1974, Rashad Khalifa used a computer to explore the structure of the Qur’an. He discovered that the number 19 occurred with unusual frequency. This occurrence was unexpected since 19 had never before been recognized as a significant number in the Islamic religion. Khalifa published his discovery in his 1981 work, The Computer Speaks: God’s Message to the World. These findings were called the “Qur’an Code.” The first verse of the Qur’an states: “In the name of Allah, the compassionate, the merciful.” In Arabic, the letters that make up this verse total 19. Khalifa discovered that every word in this verse is mentioned a number of times throughout the Qu’ran, and these numbers are all multiples of 19. Consequently, Khalifa’s conclusion was that the number “19” was divinely selected as a number of significance in the Islamic religion.

Bible Codes

What are often now known as “bible codes” were popularized in the twentieth century, but numerical symbolism dates back to much earlier times. The Jewish book Sefer Yetzira (Book of Creation) contained sacred numbers. As writer and scientist Clifford Pickover has explained: “Kabala is based on a complicated number mysticism whereby the primordial One divides itself into 10 sephiroth [numbers] which are mysteriously connected with each other and work together. 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet are bridges between them.” In gematria methods of analysis, each letter was assigned a number. The values of a word or phrase were added and the then values were analyzed for spiritual implications. For example, the word for “life” in Hebrew is chai, which is made up of two letters, a chet (8) and a yud (10). When added together, they sum to 18. The number 18 then took on symbolic meaning, which also translated to daily life. It was considered good form to give monetary gifts in 18 and its multiples. The number 18 has been also considered prosperous in certain parts of China, and it also took on spiritual importance in India, such as in the 18 chapters of the sacred Hindu text Bhagavad Gita.

Researchers have mathematically examined the Bible using methods such as two-dimensional arrays, which have been tested for what are known as “equidistant letter sequences.” Some found what seem to be words meaningfully related to adjacent portions of the text, and they claimed that their results were statistically unlikely to be due to chance alone. Author Michael Drosnin reported on some mathematical and computer analyses, referring to them as the “Bible code,” in order to highlight apparent predictions and to compare to twentieth-century knowledge. Some of the advocates of Bible code analyses point to apparent prediction of the dates of major world events as proof of the existence of such codes. Computations on the age of the universe are also sometimes cited as evidence, such as when first century rabbi Nechunya ben Hakanah used the Bible to compute the age as 15.3 billion years, which is relatively close to some twenty-first-century estimates. Critics, however, have countered these assertions by citing flaws in the statistical methodology and noting that any sufficiently long text may produce seemingly nonrandom patterns or clusters.

Numerical Defense of the Resurrection

During the twenty-first century, associations of numbers with religion continue to evolve. In 2002, Richard Swinburne, philosophy professor at Oxford University, applied Bayesian statistical methods, named for mathematician Thomas Bayes, in his defense of the Christian tenet of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead. He noted that it was extremely improbable, based on the laws of nature, for someone who had been dead for 36 hours to come back to life. Swinburne asserted that if there is a God, only God would be able to defy the laws of nature and make the dead come alive. In proving his point, Swinburne assigned probability values to the existence of God and some of the events described in the New Testament, such as the credibility of witness testimony. After mathematical analysis, Swinburne concluded that Jesus’s resurrection was extremely probable, namely, 97 percent. Swinburne’s use of mathematical logic and statistical methods to answer questions of faith is another step in a long tradition of connections between numbers and religion.

Bibliography

Brooke, John Hedley and Ronald L. Numbers. Science and Religion Around the World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Dudley, Underwood. Numerology, or, What Pythagoras Wrought. Washington, DC: Mathematical Association of America, 1997.

Pickover, Clifford. The Loom of God: Tapestries of Mathematics and Mysticism. Reprint. New York: Sterling Publishing, 2009.

Voss, Sarah. What Number Is God?: Metaphors, Metaphysics, Metamathematics, and the Nature of Things. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995.