WHY@Breakfast

Mathematicians like to describe the world in numbers and formulas when possible. A lot of research tends to find a formula or prove a mathematical statement that describes how certain numbers behave on paper and off the paper, to find the “truth” about numbers even when they are outside our normal human comprehension. I still remember one of the first proofs that I learned at 1^st year university concerns the existence of the next prime number bigger than a given one. The proof is absolutely beautiful and elegant!

After studying mathematics for a good few years, one tends to think about everything in mathematics. One Arts-major friend at the university residence once asked me how I would like to place the streamers by the window for a celebration. My reply was to graph f(x) =|x|. Seriously, those functions just float around the brain of mathies all the time. We really cannot help ourselves with normal response sometimes.

Lately, I started thinking about my own faith more and more. As you can imagine, the functions in my head start to say something about faith and religious ideas.

The absolute value function f(x) = |x|, where the number x is the input of the function f and f(x) is the output which gives the distance of x from the number 0, no longer represents the pattern that once described my streamers at the window. It is turning into a Christ function C(x)!

Note that f(-3)=3 and f(3) =3, as both -3 and 3 are 3 units away from 0. In other words, f(x) converts the negatives to positives.

I like to look at the function C, C(x) = |x|, where x is a person and when Christ works on person x, it restores x to be the beautiful person that God created. Doesn’t that make a lot of sense?

When God sent His only Son to us, God sent someone to teach us what we need to do. Christ showed us what it means to love, how we are to have a relationship with God. He healed the sick, cleansed the lepers, raised the dead, cast out devils. He restored those who came to Him.

C(x) = |x|

Wouldn’t you want to be the input x in this Christ function and let Him restore you and take away your sins and iniquities?

It’s a lovely function, isn’t it?

Mathematics describes the truth and God is the truth. Perhaps, it is not a coincidence that a function can describe a truth so elegantly.

I am not sure if I can call this mathematical theology, but I have a few more functions and concepts like this. Maybe.….next time….