Georg Cantor’s Mathematical Theology

The history of mathematics is defined by the individuals who furthered the

science. Though many of these men were religious, there is one that is known to have

founded a religious cult based on his mathematical philosophy, which was eventually

disrupted by the mathematical discoveries unearthed by the members of the cult. This

person was Pythagoras. The mathematical philosophy developed in this cult found its

way into the Greek culture, and had a considerable influence over Aristotelian

philosophy. But I don’t want to discuss Pythagoras here, since his cult is generally well

known throughout the mathematical community. At the end of the 19th century, another

mathematician went on to develop a theory in order to try to capture the divine in the

platonic world of mathematical ideas, whose story has many parallels with Pythagoras.

This mathematician was Georg Cantor. Like Pythagoras, his theories would have a

profound influence on literally all of mathematics, but his theories would also be the

undoing of his confidence in the divine, as well as inspiring new theories that aid the

intellectual arguments supporting atheism.

During the 19th century, much thought had gone into the foundations of

mathematics. The concept of mathematical infinity was generally ignored since the time

of the Greeks; Zeno's paradoxes were irreconcilable, so the lack of rigor in the

foundations of calculus was generally accepted for about 150 years. Newton’s

contemporary, Michel Rolle, called calculus “a collection of ingenious fallacies”, which

was unfortunate, since the calculus was the language of the physics that kept the universe

in motion.(Bradley vii) The heart of the problem was the inability to reconcile the ideas

of infinite quantities mathematically. Georg Cantor changed all of this by developing set
theory. Set theory can be loosely described as the science of abstract thought. It is

formulated to mimic the process in which humans think of concepts; it also mimics some

of the ways computers work, and the theory is prevalent throughout computer science.

Set theory has achieved quite a lot of success, like Pythagoras’s theorem, but

mathematicians rarely mention that it was developed as a tool for religious reasons.

Gregory Chaitin, a distinguished mathematician and computer scientist, while giving a

talk on the philosophical consequences of these theories, mentions that "You don't give

spiritual exercises based on set theory, but you could, if this was not such a materialist

world that we live in"

So what exactly is set theory? In Stoll’s textbook, Set Theory and Logic, it is

defined as follows: "A set S is any collection of definite, distinguishable objects of our

intuition or of our intellect to be conceived as a whole. The objects are called the

elements or members of S". The simplicity is deliberate. A preschooler's math homework

is basic set theory; they deal with sets of fruit or geometric objects, and they learn how to

order and count them. Sets can be formulated to describe any mathematical quantity, but

the ability to order and count objects using sets is what most interested Georg Cantor.

Some sets of different objects have qualities that tie them together in some way. Before a

child can manipulate the symbol '3' to do addition and multiplication, they must first learn

that '3' is just the relationship that all the sets with three objects have in common. The

way to check if a set has ‘3’ objects, is just pair off the members of the set with members

of another set which we already know has ‘3’ objects (counting with fingers works pretty

well). After a lot of work, a child can abstract the relationship of ‘3’ as a concept in itself,

different than the smaller numbers that precede it. Having a method to count finite
objects is useful, but Cantor had a much, much larger goal in mind, because for Cantor,

“there is no (difference) between his religious thinking and his mathematics.”(Malone)

Cantor is not alone in believing his theories were divine in some way; “Like most

religious mathematicians from Pythagoras to Gödel, Bolzano (a colleague and friend of

Cantor) believes that math is the Language of God, and that profound metaphysical truths

can be derived and proved mathematically.” (Wallace 124) The metaphysical truth

Cantor was after was virtually a mathematical version of Kabbalist ideas.

People of reasonable intelligence develop intuitive notions of number, and they

are also able to understand the concept of infinity, usually as something without end.

Though historians dispute Cantor’s personal religious beliefs, he made it clear that his

god was infinite. This is pretty logical, since if one assumes an omnipotent being exists, it

should be able to understand infinity far better than any human can. Cantor wanted to see

how much we can know about infinity. The first place to start is to ask how big it is, and

he did so in the context of set theory.

Using numbers and geometry as the context under which we study infinity allows

us to tie the concept down to something that people encounter often, which makes the

process intuitive. Cantor’s method to determine the size of an infinite set is the same as

the method the preschooler used for a finite set: just pair the members of the infinite set

with members of another infinite set. If one set has members that can never be paired off,

then that set is bigger. From this principle, we can see that the set of counting numbers

(1,2,3, etc.) is the same size as the even numbers, odd numbers, square numbers, and

even the integers and the rational numbers (which are just fractions of whole numbers

1/2, 5/28, etc.). This infinity is called countable. What made Cantor's theory of the
infinite so profound were two discoveries. The first was that he demonstrated that the

number of points on a line segment belongs to a larger infinity then the countable infinity

of the natural numbers (he also showed the number of points on a line segment was the

same as the number of points on the entire line, and the number of points in three

dimensional space, and any higher dimensional space). The second was that he showed

how to create the larger infinite set from the smaller infinite set. The process of creating a

larger infinity from a smaller one could be applied to any infinite set; hence one can

create a hierarchy of infinities. Cantor called these infinities transfinite numbers, and are

denoted with the Hebrew letter Aleph, which incidentally is the first letter of the name

that God gives to Moses in Exodus. (Exodus 3:14). Cantor identified his god with the set

of all of these transfinite numbers, and for a good reason. Cantor asked himself how big

the set of all transfinite numbers is. Well, the transfinite number that would correspond to

the size of the set of all transfinite numbers would be larger than any transfinite number

in the set. In other words, this infinity was larger then any infinity he could create; it was

the Absolute infinite, which totally escapes human comprehension. These ideas have a lot

in common with Kabbalist ideas, except these ideas are all mathematically valid.

Cantor’s last great contribution was creating a hypothesis about these transfinite

numbers that probably provoked his eventual mental instability which ended up putting

him into an insane asylum a number of times. His hypothesis is that there are no

transfinite numbers between the smallest one (the countable numbers) and the next

largest he could construct from the smallest, which was the number of points on a

continuous line. He spent most of the latter years of his life to prove this to be true, and

sometimes he tried to prove it false, but eventually he gave up and just started telling the
mathematical community that it had to be true because God had told him it was true.

Specifically, he said "I entertain no doubts as to the truth of the transfinites, which I have

recognized with God's help" (Wallace 41). Whenever Cantor would work on the problem,

he would end up having a mental breakdown. At this point in his life, he felt abandoned.

"Ever since he was just a boy, he had heard what he called, a secret voice, calling him to

mathematics. That voice which he heard all his life, in his mind, was God. So for Cantor,

his mathematics of infinity had to be correct, because God, the true infinite, had revealed

it to him.”(Malone)

Cantor died without knowing the answer to his hypothesis, but today we do know

the answer. Though Cantor’s theories didn’t gain a metaphysical status with cult

recognition like Pythagoras, the people involved in settling the question ended up using

the philosophical consequences of their methods as intellectual reasons to follow atheism.

At the turn of the 20th century, the mathematician/philosopher Bertrand Russell was

discovering many paradoxes within set theory, and he was also active in the development

of reducing all of mathematics to logic. The goal was to get rid of the paradoxes in order

to settle the questions raised by the theory. This was done by axiomatizing set theory as a

logical theory devoid of all the paradoxes that Russell and others discovered. In other

words, people found (twelve) laws that are prefect as far as we have checked them, while

still retaining the power to define all of mathematics, as well as the transfinite arithmetic.

All one has to do is plug the laws into a computer, apply the rules of logic to the laws and

definitions, make a list of all proofs, and then we can have every mathematical theorem.

A problem with this was discovered by the logician Kurt Gödel. He showed that

any axiomatic system with a finite number of laws, that has the power to use induction or
describe an infinite quantity, countable or otherwise, will be incomplete or inconsistent.

This means that either the laws will contradict themselves, or there will be statements

which are un-provable, which we call undecidable. Furthermore, if the laws do not

contradict themselves, it is impossible to logically prove that they don’t contradict

themselves within the system (because even if the statement “This system has no flaws”

were true, Gödel was able to derive a contradiction from that statement). Additionally,

the undecideable statements can be assumed to be true or false, and they won’t create any

contradictions with previously established truths, so it is best to just leave them alone.

Rationalist philosophers took this idea and applied to matters of religion. Bertrand

Russell said, “I mean by intellectual integrity the habit of deciding vexed questions in

accordance with the evidence, or of leaving them undecided where the evidence is

inconclusive. This virtue, though it is underestimated by almost all adherents of any

system of dogma, is to my mind of the very greatest social importance and far more

likely to benefit the world than Christianity or any other system of organized beliefs.”

This reasoning has found its way from Gödel’s theorems into the views of the rational

philosophies, such as analytical philosophy and objectivism, where they tend to have

atheist or agnostic beliefs.

So what of Cantor’s hypothesis about the relationship of infinite quantities? In

1940 Gödel showed that assuming Cantor’s hypothesis to be true does not make any

contradictions with our mathematical system. In 1963 Paul Cohen showed that assuming

Cantor’s hypothesis to be false does not make a contradiction with our mathematical

system. In other words, Cantor’s hypothesis is un-provable. Cantor’s claim that it was

revealed to him by God is as close to a proof as he was going to get. This undecidability
is not unique to Cantor’s hypothesis. There are an abundance of problems which are

undecidable, much of which lie in the realm of computer science. A recent article in the

AMS Notices also took note of some of the philosophical implications of the existence of

relevant undecidable problems on religious views: "Theology has not had a respectable

place in mathematics literature for many centuries; however, we cannot resist pointing

out a fundamental blasphemy inherent in the doctrine of "Intelligent Design" so

fashionable in certain quarters: The word "design", in a common sense, implies having

some guiding principles, a simplified means of understanding the implications of

choosing one set of conditions versus another. Within these computationally universal

systems, by the arguments in this section no general design principles can exist. That is,

there is no simpler way to understand these implications than, well, just following them

out. Now of course it would be foolish to presume just how and omnipotent deity would

go about setting up a universe, life, etc. But to insist, as proponents of intelligent design

do, that a deity must go about things in the most difficult, least powerful manner seems

like a very limiting theology, to say the least." (Goodman)

Cantor has contributed much to the knowledge of infinity. He showed that in

some sense, the counterintuitive properties of ‘smaller’ infinities can be uncovered

through certain types of analysis, but at the same time, Gödel and Cohen demonstrated

that the small infinites are immune from certain natural laws, and that their properties can

freely change depending on what we decide to be true or not. So even the smaller

versions of Cantor’s God (the Absolute infinite), still retain part of the ‘supernatural’

properties of the Absolute. "Gödel and Cohen have brought us to a sobering realization:

hard as we may try, there will always be some truths forever beyond our reach. Human
beings may never understand the deep nature of infinity. This is something that the

Kabbalah practitioners understood on an intuitive level, without mathematical proof.”

(Aczel) Recently, there have been books published about the transfinite numbers,

Cantor’s unsolvable hypothesis, and Gödel’s theorems, but the only place you will

encounter them in their entirety is in a course on set theory or mathematical logic, when

one may argue that they should be treated in courses on philosophy. Mathematics as a

subject may be devoid of religion, but its foundations rest on one man’s quest to find

God. Cantor clearly demonstrates his motivation for studying the mathematical questions

he posed: "The fear of infinity is a form of myopia that destroys the possibility of seeing

the actual infinite, even though in its highest form has created and sustains us" (Wallace

41)

Bibliography

Aczel, Amir D. The Mystery of the Aleph: Mathematics, the Kabbalah, and the Human
Mind . New York, NY: Basic Books, 2000. 223. Print.

Bradley, Robert, and Edward Sandifer. Cauchy's Cours d'analyse: An Annotated

Translation. New York, NY: Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 2009. vii.
Print.
Chaitin, Gregory . "A Century of Controversy over the Foundations of Mathematics."
Videolectures.net. Web. 5 May 2010.
<http://videolectures.net/eccs08_chaitin_acocotfom/>.

Goodman-Strauss, Chaim. "Can't Decide? Undecide!." Notices of the American

Mathematical Society. 57.3 (2010): 355. Print.

Malone, David. "Dangerous Knowledge." BBC Documentaries, Philosophy, Physics,

Mathematics. Web. 5 May 2010. <http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-
5122859998068380459#>.

Russell, Bertrand. "Can Religion Cure Our Troubles?" 1954

Wallace, David. Everything and More: A Compact History of ∞. New York, NY: W. W.
Norton & Company, Inc., 2003. 41. Print.