Abstract

This very unique, useful, and original book is a study of the relationships between mathematics and Christian theology, written by a professor trained in both disciplines. At least since the Pythagoreans, and extending from Plato to Whitehead, Husserl, and Wittgenstein, there has developed an intimacy between mathematics and the universal logos, as well as mathematics and God, which Henry explores in considerable depth. The development of Euclidean mathematics not only seriously influenced the elaborations of Greek philosophy, but when this encountered Hebrew-Christian thought and theology there was extensive impact on religious categories of God, Word, Objectivity, and universal unity. The Greek theory of reason was heavily influenced by the Greek understanding of mathematics. Consequently, the mathematical aspects of the classical meeting of Athens and Jerusalem, which have been seriously neglected, were central to the interpretation of the faith-reason controversy. That is, however, but the beginning of the story. The development of mathematical thought until the present has exerted and continues to exert serious influence on philosophical and theological interpretation, and the import of that dialectic is the burden of Henry's treatise.