Number
God counted the days, setting them in order. (Genesis 1 passim) This means that God knew numbers in both the sense where the number tells how many (nominal) and where the number holds information about the placement of an object or event in a collection of objects or a series of events (ordinal). The opening chapter of Genesis makes the point that God knew there were seven days and by this report, I claim that God knew how to add up a collection of similar objects, in this case, days. In addition, God assigned an order to these numbers, putting the first day before the second and the third before the fourth and so on.
There are many scholars who will refuse this claim as evidence of God’s ability, because they claim that the opening chapters of Genesis are myth. For these scholars, the opening account of Genesis is the creation of a past society who fabricated a god with abilities and character of their own choosing. This view of the Bible is not driven by the belief that God has inspired the writing of the scriptures (All of Scripture is “God-breathed”) but, for them, the Bible is the product of an imaginative response to social conditions. In this view, it is not God who has the knowledge of number but the person who wrote the myth.
I claim that the Bible is the inspired word of God. Consequently, I reject the views of those scholars who claim that mathematical ability evolved as a response to needs. There are many reasons for this, but the key is that animals do not have mathematical abilities, yet the needs of survival of eating and procreating are all managed quite well by all animal species. The appearance of mathematical abilities on the supposed evolutionary timeline would not make any improvement in the quest to survive. The speculation that mathematical abilities evolved is fanciful and based entirely on the observation that they exist now and must have come from somewhere.
Moving on, the evidence found in the first chapter of Genesis provides a view about God and about the universe that is entirely consistent, not only with the rest of the Bible, but also with what is easily recognised in the created order. The ability to name numbers and then to put these numbers in order, came from the Creator, not the creature. The race descended from Adam exhibits an ability that was first present in the creator.
There are many scholars who will refuse this claim as evidence of God’s ability, because they claim that the opening chapters of Genesis are myth. For these scholars, the opening account of Genesis is the creation of a past society who fabricated a god with abilities and character of their own choosing. This view of the Bible is not driven by the belief that God has inspired the writing of the scriptures (All of Scripture is “God-breathed”) but, for them, the Bible is the product of an imaginative response to social conditions. In this view, it is not God who has the knowledge of number but the person who wrote the myth.
I claim that the Bible is the inspired word of God. Consequently, I reject the views of those scholars who claim that mathematical ability evolved as a response to needs. There are many reasons for this, but the key is that animals do not have mathematical abilities, yet the needs of survival of eating and procreating are all managed quite well by all animal species. The appearance of mathematical abilities on the supposed evolutionary timeline would not make any improvement in the quest to survive. The speculation that mathematical abilities evolved is fanciful and based entirely on the observation that they exist now and must have come from somewhere.
Moving on, the evidence found in the first chapter of Genesis provides a view about God and about the universe that is entirely consistent, not only with the rest of the Bible, but also with what is easily recognised in the created order. The ability to name numbers and then to put these numbers in order, came from the Creator, not the creature. The race descended from Adam exhibits an ability that was first present in the creator.