Group sees glimpses of divinity in math

In the college classes she teaches on statistics and data analysis, Barbara Reynolds presents many of the basic concepts of math, but in the context of human trafficking, free-trade, and Florence Nightingale.

This is not the New Math gone berserk. Reynolds is a Roman Catholic nun, as well as a mathematician, and Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee, where she teaches, is a Franciscan school, intent on instilling the order's values throughout the curriculum.

That's a tall order for the precision numbers-crunching of mathematics. But Reynolds documents how math can be a tool for advancing social justice.

She teaches students that, during the Crimean War, Nightingale used statistical research and pioneering pie charts to prove that disease was killing more soldiers than combat. That spurred better hygiene among doctors and nurses and dramatically improved survival rates.

In another instance, Reynolds's students learn that, statistically, people at greatest risk of exploitation by human traffickers are poor, a condition that might be mitigated by fair-trade practices aimed at boosting their incomes.

The Clavius Group, an international fellowship of Catholic mathematicians, recently held a day of talks by Reynolds and other members at Boston College. For this community, the precise laws of mathematics are part of the breathtaking scaffolding with which the divine holds creation together.

The group was founded 45 years ago by Jesuit priests who "were tired of having to explain to Jesuits why they would want to do mathematics and to mathematicians why they would be interested in theology," says Thomas Banchoff, a Brown University mathematician and longtime Clavius member.

It might seem odd that they would need to explain, given the church's involvement in scientific research since at least medieval times. Indeed, the Clavius Group took its name from the Jesuit mathematician Christopher Clavius, who designed the Gregorian calendar.

But that was long ago, says Reynolds, who understands the odd-person-out feeling from nursing twin passions for religion and math. The Clavius Group "allows me to be both a religious sister and a mathematician, and I don't have to explain either part of my life to anybody," she says. Elsewhere, "A lot of people look at me and say, 'You're a sister; why did you study math and not theology?' "

Some colleagues pose another challenge: Teaching values inevitably bites into the time available for teaching math.

In her talk, Reynolds gave her response, forged years ago when she volunteered with the Peace Corps in Africa. Teaching students there, she had to use 1940s-era textbooks that posed math problems involving the calculation of fighter planes' bombing trajectories.

"I had a hard time with some of the examples that were there," Reynolds said. It was an important lesson to her. "No matter who teaches, personal values do come through. . . . What I've done is to be explicit about the values that I teach."

Besides, Franciscan values of compassion and respect for people have been sadly alien to some of her students, those from "broken homes, alcoholic parents, abusive relationships," she said after her talk. "I have some students who are recovering from serious childhood abuse. They don't start [out] believing that the world is a safe place for them."

If Reynolds suggested ways that math can pass on values that believers hold dear, the Rev. Paul Schweitzer's talk focused on how theology midwifed modern mathematics. A Jesuit posted in Rio de Janeiro at Pontifical Catholic University, Schweitzer discussed a paper by Slovakian mathematician Ladislav Kvasz, who argues that the medieval belief among Jews, Christians, and Muslims in a single, all-powerful God created fertile conditions from which modern mathematics sprouted.

Monotheism posits "an objective truth about the world, since it was created by an all-knowing God," and that divinity gave humans intelligence to comprehend the universe, Schweitzer said.

Even modern scientists who are atheists believe there's a consistent order to the universe that can be studied.

One such scientist-atheist, Richard Dawkins, has written that although he can't prove with certainty that God doesn't exist, he can prove that God almost certainly does exist, and Dawkins lives his life accordingly.

But for Reynolds, mathematics reinforces religious faith.

"In studying a hard problem, I have a deep mystical sense of having encountered the holy," she said.

"The beauty or the wonder or the awe that this result actually worked. . . . God isn't the math, but God is present as I solve this problem."

Questions, comments or story ideas can be sent to spiritual@globe.com.

(Correction: Because of an editing error, the views on God of scientist-atheist Richard Dawkins were misrepresented in yesterday's The Spiritual Life column. Dawkins said that although he cannot prove with certainty that God does not exist, he can prove that God almost certainly does not exist.)