A Hypothesis Regarding the Religious and Mathematical Bases of Western Civilization

Pierre Ullman A Hypothesis Regarding the Religious and Mathematical Bases ofWestern Civilization Western civilization could not have achieved scientific predominance without the development of its amazingly advanced mathematics . Through the Greeks, it inherited Egyptian and, especially, Babylonian mathematics.Then, while the scientific learning ofChristendom stagnated, the Arabs, combining Greek science with what they learned from India, made considerable progress in the Middle Ages. In the sixteenth century, it was Islam's turn to stagnate while great advances occurred in Christendom, especially Italy. Our hypothesis is that the controversy generated by the apparent mathematical illogic ofTrinitarian doctrine induced the liberation ofthe Western imagination from the limitations ofthe three-dimensional material world. The controversy flared up especially where Christianity coexisted with the unipersonal monotheistic beliefs of the Jewish and Muslim faiths, specifically in Spain. A study of Spanish culture indicates that skeptics, fleeing from the Inquisition, may have exerted considerable influence on the rest of Europe, where a freer atmosphere allowed anti-Trinitarianism to flourish, but whereTrinitarianism also maintained its intellectual standing, along with the mathematical speculation that such relative freedom encouraged. On LOGOS 3:1 WINTER 2O00 146 LOGOS the other hand, in Spain itself, where a distrust ofmathematics had originally gained strength in the climate ofsuspicion created by the Inquisition, the anticlericalism that sprang up after its abolition eventually led intellectuals to hold on to an outdated Kantianism which impeded mathematical progress long after it had ceased to do so in die rest of Europe. In order to present our argument, however, we must turn to the Spenglerian view ofthe relation between religion and mathematics as a defining factor ofany civilization. Generally speaking, there are two views ofwhat constitutesWestern civilization. The broader view emphasizes artistic tradition; hence we could refer to it as the "traditional "definition. ItregardsWestern civilization as the sum ofcultures that developed within the area of the Roman empire. To this region could be added northern Europe and Russia, and possibly the Macedonian empire as well.' In this way one could even defineWestern civilization as the sum ofcultural traditions which originated in an area extending from the Euphrates to Iceland, beginning with preClassical antiquity, and increased by some more recent cultural manifestations of the American continent. Accordingly, Western civilization is the heir of the intellectual tradition of the Classical world, lost in Europe during the upheavals ofthe DarkAges, rediscovered by Islam, and eventually passed on to Christendom. We must assume, of course, that the Western world has not been split into two civilizations, despite its ideological separation in the eighth century into monogamous andTrinitarian Christendom on the one hand, and polygamous and unipersonally monotheistic Islam on the other.The problem with this view is twofold. First ofall, it does not deem the immense cultural difference between Christendom and Islam sufficient to consider them separate civilizations. Secondly, although this definition starts with a territorial concept, it must at one point alter the concept to allow for the spread ofWestern civilization to the NewWorld. Hence it admits the significance ofexpansion while eluding that of disunion. A HYPOTHESIS REGARDING WESTERN CIVILIZATION The narrower view ofWestern civilization is the one assumed by Oswald Spengler, who places its beginnings in medieval Europe and limits its area to this continent and post-ColumbianAmerica. Spengler 's approach implies that the existence ofa particular civilization is determined by the duration of a certain type ofmentality, not by the nature ofthe knowledge passed down or retrieved over a specific area. To understand it, we must inevitably examine the import of religion. Accordingly, this definition ofWestern civilization mightbe called "attitudinal."2 Unlike Toynbee, who overlooked the importance of mathematics ,3 Spengler, when dealing with any particular civilization, considers both its religious and mathematical aspects.Yet he appears loath to establish clearly a causal connection between the mathematical and the religious characteristics, that is, the mentality induced by, inherent with, or concomitant with religious beliefs. Indeed, when he attempts to explain the origin ofWestern civilization, he takes for granted a hypothesis of racial causation. The present paper accepts Spengler's premise that its religious attitudes and its mathematics are the basic characteristics ofWestern civilization, but it suggests a causal connection between the two which would supersede the racial hypothesis...