Tolkien says that everything that we experience is a myth. It is not that what we experience isn’t true or factual, but that there is more to our lives than what is in front of us. There is more truth in the world than what we can measure, because myth is more than the sum of its parts. This mythos is shown in the archetypes we find in literature, tradition, and even the Bible. We know this to be true when we remember that God is the only truth and as an infinite being He must be larger than our world, which is finite. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, mathematics is one of many ways that we glimpse this mystery. The mythos of this world becomes obvious to us the more that we explore the theoretical world behind the tangible creation. In physics we claim to know the gravitational pull on our planet by observation, but don’t ask us what gravity is. In a sense, we know so much, like the gravitational pull on Mars, but in reality, we know nothing.
Our study of mathematics is a continual reminder that we are created beings made to discover our creator. We explore theoretical worlds of cyclical functions, parabolic curves, and constant rates, and we marvel at the little truths we discover. Take rate for example. In pre algebra we learned this week that rate is simply the ratio of distance over time. But if my rate from home to church is 30 mph, that doesn’t mean that I traveled at a constant 30 mph the entire trip. We know this. Can I figure out how long I drove 1 mph, 2mph, 5 mph, all the way up to 50 mph on this trip? Put another way, can I decipher my speed at an instantaneous moment en route? Without looking at my speedometer in that moment? No. My knowledge is limited to an average. As I learn more about God and mathematics, I can calculate these truths more and more accurately, yet I also become acutely aware of just how small a part this knowledge actually plays in the world. Rate is an archetype that exists in everything that moves, but it isn’t the entire mythos, because as we’ve learned, myth is more than the sum of its parts.