God, Beauty, and Mathematics | Prof. Alexander Pruss

The Thomistic Institute

Thomism, Society & Culture, Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality, Catholic, Philosophy, Catholicism

4.8 • 873 Ratings

🗓️ 30 April 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

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Summary

Prof. Alexander Pruss explores the unique certainty, mystery, and beauty of mathematics, examining philosophical perspectives from Plato to modern logicism, and considers how mathematical beauty points toward deeper realities, including the existence of God.

This lecture was given on October 1st, 2024, at University of North Texas.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speaker:

Alexander Pruss is professor of philosophy at Baylor University. He has two PhDs, one in mathematics and one in philosophy, and does research in metaphysics, philosophy of religion, ethics, epistemology, philosophy of science and philosophy of mathematics. Much of his work is centered on showing how pretty much everything in reality points to the existence of God. His books include The Principle of Sufficient Reason, Infinity, Paradox, and Causation, and One Body: An Essay in Christian Sexual Ethics. In his spare time, Pruss engages in a variety of hobbies including electronics, software development, and indoor rock climbing where he recently got two Guinness World Records.

Keywords: Aesthetics, Beauty, Epistemology, God, Kurt Gödel, Logicism, Mathematics, Philosophy of Mathematics, Plato, Platonism

This project/publication was made possible through the support of Grant 63391 from the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Tomistic Institute podcast.
0:06.2	Our mission is to promote the Catholic intellectual tradition in the university, the church, and the wider public square.
0:12.7	The lectures on this podcast are organized by university students at Temistic Institute chapters around the world.
0:19.0	To learn more and to attend these events, visit us at to mystic institute.org.
0:25.6	So I went into philosophy from mathematics and for a long time I actually didn't think
0:33.6	much about mathematics when I was a philosopher.
0:36.6	I sort of did some mathematics
0:38.3	on the side for fun, but eventually I started thinking about mathematics. And it's occurred to me
0:45.0	that mathematics is kind of unique. It's unique because it combines two very, two things that seem like they might be a bit of a contradiction.
0:56.7	So on the one hand, if we prove something mathematically, just say, that's true.
1:02.8	Like there's no more doubt about this, right?
1:04.6	I mean, if you go to a philosophy lecture ever, and afterwards, there are going to be people
1:10.7	challenging and saying that, so you're just wrong about that.
1:14.8	Here's why you're wrong.
1:15.5	And you guys will hopefully do that to me.
1:18.5	You go to a math lecture, there's nothing like that, right?
1:22.0	Nobody ever said, you're just wrong.
1:24.9	I mean, maybe occasionally somebody's made a mistake.
1:28.4	Maybe.
1:28.9	It's usually just a typo somewhere rather than a real mistake.
1:33.3	At most afterwards, people just say, well, let's look.
1:35.8	Maybe we should think about these further questions, et cetera.
	...

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