On Gods and Mathematics

From Vedic altars to Gothic cathedrals, from Renaissance paintings to the orientation toward La Mecque, religious practices have often posed very concrete problems to mathematicians: to build, to align, to measure, to orient, to represent infinity. This dossier explores these places where sacred gesture meets geometric rigor, and shows how rites, architecture and spiritual arts have nurtured some of the most beautiful mathematical ideas.

Sacred texts are not only about faith: they manipulate numbers, symbols, worldviews, sometimes genuine thought structures. From the Bible to Descartes, from Newton to Leibniz, this feature follows the unexpected paths through which beliefs, spiritual readings and ancient traditions have inspired mathematical, logical or scientific concepts. A dive into the long history of ideas, where calculation dialogues with meaning.

Can we prove God? Can we even reason about its existence? Between Pascal's wager, Leibniz's logical optimism, Whitehead's metaphysics and Laplace's famous refusal to add an unnecessary hypothesis, this feature explores the tense relationship between proof, belief and uncertainty. Mathematics does not necessarily provide an answer, but it shifts the question with rare power.