By the end of my 10th grade in school, I knew by heart almost all the fundamental laws of physics like Newton’s Laws of Motion, Newton’s Law of Gravitation, Coulomb’s Law, Ohm's Law, and Archimedes' Principle. I was extremely fond of science. I used to wonder who made these laws of nature that the universe obeys. Moreover, all these laws of nature are represented perfectly by mathematical equations. Later, during my university years studying engineering, I noticed that what we are trying to do is to discover a mathematical equation for every natural phenomenon to subjugate it and use it for the benefit of mankind. The One Who made the laws of nature made these laws very mathematical. We know that the laws of nature started with the Big Bang. Thus, mathematics must have existed before the creation of human beings, as the laws of nature existed before them. Human beings did not make mathematics; rather, they just discovered it with time. This is the line of thinking on which the mathematical argument for God works. This argument is further elaborated in the following paragraphs.

Many atheists think there is no reason to believe in God because we now have science to explain everything in the universe. Science is indeed able to explain many things in the natural world, but by definition, science cannot tell us whether there is anything outside or above the natural world. In other words, science cannot inform us whether there is anything supernatural. I have already explained this point very well earlier. Generally, when people speak of God, they mean a supernatural, All-Knowing mind Who is everywhere and can do anything. So, what is mathematics, and what does it have to do with God?  

WHAT IS MATHEMATICS?

Mathematics is simply wonderful. Bertrand Russell once wrote, “Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show. The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry.” 

Mathematics is about numbers and information about those numbers and the ways they connect to each other. But wait mathematics also explains things. It can explain everything from simple counting to the movement of planets. For anything you can think of, there is mathematics that explains what is going on even down to the atomic level. Dr. Eugene Wigner was a brilliant Hungarian-American physicist and mathematician who made significant contributions to our understanding of the atomic nucleus and elementary particles. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles. He wrote a paper with the title “The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the Natural Sciences”. In this paper, he discussed and demonstrated a strong link between mathematics and natural sciences.  

Basic mathematics does not look so special. For example, the number 5 corresponds to five apples and 5 x 3 corresponds to three groups of five apples. But the more you get into advanced mathematics, the more math starts to get disconnected from our world but it still works. For example, there are real numbers, the numbers that correspond to real things. But there are also imaginary numbers that are just as mathematically real but they do not correspond to the real world. That is why they are not called real numbers but they still exist mathematically even though they do not exist in the real world. Look at the following five most important numbers in mathematics:

· One (1) is very important because it is the basis for all real numbers.

· Zero (0) is very important because it is necessary for doing Algebra.

·  Iota (i) is very important because it is the basis for all imaginary numbers.

·  e is very important for doing exponential functions.

·  π is necessary for doing math with circles.

Now all these numbers are seemingly unrelated to each other but they fit together beautifully in the equation called the “Euler’s Identity”. It was discovered by Euler who was one of the greatest mathematicians in history. Euler's Identity is admired for its elegance, depth, and unexpected connections within mathematics. Euler’s Identity has numerous applications in various fields like signal processing, electrical engineering, and quantum mechanics.

But where do we find all this mathematics? We cannot see the math. We cannot touch math. We cannot taste math. Laws of mathematics are actually conceptual as they exist in the mind. We find it simply by thinking about it and figuring more and more out of it. For example, the number nine, as 9 or IX, is not actually number nine but is only a numeral that represents the concept of number nine. Number 9 is a concept that we have in our minds. Thus, we cannot actually observe or experiment with the actual number 9 as it is just a sort of abstraction.

Mathematical laws or facts are universal. It means that they apply everywhere. It is not that these laws are different in the USA as compared to mathematical laws in China. Mathematical laws are also timeless, as they do not change with time. They do not evolve. They are exceptionless. It is not like 2 + 2 equals 4 most of the time, but sometimes equals 7. Thus, 2 +2 is always 4. Thus, mathematical laws and truths are universal, timeless, and exceptionless.

WHERE DID MATH COME FROM?

If mathematics is only in our minds and it also explains the natural world, then where does it come from? There are two explanations for this. Either math is just something we invented to explain what we observe in the natural world, and that would mean the origin of math is natural. The other possibility is that math was already there because it controls the universe, and we have just discovered it. If this latter option is true, then the origin of math must be supernatural. Actually, the latter option is true; that is, scientific laws and mathematics were always there, and human beings just discovered them.

Secular explanations like evolution do not apply to mathematical laws. Numbers and mathematical truths are constant and do not evolve. The idea that humans created these laws is also implausible because if that were true, we could arbitrarily decide that 2 + 2 equals 5. However, such a notion conflicts with reality. In the same way, the “Pythagorean Theorem” was true long before Pythagoras discovered it. Similarly, the planets obeyed mathematical laws in their orbits before human beings observed and named those laws. This shows that mathematical laws were discovered and not created by us.  

Mathematics contains infinite information that is an infinite number of numbers, each with its individual properties. And there is an infinite number of numbers in between any two numbers.

We keep discovering things.  π is the number that explains the area of a circle, which has an infinite number of digits that we keep discovering by doing calculations. If we were just making this stuff up, we could make π whatever we wanted it to be. But we cannot do that because we know that it would not be true. We know that all this information is out there somewhere, but it cannot be in our physical universe because our universe is finite, and math is infinite.

More evidence that mathematics has a designer is the “Mandelbrot Set” which is generated by a very simple equation in the complex plane. It was Benoit Mandelbrot who truly discovered the set's potential in 1980. He was working at IBM and had access to powerful computers that allowed him to generate high-quality visualizations of the Mandelbrot Set, revealing its intricate and beautiful structure. Mr. Mandelbrot also played a key role in popularizing the set through his research and publications. He is recognized for coining the term "fractal" and bringing the concept of fractal geometry to the forefront of mathematics.

Mandelbrot set is said to produce infinite detail in its shape. You can keep zooming in on this shape and it will keep generating more and more complexity even though nobody designed this. Thus, the Mandelbrot Set is said to be infinite. It is not found anywhere in our universe. So, this means whoever created it must also be infinite and beyond our universe.

Since mathematics exists only in the mind, its origin must also be the Mind.  Mathematics contains infinite information, so this mind must be All-Knowing. Mathematics controls the universe, so this mind must also be All-Powerful. And mathematics is beyond and outside of our natural world, so this mind must be Supernatural. We have just described God. All these numbers and mathematical facts exist in the infinite mind of God. But it is not just mathematical truths that exist in the mind of God, but also moral truths and any kind of truth. Mathematics proves the existence of God because math is the creation of God. Many people have very well understood this point. For example, the great scientist Galileo once said, “Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe.” Paul Dirac, who was a British theoretical physicist and one of the founders of quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics, rightly said, “God used beautiful mathematics in creating the world.”

ATHEISTIC DILEMMA

The naturalist is in a dilemma because the laws of mathematics are conceptual and exist in the mind. We know that anything that exists in the mind is a concept; therefore, 2 + 2 = 4 is a concept. There are other mathematical truths you could think of that exist in the mind. And they existed before the creation of human beings, since the planets orbited before human beings, and they obeyed mathematical laws. It is not like the planets were disorganized and unsystematic, and human beings created mathematics and put everything in order. So, you see the naturalist is in a dilemma because on the one hand, he knows that mathematics requires a mind, but on the other hand, he is also aware that mathematics existed before human minds. But the naturalist does not believe in an Intelligent Mind (God) before the creation of human minds. Animals cannot do mathematics. So, atheists are in a problem as they have no explanation for it. But we monotheists can make sense of this since we are believers in the existence of the Eternal Mind, Allah SWT.