Keeping the Little Commandments

To set the stage for this blog post, I would like to share a quote by Elder David A. Bednar:

In my office is a beautiful painting of a wheat field. The painting is a vast collection of individual brushstrokes—none of which in isolation is very interesting or impressive. In fact, if you stand close to the canvas, all you can see is a mass of seemingly unrelated and unattractive streaks of yellow and gold and brown paint. However, as you gradually move away from the canvas, all of the individual brushstrokes combine together and produce a magnificent landscape of a wheat field. Many ordinary, individual brushstrokes work together to create a captivating and beautiful painting.

Each family prayer, each episode of family scripture study, and each family home evening is a brushstroke on the canvas of our souls. No one event may appear to be very impressive or memorable. But just as the yellow and gold and brown strokes of paint complement each other and produce an impressive masterpiece, so our consistency in doing seemingly small things can lead to significant spiritual results. “Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great” (D&C 64:33) (More Diligent and Concerned at Home, October 2009 General Conference).

I've seen many who wonder if doing the little things like going to church, reading your scriptures, and saying your prayers can really have a significant impact on seemingly unrelated areas of your life. I have been there myself. Maybe you go to church week after week and feel like you don't get much out of it. Maybe you are struggling to decide whether to pay tithing or make a rent payment and are wondering if God will really pour you down a blessing from heaven so great that there will not be room enough to receive it. (See Malachi 3:10, KJV Holy Bible.) Maybe you feel like your schedule is packed, and you don't know if scripture study is really important enough to make time for. These feelings likely stem from the philosophy that unless we know how results are supposed to stem from the causes, the results probably won't come from the causes. Those of the world frequently preach this false doctrine. They say things such as:

In our scientific age, we must move past believing that something will happen just because the Bible says so. We must let go of these silly fantasies along with Zeus and all other mythologies of ages past. These ideas were for primitive, uneducated people who let their imaginations guide their beliefs.

Honestly, I find such claims to be ridiculous. A scientific view alone will not lead one to reject revealed religion. Rather, it is an atheistic or agnostic world view that will lead one to reject God's teachings. Let me say this again: By itself, scientific data will not lead ANYONE to stop believing in God. So many of the world's leading scientists and mathematicians have been, are, and will continue to be Christians. Unfortunately, many people fall for this doctrine of the Devil. Satan's lie that we must see it to believe it has led far too many good-hearted people to set aside all of the commandments that they don't understand the importance of. My heart weeps for such people, and I hope that they will repent, come unto Christ, and be perfected by His grace.

In reality, even the littlest commandments can lead to blessings so great that we cannot even begin to comprehend them. In Alma 37, Alma gives the plates of brass and the plates of Nephi to his son Helaman and commands him to protect them at all costs. Towards the beginning of his counsel to his son Helaman, Alma says:

Behold, it has been prophesied by our fathers, that [the plates of brass and the plates of Nephi] should be kept and handed down from one generation to another, and be kept and preserved by the hand of the Lord until they should go forth unto every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, that they shall know of the mysteries contained thereon.

And now behold, if they are kept they must retain their brightness; yea, and they will retain their brightness; yea, and also shall all the plates which do contain that which is holy writ.

Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise.

And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls (Alma 37:4-7, Book of Mormon).

Notice how interesting these promises were. Helaman was given a very small and simple commandment. He was told to keep the records until he got old and then to give them to one of his sons. He was promised that, if he did this, the metal plates would not corrode or oxidize over time, and every family in the world would have the opportunity to read them. Someone who did not have faith in the power of God would probably be thinking that Alma was crazy if he or she had been in Helaman's place. After all, corrosion and oxidation are natural chemical processes. Furthermore, at the time of the Nephites, only a select few people ever got to read the scriptures (or any books for that matter). The claim that every family on the earth would have the opportunity to read the book would have seemed ludicrous at the time. It is no wonder why Alma said, "ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me".

After promising incredible and seemingly unrelated promises for keeping a small and simple commandment, Alma taught Helaman a profound eternal truth:

By small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise. And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls.

We now see the fulfillment of Alma's marvelous promises. The plates were preserved, Joseph Smith translated them by the gift and power of God into the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, and the Book of Mormon is now available online at LDS.org to be read by people all over the world in their native language. A great thing was brought to pass, this great miracle does confound the wise, and the Book of Mormon has brought to pass the salvation of many souls.

The Apostle Paul taught, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him (1 Corinthians 2:9, KJV Holy Bible)." Jesus taught, "If ye love me, keep my commandments (John 14:15, KJV Holy Bible)." How is it that keeping small commandments can lead to blessings greater than anything you have ever witnessed and more marvelous than anything you have ever imagined? (See footnote 1.)

We can better understand this by turning to the work of the famous meteorologist/mathematician Edward Lorenz who founded a new branch of mathematics called "chaos theory". Most meteorologists of his day held the view that it was possible to accurately predict the weather into the future if you knew most of the large-scale weather patterns at the present moment. They applied this view to their statistical weather models. One day in 1961, Edward Lorenz was running weather forecasts on a computer. He noticed that when he entered 0.506 for one of the values, he got a completely different result than when he entered 0.506127. Edward quickly became skeptical of the common notion that little causes should have little effects.

In 1963, Edward published a paper in which he mathematically proved that even the slightest difference in initial conditions can lead to enormous differences in the future weather patterns. (See footnote 2.) In later speeches, he explained his paper's results by explaining that he had proved that a butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the world can cause a tornado to occur on the other side of the world. This is why many people now refer to his work as the "butterfly effect".

Edward Lorenz' completely unexpected results were groundbreaking. He crushed one of the false philosophies of men and proved the doctrine taught by Alma and Paul that small and simple things can and do bring great things to pass and confound the wise.

We, as mortals, have a finite understanding of the world. Because of the butterfly effect, it is impossible for us to accurately predict how our actions may shape our future. A lot of the time, we can get a good idea of how some of our actions may affect us. However, even in those circumstances, we can't know for sure how our future will play out (without the help of God, of course). However, there is One who notices even the sparrows when they fall. God has an infinite understanding of this universe. He knows and controls the motion of every atom, He hears all of your prayers, He weeps with you when you suffer, and He rejoices when you do what is right. He can and does know what will happen to you if you choose to follow His commandments. With Him on your side, you can't go wrong. In Matthew 10 we read:

Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows (Matthew 10:29-31, KJV Holy Bible).

In 2 Nephi, we read that God "doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for he loveth the world, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw all men unto him. Wherefore, he commandeth none that they shall not partake of his salvation (2 Nephi 26:24, Book of Mormon)." We can thus be assured that God will not give you any commandment unless it will bless you. So, next time you are wondering whether you should keep going to church, make time to read your scriptures and say heartfelt prayers every day, pay your tithing, et cetera, remember that greater blessings than you can even begin to imagine will come to you from doing so. I testify of these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Footnote 1: When Paul said "neither have entered into the heart of man" in 1 Corinthians 2:9, he was most likely meaning that no mortal can even imagine something so great. We can come this conclusion when this scripture is combined with a knowledge of the Semitic anatomical understanding. The Hebrews (Israelites) thought that the heart performed the functions that we now understand to be performed by the brain. They thought that the heart is the place that ideas come from.

Footnote 2: Edward N. Lorenz (1963). "Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow". Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences. 20 (2): 130–141

What is Chiasmus and Why Does it Matter?

In this blog post, I hope to answer three questions: What is chiasmus, how does it relate to math and religion, and why does it matter? Maybe you have never heard of chiasmus before, or maybe you know all about it. Regardless, you can likely gain new knowledge and insights by reading this blog post.

When you were in grade school, you likely learned how to write a one page essay. You were probably taught that your first paragraph should present your paper's main idea. You probably learned that one of the sentences in your first paragraph should be your thesis statement, and that it should clearly state your paper's primary arguments. The following three or so paragraphs should give reasons why your thesis statement is true. Finally, your last paragraph should pull the rest of your paper together to convince the reader of your arguments.

Now imagine that you have to start going back to grade school (kind of like what happened in the movie "Seventeen Again".) However, imagine that this time your writing class is very, very different. Envision you are sitting at a desk, pencil in hand, and you are being instructed by your teacher that you are going to spend class today writing a one page essay. You think that this will be easy; you are thinking, "I already know how to write a one page essay! Why do I have to be here again! This is torture!" However, you are about to be surprised. Your teacher is now telling you that you should always start a one-page essay by writing down the main point (or thesis statement) in the center of the page. "Now," she says, "you need to make a list of at least a couple points that support or build upon your main idea. We will call each point in the list you make an 'element'. Once you have a list of elements, you will need to use them in your essay one at a time. For each element, put part of your point just above what you have written so far in the middle of the page and part of your point just below what you have written so far. Once you have used all of the elements, your essay is done." You are extremely confused. You blurt out, "Excuse me teacher, this is not how to write a proper one page essay." With a smile on her face, she calmly replies, "That may not be how people normally write one-page essays nowadays, but what you learned today is how people wrote back in ancient Israel." All you can think is, "I just don't get it! Why would anyone write a paper that way! That is just plain weird!"

I hope that theoretical example helped you to understand just how different writing was in ancient Israel from how it is in western civilizations today. The writing style you imagined being taught is called 'chiasmus' and was thought of by the Hebrews (Hebrews is another way of saying ancient Israelites) as a beautiful form of poetry. (If you are still a little confused about what chiasmus is, don't worry. I'll explain it more in the next paragraph.) If you were to read a book written by an ancient Israelite, you could reasonably expect to find chiasmus in it. Likewise, if you read a book that contained strong chiasmus in it, you could reasonably assume that it was influenced by a Hebrew. One well-known book that was written by ancient Israelites is the Holy Bible. The Bible is packed full of plenty of chiasmus.

Basically, chiasmus is a literary style in which a list of elements (or points) are written down and then repeated in reverse order. This makes it so that you end up with an ABCCBA type pattern. The word 'chiasmus' was derived from the name of the Greek letter '𝞆' (commonly transliterated into English as 'chi'). This is because simple chiasmus can be illustrated with an 'X' (see the example below).

Do you see how, in the example above, the order of 'first' and 'last' is reversed? That is what makes it a chiasmus. Simple chiasmus can even be found in western literature. For example, President John F. Kennedy said the following:

Even though writing from much of the world contains simple, one or two sentence long chiasmus, chiasmus that fill entire blocks of text are unique to ancient Israel (and the surrounding countries).

The Bible, which was written by ancient Israelites, contains extended (long) chiasmus. For example, the following chiasmus is found in the Bible:

a	There died on the earth
	b	all birds,
		c	cattle,
			d	beasts and creeping things,
				e	man;
					f	all life
						g	died
						g	and was destroyed.
					f	Every living thing
				e	both man,
			d	creeping things,
		c	cattle,
	b	birds,
a	were destroyed from the earth.

- Genesis 7:21-23 (when translated literally from the Hebrew)

Notice that the first 'a' matches up with the other 'a', the first 'b' matches up with the other 'b', etc. Some chiasmus are the length of an entire chapter. A few are even longer than that.

So why does this even matter? How will knowing about chiasmus affect your life? There are two fundamental reasons: First, the Book of Mormon is either a book of scripture from God that will bless your life more than any other book and set you on the path towards exaltation, or it is a complete and utter fraud that will set you on the path towards Hell. Either way, it is extremely important to find out if the Book of Mormon is true. Is it a book written by Joseph Smith and/or other early LDS Church leaders, or is it exactly what it claims to be: a book of scripture written by prophets of a group of ancient Israelites who were led by God out of Jerusalem and to the Americas? A good test of this is whether or not there is intentional chiasmus in the Book of Mormon.

At the time the Book of Mormon was published, almost nobody in America knew about chiasmus. After extensive research, scholars have concluded that, at the time, there was only one book in the U.S. that even mentioned chiasmus. (See footnote 1.) Moreover, the section on chiasmus was only a short excerpt in the middle of this long book. To further complicate things, this book was kept in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania while Joseph Smith lived in Palmyra, New York. Remember, cars and airplanes didn't exist as a mode of transportation back then. It is EXTREMELY unlikely that Joseph Smith (or any of the other early Church leaders) could have known about chiasmus before the Book of Mormon's publication.

Thus, if the Book of Mormon contains intentional chiasmus, then the Book of Mormon is not a fraud. Rather, it is the word of God! It is a book that will change your life if you apply yourself to a daily study of its pages and ask God in earnest prayer each day what He wants you to learn from it.

There is a second reason why knowing about chiasmus matters. The center of a chiasmus is called the 'chiastic turning point'. The chiastic turning point is usually the main idea that the author is trying to convey. It is comparable to a thesis statement. All of the other elements are meant to build upon and explain the chiastic turning point. So, if you know that a section in the Book of Mormon or Bible is a chiasmus, you can first look and see what the main idea that the author was trying to convey is by looking at the chiastic turning point. Then, you can see how the other elements are meant to build upon and explain the chiastic turning point. This will allow you to understand the passage of scripture better, and it will allow you to gain new spiritual insights. It has definitely done that for me.

Let me show you an example. Alma 36 is an entire chapter long chiasmus. In Alma 36, Alma the younger is telling his son Helaman about his conversion story before he gives Helaman the Nephite records. For the first half of the chapter, Alma tells all about his wickedness and the negative consequences that came from his actions before his conversion. In the second half of the chapter, Alma tells all about his righteousness and the blessings that followed after his conversion. The chiastic turning point is the point at which he was converted. If you look, you will see that it was when he remembered the words of his father about Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and cried unto Christ for mercy that he was converted. At the moment that he yielded his heart unto Christ, everything turned from bad to good. There are profound lessons to be learned from this. I know of no passage of scripture that provides a stronger testimony of Christ's saving grace than this beautiful chiasmus does.

a

My son, give ear to my words (Alma 36:1)

b

Keep the commandments [and] ye shall prosper in the land (Alma 36:1)

c

Captivity of our fathers—bondage (Alma 36:2)

d

Surely God did deliver them (Alma 36:2)

e

Trust in God (Alma 36:3)

f

Support in trials, trouble, and afflictions (Alma 36:3)

g

I know this not of myself but of God (Alma 36:4)

h

Born of God (Alma 36:5)

i

Seek no more to destroy the church of God (Alma 36:9)

j

Fell to the earth (Alma 36:10)

k

Limbs paralyzed (Alma 36:10)

l

The agony of conversion (Alma 36:11–16) destroyed, torment, harrowed up, racked, the pains of hell, inexpressible horror, banished and extinct, the pains of a damned soul

m

I remember … the coming of one Jesus Christ, a Son of God, to atone for the sins of the world

m

I cried within my heart: O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me (Alma 36:17–18)

l

The joy of conversion (Alma 36:19–22) no more pain, what joy, marvelous light, exquisite, nothing as sweet, singing and praising God, longing to be with God

k

Limbs received their strength again (Alma 36:23)

j

Stood upon my feet (Alma 36:23)

i

Labored without ceasing to bring souls unto repentance (Alma 36:24)

h

Many have been born of God (Alma 36:26)

g

Knowledge is of God (Alma 36:26)

f

Supported under trials and troubles, yea afflictions (Alma 36:27)

e

Trust in him (Alma 36:27)

d

He will still deliver me (Alma 36:27)

c

Egypt—captivity (Alma 36:28–29)

b

Keep the commandments and ye shall prosper in the land (Alma 36:30)

a

This according to his word (Alma 36:30)

And now we get to math. Some people have claimed in the past that the chiasmus in the Book of Mormon occurred by chance and were not intentional. This was an important question to settle, for the authenticity of the Book of Mormon was at stake. Two physics professors at Utah State University, named Boyd and Farrell Edwards, made a statistics program that was capable of calculating a rigorous lower bound on the statistical likelihood that the chiasmus in the Book of Mormon were intentional. For Alma 36, they found that there is less than a one in 150,000 chance that the chiastic structure could have occurred accidentally. In science, if something is shown to have greater than a 95% chance of being the case, it is assumed to be true until evidence comes along that suggests otherwise. For Alma 36, we can be more than 99.999% sure that it was an intentional chiasmus. So, it is almost indisputable that it was intentional. There are many other strong chiasmus in the Book of Mormon.

Thanks to math, it has been confirmed that the Book of Mormon is exactly what it claims to be: It is the word of God! It is a book of Divine revelation! We should heed its every word! We should value its teachings over the teachings of man! However, even though the math tells a clear story, we should not stop there in gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon. I invite you to read the Book of Mormon, ponder in your heart the message it contains, and pray to Heavenly Father in the name of Jesus Christ to ask Him if the Book of Mormon is the word of God. If you do so, the Holy Spirit will confirm its truthfulness to your heart. Numbers on a page can change your beliefs. However, a conversion by the power of the Holy Ghost is far more likely to change your actions and character. Together, learning by study and learning by faith can provide an unshakable testimony of the truth that will not be affected by the very jaws of Hell.

I invite you to ponder and pray about who you can share this message with. Then, follow through on the inspiration you receive. Every person around you is a child of our Loving Father in Heaven. He or she has Divine potential inside of him or her. By sharing this glorious message of truth with him or her, you are providing an opportunity for him or her to latch ahold of that potential and bloom into that beautiful son or daughter of God he or she is capable of becoming. I testify of this message in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Footnote 1: In case you are wondering, the only book in the U.S. that mentioned chiasmus at the time the Book of Mormon was published was "Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures" by Thomas Hartwell Horne. It was first published in 1825.

By Small And Simple Numbers Part 1

Introduction

I have promised for the last couple blog posts that I would talk about the math behind some gospel relationships found in the scriptures. For those of you who have been anxiously awaiting the fulfillment of this promise, you're in luck; that's what this post is all about. However, I will first share a little background on this discovery.

One morning, I was studying the topic of knowledge and intelligence. I noticed an interesting pattern: the scriptures teach that if we increase our knowledge and intelligence, we will be able to continue to increase them at a faster rate. This can be compared to financial investment: the more money you currently have, the quicker you can gain more money.

Those of you who know me really well know that my two favorite things are the Gospel of Christ and math. Seeing a scriptural example of quantities changing in a specific way allowed me to recognize that my two favorite things can be combined. This was the birth of theometry. Within a few minutes, I was coming up with equations to model increases in knowledge and intelligence. Within a few more minutes, I was drawing graphs of the equations and showing them to my missionary companion. (I had been on a proselyting mission for the LDS Church for about six months at the time.) I was ecstatic.

Before long, I had come up with equations for knowledge and intelligence, faith and works, agency, diligence, et cetera. As I began to see the implications of these equations, the words of an ancient prophet named Alma kept coming to my mind. (I will explain why later in this blog post.)

By Small and Simple Things

Near the end of his mortal ministry, the great prophet Alma gathered together his sons Helaman, Shiblon, and Corianton to give them words of counsel. He spoke to Helaman first, and told him that he was going to entrust the spiritual and historical records of the Nephites and Jaredites into his hands. During Alma's explanation to his son of the great importance of these records, Alma said:

"behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise. And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls."

Alma's words were surely fulfilled. Some of the recorded material given to Helaman later became part of what we know today as "The Book of  Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ". This is a book of sacred scripture that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (commonly referred to as "Mormons") read alongside the Holy Bible. From this book, millions of people around the world have gained a testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ and a knowledge that God still speaks to His children today through a living prophet. This small and simple book has confounded the wise and brought about the salvation of many souls.



Through small and simple miracles, records of ancient prophets were preserved and became the Book of Mormon.

The doctrine that God brings about immense results through very small means is applicable to so many aspects of Christ's gospel. I have gained a testimony of this as I have involved myself with theometry. The rest of this blog post will show a few gospel relationships that teach the impact of small and simple numbers. If you don't want to learn all the math involved, you can still learn from what I will share by reading the rest of the text and looking at the graphs.

Knowledge and Intelligence

Since I have already talked a little bit about knowledge and intelligence, we will investigate this gospel relationship first. We can easily learn how these two attributes are related by looking in a dictionary. The Google dictionary defines intelligence as "the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills." In other words, the greater your intelligence, the faster you can learn.

Intelligence = Rate at which you can increase your knowledge

We can learn even more about the relation between these attributes by reading the scriptures. Doctrine and Covenants 88:40 teaches:

"For intelligence cleaveth unto intelligence; wisdom receiveth wisdom; truth embraceth truth; virtue loveth virtue; light cleaveth unto light"

The more intelligence, wisdom, truth, or light we have, the faster we can improve at these attributes. Since we can gain knowledge faster by having more knowledge, and since intelligence is our ability to acquire knowledge, an increase in knowledge results in an increase in intelligence.

Increase in knowledge = Increase in intelligence

Now it's time for some math. I will represent knowledge with the letter "K", intelligence with the letter "I", amount of effort being put into studying with the letter "S", and time with the letter "t". For notation, I will have "∝" mean "is proportional to", and adding a "d" before a variable will mean "a change in". For example, if I said "dK ∝ 2", that would mean "a change in knowledge proportional to two".

In order for someone to have an increase in knowledge of a certain amount (dK), they need to have some level of intelligence (I), some amount of effort being put into studying (S), and some time to have elapsed (dt). A formula to model this concept is:

 

We can model the fact that an increase in knowledge naturally leads to an increase in intelligence with the equation:

 

Substituting this equation into the one preceding it, we get:

I will now use calculus to solve for "I" (It's okay if you don't know calculus. Feel free to skip down to the graph of the function I will derive.) I will assume the rate of study is constant over time and will introduce arbitrary constants (c₁, c₂, c₃, c₄, & c₅):

 

Now, since a gain in knowledge yields a gain in intelligence, we can solve for "K"

 

Shown below is a graph of how knowledge or intelligence might change over time assuming a constant rate of studying:

 

Knowledge or Intelligence as a Function of Time



Why is mathematically modeling knowledge and intelligence useful? For me at least, visually seeing the enormous difference that putting forward the effort to gain knowledge can make is motivational. Seeing this graph helps me better understand my divine nature and scriptures such as Doctrine & Covenants 130:18-19:

"Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection. And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come."

Increasing doctrinal understanding is crucial because, as Boyd K. Packer taught:

"True doctrine, understood, changes attitudes and behavior (Ensign, "Little Children")."

I can bear my testimony that God's hand is found in everything. As we seek for Him in all that we do, He will reveal Himself in ways we may not have expected. Stay tuned for my future blog posts!

"By Small and Simple Numbers" is to be continued.

Check out my other blog that gives Mormon answers for life's great questions at mormonanswersforlife.blogspot.com

What in the World is Theometry?!

Theometry's Story
I grew up learning that math existed on one side of an imaginary fence and religion was on the other. I honestly thought of them as distinct subjects that were completely separate from each other and were not to be mixed. I knew they didn't contradict and were both useful to know. In fact, I felt strongly that they filled in each other's gaps. Yet, I never once thought during calculus class, "Wow, I wonder how this relates to God!" Nor did I ever think in Sunday School, "I wonder what Christ's Atonement can teach me about mathematics."

 

 

Not too long ago, I was serving a proselytizing mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (commonly nicknamed "the Mormons".) During my mission, I came to a stunning realization: God is a God of math! My lifelong mental separation of math and religion was merely a lack of understanding! I am quite the math nerd, and I am especially fond of mathematical modeling. (Mathematical modeling is making equations that describe real-life phenomena.) So, I quickly got to work making equations that describe gospel principles. I got a couple friends to help out. Since I had just discovered a new branch of mathematics, I just had to give it a classy name. After months of spinning the gears in my head, the perfect name came to me: THEOMETRY. "Theos" is Greek for god, and "-metry" is a Greek-derived suffix that means "to measure". Thus, "theometry" would be defined as the branch of mathematics that deals with measuring the things of God. (Not to mention, there is just a special ring about the word! It sounds like a mix between the words geometry and theology.)

I am learning so much great stuff from theometry, so I have wanted to share it with the world for over a year. A few nights ago, I had the brilliant idea of giving theometry its very own blog. I just know this blog is going to be revolutionary, so be sure to become a blog follower.

What in the World is Theometry?
I know your curiosity is now peaked. What in the world is theometry?! How do math and God go together? Is God really a God of math?
Theometry is everywhere. There are many different ways that math and God relate. To see what I mean, let's take a look at the holy scriptures.
The scriptures are packed full of relationships between different things. An equation is defined as a relationship between 2 or more things. Therefore, every time a relationship is established, it can be described with a math equation. Since religion and math are being blended, these equations fall under the scope of theometry.
As a simple example, the Book of Mormon (a book of LDS scripture that goes alongside the Holy Bible) states:
"Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil (2 Nephi 2:27)."
This verse teaches that we have the freedom to make choices. If we use our freedom wisely, our freedom will increase. Otherwise, our freedom will decrease. There is a clear relationship between our choices and our freedom. Thus, there must be an equation to describe how our choices and freedom relate. (In a later post, I will discuss the actual math behind this verse, but for now I just want to demonstrate that it contains math.)

I have figured out equations that model a significant number of gospel relationships. As I have done so, my testimony of the gospel's self-consistency and interrelatedness has grown significantly. More importantly, I have gained a greater understanding of how the gospel works. As I have made graphs for equations I have developed, I have been able to visually see the long-term effects of short-term choices. Viewing these results has drastically increased my drive to improve my actions. I have seen first-hand just how much good theometry can bring about.
Modeling gospel relationships is only the tip of the iceberg. As will be discussed in future blog posts, math can be used to analyze the scriptures' and modern-day prophets' literary structures, self-consistency, progression of civilizations, name derivations, and so on. Looking at scriptural writings from a mathematical perspective enables us to test their plausibility. Math can be used to determine the likelihood that life on this planet occurred by chance rather than having been created intentionally by a Divine Power. The possibilities are truly endless.

Is Theometry of the Devil?
As I have worked to develop theometry and have told some of my close friends about it, I have met a lot of resistance. As an example, one person told me that theometry is in complete opposition to the will of God. He argued that God wants us to live according to faith, not according to mathematical formulas. He further contended that it is a sin to try and measure God.
Is theometry really a sin? I do not believe it is. The scriptures teach us that "God created all things (Book of Mormon, Mosiah 4:9)." If this is true, did not God create math? The scriptures also teach that "all things...are made for the benefit and the use of man (Doctrine and Covenants 59:18)." We must conclude that God made math for our use and benefit. Any time that math is used to solve a real-world problem, one or more of God's creations are being measured. So, in a sense, one is measuring the things of God. If theometry really was a sin, then no math should be engaged in. However, as I already showed, God made math for our use and benefit. Furthermore, the scriptures teach that "all things which are good cometh of God (Book of Mormon, Moroni 7:12)." Engaging in theometry has done nothing but build my faith (contrary to what my one friend said would happen.) Is it not then of God?

Many incorrectly think that faith is completely blind. That notion is completely contrary to the Lord's teachings on faith found in Alma 32 and Hebrews 11. Yes, we need to take a step into the darkness, trusting that the Lord will take care of us if we follow Him. But, where does this trust come from? We gain the trust to follow God from the evidences we have seen up to that point. Faith is evidence-based belief that motivates us to act even when it is difficult. Therefore, seeing mathematical support for God will increase our faith if we are yielding our heart unto Him.

Stay Tuned
As I previously stated, I know this blog's future content will cause a paradigm shift. No reader of it will ever think about math and religion in the same way again. So, I am once again petitioning you to become a blog follower.

Be sure to check out my other blog that gives answers to life's tough questions at mormonanswersforlife.blogspot.com