The Mathematician Who Tried to Convince the Catholic Church of Two Infinities

It can be At the time lay people fled, but for some observers the ascension of Leo XIV as head of the Catholic Church this year was a reminder that the last time a Pope Leo sat in St. Peter’s Chair at the Vatican, from 1878 to 1903, the modern view of infinity was born. George CantorIts completely original “naive” set theory caused both revolution and revolt in mathematical circles, with some embracing its ideas and others rejecting them.

Cantor was deeply disappointed with the negative response, of course, but never with his own ideas. Why? Because he was firm in his belief that his one main line was absolute—that his ideas came directly Divine wisdom (divine intelligence). And, like Blues Brothers Jake and Elwood, that he was on a mission from God. So when he jumped on the mathematical community in 1883, he sought a new audience in the Catholic Church of Pope Leo XIII.

This was in Cantor’s later years, a time when he became depressed. I call what he developed Isaac Newton Complex: An obnoxious and pathological hatred of publication informed by the paranoid certainty that your contemporaries are going to sabotage you. Either they’re a bunch of backstabbing haters who are ignorant of your work, or, worse, they’re jealous of your talent and selfishly hate you because of it. (Newton himself stopped publication for years because of criticism of his early work.)

“My own inclinations do not prompt me to manifest,” Cantor wrote in 1887, echoing Newton two centuries earlier. “And I gladly leave this activity to others.”

Over the next several years, the cantor increasingly focused on new audiences and attempted to communicate with Catholic authorities. The 1880s was a time when the Catholic Church was becoming more interested in scientific discoveries than ever before. Leo XIII, who became Pope in 1878, took a special interest in science, especially cosmology. Science, he claims, is the way forward, and he maintains an astronomical observatory at the Vatican—the construction of which he personally oversaw. He equipped it with the best modern equipment and kept professional astronomers on staff.

Cantor thinks the Church has much to offer and much to give in return for that set theory. He wants the Catholic Church to be aware of his view because set theory is a way to understand the infinite nature of the divine—perhaps even the mind of God, as reflected in mathematics. Not worth that Considering?

It’s a hard sell.

Cantor shared his work at the Vatican Council with Cardinal Johannes Franzelin, one of the leading Jesuit theologians of his time. Franzelin wrote Cantor a letter on Christmas Day 1885, saying he was pleased with Cantor’s work. “What I like most,” he said, “is not hostile, but seems to be a favorable position toward Christianity and Catholic principles.” Having said that, Franzelin adds, Cantor’s ideas are probably not defensible and “in a certain sense, although the author doesn’t seem to have intended it, it would contain all sorts of errors.”