Tuesday, January 16, 2007

The Impossible Choice

If I asked a group of people to pick a decimal number between 0 and 1, how many do you think would choose a half, 0.5? At least a few right? But here's the interesting part, what is the actual mathematical probability that anyone would choose 0.5?


The probability of an event happening is defined as the number of times that event can happen in a given scenario (in this case just 1, for picking 0.5 when asked) divided by the total number of events that could result from that given scenario*. So how many numbers could be possible answers when people are asked to pick a decimal number between 0 and 1? If you've read my previous analogy "The Infinities", you would know that the answer is infinity, as there are infinitely many decimal numbers to choose from between 0 and 1 (0.1, 0.12, 0.123, etc.).

Thus the probability that someone would answer 0.5 is in fact 0 (1 over infinity) from the previous definition. Therefore, mathematics tells us that there is absolutely no chance that someone would pick 0.5. However, as agreed before, surely someone would pick 0.5. It would seem then that anyone could achieve the mathematically impossible just by choosing the obvious answer.

And isn't that is exactly the type of faith that God asks of us? One that fails to be defined by the realm of possibilities, making choices that seemingly require us to achieve the impossible. Forgiveness over vengeance, service over status, selfless-ness over self-centred-ness, purity over sin, faith over doubt. But God tells us that by choosing Christ, the obvious choice, each and everyone of us shall achieve those and other impossibly great things with God, through God, and for God.

All you have to do, is pick 0.5.

*for the mathematically inclined, the correct term for an event is outcome, and the proper term for scenario is event. The original math terms seemed a little counter intuitive, so I changed them.

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