All too often we view our standard of measuring the world around us in isolation from that external world. Far too often our desire for ease of calculation can inhibit our understanding of the world around us by cutting us off from an understanding of how the world is put together. Our desire to escape the influence of creation and its Creator leads us to seek to measure and understand our world in a vacuum where we decide our own standards rather than accepting an external set of standards.

It is easy to forget that standards of measurement like the inch or cubit themselves invoke a deeper and more significant understanding of our world. An inch, for example, is related to the length of a thumb, and the cubit to the distance from the elbow to the end of the middle finger. All of this seems quaint and a bit variable (given our dimensions), but there is at the same time a more fundamental measure of distance relating to our world in these measures, including a polar cubit of 25 polar inches (and a polar inch and an English inch are nearly identical). It would suggest therefore, that in addition to pointing to our own status as created beings that our standard measurements point us in addition to an understanding of the physical universe in which we live [1].

This has implications which are difficult to ignore. For example, it would mean that our measurements are more than simply arbitrary in nature, but that they share a deeper underlying reality. By mastering a proper standard of measurement we gain a grasp of the world and universe in which we live. It gives our measuring and mathematics a sense of external reality and importance that is lacked when we view questions of calculation and measurement as being a closed system with no larger relevance or importance. One of the greatest barriers to mathematical understanding is the belief that it is entirely useless to one’s life outside of schooling. This need not be the case.

Of course, there is a great deal of politics that is involved with standards of measurements as well. The relentlessly decimal metric system of measurement springs from one of mankind’s many unsuccessful experiments in rationalism, the French Revolution. The goal behind the SI is fairly straightforward–an easy to calculate unified system of measurement around the world that can help unite people to calculate the same way, but in a way that it arbitrary and man-made rather than reflecting a harmony and agreement with our status being being part of Creation [2]. It is therefore no wonder that those disciplines that most wish to claim a godlike status for themselves have been the most apt to use such a system of measurement that frees us from natural constraints as well as customs from a past we desire to escape rather than to understand.

Therefore, like so much else in life, our standard of measurement is not simply an isolated question but is connected with a much greater worldview. Do we consider ourselves the arbiters of our world, or do we consider ourselves as under judgment. Do we desire to rule despotically over the world and to throw away the accumulated lessons of our past, or do we desire to greater understand the connection between those traditions and some underlying reality of our world and universe, showing ourselves to be a part of a much greater purpose and plan? That is what we decide when we support one system of measurement over another. May we choose wisely.

[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/05/05/book-review-gods-time-capsule/

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_system