I just came across this article which is in part about Charles Babbage and his attempts to support the idea that God was a mathematician.-http://thonyc.wordpress.com/2014/12/26/christmas-trilogy-part-2-computing-mathematical-miracles/-It is surprising how these otherwise rational people like Babbage and Whewell could be diverted from their scientific work to try to justify their religious beliefs. Or were his arguments just tongue in cheek? This was before Darwin of course. -I suppose they were swept along by the Zeitgeist, just as later in the century many otherwise scientific thinkers were diverted by Spiritualism.