W
hen discussing the heliocentric (sun-centered) view of the universe, the brilliant astronomer Johannes Kepler wrote,
For in the sphere, which is the image of God the Creator and the Archetype of the world … there are three regions, symbols of the three persons of the Holy Trinity—the center, a symbol of the Father; the surface, of the Son; and the intermediate space, of the Holy Ghost.
In other words, he saw an analogy for the Trinity in his theory of the universe. The sun represented God the Father, the sphere of stars at the edge of the universe represented God the Son, and the space in between represented God the Holy Spirit. Why does Kepler make such a statement in a work of science? Because it was a necessary step in developing his theory. He wanted to understand how the planets and stars moved in the heavens, but before he could go into the details, he had to provide the big picture that encapsulated his entire theory. The fact that the heavens represented the nature of their Creator gave him a guiding principle that he could then use to understand the details of how the heavens worked. As a result, he was able to come up with what we now call Kepler's Laws, which are still considered an accurate description of how the planets move in the solar system. Where did Kepler get this guiding principle? It wasn't from a collection of data. It wasn't from the work of a previous scientist. It was from his imagination. Kepler imagined that God would imprint His very nature into the structure of the universe, and as a result, Kepler was able to revolutionize the way astronomers understood the heavens. If you take the time to read the great scientists of the past, you will see that their imaginations were critical to their work. Archimedes imagined the surface of each body of water to be the surface of a sphere, because he knew the Earth was a sphere. As a result, he was able to use geometry to derive his Law of the Lever and his principle of buoyancy. Blaise Pascal imagined the atmosphere as a weight that was pushing down on all things it touched. He then described an experiment to his brother-in-law that would determine whether or not he was correct. Because his brother-in-law performed the experiment, we now know that the atmosphere exerts pressure, and we also 52
Science and Imagination
SCIENCE AND IMAGINATION BY DR. JAY WILE
MemoriaPress.com
