10 Quotes by Johannes Kepler Exalting the “Stupendous Miracles of God”

Johannes Kepler – the famed German astronomer – passed away 386 years ago today, on November 15, 1630. He calculated planetary orbits in great detail through careful observation and painstaking mathematical modeling.

Read the works of Kepler, and his reverence for his Creator shines through. Observing celestial bodies left Kepler in awe of the “stupendous miracles of God” and caused him to praise the Lord. Allegedly, he once said that “I was merely thinking God’s thoughts after him.”

Although Kepler had theological differences with the Lutheran Church in Germany, he still maintained “a deep love for Christ and the inspiration and authority of Scripture,” observed the Institute on Creation Research.

May we, like Kepler, join the Psalmist in singing out when we consider God’s magnificent handiwork in the skies: “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (Psalm 8, ESV) Here are ten quotes from Kepler that exalt God’s glory as demonstrated through astronomy:

1) “The wisdom of the Lord is infinite as are also His glory and His power. Ye heavens, sing His praises; sun, moon, and planets, glorify Him in your ineffable language! Praise Him, celestial harmonies, and all ye who can comprehend them! And thou, my soul, praise thy Creator! It is by Him and in Him that all exist.”

2) “The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order and harmony which has been imposed on it by God and which He revealed to us in the language of mathematics.”

3) “I wanted to become a theologian; for a long time I was unhappy. Now, behold, God is praised by my work even in astronomy.”

4) “I give thanks to You, Lord Creator, because You have lured me into the enjoyment of Your work, and I have exulted in the works of Your hands: behold, now I have consummated the work to which I pledged myself, using all the abilities You gave me… [If] I have been drawn by the admirable beauty of Your works into indiscretion, or if I have pursued my own glory among men while engaged in a work intended for Your glory, be merciful, be compassionate, and forgive.”

5) “If there is anything that can bind the heavenly mind of man to this dreary exile of our earthly home and can reconcile us with our fate so that one can enjoy living, then it is verily the enjoyment of the mathematical sciences and astronomy.”

6) “Can I find God, who in the contemplation of the entire universe I can almost feel in my hands, also in myself?”

7) “See, I cast the die, and I write the book. Whether it is to be read by the people of the present or of the future makes no difference: let it await its reader for a hundred years, if God himself has stood ready for six thousand years for one to study him.”

8) “I consider it a right, yes, a duty, to search in a cautious manner for the number, sizes and weights, the norms of everything He has created. … For these secrets are not of the kind whose research should be forbidden; rather, they are set before our eyes like a mirror so that by examining them we observe to some extent the goodness and wisdom of the Creator.”

9) “The Creator, the fountain of all wisdom, the approver of perpetual order, the eternal and superessential spring of geometry and harmonics.”

10) “The heavenly bodies are nothing but a continuous song for several voices, perceived by the intellect, not by the ear, a music which, through discordant tensions, through syncopations and cadenzas, as it were, progress toward certain predesigned six-voiced cadences, and thereby sets landmarks in the immeasurable flow of time. It is, therefore, no longer surprising that man, in imitation of his Creator, has at last discovered the art of figured song, which was unknown to the ancients. Man wanted to reproduce the continuity of cosmic time within a short hour, by artful symphony for several voices, to obtain a sample test of the delight of the Divine Creator in His works, and to partake of His joy by making music in the imitation of God.”