Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), a Protestant in Germany, built on Copernicus's work and discovered that planets orbited the sun in elliptical rather than perfectly circular orbits. Kepler was a brilliant mathematician, astronomer and devout Christian who cited God many times in all of his writings. He felt it was his Christian duty to understand the creation of God, the universe. He also felt that man, being in the image of God, was fully capable of understanding the universe. Like Plato and Pythagoras, Kepler felt that God must have created the universe according to a mathematical plan.
Kepler overcame an enormous obstacle to become a great scientist, as he suffered from an attack of smallpox when he was only four years old. The disease left him with poor eyesight and crippled hands for the rest of his life. However, Kepler went on to propose three laws of planetary motion, known as Kepler's Laws, which later helped Newton formulate the theory of gravity. One of these laws described how the planets have elliptical orbits with the sun at one focus of each ellipse.
Kepler wrote in book five of his work, "The Harmonies of the World,":
"O, Almighty God, I am thinking Thy thoughts after Thee! ... The book is written, to be read either now or by posterity, I care not which. It may be well to wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer."
Kepler compared the celestial orbits of the planets with polyphonic harmonies in music. He wrote:
"Holy Father, keep us safe in the concord of our love for one another, that we may be one just as Thou art with Thy Son, Our Lord, and with the Holy Ghost, and just as through the sweetest bonds of harmonies Thou hast made all Thy works one; and that from the bringing of Thy people into concord, the body of Thy Church may be built up in the Earth, as Thou didst erect the heavens themselves out of harmonies."
