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ABDUS SALAM – NOBEL LAUREATE IN PHYSICS

Nobel Prize: Abdus Salam (1926-1996) was awarded the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in electroweak theory, which explains the unity of the weak nuclear force and electromagnetism; this theory is the latest stage in the effort to provide a unified description of the four fundamental forces of nature.

Nationality: Pakistani

Education: Ph.D. in mathematics and physics, Cambridge University, 1952

Occupation: Professor of Theoretical Physics at London University and Punjab University (Pakistan); Director of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste (Italy) since 1964

1. Abdus Salam concludes his address ‘Poor as a Nation’ with the words: “Our society is inflicted with menaces like mountains. Try to remove them from your surroundings with patience. God will have mercy on you one day. Do not be afraid if your endeavours don’t bear fruit, but keep on doing your job and God will indeed bless your efforts.” (Salam 1990).

2. In an interview for the New Scientist (August 26, 1976) Abdus Salam says: “Every human being needs religion, as Jung has so firmly argued; this deeper religious feeling is one of the primary urges of mankind.” (Salam 1976).

3. In physics, Prof. Salam has mostly been involved with the problem of symmetries; he explains his interest in the following way:

“That may come from my Islamic heritage; for that is the way we consider the universe created by God, with ideas of beauty and symmetry and harmony, with regularity and without chaos.

We are trying to discover what the Lord thought; of course we miserably fail most of the time, but sometimes there is great satisfaction in seeing a little bit of the truth.” (Salam 1976; New Scientist).

4. In his article Science and Religion Prof. Salam wrote:

“Einstein was born into an Abrahamic faith; in his own view, he was deeply religious.

Now this sense of wonder leads most scientists to a Superior Being – der Alte, the Old One, as Einstein affectionately called the Deity – a Superior Intelligence, the Lord of all Creation and Natural Law.” (Salam, as cited in Lai and Kidwai 1989, 285).

KIM DAE-JUNG – NOBEL PEACE PRIZE LAUREATE

Nobel Prize: The President of South Korea, Kim Dae-jung (1924-2009) was awarded the 2000 Nobel Prize for his struggle for democracy and human rights in South Korea (and in East Asia in general), and for his efforts to ensure peace and reconciliation with North Korea in particular. Kim Dae-jung has been called the “Nelson Mandela of Asia”.

Nationality: South Korean

Education: Graduate certificate from Kyunghee University, Seoul; Ph.D. in Political Science from the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Moscow, 1992

Occupation: President of South Korea (1997-2003)

1. In his Nobel Lecture (Oslo, December 10, 2000; Les Prix Nobel 2000), Kim Dae-jung said:

“Allow me to say a few words on a personal note. Five times I faced near death at the hands of dictators, six years I spent in prison, and forty years I lived under house arrest or in exile and under constant surveillance. I could not have endured the hardship without the support of my people and the encouragement of fellow democrats around the world. The strength also came from deep personal beliefs.

I have lived, and continue to live, in the belief that God is always with me. I know this from experience. In August of 1973, while exiled in Japan, I was kidnapped from my hotel room in Tokyo by intelligence agents of the then military government of South Korea. The news of the incident startled the world. The agents took me to their boat at anchor along the seashore. They tied me up, blinded me, and stuffed my mouth. Just when they were about to throw me overboard, Jesus Christ appeared before me with such clarity. I clung to him and begged him to save me. At that very moment, an airplane came down from the sky to rescue me from the moment of death.” (Kim Dae-jung 2000).

2. In a letter to his son, written in prison (November 24, 1980) Kim Dae-jung wrote:

“Only the truly magnanimous and strong are capable of forgiving and loving. Let us persevere, then, praying always that God will help us to have the strength to love and forgive our enemies. Let us together, in this way, become the loving victors.” (Kim Dae-jung, Prison Writings, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1987, 6).

3. In his Philadelphia Liberty Medal Acceptance Speech (July 4, 1999), Kim Dae-jung said:

“I have had a life-long pilgrimage toward freedom. Along the journey, certain forces have sustained me.

The first is the Christ that I believe in. He gave his life upon the Holy Cross for the rights of the oppressed people of Israel. He taught us how to be free in spirit.

He also told us to follow him bearing the cross as he had, if we willed to be his disciples. The cross was my training toward freedom.

I still remember the experience in 1980. I had been sentenced to death. I was waiting for execution day in the army prison. My wife and children came to visit me. We all prayed to God in tears. We cried together.

But no one in my family told me to compromise with the military dictatorship. They all encouraged me to keep my faith in God, and in freedom.” (Kim Dae-jung 1999).

4. “The future of mankind belongs to liberty. When we side with liberty, we are with God who implanted the love of liberty in all of us. When we side with liberty, we enhance our own dignity.” (Kim Dae-jung 1999).

5. In 1980 Kim Dae-jung wrote: “Love of God does not mean we must love Him first. Rather, He loved us first, creating the world and leaving it in our care, sending His only son to us to spread the gospel, and, finally, opening the way for us to deliver ourselves from sin through the crucifixion of His innocent son, Jesus. Through Jesus’ resurrection, God gave us hope for eternal life. God is with you at this very moment. He loves you, and He creates the good for you from all the right and wrong in your life when you genuinely believe in and obey Him.” (From a letter to his son, written in prison; see Kim Dae-jung, Prison Writings, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987).

6. In a letter to his children (January 29, 1981, Prison Writings) Kim Dae-jung wrote: “Every time I think of the days you have all spent in anguish and suffering, particularly when I think about Hong-il, who is still being held in prison, pain and anguish fill my heart. My love for all of you is strong. I have determined to be a good father, the father of a blissful family. And yet I have caused you great pain and torment. In deep remorse, I can only pray to Jesus every day that your trials will in the end lead to some good.” (Kim Dae-jung 1987, 20).

7. In his Address at a Joint Meeting of the United States Congress (June 10, 1998, Washington, D.C.) the President Kim Dae-jung said:

“In 1973, I was kidnapped in Tokyo and taken onto a ship.

Bound and gagged, I was about to be thrown overboard.

But, as only someone who has brushed up to death’s door can know, I saw Jesus Christ near me.

I prayed for my life.

And I truly believe God saved me.” (Kim Dae-jung 1998b).

HERMANN HESSE – NOBEL LAUREATE IN LITERATURE

Nobel Prize: Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) was granted the 1946 Nobel Prize in Literature “for his inspired writings, which while growing in boldness and penetration, exemplify the classical humanitarian ideals and high qualities of style.”

Nationality: German; later Swiss citizen

Education: Educated at the Grammar School in Cannstadt and the Maulbronn Theological Seminary, Germany

Occupation: Novelist and poet

1. Hesse expressed his attitude towards God in a conversation with his friend Miguel Serrano:

“You should let yourself be carried away, like the clouds in the sky. You shouldn’t resist. God exists in your destiny just as much as he does in these mountains and in that lake. It is very difficult to understand this, because man is moving further and further away from Nature, and also from himself.” (Hesse, as cited in Miguel Serrano, C.G. Jung and Hermann Hesse: A Record of Two Friendships, 1966, 10).

2. “The fact that people think they have their life on loan from God and do not want to use it egotistically, but, on the contrary, they want to live it as service and sacrifice to God, this experience and legacy, the greatest one, from my childhood has had an extremely powerful influence on my life.” (Hesse 1972, 59).

3. “When you are close to Nature you can listen to the voice of God.” (Hesse, as cited in Serrano 1966, 10).

4. “Christianity, one not preached but lived, was the strongest of the powers that shaped and moulded me.” (Hesse, as cited in Gellner 1997, Vol. 1).

5. “If one does not take the verses of the New Testament as being commandments, but as expressions of an extraordinary awareness of the secrets of our soul, then the wisest word ever spoken is: ‘Love thy neighbour as thyself.’ ” (Hesse, as cited in Gellner 1997, Vol. 1).

6. “For different people, there are different ways to God, to the center of the world. Yet the actual experience itself is always the same.” (Hesse, as cited in Gellner 1997, Vol. 1).

7. “The road to piety may be a different one for everyone. For me, it led through many blunders and great suffering, through a great deal of self-torment, through tremendous foolishness, jungles full of foolishness. I was a liberal spirit and knew that sanctimonious piety was an illness of the soul. I was an ascetic and drove nails into my flesh. I didn’t know that being religious meant health and cheerfulness.” (Hesse, as cited in Gellner 1997, Vol. 1).

SIR JOSEPH J. THOMSON (1856-1940), Nobel Laureate in Physics, discoverer of the electron, founder of atomic physics

1. J.J. Thomson’s inaugural presidential address to the British Association is published in the prominent scientific journal Nature (26 August 1909). Sir Joseph concludes his address with the words:

“As we conquer peak after peak we see in front of us regions full of interest and beauty, but we do not see our goal, we do not see the horizon; in the distance tower still higher peaks, which will yield to those who ascend them still wider prospects, and deepen the feeling, the truth of which is emphasized by every advance in science, that ‘Great are the Works of the Lord’.” (Thomson 1909, Nature, vol. 81, p. 257).

2. Sir Owen Richardson (Nobelist in Physics, 1928) described his teacher and friend J.J. Thomson thus: “He was sincerely religious, a churchman with a dislike for Anglo-Catholicism, a regular communicant, who every day knelt in private prayer, a habit known only to Lady Thomson until near the end of his life.” (Richardson 1970, “Sir Joseph J. Thomson”, in The Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, p. 862).

3. In his biographical article “J.J. Thomson, Anglican,” in the journal Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, Raymond Seeger (NSF) points out: “As a Professor, J.J. Thomson did attend the Sunday evening college chapel service, and as Master, the morning service. He was a regular communicant in the Anglican Church. In addition, he showed an active interest in the Trinity Mission at Camberwell. With respect to his private devotional life, J.J. Thomson would invariably practice kneeling for daily prayer, and read his Bible before retiring each night. He truly was a practicing Christian!” (Seeger 1986, 132).

GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ (1646-1716), German mathematician and philosopher, founder of Infinitesimal Calculus

Leibniz invented the Differential and Integral Calculus (simultaneously with Newton).

1. In his central philosophical work The Monadology (1714), Leibniz wrote: “In God there is Power, which is the source of all, also Knowledge, whose content is the variety of the ideas, and finally Will, which makes changes or products according to the principle of the best.” (Leibniz 1898, No. 48).

2. “God is absolutely perfect, for perfection is nothing but amount of positive reality, in the strict sense, leaving out of account the limits or bounds in things which are limited. And where there are no bounds, that is to say in God, perfection is absolutely infinite.

It follows also that created beings derive their perfections from the influence of God, but that their imperfections come from their own nature, which is incapable of being without limits. For it is in this that they differ from God.” (Leibniz 1898, No. 41-42).

3. “God alone is the primary unity or original simple substance, of which all created or derivative Monads are products and have their birth, so to speak, through continual fulgurations of the Divinity from moment to moment, limited by the receptivity of the created being, of whose essence it is to have limits.” (Leibniz 1898, No. 47).

DESMOND TUTU – NOBEL PEACE PRIZE LAUREATE

Nobel Prize: The Professor of Theology, Desmond Tutu (born 1931) received the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the opposition to apartheid in South Africa.

Nationality: South African

Education: Master’s degree in Theology, King’s College, London, 1966

Occupation: Professor of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, USA (1999-present); General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches (1978); Anglican archbishop of Cape Town (1986)

1. In his Nobel Lecture (11 December 1984, Les Prix Nobel 1984) Desmond Tutu said:

“When will we learn that human beings are of infinite value because they have been created in the image of God, and that it is a blasphemy to treat them as if they were less than this and to do so ultimately recoils on those who do this? In dehumanizing others, they are themselves dehumanized. Perhaps oppression dehumanizes the oppressor as much as, if not more than, the oppressed.

God calls us to be fellow workers with Him, so that we can extend His Kingdom of shalom, of justice, of goodness, of compassion, of caring, of sharing, of laughter, joy and reconciliation, so that the kingdoms of this world will become the Kingdom of our God and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever. Amen.” (Tutu 1985, 246).

2. To the question, “If there is a God, why do so many suffer all their lives and why do so many people hate each other based on their color?” Desmond Tutu replied:

“In the end, it is a tremendous tribute to us that our God is not one who keeps intervening, jumping in. Because God has given us an incredible gift – the gift of being able to make choices.

He’s like a parent. The parents often see their child, who they dearly love, is going to make a wrong decision. The good parent is one who is going to allow you to make that decision, because that is how you’re going to learn how to grow.

It isn’t that God does nothing. It is that God respects us and says, ‘If you’re going to be persons and not robots, then you’re going to have to be free, you’re going to have the space to choose. The reality of your freedom is judged by the fact that I let you be free even to choose to reject Me, to choose the wrong.’ We have to live with the consequences of those choices. God still does not abandon us! Jesus Christ died ultimately as the prize of God’s caring for us, when we got ourselves into the mess we’re in.” (Tutu 1995).

3. “The God that I worship is the one revealed by Jesus. Jesus is a kind of window into the character of God. That is a God who is life-affirming, who opposes anything that undermines the integrity of anybody.” (Tutu 1995).

4. “The God that I worship is a strange God. Because it is God who is omnipotent, all-powerful, but he is also God who is weak. An extraordinary paradox: that it is God, a God of justice, who wants to see justice in the world. But because God has such a deep reverence for our freedoms all over the place, God will not intervene, like sending lightning bolts to dispatch of all despots. God waits for God’s partners: us.

God has a dream. God has a dream of a world that is different, a world in which you and I care for one another because we belong in one family. And I want to make an appeal on behalf of God. God says, ‘Can you help me realize my dream? My dream of a world that is more caring, a world that is more compassionate, a world that says people matter more than things. People matter more than profits. That is my dream,’ says God. ‘Will you please help me realize my dream, and I have nobody, except you’.” (Tutu 1998).

5. In his sermon delivered on September 11, 2002, at the Washington National Cathedral, Desmond Tutu said:

“Dear friends, in many ways, it is to say we, all of us, are vulnerable, fragile. For vulnerability is of the essence of creaturehood. Only God is ultimately invincible.

The Bible has wonderful images of God holding back the waters of chaos that seek to overwhelm. God holding back the desert that seeks to take over the arable land. For it is only because God restrains the forces of evil that you and I are able to be at all.

And the Bible has this incredible image of you, of I, of all of us, each one, held as something precious, fragile in the palms of God’s hands. And that you and I exist only because God forever is blowing God’s breath into our being. And we exist only because God keeps us in being. Otherwise, we would disintegrate into the nothingness, the oblivion, from which God’s fiat has brought us.” (Tutu 2002).

6. “The powers of darkness, of evil and of destruction had done their worst, they had killed the Lord of life himself. But that death was not the end. That death was the beginning of a glorious life, the resurrection life. That death was the death of death itself – for Jesus Christ lives for ever and ever.” (Desmond Tutu, The Rainbow People of God, New York, Image Books, 1996, 18).

7. “God created us for fellowship. God created us so that we should form the human family, existing together because we were made for one another. We are not made for an exclusive self-sufficiency but for interdependence.” (Tutu 1985, 246).

8. In his open letter to the Prime Minister of the Apartheid Government of South Africa, B. J. Vorster (May 6, 1976), Desmond Tutu wrote:

“I am writing to you as one human person to another human person, gloriously created in the image of the selfsame God, redeemed by the selfsame Son of God who for all our sakes died on the Cross and rose triumphant from the dead and reigns in glory now at the right hand of the Father; sanctified by the selfsame Holy Spirit who works inwardly in all of us to change our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. I am, therefore, writing to you, Sir, as one Christian to another, for through our common baptism we have been made members of and are united in the Body of our dear Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. This Jesus Christ, whatever we may have done, has broken down all that separates us irrelevantly – such as race, sex, culture, status, etc. In this Jesus Christ we are forever bound together as one redeemed humanity, black and white together.” (Desmond Tutu, The Rainbow People of God, NY, Image Books, 1996, 7).

9. Desmond Tutu’s favourite prayer is the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi:

“Lord, make me a channel of Thy peace

that where there is hatred, I may bring love,

that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness,

that where there is discord, I may bring harmony,

that where there is error, I may bring truth,

that where there is doubt, I may bring faith,

that where there is despair, I may bring hope,

that where there are shadows, I may bring light,

that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather

to comfort than to be comforted,

to understand than to be understood,

to love than to be loved.

For it is by self-forgetting that one finds,

it is by forgiving that one is forgiven,

it is by dying that one awakens to eternal life. Amen.”

(Desmond Tutu, The Rainbow People of God, New York, Image Books, 1996, 13; see also Les Prix Nobel 1979).

JEAN-PAUL SARTRE – NOBEL LAUREATE IN LITERATURE

Nobel Prize: Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) won the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature “for his work which, rich in ideas and filled with the spirit of freedom and the quest for truth, has exerted a far-reaching influence on our age.” Sartre declined the prize.

Nationality: French

Education: Doctorate in Philosophy, Ecole Normale Superieure, France, 1929

Occupation: Professor at Lycee du Havre, Lycee de Laon, Lycee Pasteur de Neuilly-sur-Seine, and Lycee Condorcet; Editor, Les Temps Modernes, Paris, (1944-1980)

1. In his lecture Existentialism Is a Humanism (1946) Sartre described his atheistic existentialism thus:

“Dostoevsky said, ‘If God didn’t exist, everything would be possible!’ That is the very starting point of existentialism. Indeed, everything is permissible if God does not exist, and as a result man is forlorn, because neither within him nor without does he find anything to cling to. He can’t start making excuses for himself. In other words, there is no determinism, man is free, man is freedom.

On the other hand, if God does not exist, we find no values or commands to turn to which legitimize our conduct. So, in the bright realm of values, we have no excuse behind us, nor justification before us. We are alone, with no excuses.” (Sartre 1957, 22-23; see also Sartre 1988, 78).

2. “First of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself. If man, as the existentialist conceives him, is indefinable, it is because at first he is nothing. Only afterward will he be something, and he himself will have made what he will be. Thus, there is no human nature, since there is no God to conceive it.” (Sartre 1957, 15-16; see also Sartre 1988, 75).

3. Nevertheless, Sartre underwent a very surprising change of mind towards the end of his life; in fact, he came very close to theistic commitment. The magazine National Review (June 11, 1982) reported it thus:

“Throughout his mature career, the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre was a militant atheist. Politically, although he quarreled with Marxist materialism, his rhetoric was often indistinguishable from the most heavy-handed Stalinist boiler-plate.

However, during the philosopher’s last months there were some surprising developments. In 1980, nearing his death, by then blind, decrepit, but still in full possession of his faculties, Sartre came very close to belief in God, perhaps even more than very close.

The story can be told briefly, and perhaps reverently. An ex-Maoist, Pierre Victor, shared much of Sartre’s time toward the end. In the early spring of 1980 the two had a dialogue in the pages of the ultra-gauchiste Nouvel Observateur. It is sufficient to quote a single sentence from what Sartre said then to measure the degree of his acceptance of the grace of God and the creatureliness of man:

‘I do not feel that I am the product of chance, a speck of dust in the universe, but someone who was expected, prepared, prefigured. In short, a being whom only a Creator could put here; and this idea of a creating hand refers to God.’

Students of existentialism, the atheistic branch, will note that in this one sentence Sartre disavowed his entire system, his engagements, his whole life.

ISAAC SINGER – NOBEL LAUREATE IN LITERATURE

Nobel Prize: Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904–1991) won the 1978 Nobel Prize in Literature “for his impassioned narrative art which, with roots in a Polish-Jewish cultural tradition, brings universal human conditions to life.”

Nationality: Polish; later American citizen

Education: Traditional Jewish education at the Warsaw Rabbinical Seminary

Occupation: Novelist, essayist, and journalist

1. In his Nobel Lecture (8 December 1978, Les Prix Nobel 1978) Singer said:

“I can never accept the idea that the Universe is a physical or chemical accident, a result of blind evolution. Even though I learned to recognize the lies, the cliches and the idolatries of the human mind, I still cling to some truths which I think all of us might accept some day. There must be a way for man to attain all possible pleasures, all the powers and knowledge that nature can grant him, and still serve God - a God who speaks in deeds, not in words, and whose vocabulary is the Cosmos.” (Singer 1979).

2. “I’m a sceptic. I’m a sceptic about making a better world. When it comes to this business where you tell me that this-or-that regime, one sociological order or another, will bring happiness to people, I know that it will never work, call it by any name you want. People will remain people, and they have remained people under communism and all other kinds of ‘isms.’

But I’m not a sceptic when it comes to belief in God. I do believe. I always did. That there is a plan, a consciousness behind creation, that it’s not an accident.” (Singer, as cited in The Brothers Singer by Clive Sinclair, London, Allison and Busby, 1983, p. 30).

3. In his last interview (1987) Singer stated:

“God is behind everything. Even when we do things against him, he’s also there. No matter what. Like a father who sees his children doing a lot of silly things, bad things. He’s angry with them, he’s punishing them. At the same time, they’re his children.” (Singer, as cited in Green 1998).

4. “Man prays for mercy, but is unwilling to extend it to others. Why should man then expect mercy from God? It’s unfair to expect something that you are not willing to give. It is inconsistent.” (Singer, as cited in Rosen 1987).

5. “The serious writer of our time must be deeply concerned about the problems of his generation. He cannot but see that the power of religion, especially belief in revelation, is weaker today than it was in any other epoch in human history. More and more children grow up without faith in God, without belief in reward and punishment, in the immortality of the soul and even in the validity of ethics. The genuine writer cannot ignore the fact that the family is losing its spiritual foundation.

All the dismal prophecies of Oswald Spengler have become realities since the Second World War. No technological achievements can mitigate the disappointment of modern man, his loneliness, his feeling of inferiority, and his fear of war, revolution and terror. Not only has our generation lost faith in Providence but also in man himself, in his institutions and often in those who are nearest to him.” (Singer 1979).

6. “The material world is a combination of seeing and blindness. The blindness we call Satan. If we would become all seeing, we would not have free choice anymore. Because, if we would see God, if we would see His greatness, there would be no temptation or sin. And since God wanted us to have free will this means that Satan, in other words the principle of evil, must exist. Because what does free choice mean? It means the freedom to choose between good and evil. If there is no evil, there is no freedom.” (Singer, as cited in Farrell 1976, 157).

7. “Life is God’s novel. Let him write it.” (Singer, as cited in Moraes 1975).

RENE DESCARTES (1596-1650), founder of Analytical Geometry and Modern Philosophy

1. In the beginning of his Meditations (1641) Descartes wrote:

“I have always been of the opinion that the two questions respecting God and the Soul were the chief of those that ought to be determined by help of Philosophy rather than of Theology; for although to us, the faithful, it be sufficient to hold as matters of faith, that the human soul does not perish with the body, and that God exists, it yet assuredly seems impossible ever to persuade infidels of the reality of any religion, or almost even any moral virtue, unless, first of all, those two things be proved to them by natural reason. And since in this life there are frequently greater rewards held out to vice than to virtue, few would prefer the right to the useful, if they were restrained neither by the fear of God nor the expectation of another life.” (Descartes 1901).

2. “It is absolutely true that we must believe in God, because it is also taught by the Holy Scriptures. On the other hand, we must believe in the Sacred Scriptures because they come from God.” (Descartes 1950, Letter of Dedication).

3. “And thus I very clearly see that the certitude and truth of all science depends on the knowledge alone of the true God, insomuch that, before I knew him, I could have no perfect knowledge of any other thing. And now that I know him, I possess the means of acquiring a perfect knowledge respecting innumerable matters, as well relative to God himself and other intellectual objects as to corporeal nature.” (Descartes 1901, Meditation V).

JOHANNES KEPLER (1571-1630), founder of Physical Astronomy and Modern Optics

1. “O Thou, who through the light of nature increasest in us the longing for the light of Thy Grace that through it we may come to the light of Thy majesty, I give Thee thanks, Creator and God, that Thou hast given me this joy in Thy creation, and I rejoice in the works of Thy hands.” (Kepler, as cited in Beer and Beer 1975, 526).

2. “The World of Nature, the World of Man, the World of God - all three fit together. We see how God, like a human architect approached the founding of the world according to order and rule, and measured everything in such a manner.” (Kepler, as cited in Tiner 1977, 172).

3. “Since we astronomers are priests of the highest God in regard to the book of nature, it befits us to be thoughtful, not of the glory of our minds, but rather, above all else, of the glory of God.” (Kepler, as cited in Morris 1982, 11; see also Graves 1996, 51).