Product Description
Why is the cosmos intellectually accessible to the human mind?
A host of philosophers, theologians, scientists, and mathematicians of the Great Western Tradition have been struck by the uncanny interconnection between three fundamentally distinct domains of reality: nature, mathematics, and the human mind. This resonance has been discussed since antiquity and often attributed to a transcendent rational source of both material and immaterial aspects of reality.
Johannes Kepler, a devout Christian who was greatly influenced by this intellectual tradition, was instrumental in transforming classical astronomy into a true celestial physics. He was convinced that a tripartite harmony of archetype, copy, and image explained the interconnections that made his natural philosophy possible—that allowed him to share in God’s own thoughts. Rather than being diminished by the past few centuries of scientific progress, Keplerian natural theology is a more robust explanation of cosmic comprehensibility than ever before.
About the Author
Melissa Cain Travis received her PhD in Humanities (Philosophy) from Faulkner University and MA in Science and Religion from Biola University. She teaches graduate courses in the history and philosophy of science as well as the apologetics of C. S. Lewis. She is the author of Science and the Mind of the Maker and a senior writer at the Worldview Bulletin. Dr. Travis is a Fellow of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture and she lectures at universities, seminaries, and churches around the country.
“In a work of marvelous intellectual and historical retrieval, Dr. Travis has lucidly explained the great Kepler’s significance for the philosophy of science and the philosophy of religion. Those interested in these disciplines as well as in the ongoing project of natural theology and Christian apologetics will be richly rewarded by Thinking God’s Thoughts.”
– Douglas Groothuis , PhD.
Professor of Philosophy, Denver Seminary
Author of Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith, 2nd ed. (IVP Academic, 2022)
“More than 400 years ago astronomer Johannes Kepler answered a question that still bothered Stephen Hawking: “what is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?” This new book by Melissa Cain Travis masterfully explores the development of these thoughts from ancient Greece to the fathers of modern quantum mechanics and shows how the natural philosophy of Johannes Kepler addressed those deep questions that are still confounding the greatest modern scientists from Einstein to Hawking: why is the cosmos comprehensible for us humans at all, and why can it be described so successfully with simple and elegant mathematical laws? The topic of Thinking God’s Thoughts resonates deeply with the development of my own thought, as I was very much moved by the strange relationship between abstract mathematics and the physical world as well as the argument from reason. In my view these two issues represent the most powerful challenges to materialism and atheism. This beautiful book fills an important gap in the apologetic literature on arguments for the existence of God and is a must read for everyone interested in the great questions of life.”
Dr. Günter Bechly; Ph.D.
Paleontology, Eberhard-Karls University of Tübingen; scientific curator from 1999-2016 at the State Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart, Germany; senior scientist at Biologic Institute
Author: Melissa Cain Travis, PhD
Foreword: Stephen C. Meyer, PhD
Publisher: Roman Roads Press, 2022
ISBN (perfect bound): 978-1-944482-76-3
Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.5 x .87 in.
Page count: coming
Cover design and interior illustrations: Josiah Nance
Interior layout and design: Carissa Hale
