On May 15, 1618, Johannes Kepler confirmed his discovery of the third law of planetary motion: It corrected the mistaken Copernican view that the speed of a planet in its main orbit is always constant.

Do you appreciate how extraordinary it is that there are laws that govern the universe, and that even if the speed of a planet changes in orbit, the law governing that speed does not?  It is pretty remarkable that what has changed over history are not the planetary laws themselves, but only the quality of man’s understanding of them.

It is also extraordinary that the planets follow the laws that God has given them regardless of what we humans say or do.  Copernicus was mistaken about the law of the planets—it took Kepler to align our thinking more with reality, not to change the motion of the planets to match our errant thinking.  Our friend G.K. Chesterton sees a lesson in that:

[I]t is misunderstood by the moderns, who imagine that romance would exist most perfectly in a complete state of what they call liberty. They think that if a man makes a gesture it would be a startling and romantic matter that the sun should fall from the sky. But the startling and romantic thing about the sun is that it does not fall from the sky.

They are seeking under every shape and form a world where there are no limitations—that is, a world where there are no outlines; that is, a world where there are no shapes. There is nothing baser than that infinity. They say they wish to be as strong as the universe, but they really wish the whole universe as weak as themselves.

I’m grateful for the laws that govern the universe and the fact that we can’t change them.  Otherwise, there would only be chaos.  For the same reason, I’m also grateful for the laws that govern our humanity.  Whether people or planets, true freedom is found not in traveling our own orbit, but in following the law that God has written for our good and the good of all creation.  The alternative is the basest kind of infinity.

Have a wonderful day.