Do humans project mathematical order onto nature? Or was it there all along? On a new episode of ID the Future, I conclude a three-part conversation with Dr. Melissa Cain Travis about her recent book Thinking God’s Thoughts: Johannes Kepler and the Miracle of Cosmic Comprehensibility. 

In Part 3, we look at how Kepler’s ideas and work can inform the scientific enterprise today. Many scientists have recognized the mystery of cosmic comprehensibility, including such respected voices as Albert Einstein, Sir Roger Penrose, and Paul Davies. Materialists remain agnostic or put it down to chance. But there’s a more satisfying explanation, says Travis. “Centuries ago, Kepler already held the trump card. Science itself…can’t be explained within the framework of scientific materialism.” Genuine human rationality — the very thinking that helped fuel the enormous success of the natural sciences — would not exist if a naturalistic account of the human mind were correct. To get an intellectually satisfying answer for the cosmic comprehensibility we enjoy as humans, we have to think outside the materialist box. Travis explains how we can do that using Kepler’s tripartite harmony of archetype, copy, and image. It turns out Keplerian natural theology is more robust than ever before and can help us make sense of the mysteries of our age, including the multiverse, the limits of AI, transhumanism, and more.

Download the podcast or listen to it here. In case you missed them, listen to Part 1 and Part 2.

Melissa Cain Travis is a fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. She serves as Affiliate Faculty at Colorado Christian University’s Lee Strobel Center for Evangelism and Applied Apologetics, where she teaches courses in the history and philosophy of science. Learn more about Melissa Cain Travis’s work at her website.