“Suns and planets teach grand lessons,” says Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 240). What might some of these lessons be? A deeper understanding of our solar system and of astronomy can be spiritually instructive. It can serve as a metaphor to help us better understand God and creation. So, let’s examine our solar system from the point of view of several famous astronomers and scientists, and see what can be learned.
Let’s begin with Ptolemy. In the second century, he came up with a model of the solar system, based on Earth as its center. And, because of his erroneous point of view, he hypothesized the existence of what are called “epicycles” to explain the motion he saw of planets.
Like astronomers before him, Ptolemy observed that over time, planets changed their positions relative to the stars, moving across the night sky from west to east. However, he also observed that there are times when the planets retrograde—move backward—from east to west. Ptolemy’s intricate, complex, and ultimately erroneous system of epicycles explains this retrograde motion when Earth is used as the center of the solar system.
