can understand how awesome would be the collision of bodies thousands of times larger than the earth.
Now we shall refer to the all-encompassing knowledge of God the wonders of the solar system, that is, the twelve planets which are the sun’s followers and fruits, and consider only our own planet, the earth, which is here before our eyes. We see that our planet is made to travel on a long journey around the sun by a dominical command as its most important duty –as is described in the Third Letter– in a way that demonstrates the grandeur of dominical majesty and the loftiness of the sovereignty of the Godhead and the perfection of His mercy and wisdom. It has been made a dominical ship filled with the wonders of Divine art, and a travelling dwelling like an exhibition, for God’s conscious servants to gaze on. And the moon has been attached to it with precise reckoning for mighty instances of wisdom, like being an hour-hand for telling the time. The moon too has been given various mansions through which to journey. Thus, these aspects of this blessed planet of ours prove the necessary existence and unity of a Possessor of Absolute Power with a testimony as powerful as the globe of the earth itself. You can make an analogy with the rest of the solar system from this.
Furthermore, the sun is made to turn on its own axis like a spinning-wheel, in order to wind into a ball the immaterial threads called gravity and tie the planets with them and set them in order. So too is it impelled together with its planets at a speed that cuts five hours’ distance a second towards, according to one estimate, the Constellation of Hercules, or towards the ‘Sun of Suns’. This most certainly occurs through the power and at the command of the All-Glorious One, the Monarch of Pre-Eternity and Post-Eternity. It is as though He makes the solar system perform these manoeuvres like a platoon of soldiers under orders, and so demonstrates the majesty of His dominicality.
O you astronomers! What chance can interfere in these matters? The hands of what causes can reach them? What force can draw close to this? Come on, you say! Would an All-Glorious Monarch such as this display impotence and permit others to have a role in his sovereignty? Would He give to other hands living creatures in particular, which are the fruit, result, aim, and essence of the universe? Would He permit another to interfere? Especially man, would He leave him to his own devices, the most comprehensive of those fruits, the most perfect of the results, vicegerent of the earth, and His mirror-like guest? Would He refer him to nature and chance and reduce the majesty of His sovereignty to nothing; reduce to nothing His perfect wisdom?