And seeing that the stars move with such order and regularity, that their movements never appear to be at any time subject to derangement, would it not be the height of folly to say that so orderly an observance of method and plan could be carried out or accomplished by irrational beings? In the writings of Jeremiah, indeed, the moon is called the queen of heaven. Yet if the stars are living and rational beings, there will undoubtedly appear among them both an advance and a falling back. For the language of Job, the stars are not clean in His sight, seems to me to convey some such idea. (Book I, Chapter 7, Part 3)

Like Origen I seek to discern a moral universe. What is cause-and-effect in the natural world? What does this tell me regarding my choices?

But where Origen saw in the order and regularity of the stars a profound rationality, I am more inclined to focus on the chaos and surprise of complex systems.

Each of our perspectives has some accuracy. Neither, alone, is the truth, and the moral implications strike me as ambiguous, even mysterious.