Posted on 11/12/2009 6:21:42 PM PST by JoeProBono
Four hundred years after Renaissance philosopher Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake for his belief in the "plurality of worlds" (aliens), scientists and religious leaders gathered this week at a seemingly more open-minded Vatican for a conference on astrobiology (aliens).
The meeting focussed on current science, rather than the theological quandaries thrown up by the possibilty of other life forms beyond this planet. But that hasn't stopped debate spilling over outside the conference.
Yesterday I spoke to Paul Davies, a cosmologist from Arizona State University, just after he addressed the conference. In his view, the possibility of other civilisations - potentially more intelligent than our own - puts Christians “in a real bind”. Specifically, he says that nobody's satisfactorily addressed the question of whether aliens get saved. “The Catholic church offers a very species specific brand of salvation. Noone says that Jesus came to save the dolphins and certainly not little green men,” he said.
The possibility of extraterrestrial life does not pose the same problems for Eastern religions, which tend to be less Earth-centric, or Islam, which speaks explicitly of life beyond Earth, he said.
The Vatican does not have an official position on alien life forms, but a number of its scientists have spoken out on the issue. Father Jose Funes, director of the Vatican Observatory told the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, that the possibility of “brother extraterrestrials” was not incompatible with Catholic theology.
William Stroeger, an astrophysicist at the Vatican Observatory Research Group and a Jesuit priest, agreed: “There might be fundamentalists for whom the two things are incompatible but mainline congregations - Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists - would not have a problem with this,” he said.
Stroeger pointed out that the Catechism introduced after the second Vatican council states that there can be no conflict between science and religion. “If there’s a contradiction it means that we haven’t understood or interpreted one of them correctly,” he said.
This may be the case, but I agree with Davies that this isn't a trivial issue for theologists. Giggle factor aside, the question of whether Jesus would save aliens goes right to the heart of Christian beliefs. If you believe that "intelligent life" equals having a soul, then you have to ask where you'd draw the line. If scientists found dolphins on a distant planet, they would be mad with excitement at having found something so smart. But what would theologians make of them?
Stroeger conceded that the discovery of intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe would pose a challenge, but said that it would not be insurmountable. “There are some difficult issues to resolve, such as whether Jesus as saviour is the one who saves everyone in the Universe or if there are other equivalent salvation events that take place elsewhere in the Universe,” he said.
I was left feeling slightly mind-boggled at how you would even begin to answer such a question.
I'm completely serious. What is your objection to the possibility??
Cheers!
Then Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra.
Then the realization that this is all a moot point: it all depends on whether the aliens have accepted Barack H. Obama as their personal savior (mmm, mmm, mmm). /sarc>
Cheers!
Well said.
Thanks for your post. The whole Gospel story is ruined, that is why. God does all things for His glory. The bottom line on this is that the enemy of our souls cannot create.
But, he does dilute. So whatever God does, the enemy dilutes and confuses. Thus we have many world ‘religions’ because it confuses the mind and heart of man to have the alternatives. Most of them are mostly true.
God created for a purpose - to give Himself glory. If we see ‘aliens’ it is my considered opinion that the aliens will claim to have placed man here, thus diluting and confusing the creation claim of God.
The Bible tells us that there are two types of eternal and sentient created beings: angels, and men. Among the angels, some are fallen, and for them there is no plan of redemption. Among men, all are fallen, but there is a plan of redemption.
Thus, living creatures, if sentient, must be either angels or men. (A third possibility would be that sentient beings exist that are not eternal, and thus, the question would be answered in that way.)
These beings are clearly not men or they would be recognized. But the Bible says that the enemy can appear to us even as an angel of light. Since the Word attributes to our enemy the ability to change his appearance for his own purposes of deception, it stands to reason that he can appear as an alien.
Thus, aliens, in my opinion, are fallen angels, deceptively appearing to take credit for what God has done. There is no plan of salvation for them.
Thank you for allowing me to beat the horse again.
Getting back to God’s purposes in creation..... God created Adam and placed him in the garden. The enemy tempted him and made him fall, so he thought he had won. This would be reasonable since the enemy had fallen and there was no going back....
But God had a plan all along. The second one in God’s economy is often the most favored (see Jacob over Esau, Rachel over Leah, Isaac over Ishmael, the Gospel over the Law, etc.).
So the second created being, Adam, was offered victory. Victory was not possible without a fall and a struggle. God promised a son who would deliver. He made a covenant with Abraham that God Himself would keep. He promised David an eternal kingdom.
The second Adam, Christ, fulfilled what Adam did not and the rest of us could not.
No ET could fit into that. These phenomena are clearly spiritual, designed to deceive the enemy of our souls.
They will appear, if they appear, to take credit for placing man here - a direct assault on the creation story, and thus an assault on all of God’s purposes in the Earth.
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