Posted on 07/01/2011 6:19:36 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Veritas Riff is a group of friends who combine deep faith with world-class expertise in subjects ranging from politics, science, culture, business, medicine, and more. They offer their informal take on the big questions facing us all. I'm the host of the Veritas Riff, Curtis Chang.
For centuries, humans have asked whether life exists on other planets. In the last decade or so, astrophysicists have made actual progress in answering that question. As more exoplanets—planets outside our solar system—are discovered, the chances of locating extraterrestrial life rises. But how would the discovery of extraterrestrial life impact religion, and particularly Christianity?
Today we're talking to an expert uniquely suited to address this topic. Jennifer Wiseman is Chief of Laboratory for Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics at NASA. She's also the director of the Dialogue of Science, Ethics, and Religion for the American Association of the Advancement of Science.
Jennifer, where are we headed with this current pace of discovery? Is science on track to discover the presence of extraterrestrial life any time soon?
My personal opinion is that if we get the support we need in the next twenty years to build more sophisticated telescopes, we'll find several planets that are earth-sized, perhaps in our neighborhood of stars, that support atmospheres similar to earth's atmosphere. I don't think that's enough time to do what we would like to do, which is actually to find incontrovertible biomarkers, as we call them. A biomarker is a chemical signature in a planet's atmosphere that is a telltale sign of life. I think there will be so much ambiguity at first that we won't be able to say such a thing.
Now, if you ask me about fifty years instead of twenty, then I would say at that point we should have a great inventory, including all the spectroscopic studies, of hundreds of neighboring stars, including a detailed study of their atmospheres, and we should be able to say whether or not there's at least simple life on those planets. And now I'm getting into my true speculation, but I really believe there's a chance we'll find a signature of simple, single-cellular-type life somewhere out there. If Earth is as abundantly full of life as we think it is, then I have to think that other planets could be the same.
Take off your NASA hat for a moment and speak to me as a scientist who happens to be a Christian. If we got the news flash that there is intelligent life out there, how do you imagine that would impact Christian thought?
I imagine two steps in the Christian response. The first has to do with the idea that creation is good. That's set forth clearly for both Jews and Christians in scripture. Creation is a good thing, and God has created abundant life. Now, "created" could include evolutionary processes, but the point is that since God is the author of all of it, whatever is there is good.
So, with that theology when we see the abundance of life flourishing on this planet, we could simply broaden our view of God to include life elsewhere. If God is the author of life on countless other worlds, it increases our sense of wonder and appreciation.
The second step is this. In Christian thought, humans have a problem in their personal relationships with God. We're separated from God by our own sin, we need restoration of that personal relationship, and that restoration has been provided by God becoming human. God became incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ and walked the surface of the earth, guided us, and then died and rose again. That restored our relationship with God.
So if there are other intelligent civilizations out there, how has God interacted with them? Have they sinned? Have they needed redemption? Did Christ visit them in their forms? Or did his work here on Earth suffice for all life everywhere?
We get into a conundrum about the exact work of Jesus Christ on this planet and how it could pertain to life all over the cosmos. That's particularly important in Christianity, because it's really only humans in Christian theology who have this problem of sin. That's where we get into a really interesting theological case.
This is the sort of territory C.S. Lewis explored, of course, in Perelandra. What if we drill down beyond this abstract level of theological reflection to actual Christian communities? What is their range of reaction to news of extraterrestrial life?
I suspect the range of reaction, if we find simple life elsewhere, will be mostly positive. It's similar to when we found unusual life forms at the bottom of the ocean. It simply broadens our view of life and creation. If we find intelligent beings, that requires more thought. But if they're there, they're there, so it has to be incorporated into the theology.
I have some quotes from theologians and believers across the spectrum of Christian belief. Billy Graham said, "I firmly believe there are intelligent beings like us far away in space who worship God, but we have nothing to fear from them because, like us, they are God's creation." That would be one reaction. Another Christian leader in a ministry here in the United States felt that if we found extraterrestrial life it would actually make a mockery of our Christian faith, since the entire focus of creation, in his view, is mankind on this earth. In this person's view, finding life elsewhere would be a major shock to the way he had conceived God's work on earth.
So I'm not sure how people will react. Most, when asked, seem to think it would simply enrich their view of God, and they would be all the more awestruck. But for some, it would create this feeling of disorientation, like maybe what they've believed all along isn't right. It might strike a chord of fear and reexamination.
It seems to me that the fear and anxious reexamination might be concentrated in certain church traditions that elevate this personal God-and-me relationship over and above everything else in their teaching. Recently I drove by a church near my home, and the church had a sign: "God loves you as if you were the only one there is." What would happen if we discovered we aren't all there is? Would the discovery of extraterrestrial life threaten Christian notions of significance?
If we're looking at things from a Christian perspective, we have to examine where significance comes from scripturally. It never comes from a person's life span or location. Sometimes it's overt. The psalmist, for example, tells us that we're made of dust, and we're like grass that's here today and gone tomorrow. Yet we're constantly reminded of God's great love for us as individuals, so much that God even knows the number of hairs on our heads.
God's love is by choice, not by merit of place, time, or character. So I think we can expand that too. We already know that the universe is vaster than our wildest imagination. We have literally hundreds of billions of galaxies, each one with hundreds of billions of stars. We're looking at a universe that's been around for over 13 billion years and is still expanding. So the universe should already make us feel quite, quite small and insignificant in a spatial or temporal scale. But that does not at all translate to whether or not we're significant in the sight of God.
This should give Christians great comfort. Biblically, our significance is based on God's choice to love us.
Where are they? —Enrico Fermi
There is nothing in the Christian faith that precludes life on other worlds.Interesting that it took 30 posts before someone posted this simple truth.
Yes, you would think that would come up sooner.
That was the first thing I though of when I saw the thread title... As He says in John 10: “I have sheep in other pastures of which you are unaware...”
We don't think the NT supplants, supersedes, or replaces the OT. (And of course, we do not consider the Koran or the Book of Mormon to be bona fide “Scripture”.) But the OT is still studied and read in public and private worship.
A traditional Catholic thing to say is that the NT is concealed in the OT, while the OT is revealed, explained, interpreted by/through/with the NT.
From our (Catholic) POV the Incarnation, the whole “Work of Christ” is HUGE! It sets the Universe, all creation, on its ear. The Creator becomes a creature and, as we sing in the Te Deum, humbles himself to be born of a Virgin.
Further, one aspect of this is that now the “perfect” (which has at least to mean “adequate” or “sufficient”) revelation of God to man, of Creator to (allegedly) rational creature is not a book but Jesus, fully God, fully man.
Do you know Hegel's idea of aufgehebung? As the seed of the apple contains within it the tree, the blossom, and the fruit with seed in it, so (in our view) through the NT, through Jesus, we see that Creation itself was a saving and loving act which, so to speak, implies the Incarnation.
And Jesus, who says that he has come to fulfill, not abolish, the law, is like the blossom which contains in itself the history of the apple tree.
ANYWAY, this line of thought really runs skew-wise to what you seem to be suggesting, so from my POV you start out with a problematic understanding of various Scriptures and end up with a problematic conjecture.
Not complaining or attacking, just reporting on the view from here.
Lost me right there......
As far as the headline, nothing can negate the finished work on the cross for the redemption of mankind.
This kind of mental/philosophical exercise is precisely the sort of nonsense Satan would have people waste their time debating rather than actively going out and reaching the world for Christ by feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, visiting the captives in jail,... You know, stuff that would actually result in the real salvation of souls instead of making a bunch of pseudo-intellectual faux philosophers feel good about themselves.
WELL PUT.
And not much for me to quibble with.
Have a blessed 4th.
Heading back out into the sun to try and get some plastic sheeting up in case of some real materialization of predicted thunder storms . . . over the room addition area. Sure don’t want the wood wet.
IMO I don’t believe there is life on other planets as we know life to be. Maybe plant life or some such.
I do believe occuping people’s minds and time on chasing that rabbit is a diversion that apparently works quite well as that deception continues to gain popularity and acceptance in our world fast leaving Christian and biblical beliefs ....and I suspect more people will fall for that deception the more they abandon Christianity and turn toward anything counterfeit to fill the void.
To better correctly understand that verse it is wise to read the entire dialog and who was being addressed...and that within context.
New Age Spiritualism uses this verse as well to justify thier practices of out of the body expereinces via transcedental meditation or and other new age practices of leaving the body to venture, (in their minds), to other so called dimensions to battle in interplanetary wars and or visit other planets. Hocus pocus derranged thoughts brought on by ones own imaginations.
I am delighted that you enjoyed my plea for “realism.”
And I will sho’ ‘nuff track down the adult beverage you suggest. Thanks!
The only planets we’re sure exist are the ones in our solar system.
What astronomers claim to have found has never been by direct observation, but rather by inference having observed variations in the star’s output of energy that they conclude an only be explained by a large planet.
And maybe they’re right.
.
.
.
Maybe.
Well if there is a “maybe” they are not a fallen race. Jesus came to this earth to redeem this fallen mankind...I think the scriptures clearly attests to that.
I wish folks would stop challenging the beliefs of others.
My thoughts about how to live my life, and be able to meet “my maker” would not change if we found life elsewhere.
I don’t really care about what some “expert” thinks. My God gave me a brain. And it works just fine.
Say's the man who evidentially believes in some mythical sky fairy... partner I got some bad news for ya, you remember what it was like before you were born?
That's exactly what it'll be like when your dead... nothing.
..........partner I got some bad news for ya, you remember what it was like before you were born?
Partner, I got some GOOD NEWS........
Psalm 139:13-16
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
This is what the LORD says—he who made you, who formed you in the womb, and who will help you: Do not be afraid, O Jacob, my servant, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen. (Isaiah 44:2)
Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all you who remain of the house of Israel, you whom I have upheld since you were conceived, and have carried since your birth. Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you (Isaiah 46:3-4).
And now the LORD says—he who formed me in the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself, for I am honored in the eyes of the LORD and my God has been my strength (Isaiah 49:5).
The word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations” (Jeremiah 1:4-5).
For God created both me and my servants. He created us both in the womb. (Job 31:15)
Yet you brought me out of the womb; you made me trust in you, even at my mother’s breast. From birth I was cast on you; from my mother’s womb you have been my God. (Psalm 22:9)
And there is nothing - nothing at all - more joyful than loving and talking about Jesus!
It is just that I (and I am not inferring that you do) don't believe that man is such a hot shot that he fully understands the depth and width of God's awesome power. I look at that verse (and this is where I failed to properly explain myself) think "He is telling them that, and there is so much more that he could have told them that would be beyond their comprehension... and mine as well." Is there life on other planets? I don't know. When God wants me to know, I will know. I believe that we have to keep an open mind to God's power, and a closed mind to those that would try to twist God's word to fit their agenda. I believe that the instructions provided to us by God are not to be "adjusted" for political correctness or for the purpose of appeasing scientists.
I'm not into all of the New Age stuff... I believe that it is just a poor excuse to allow someone to lay claim to a so-called "spiritual life" because they are either too trendy to "lower themselves" to Christianity, or because they are still trying to find justification for what they know that God, though the bible, tells us is wrong.
Regards,
Raven6
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.