Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. It has been one week since my last Confession.
Posted on 11/05/2005 4:49:35 AM PST by Momaw Nadon
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Galaxy-gazing scientists surely wonder about what kind of impact finding life or intelligent beings on another planet would have on the world.
But what sort of effect would it have on Catholic beliefs? Would Christian theology be rocked to the core if science someday found a distant orb teeming with little green men, women or other intelligent forms of alien life? Would the church send missionaries to spread the Gospel to aliens? Could aliens even be baptized? Or would they have had their own version of Jesus and have already experienced his universal or galactic plan of salvation?
Curious Catholics need not be space buffs to want answers to these questions and others when they pick up a 48-page booklet by a Vatican astronomer.
Through the British-based Catholic Truth Society, U.S. Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno has penned his response to what he says are questions he gets from the public "all the time" when he gives talks on his work with the Vatican Observatory.
Titled "Intelligent Life in the Universe? Catholic Belief and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life," the pocket-sized booklet is the latest addition to the society's "Explanations Series," which explores Catholic teaching on current social and ethical issues.
Brother Consolmagno told Catholic News Service that the whole question of how Catholicism would hold up if some form of life were discovered on another planet has piqued people's curiosity "for centuries."
He said his aim with the booklet was to reassure Catholics "that you shouldn't be afraid of these questions" and that "no matter what we learn, it doesn't invalidate what we already know" and believe. In other words, scientific study and discovery and religion enrich one another, not cancel out each other.
If new forms of life were to be discovered or highly advanced beings from outer space were to touch down on planet Earth, it would not mean "everything we believe in is wrong," rather, "we're going to find out that everything is truer in ways we couldn't even yet have imagined," he said.
The Book of Genesis describes two stories of creation, and science, too, has more than one version of how the cosmos may have come into being.
"However you picture the universe being created, says Genesis, the essential point is that ultimately it was a deliberate, loving act of a God who exists outside of space and time," Brother Consolmagno said in his booklet.
"The Bible is divine science, a work about God. It does not intend to be physical science" and explain the making of planets and solar systems, the Jesuit astronomer wrote.
Pope John Paul II once told scientists, "Truth does not contradict truth," meaning scientific truths will never eradicate religious truths and vice versa.
"What Genesis says about creation is true. God did it; God willed it; and God loves it. When science fills in the details of how God did it, science helps get a flavor of how rich and beautiful and inventive God really is, more than even the writer of Genesis could ever have imagined," Brother Consolmagno wrote.
The limitless universe "might even include other planets with other beings created by that same loving God," he added. "The idea of there being other races and other intelligences is not contrary to traditional Christian thought.
"There is nothing in Holy Scripture that could confirm or contradict the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe," he wrote.
Brother Consolmagno said that, like scientists, people of faith should not be afraid of saying "I just don't know."
Human understanding "is always incomplete. It is crazy to underestimate God's ability to create in depths of ways that we will never completely understand. It is equally dangerous to think that we understand God completely," he said in his booklet.
He told CNS that his booklet tries to show "the fun of thinking" about what it would mean if God had created more than life on Earth. Such speculation "is very worthwhile if it makes us reflect on things we do know and have taken for granted," he said.
He said asking such questions as "Would aliens have souls?" or "Does the salvation of Christ apply to them?" helps one "appreciate what it means for us to have a soul" and helps one better "recognize what the salvation of Christ means to us."
Brother Consolmagno said he tried to show in the booklet that "the church is not afraid of science" and that Catholics, too, should be unafraid and confident in confronting all types of speculation, no matter how "far out" and spacey it may be.
For science fiction fans, Trekkies, or telescope-toting space enthusiasts, the booklet's last chapter reveals where there are references to extraterrestrials in the Bible.
Brother Consolmagno said the Bible is also replete with references to or descriptions of "nonhuman intelligent beings" who worship God. For example, he said the Scriptures talk about angels, "sons of God" who took human wives, and "heavenly beings" that "shouted for joy" when God created the earth.
The booklet, however, offers no "hard and fast answers" to extraterrestrial life, since such speculation is "better served by science fiction or poetry than by definitions of science and theology," he wrote.
He said the booklet is meant "to put a smile on your face" and, perhaps, make people think twice about who could be peeking at Earth from alien telescopes far, far away.
I am indeed in that blessed state, about forty minutes from the Smokies!
I’m in Johnson City. Watching my garden revel drunkenly in the rain!
This probably needs to be known more generally known before we switch on those warp engines.
I'm just down the road from you in Knoxville (well, not "just" down the road, but down the road, anyway).
I have frequently wished that I had a garden, and have read a number of books on gardening, before I finally figured out that what I really like is reading books on gardening more than the actual work.
Wouldn't mind getting some of that rain you're getting as long as it could come without the golf-ball-sized hail we got a couple or so weeks back, which knocked out phone and power and punched a hole in my porch roof, and set off car alarms all over the neighborhood. Enjoyably dramatic while it was going on, though.
Mat 10:29 Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.
I took this to mean the size and complexity of sparrows were the lower limit.
Ah! In this, if not in all, you resemble our Jesus Christ Our Lord. Some say he was a carpenter like his daddy; but I maintain, on the basis of his parables, that he was a farm boy; or at least a town boy who used to read farm magazines.
I would like to figure out a way to get out of most of the work. I tried having 2 boys, but that doesn't help, or only intermittently. I am hoping that if there are intelligent space aliens, they have figured out ways to do horticulture without overly involving major muscle groups. They could give me some tips.
No, don't say "small internal combustion engines." I won't have that!
Do yourself a favour, check out Gene Wolfe again. I would say the most obviously Christian oriented series is the “book of the long sun”, which describes the adventures of a far, far future priest in a huge generational star ship. It’s just fantastic.
If I recall, Gene Wolfe edited a manufacturing plant trade magazine for years. I think that’s where his complete pringle mastery comes from.
Freegards
I’ve got “Litany of the Long Sun” on my sofaside and intend t5o start it in a couple of days (after I’m finished with a small stack of gardening things.) The inside of my brainbox feels itchy. I am thrilled to be at the beginning of something you describe as fantastic.
I will indeed give him another try, and thanks for the suggestion!
As far as future priests (and monks) go, though, it's hard to imagine anything beating A Canticle for Leibowitz, which I avoided for years largely because a snottily-worded blurb on the cover made it sound as if it was going to be a completely different sort of story than it turned out to be.
Even Miller himself couldn't even equal it--the long-awaited (and practically despaired-for) sequel, Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, disappointed me so badly that as soon as I had finished it, I took it to a second-hand bookstore and sold it, suggesting that they put a warning sticker on the dust jacket: Not to be read by anyone who has enjoyed A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ!
They didn't do that, of course, not wishing to discourage its sale, but I think it would have been a simple act of courtesy, not to mention of charity.
Canticle, however, is an annual treat, usually saved for the end of summer, when it's fittingly hot (helps in sympathizing with the desert ambience of most of the story).
The problem with putting priests is science fiction is that, unless the writer either already knows what a priest does or at least has some sympathy for his work, this is going to involve more research than he might want to do on this subject--and might, in fact, reveal a figure which is directly contrary to his intentions for his use in the book. So he cobbles together a "priest-figure" based on popular representation in popular fiction or news media (if, in fact, there is a difference), puts a cassock and Roman collar on it, calls it a priest, and turns it loose to do whatever the clockwork of the novel requires him to do, which is usually to serve as the voice of unreflective reaction, providing warnings against "blasphemy" or "venturing into areas reserved to God," or bull-headedly (and intolerantly) trying to catechise the Belknarpfians of Llatitard-4 despite the Prime Directive's most hallowed dictum: that any species you encounter is to be regarded as a museum or zoo exhibit, isolate and untouchable, and not as actual people with whom you are to have normal interculture exchange, or whose lives you are even expected to save--for if you had not come along, the disaster which is going to wipe them out would certainly have happened anyway--and one must not go against the blind forces of Fate and Nature. Or something like that.
But I digress.
::Sigh::
Gene Wolfe is a challenging writer, but if I can semi-hack it I know you can, you are way smarter than me. Some of those things you have written to bishops are just brilliant, in my opinion.
Gene Wolfe usually uses the literary device of an unreliable narrator to great effect, and skips around a lot. You have to work at it, but the result is well worth the effort, in my experience. His definition of “literature” is “...that which can be read by an educated reader, and reread with increased pleasure.” Plus, he wrote to Tolkien and recieved a letter back!
Freegards
Book of the Long Sun’s “church” is different, it’s the story of an artificial faith discovering something closer to the Truth than what they have. It’s obviously based on Catholic clergy and organization, but there are vast differences, including theology. There is a pantheon of “gods”, for one thing.
I am ashamed to say that I have never read Canticle despite hearing good things about it all my life and being a sci-fi/speculative fiction fan. I will go to the library and check it out.
My favourite authors are Jack Vance and Gene Wolfe, for my money there’s nothing I have come across yet that can touch those two.
Freegards
Man has the following nature and attributes:
Ecclesiates tell us that when animals die, their spirit returns from whence it came. When Christ died he commended his spirit into His Father's hands. When man dies the spirit and soul are separated from each other and from the physical body. The distinction between soul and spirit is subtle and intractible, however, Scripture tells us that "The Word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (Heb 4:12)"
Animals do not have a soul, however, there are beings in heaven at this moment waiting for the arrival for whom they've been explicitely created. They will provide immensely more pleasure than the nearest, dearest and most cherished animal companions one has ever loved. The fact of the matter is the most beautiful and beloved of our animals are pale shadows of what awaits in heaven. Furthermore, over the years we may have come to know and love several generations of animals, ALL of them simultaneously await our arrival in heaven. This is a pale analogy, but it is akin to our toy race cars when we were children to having a real Ferrari today. Truly, that is a feeble analogy for what awaits us with respect to our animal companions. That notwithstanding, our temporal pets on this plane of existance are dead.
Plants have neither spirit nor soul. Its an absurd concept. We don't really konw what spirit is, but we all recognize a broken spirt. That having intellect or will has spirit. Personality is the domain of the soul.
"Not at all" would be better put, except that I have a hairy face, as He is believed to have had, and as His only known photograph appears to indicate. I'll take whatever I can get.
Some say he was a carpenter like his daddy; but I maintain, on the basis of his parables, that he was a farm boy; or at least a town boy who used to read farm magazines.
I would very much like to see what farm magazines were available in first-century Judea!
I go with the "Jesus the carpenter" tradition, largely because it is tradition, which should in no way be disregarded (cf Chesterton's "Tradition is the democracy of the dead," meaning that everyone gets to vote--not just those who arrogantly happen to be alive at the moment), and also because it was usually the case that sons, particularly first sons (as the world would have understood Him to be) to follow the perceived dad‘s trade; farm boy or not, I think He would have had to have been particularly unobservant, living in rural Galilee, not to have been aware of farmers and their lives and professions, and employed such imagery in parables as would immediately have been understood by a large percentage of His audience, whether they were themselves farmers or not.
I am hoping that if there are intelligent space aliens, they have figured out ways to do horticulture without overly involving major muscle groups. They could give me some tips.
Assuming the little grey buggers are out there, there are a number of human enterprises I would like them to keep their spidery little hands off of, which super-advanced technology could not help but ruin, gardening among them (also, music, carpentry, camping, art, story-telling--stuff like that, which I would call the Incarnational Arts). Aliens--keep away! You just don't get it, and you never will! (Of course, they might have some ergonomic suggestions with regard to use of muscles that could come in handy, assuming--and it‘s a big assumption--that their muscle groups aren‘t wholly unlike ours.)
I tried having 2 boys, but that doesn't help, or only intermittently . . . No, don't say "small internal combustion engines." I won't have that!
Yeah, but isn't that the very definition of "two boys"--”small internal combustion engines“? My brother and I would certainly have qualified! We could be induced to do yard and limited horticultural work with the right sorts of incentives (restored allowance privileges, absence of tanned bottoms) which are probably not de rigueur nowadays, but which (I can guarantee) worked wonders in the restoration of the enthusiasm for labor! Surely aliens capable of crossing vast interstellar distances would have developed something like the Spankatron 3000 or its analog by now! Or an exoskeletal electromasseur which could apply restorative muscular therapy as you worked to prevent knotting and cramping of muscles!
You know, I like the latter idea well enough so that if I actually knew anything, I might look into developing it--except that I am virtually certain that the technology would likely be abused in some imaginative way.
NPR Theater (or whatever it was called back then) did a multi-part radio-play adaptation of Canticle some time back in the late seventies or early eighties--and it wasn't at all bad, as I recall! It used to be available on a CD set, but I believe it is available somewhere online in a streamed or (marginally legal) downloadable mp3 format, if I am not mistaken. It would take probably as much time to listen to the thing as to read the book, but at least you'd have your hands free for work.
Didn't Jack Vance write The Humanoids? I read that (at a friend's recommendation) way back in what used to be called "junior high school" in the sixties--and it had the salutary effect of putting me forever on my guard against people aggressively "doing me good" by their lights, and completely contrary to mine, and my values. I have no memory of what Vance was up to, but that's what I took away from the book.
I just don't read much science fiction--or rather, I cycle through my comparatively small collection of favorites, over and over again, when I get the SF bug. I'm partial to Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination and The Demolished Man, and though I'm not a big Greg Bear fan, I do enjoy The Forge of God with its increasingly chilling end-of-the-world vibe--and Niven & Pournelle's space-opera potboilers. I used to like Asimov, Clarke and Bradbury when I was a kid, but they generally give me hives now.
What I'm looking for from fiction is a certain kind of experience. Sometimes science fiction provides it; most of the time, it doesn't. If I could quantify what I'm looking for, I could save myself a lot of time--but then I'd probably never have the joy of finding things that are better than what I was looking for!
Thank you fior your kind words. I’m not a particularly gifted reader of most literature. For instance, I like very little poetry, but the few things I like, make me feel like the top of my head is being sliced open. Similarly with fiction: most of it I just can’t connect with, and I’m irked because I wasted my time in incomprehension; but the stuff I actually grab onto, I finger and sniff and dream about and carry around with me for years.
Flannery O’Connor’s “The Displaced Person.”
R.C. Hutchinson’s “Child Possessed.”
Shusaku Endo’s “Silence.”
So we’ll see if Gene Wolfe grabs me!
My friend Ed says he sees "carpenter" as a providential trade for Jesus to have had, because it would have given his the physique necessary to withstand the rigors of his last 3 days. I think farmwork would have done just as well. But of course a carpenter,as small tradesman, may deal with many other people (including farmers, fishermen, Romans, rabbis, housewives) and thus add to his store of human cultural knowledge, admirably suited to parable-telling.
So I am gladly corrected!
I am rarely gladly corrected, so you have the advantage of me!
Vance didn’t write the Humanoids, as far as I can tell that was Jack Williamson.
Jack Vance’s swipe at socialism is in the book Wyst:Alastor1716, the third book of the Alastore cluster series.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyst:_Alastor_1716
Here’s a fairly recent article about Vance:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/magazine/19Vance-t.html
He’s still kicking too, in his mid-90’s.
I can’t stand supposed “modern literature”, or at least stories about mundane people being miserable in ordinary surroundings. I just read whatever trips my trigger, usually sci-fi or speculative fiction/fantasy. Gene Wolfe has an essay about why speculative/fantastic fiction is automatically discounted as being inferior, which is a fairly recent thing.
Freegards
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