The following was authored by a person named “Dr. Murray” and published by the St. Lawrence Institute for Faith and Culture in April of 2020. The article in its entirety is as follows:
What would the discovery of intelligent life mean for Christianity? Is there anything in the Bible or Church teaching that would support or reject their existence?
One of the joys of working with college students is that I often get exposed to questions that I wouldn’t normally hear. With our culture so immersed in superhero movies and shows on the paranormal, the topic of alien life seems to be a real area of interest for people today, more so than in the past. I think this is a fascinating question and I am grateful for the students who recently brought up this topic. Here are five thoughts on the subject.
1) The role of wonder. The first thing that comes to mind is how pastimes like stargazing, or thinking about the universe and what might be in it, has been a privileged path to experiencing wonder. Why is wonder important? Well, wonder is what takes us out of our everyday affairs and humdrum routines and inspire us to ask questions and think more deeply. It can potentially open us up to God and his grace. If thinking about aliens takes us away from our boredom and leads us to ponder reality in a new way, that’s a good thing!
2) Not to be afraid. Christians should not be afraid of the questions of aliens (or of science more generally). Many people mistakenly believe science to be against faith or that faith somehow requires one to go against science, but as Catholics we believe that faith and science do not contradict each other. Why is this? Because God is the creator of the universe (or multiverse if it exists) and the author of our faith. We should trust that God expects us to use our reason and to actively engage in learning, whether that means studying slugs or pondering the origins of the cosmos. If Christianity is true, and we believe it is, then there should not be any contradiction between what it reveals and what we discover to be true with science, because God is the source of both the ‘book’ of nature and the ‘book’ of revelation. If there happens to be some discrepancy, then either our understanding or interpretation of Revelation is wrong, or our science is wrong.
3) Nothing is incompatible. In my judgement, nothing in Christianity is incompatible with the existence of other intelligent life forms. In fact, Christians already believe in the existence of intelligent life forms in (immaterial) Angels (which technically are their own ‘species’ so we shouldn’t label them with one term), so it wouldn’t be a huge leap to believe that God could make physical intelligent life forms. Here, some people might object that there are passages in Scripture which encourage a ‘human-centric’ view of the universe. A classic example is from Psalm 8:3-8.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor. You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
At first glance, this might make you think that everything God created, all of the universe, is geared toward, and exclusively for, humanity; that we are ‘little lower than God’ and that there are no other intelligent beings with a similar dominion over the works of God’s hands. However, a closer reading actually suggests a humility of spirit and the recognition of our smallness in the grand scheme of things. In the author’s mind, all that he sees (earth, sky, stars) does point to the uniqueness of humanity from a phenomenological point of view (like a god) but it doesn’t exclude the possibility that there might be others who could know God in a rational way.
The only real difficulty with Aliens, theologically speaking, is the degree to which our rejection of God (Original Sin) extends beyond earth. For there are passages of Scripture which speak of ‘all creation’ being negatively impacted by our sin and awaiting the final redemption of humanity or the final coming of Christ (Rom 8.19). However, the question is whether this phrase of St. Paul’s referred to all of earth or the universe. It is a real question but I don’t think it would present a contradiction or serious problem either way. It would just make it a bit awkward if Aliens were negatively impacted by our sin.
4) God’s character does not change. How God acts reveals who He is. For example, the deeds and actions recounted in Scripture reveal to us the character of God. Once we know something about God’s character (such as his faithfulness and love of Israel), we naturally expect Him to act in a certain way in the future (such as His desire to save them from their enemies and from sin). In the context of aliens, this means we would expect God to act in a way consistent with how he has acted with Israel in the past and to us in the present. We would expect the same God who, by his nature, is ‘over-flowing’ with goodness, to want to share his goodness with aliens as well as us.
Side note: One of the difficulties many people have with Christianity is that it appears that God’s nature does change. In contrast to the God of the New Testament (often seen as a more loving God), many interpret God through Old Testament passages as being angry and even vengeful, filled with emotion and unstable, changing on a whim; surely not evidence of an eternal and immutable God. This is an important topic that should be taken seriously. God’s nature and his loving provision does not change. God deals differently with people depending on where they are at, but always out of love. For example, I may shout at my one year old to stop playing by the stove’s flame to get her attention immediately and stop her from hurting herself. However, with an older child, I would explain why they should not play with fire (the flame will burn them). But with an adult visitor, who perhaps is unfamiliar with a gas stove, I would explain the mechanics of the stove and how to properly use it (the gas line, the knobs, perhaps how to turn it off and what to do if they smelled a gas leak). In this case, my actions are different with each person depending on their age and abilities, but my good intention is the same: to teach them about the stove and keep them from harming themselves and others. It is the same with God. In the Old Testament, God is essentially dealing with a stubborn and hard-hearted people (like children). After Christ, Christians believe we have come to maturity through the Holy Spirit and so God treats us differently, he expects more of us and he treats us like adults. Another example comes from the Old Testament book, Deuteronomy. Divorce was allowed because Israelite men would presumably have killed their wives if that was the only way out of a marriage. But for Christians, God expects more of us and calls us to not even look at another woman with lust. Different actions, the same loving God.
5) The unique human nature of Jesus. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this question is pondering how Jesus would relate to aliens. As Christians, we believe that ‘God’ is a mysterious tri-unity of Father-Son-Holy Spirit (aka The Trinity). We believe that the Son, Jesus, assumed a human nature by uniting it to his person for our redemption and that he continues to exist with both a human and divine nature forever. Since Jesus will always have a human nature, he would presumably appear as human to aliens (if they exist). Yet his physical body would not be bound by the normal laws of nature as evidenced after his resurrection when crashes the Apostles’ party, walking through walls and locked doors. Jesus’ miraculous human nature is also why we believe he can be physically present in the Eucharist around the world, all at the same time (Aquinas says he is present via his substance and not via the accident of location or place). Therefore, if God did create other intelligent beings with the presumed intention of sharing his love with them, one could believe that Jesus might appear as human looking like, well, an alien! On the other hand, the Holy Spirit could communicate directly to them, either as love or as the voice of conscience; or perhaps with certain shapes such as we see in ‘tongues of fire’ that resulted in the ‘speaking in tongues’ in Acts. It’s hard to conceive of the Father communicating directly to aliens since we believe that the Son is the Father’s act of communicating, just as the Holy Spirit is the love of the Father and the Son. Of course, the Father could certainly communicate via the Son and Holy Spirit in a way that we just simply can’t imagine, which reminds us of the speculative nature of this question, and we haven’t even considered how God might ‘redeem’ such aliens. Who knows, if they severed their relationship with God by sinning, perhaps God could redeem their nature without uniting it to the Son’s divine person?
One of the most fascinating attempts to imagine what such an encounter might look like comes from C.S. Lewis in his famous Space Trilogy. Not only does Lewis imagine the creation of new worlds and the interaction between God and the other rational beings, (and even different alien species), but he also displays the interaction between fallen (and redeemed) human beings with aliens. One of the highlights is that Lewis allows us to ponder what an ‘unfallen’ rational species might look like and contrast it with our current state. For example, in his book Perelandra, the female alien seems to communicate directly with God via some sort of telepathy, or better yet, through the clear voice of conscience untainted by sin and distrust of God. Lewis portrays the incarnation of Jesus as a unique and eternally present reality that the other aliens come to know of, and that knowledge actually helps them reject the temptations of the Nietzschean scientist /devil who tempts the aliens to reject God. I don’t want to give too much away, but I would highly encourage those interested in this question to read Lewis’ books; they are fascinating and thought provoking.
End Article –
I look forward to any comments and opinions you might like to share with us here at the Extraterrestrial Communication Group. Thanks for dropping by.
Stephen J. Silva