Last week Deseret News put out an article on how various religious groups would respond to the discovery of life on other planets. It’s an interesting article and you should check it out here. A religious survey was conducted by Prof. David Weintraub who teaches astronomy at Vanderbilt. Among the highlights of his study is the conclusion that Buddhists would be particularly comfortable with the discovery of life on other planets, whereas evangelical Christians would be in one of the worst positions theologically.
The evangelical Christian community stood out in Weintraub’s mind as the most unprepared to deal with such a discovery, given its ongoing tension with science on the subject of evolution.
The divide between evangelicalism and science is something I’ve written about before, and I think this issue of life on other planets is one that evangelicals need to consider. How should we think about this issue?
The first thing that comes to my mind is that those of us who aren’t prepared to make any scientific judgments shouldn’t do so. So a conclusion like, “There isn’t any life on any other planets” simply won’t cut it. Pastorally, the worst part about this conclusion is that it could potentially shipwreck the faith of many if any such discoveries are made. So, rather than trying to be armchair astrophysicists and astrobiologists, we should focus on the theological task of thinking through the implications of the subject. And this is not about having the right answers or theological conclusions, rather it is about a theological posture.
When I think about bad theology on this subject I am immediately reminded of an article that came out this summer in which Ken Ham—the President of Answers in Genesis—concluded that there is no life on other planets. Although, when he concedes the hypothetical possibility that there might be life on other planets, he quickly says that these would go to Hell. Ham’s logic is that Adam’s sin affected the whole world, and since these living things are not descendents of Adam, there can be no salvation for them.
I have two main problems with Ham on this. First, he has no scientific qualifications to be so matter-of-fact on this issue. Secondly, his assumption, and it seems to be the popular assumption of most people, is that if we did find life on other planets such life would be as sophisticated and intelligent as us, or perhaps would be superior to us. Now, there’s no reason to assert that this is definitely wrong, but why would we automatically assume that? Perhaps other planets have animals of some sort that do not have the intellectual capacity of humans. This observation undermines Ham’s assertion that “aliens” would go to Hell. I’m assuming he doesn’t think his family dog is going to Hell, so why would he assume that non-rational animals in outer space would go to Hell also? The biblical picture of redemption is cosmic in scope and includes the restoration of the animal order (see my blog post All Dogs Do Go To Heaven), and so theologically there is no reason to make such bald statements about the redemption of alien life.
In the same article in which Ken Ham calls NASA’s efforts to find life on other planets as “fruitless,” there is a reference to what Pope Francis said at a service back in May about life on other planets.
Francis reminded the audience of the words of Peter: “If then God gave them the same gift He gave to us when we came to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to be able to hinder God?”
I absolutely love the analogy that Pope Francis is making here. He is quoting from Acts 11. Famously, Acts 10–15 depicts the early days of the mission to the Gentiles. These chapters explore the early Jewish concern as to whether Gentiles could be redeemed as Gentiles, that is to say, without being circumcised, without becoming Jews, without being “us” (from a Jewish perspective). The answer of course is that there is one God, and he is the God of all creation, and he is the God of salvation. What Ken Ham said about aliens sounds a lot like what early Jewish Christians thought about Gentiles. Isn’t this just another form of xenophobia, another form of fearing the foreigner?
One Christian who was ahead of his time on this issue was C.S. Lewis. One can see from his Space Trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength) that he entertained the idea that God would make redemption possible in some way for life on other planets. In fact, the Narnia series should be understood in this way too. Lewis wasn’t simply making an allegory about salvation, he was imagining what it would be like for God to provide redemption in a different world like Narnia.
Coincidentally there is a new video coming out by the Discovery Institute—the think tank of the Intelligent Design movement—called Privileged Species. I’m not sure if this video will set out to demonstrate that there certainly isn’t life on other planets, but it will no doubt defend the position that our planet is fine tuned for life, and in particular, human life. You can watch the trailer below:
I’m assuming that this video will basically be the anthropological version of their earlier Privileged Planet. Whether or not our planet is fine tuned for life, must it be the case that it is the only one that is so fine tuned?
What do you guys think? How should we prepare for such a discovery theologically? How should we be pastorally sensitive with this issue? Any thoughts?
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