Would The Existence of Space Aliens Threaten Christianity?
(ANALYSIS) An intriguing religious issue is raised by an odd space-age colloquy in mid-February between Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Out of the blue, political podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen asked Obama, “Are aliens real?”
He immediately replied, “They’re real, but I haven’t seen them” and he knows of no proof that extraterrestrials exist.
In the ensuing ET-and-thee hubbub, Obama soon clarified his reasoning: “Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there. But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us.”
READ: Inside The Vatican’s High-Stakes UFO Hunt
Enter President Trump, who made the tantalizing accusation that the former President “made a big mistake” because he has revealed “classified information.” Trump himself is undecided: “I don’t know if they’re real or not.”
Hours after those remarks, Trump announced that due to “tremendous interest” his Pentagon and other agencies will make public “government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) and unidentified flying objects (UFOs).”
Adding mystery, Lara Trump said her father-in-law has already prepared a speech about extraterrestrials that he’ll be issuing at the “right time.”
Wars of Worlds and Words
Science fiction writing that speculates about alien lives has been perpetually popular since 1897, when H.G. Wells depicted hostile men from Mars invading planet Earth in “The War of the Worlds.”
A year ago, Trump vowed that America will send expeditions to Mars, a vision promoted by Elon Musk. Leaving aside the exorbitant cost of such exploration, seemingly insuperable problems include transporting necessary quantities of life-saving oxygen, water, food, and heating fuel (Martian temperatures can reach minus 195 degrees).
NASA reported last year that in 2020 a rover on Mars obtained a rock sample with “potential biosignatures” suggesting living entities might have existed long ago, though no conclusion was reached. However, what interests people is not microbes on Mars or in cosmic dust across the universe but whether there’s proof somewhere of “sentient” species like us, capable of reasoning and communication, that we might encounter someday.
That then raises whether, as skeptics sometimes contend, the existence of beings from outer space might undermine Christianity, with its biblical insistence on the uniqueness of humanity. The apparent consensus among theologians who’ve given this some thought is No.
To begin at the beginning, the Jewish (and Christian) Bible states that “God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). Everyone agrees this and other scriptural passages teach that God produced the universe, the entirety of material that exists. That would include distant biological species that Obama figured should exist in theory.
A Bible for Earth-dwellers
Scripture famously culminates by saying that “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them” (Genesis 1:27-28). The Bible, here and throughout, naturally addresses what was visible and pertinent for Earth-dwellers. While portraying God’s sovereignty over all of the cosmos, ancient writings thousands of years before the Moon landings could not possibly have revealed anything about organisms in vastly distant galaxies.
The folks at biblehub.com observe that throughout Christian history theologians have mused about “possibilities beyond their own earthly experiences. These dialogues illustrate that such inquiries are not new or threatening to the foundations of faith.”
Leading present-day Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga ponders hypothetical “possible worlds” to challenge us to consider that if we were God could we possibly produce a world that allows free will but has no sin and suffering.
As is the case on many topics, C.S. Lewis (1898–1963) produced an especially pertinent discussion on Christianity if there are lives elsewhere. This British literary scholar at Oxford and Cambridge Universities wrote the Narnia series of children’s novels and books explaining Christian beliefs, which together have sold 100 million copies and counting. Titillated by philosophers’ cosmic theorizing and serious discussions about eventual space travel, Lewis wrote a trilogy of science fiction novels set in Mars (1938), Venus (1943) and Earth (1945).
Late in life, Lewis wrote a remarkable 1958 article for Christian Herald magazine (R.I.P.) titled “Will We Lose God in Outer Space?”. Retitled “Religion and Rocketry,” it is included in the 1960 essay collection “The World’s Last Night,” available in paperback and Kindle.
Lewis was responding in part to space-based skepticism from eminent Cambridge astronomer Fred Hoyle (1915-2001). And yet by 1983, Hoyle’s book “The Intelligent Universe” analyzed scientific evidence proving overwhelming odds against human life ever existing.
He decided Darwin’s evolution theory was inadequate because the origin of life required an incredibly intelligent force, either inside nature a la Hinduism (Hoyle’s preference) or from outside, which for Christians, of course, is God.
Lewis teased out the implications of space aliens for Christianity in five steps:
One: Are there any other animal species in outer space? We don’t know, and we don’t know whether we’ll ever know.
Two: OK, but if there were, would they be conscious, with rational souls like ours and capable of moral judgments?
Three: If so, are they all “fallen” sinners like all humans, as the Bible teaches? Lewis saw no reason to assume beings elsewhere would be alienated from God or need salvation from sin through Jesus Christ. (Lewis proposed elsewhere that the vast distances in space could be “God’s quarantine” so Earthlings cannot contaminate other realms with our sin.)
Four: If fallen, have they been denied such redemption? That would violate what we know about God’s love. Lewis reasoned that for all we know Jesus could have been the incarnate God who also brings salvation in other worlds.
Five: Or if theoretical space beings are denied salvation through Christ as humanity knows it, is that the only possible means of redemption? Conditions could be quite different spiritually and morally in other worlds we know nothing about (which was one of his fictional plot devices).
Two sensible Lewis conclusions: Christianity can easily accommodate the existence of aliens if we ever locate any. And “those who do not find Him [God] on earth are unlikely to find Him in space.”
This piece was originally published by Patheos.
Richard N. Ostling was a longtime religion writer with The Associated Press and with Time magazine, where he produced 23 cover stories, as well as a Time senior correspondent providing field reportage for dozens of major articles. He is a recipient of the Religion News Association's Lifetime Achievement Award. He has interviewed such personalities as Billy Graham, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI); ranking rabbis and Muslim leaders; and authorities on other faiths; as well as numerous ordinary believers. He writes a bi-weekly column for Religion Unplugged.