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.
Here is a good article on Aristotle.
Aristotle also believed the sole died with the body.
http://www.nd.edu/Departments/Maritain/etext/aatcc12.htm
I'm not sure about Aristotle postulating a Universal Mind consciously operating in all living things. That would be, it seems to me, a form of pantheism (or at least panentheism)--- and a serious error. But he did distinguish between that which merely lives and grows, that which lives and senses, and that which lives, reasons and chooses.
You can rightly say that everything the pagan philosophers taught must be examined critically, but not everything they taught is wrong. Some of them made good use of that intellective faculty by which we know true things, even about God. For instnance, there are non-Christian philosophers who will argue that the rational soul is immortal.
And the honest intellect can reason that the Universe was created by a Supreme Being of surpassing knowledge and power. That's a truth worth having, found even amongst the pagans.
*OPI pings.
*=Of Possible Interest
If you want on or off the UFO ping list, please freepmail KevinDavis or Las Vegas Dave
Every speck of everything in existence has a soul; i.e. a trackable history of it's insignificant uniqueness.
That is my opinion, and nothing more.
I agree with that.
Brother Astronomer:
Adventures of a Vatican Scientist
by Guy J. ConsolmagnoTurn Left at Orion:
A Hundred Night Sky Objects
to See in a Small Telescope
and How to Find Them
by Guy J. Consolmagno,
and Dan M. Davis,
with Karen Kotash Sepp,
Anne Drogin,
and Mary Lynn SkirvinThe Way to the Dwelling of Light
by Guy J. ConsolmagnoWorlds Apart:
A Textbook in Planetary Sciences
by Guy J. Consolmagno
and Martha Schaefer
God is everywhere!!
Is he speaking of the microbes or of the equivalent human life?
One would not. The other likely would.
Inquiring minds can check Jesuit's book
Or just spend thirty seconds thinking about it and save your 20 bucks.
Years ago, there was a story about a guy who wanted to prove souls existed. He put dying patients' beds on a scale and determined that upon death the bed, including it's occupant, weighed a few ounces less. He did the same with dogs, but don't remember what that result was.
It may be a translation issue here. The Biblical Hebrew word for spirit is ruah, meaning wind, breath, inspiration; the noun is grammatically feminine. Every being that has breath has ruah.
That does not, however, imply an immortal soul. "Thou takest their breath from them, and they die..." says Scripture.
The Greek New Testament uses four different words: Psyche, originally meaning butterfly or moth, later expanded to mean life, soul, ghost, departed spirit. Thymos, meaning breath, life, soul, temper, courage, will. Pneuma, meaning breath, mind, spirit, angel. Noös, meaning mind, reason, intellect.
That's why simple proof-texting doesn't work here. You have to dig to get the author's exact usage of the word, before you make any comparison between texts.
Dogs in heaven? I always told my kids that they will have perfect bliss in heaven. If (IF!!) they need their dog there for them to have perfect bliss, the dog'll be there. If...
My dogs exhibit some very human emotions, joy, grief, loyalty, love, fear, confidence, anger, guilt, etc. And they are able to make choices.
One wonders if there might be other intelligences, perhaps alien, that are to us as we are to our dogs.
I think that's possible. There's certainly no way to rule it out at this point.
Angelic intelligence might be an example of it. There are "myriads" (billions?) of angels of different sorts ---archangels, seraphim, etc.--- and their powers of reason and of will are superior to ours.
I saw a Far Side cartoon once captioned "Man comes to understand dog language." There's a whole neighborhood full of dogs going, Bark! Arf! Grr! Woof! Yip! ...and other doggy "words." And the translation is: "Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!"
If I saw a space allen I would want to shoot it and eat it before it could eat me.
This is a test which might fruitfully be used on our own species to determine which among us is truly human.
Problem is, in the wrong hands (and what other hands are available here?) it could be (and almost certainly would be) used for evil!
No. Whaling has been banned by the International Law of the Sea. For all intents and porpoises.
Aarrrgghh! Both funny and terrible at the same time! This proves that you have a soul!
And the fact that I can see this proves that I do, too!
Well, that's two of us here! Anybody else?
Howcome you jumped into this discussion almost 6 years later?
You time-traveling, or what?
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.
