Jesus Christ, Extraterrestrial? If life is found on other planets, does Christianity come unraveled?

Patheos ^ | 06/29/2011 | Curtis Chang and Jennifer Wiseman

[SeekAndFind]

The Veritas Riff is a group of friends who combine deep faith with world-class expertise in subjects ranging from politics, science, culture, business, medicine, and more. They offer their informal take on the big questions facing us all. I'm the host of the Veritas Riff, Curtis Chang.

For centuries, humans have asked whether life exists on other planets. In the last decade or so, astrophysicists have made actual progress in answering that question. As more exoplanets—planets outside our solar system—are discovered, the chances of locating extraterrestrial life rises. But how would the discovery of extraterrestrial life impact religion, and particularly Christianity?

Today we're talking to an expert uniquely suited to address this topic. Jennifer Wiseman is Chief of Laboratory for Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics at NASA. She's also the director of the Dialogue of Science, Ethics, and Religion for the American Association of the Advancement of Science.

Jennifer, where are we headed with this current pace of discovery? Is science on track to discover the presence of extraterrestrial life any time soon?

My personal opinion is that if we get the support we need in the next twenty years to build more sophisticated telescopes, we'll find several planets that are earth-sized, perhaps in our neighborhood of stars, that support atmospheres similar to earth's atmosphere. I don't think that's enough time to do what we would like to do, which is actually to find incontrovertible biomarkers, as we call them. A biomarker is a chemical signature in a planet's atmosphere that is a telltale sign of life. I think there will be so much ambiguity at first that we won't be able to say such a thing.

Now, if you ask me about fifty years instead of twenty, then I would say at that point we should have a great inventory, including all the spectroscopic studies, of hundreds of neighboring stars, including a detailed study of their atmospheres, and we should be able to say whether or not there's at least simple life on those planets. And now I'm getting into my true speculation, but I really believe there's a chance we'll find a signature of simple, single-cellular-type life somewhere out there. If Earth is as abundantly full of life as we think it is, then I have to think that other planets could be the same.

Take off your NASA hat for a moment and speak to me as a scientist who happens to be a Christian. If we got the news flash that there is intelligent life out there, how do you imagine that would impact Christian thought?

I imagine two steps in the Christian response. The first has to do with the idea that creation is good. That's set forth clearly for both Jews and Christians in scripture. Creation is a good thing, and God has created abundant life. Now, "created" could include evolutionary processes, but the point is that since God is the author of all of it, whatever is there is good.

So, with that theology when we see the abundance of life flourishing on this planet, we could simply broaden our view of God to include life elsewhere. If God is the author of life on countless other worlds, it increases our sense of wonder and appreciation.

The second step is this. In Christian thought, humans have a problem in their personal relationships with God. We're separated from God by our own sin, we need restoration of that personal relationship, and that restoration has been provided by God becoming human. God became incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ and walked the surface of the earth, guided us, and then died and rose again. That restored our relationship with God.

So if there are other intelligent civilizations out there, how has God interacted with them? Have they sinned? Have they needed redemption? Did Christ visit them in their forms? Or did his work here on Earth suffice for all life everywhere?

We get into a conundrum about the exact work of Jesus Christ on this planet and how it could pertain to life all over the cosmos. That's particularly important in Christianity, because it's really only humans in Christian theology who have this problem of sin. That's where we get into a really interesting theological case.

This is the sort of territory C.S. Lewis explored, of course, in Perelandra. What if we drill down beyond this abstract level of theological reflection to actual Christian communities? What is their range of reaction to news of extraterrestrial life?

I suspect the range of reaction, if we find simple life elsewhere, will be mostly positive. It's similar to when we found unusual life forms at the bottom of the ocean. It simply broadens our view of life and creation. If we find intelligent beings, that requires more thought. But if they're there, they're there, so it has to be incorporated into the theology.

I have some quotes from theologians and believers across the spectrum of Christian belief. Billy Graham said, "I firmly believe there are intelligent beings like us far away in space who worship God, but we have nothing to fear from them because, like us, they are God's creation." That would be one reaction. Another Christian leader in a ministry here in the United States felt that if we found extraterrestrial life it would actually make a mockery of our Christian faith, since the entire focus of creation, in his view, is mankind on this earth. In this person's view, finding life elsewhere would be a major shock to the way he had conceived God's work on earth.

So I'm not sure how people will react. Most, when asked, seem to think it would simply enrich their view of God, and they would be all the more awestruck. But for some, it would create this feeling of disorientation, like maybe what they've believed all along isn't right. It might strike a chord of fear and reexamination.

It seems to me that the fear and anxious reexamination might be concentrated in certain church traditions that elevate this personal God-and-me relationship over and above everything else in their teaching. Recently I drove by a church near my home, and the church had a sign: "God loves you as if you were the only one there is." What would happen if we discovered we aren't all there is? Would the discovery of extraterrestrial life threaten Christian notions of significance?

If we're looking at things from a Christian perspective, we have to examine where significance comes from scripturally. It never comes from a person's life span or location. Sometimes it's overt. The psalmist, for example, tells us that we're made of dust, and we're like grass that's here today and gone tomorrow. Yet we're constantly reminded of God's great love for us as individuals, so much that God even knows the number of hairs on our heads.

God's love is by choice, not by merit of place, time, or character. So I think we can expand that too. We already know that the universe is vaster than our wildest imagination. We have literally hundreds of billions of galaxies, each one with hundreds of billions of stars. We're looking at a universe that's been around for over 13 billion years and is still expanding. So the universe should already make us feel quite, quite small and insignificant in a spatial or temporal scale. But that does not at all translate to whether or not we're significant in the sight of God.

This should give Christians great comfort. Biblically, our significance is based on God's choice to love us.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Lied about what?

[onedoug]

That´s pretty much the way I see it.

[Quix]

Ex 33:22:

New International Version (©1984)
When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by.
New Living Translation (©2007)
As my glorious presence passes by, I will hide you in the crevice of the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by.

English Standard Version (©2001)
and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by.

New American Standard Bible (©1995)
and it will come about, while My glory is passing by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by.

GOD’S WORD® Translation (©1995)
When my glory passes by, I will put you in a crevice in the cliff and cover you with my hand until I have passed by.

King James Bible
And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by:

American King James Version
And it shall come to pass, while my glory passes by, that I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and will cover you with my hand while I pass by:

American Standard Version
and it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand until I have passed by:

Bible in Basic English
And when my glory goes by, I will put you in a hole in the rock, covering you with my hand till I have gone past:

Douay-Rheims Bible
And when my glory shall pass, I will set thee in a hole of the rock, and protect thee with my right hand, till I pass:

Darby Bible Translation
And it shall come to pass, when my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand, until I have passed by.

English Revised Version
and it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand until I have passed by:

Webster’s Bible Translation
And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock: and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by:

World English Bible
It will happen, while my glory passes by, that I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and will cover you with my hand until I have passed by;

Young’s Literal Translation
and it hath come to pass, in the passing by of Mine honour, that I have set thee in a cleft of the rock, and spread out My hands over thee, until My passing by,

---

Then there’s a host of Heavenly Visitations that are Biblically solid that indicates your construction on reality is likely quite flawed on such scores.

Sounds like you have fallen victim of

CHRISTO-PLATONISM

as Randy Alcorn lays out so well in his 500+ page

HEAVEN

Then as Isaiah said:

I SAW THE LORD HIGH AND LIFTED UP AND HIS TRAIN FILLED THE TEMPLE.

I suppose one could claim that such physical manifestations of the God-head are ‘merely’ matrix simulations—illusions, 3D holographic videos etc.

However, that’s NOT the God of the Bible that I know. HE LIKES the REAL THING.

[Claud]

It was “Man” that screwed himself over in The Garden of Eden. If there is life in outer space they no more need The Gospel than horses or birds do.

Yes, salvation history and the incarnation was directed to man, and man's original sin. We don't know how that would play out elsewhere. If members of other worlds are unfallen, they need no redemption, and if they are fallen, then we best not make assumptions about how Our Lord chooses to do it.

Other worlds could well be redeemed through us as the Gentiles were redeemed through Israel. Or they could be redeemed in a wholly different manner. Too early to tell yet.

[catfish1957]

I don’t seem to remember the bible saying there wasn’t life elsewhere. God may have many children throughout the universe.

[catfish1957]

I don’t seem to remember the bible saying there wasn’t life elsewhere. God may have many children throughout the universe.

[RecoveringPaulisto]

...and I'm not talking about Calvin's moronic division of humanity into elect versus reprobate.

I think your problem is with the New Testament, not John Calvin. Heck, Arminians, Semi-Pelagians, and maybe even Pelagians believe in election, albeit in vastly different forms. The only Theologians who don't are Open Theists. The word "Elect" appears 11 times in the NT NIV. The Greek word adokimos appears 8 times, and means something rejected as unfit. What, pray tell, were the New Testament writers referring to besides a separation between the elect and non-elect?

[RecoveringPaulisto]

Thank you. A socialistic atheist I know doesn’t seem to think so, lol.

[aruanan]

What, pray tell, were the New Testament writers referring to besides a separation between the elect and non-elect?

I'm referring solely to Calvin's (and to a lesser extent Luther's) warmed-over, Augustinian, predestinarian definition of elect and reprobate. The original point, though, was that when Paul says "all have sinned," he's speaking only of descendants of Adam and Eve. And he does so with specificity. And as I said, there are many persons who have sinned but will have no chance of redemption through Jesus because they aren't human and probably a whole lot more who have never sinned. Remember, humans and God aren't the only moral beings in existence.

[Jack Hydrazine]

How about in the Garden?

Genesis 3:8

“Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?””

Do you think God walked physically in the Garden?
Do you think an omniscient being like God would have a hard time finding a couple people in the Garden?

How about Deuteronomy 4:34?

“Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?”

Do you ever imagine God with a giant arm reaching down from low Earth orbit to save Jews in war?

How about Genesis 8:21?

“The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.”

I have to wonder what God’s nose looks like? I bet it’s a pretty big thing that floated over the Earth.

Now here’s the kicker in Numbers 23:19!

“God is not a man, so he does not lie. He is not human, so he does not change his mind. Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through?”

So we have what appear to be acts of God exerting physicality even though in the five books of Moses that it says He is non-corporeal. He lives in a realm beyond space and time that we can not really comprehend that when view by people like Isaiah can not even begin to explain that world in way we can really understand.

Will Jews ever deviate away from the teaching going all the way back to Moses that God isn’t physical? Where did Moses get all that light that shown from his face that scared his fellow Jews? Was it from a place in this universe or in a place that is beyond the physical?

Maybe the Torah has some mistakes in it? Maybe God decided to rewrite his “infallible” Word because it needed an upgrade to version 2.0 (aka the New Testament) because He didn’t quite get it right the first time and also to fit the times since man had evolved since the time the Torah was written.

Maybe the Koran was another upgrade and then finally the Book of Mormon as the final upgrade. Don’t you think man desires to create God the way he wants Him instead of the way He is and always will be?

[SeekAndFind]

RE: God may have many children throughout the universe

The way I understand the Gospel, we are all God’s CREATURES, but WE ARE NOT all God’s CHILDREN.

[Jack Hydrazine]

“I suppose one could claim that such physical manifestations of the God-head are ‘merely’ matrix simulations—illusions, 3D holographic videos etc.

However, that’s NOT the God of the Bible that I know. HE LIKES the REAL THING.”

Define ‘real’. Which world is real? This universe or the world where God dwells (aka ‘heaven’) that is beyond time and space?

[Cvengr]

Do you simply believe angels do not exist,? ... or that they are unable to occupy space beyond the Earth? ...or that soulish intelligence out trumps the spiritual walk.

I haven’t seen anything in the description of an ET which would preclude the soulish identification of some angels by unbelievers as an “ET”.

[catfish1957]

Roger... so how to you interpret that as far as presence of alien life?

[WorldviewDad]

“Does anything that God has revealed to us so far PRECLUDE THE POSSIBILITY that live exists on other planets.”

I am not sure that is actually the best question...I would start from the question: Does a study of the Scriptures lead a person to expect life to be on other planets? So far I would answer that question as, no.

There are all sorts of things that fall into the area of “possibility” but most of them never reach the area of “probability” and the ones that reach the area of reality, God has done a good job of preparing us for them.

[WorldviewDad]

Your post is well stated.

“That's like the conservatives who listen to state-run media with little discernment and try to incorporate their “facts” into their “conservatism.”

Or the conservatives or Christians that send their children to public school and then wonder why they walk away from the faith...

[WorldviewDad]

“Planets that God has DELIBERATELY put beyond our ability to connect with.”

If this was even true then the entire discussion about this is based entirely on speculation. The discussion is based upon an unknown thing which we have no evidence about and that we will never know anything about...sounds like a discussion about mans imagination...

[Quix]

Methinks you may have a hard time

allowing

ALMIGHTY GOD

TO BE ALMIGHTY GOD

and to

DO ALMIGHTY GOD

HOWEVER HE SEES FIT

including

AS AN OBSERVABLE, TANGIBLE PERSONAGE.

I have no need to explain away The Scriptures as they are written.

Some passages SEEM metaphorical. Some less so. And some not at all.

I doubt the finite can specify with much accuracy God’s perspective on any of that, much less all of it.

Perhaps Alamo-Girl or Betty Boop et al will give some of their anointed wisdom to the conjectures and pontifications.

[wagglebee]

Maybe the Torah has some mistakes in it? Maybe God decided to rewrite his “infallible” Word because it needed an upgrade to version 2.0 (aka the New Testament) because He didn’t quite get it right the first time and also to fit the times since man had evolved since the time the Torah was written.

Maybe the Koran was another upgrade and then finally the Book of Mormon as the final upgrade. Don’t you think man desires to create God the way he wants Him instead of the way He is and always will be?

So, you want to denigrate Jews and Christians and say that Muhammadism and Mormonism is an "upgrade"?

So, so you favor polygamy (hence the "upgrade" status you apply to Muhammadism and Mormonism)? What is your view of Heaven, do you think (as the Muhammadens do) that it's basically a brothel with an open bar?