I feel PaulHardigan’s angst. But I feel it even just here on earth. There is an undeniable inclusivity to the gospel, and yet an undeniable exclusivity as well.

But toward the discussion at hand… my sensible side tells me not to bother with such speculation until which time it becomes relevant. Cross that bridge when we get to it!

But I can’t resist, because I love to speculate, and I also think that it is a good intellectual exercise to sharpen our theology. So, is there intelligent life out there?

You’ve probably heard the argument against time travel — if there ever will be such a thing, why has no one come back to visit us? This begs the question that those who would travel back would alert us to their presence, but it’s an interesting argument nonetheless.

I would apply the same argument to life on other worlds. If there is a form of life out there with superior intelligence to ours, why haven’t they found us? Think of how far transportation technology has come in the last few centuries. I imagine that in another 10,000 years or so we will be exploring the furthest reaches of our galaxy, and I’m being conservative. 10,000 years is but a moment in the history of the universe. If there are other forms of intelligent life out there, they are either technologically behind us, or technologically ahead of us by only a whisker. But perhaps evolution has it’s own Moore’s law, and intellectual development has a fairly predictable rate, so we’ll all converge somewhere in outer space on our exploratory missions… anyway….

It is nearly impossible to answer this question from the “bottom-up” arguments. However, these kinds of scenarios do inform our top-down approaches. These life forms, I think it is safe to say, would not be included in the Adamic curse. They would not be fallen creatures, unless they have their own salvation history with a similar catastrophe. If they did indeed have a kind of “sin-concept” then it is natural to believe that God might orchestrate a similar redemption event. Again, I suppose we could assume that God would take the form of their flesh as He did ours. Would it not be fantastic if this alien race did indeed have such a belief system. Oh, the comparative studies would be marvelous.

However, I suppose we should also consider that their race is not fallen. This is a disturbing thought. Where in the cosmos is the line drawn, where the consequences of sin extend no further? And would our mere presence do such a race irreparable harm? Perhaps this is why they keep their distance!!!

What if such a race had completely different religious notions? If they were sufficiently advanced, would that lend credence to their belief system over ours? I can see the battle lines being drawn now. Those who believe the aliens offer enlightenment, and those who believe they are minions of Satan to deceive us in the last days!!

Now my brain is really starting to go off on tangents, so forgive me. I don’t subscribe to any of this, but I will pursue it as a mental exercise. However, it does not seem to require too forced a reading of the Scriptures to reinvent polytheism according to the new world order that these aliens might bring. Let Yahweh be the God of Earth, the God of humankind, of the Milky Way. Let there be other Gods of other planets, other galaxies, other unique lines of soulishness. This could fit with the concepts we read about in the Old Testament of their being other gods who at times seem to have power, and yet are no gods at all. Could these be Gods of other jurisdictions? Could Yahweh be truthfully presented as God above all these Gods not because he is inherently more powerful, but because He is operating in this His sphere of authority?

We read the creation story as cosmic, but there is very little of the cosmos that Moses could have imagined (please allow me to assume Mosaic authorship of Genesis for the duration of this article). Genesis 1 basically attests to some sort of quasimaterial soup that God divides above and below and creates our atmosphere. Then he separates it left from right to create land and sea. There’s a canopy above that holds the water above us, with windows that occasionally open to let some rain down Apparently many shiny stars are stuck to this canopy. There are clouds upon which God makes his dwelling, these regions are called “skies” or “heavens.” There’s a sun and a moon. And there’s a bunch of plants and animals on the earth, in the skies, and in the seas. That’s about it. There’s nothing in this description that requires anything beyond the bounds of our galaxy. Our tendency to believe otherwise comes not from the Genesis, but from trying to marry it to Big Bang theory.

There are, to the contrary, passage such as Colossians 1 which attest that Jesus was involved in the creation of “all things,” but even in these passages what is meant by “all things” does not seem to extend beyond our galaxy (in fact, what is meant does not seem to extend nearly that far).

It’s also very relevant to observe that the process of creation greatly resembles God’s redemptive act at the Red Sea. In other words, the creation is a very contextualized story whose purpose is to show God’s provision and purpose to a million or so Israelites wandering around in the desert. God’s primary activity and concern has always been to establish fertile land for His people. This should seriously temper our tendency to give it cosmic significance.

Unless we are the only soulish creatures in the universe, there are also theological reasons not to read the creation narrative as cosmic in scope: the fall. Adam would presumably not be the representative of all life, only all humanity. Alien races would not necessarily fall under the curse or suffer the consequences of Adam’s sin. I suppose we could let Adam be the representative for all life in the universe, but now we’ve proclaimed ourselves as privileged beyond what Scripture requires.

Of course, I should mention that the idea of a superior, possibly un-fallen alien intelligence suggests parallels with angelic beings. And perhaps is there an alien race which is fallen but not redeemed? The devil and his minions? Have these races actually visited before (Gen 6)? But you all can chase that rabbit trail yourselves. At least in this model, we get Yahweh back on His throne as Lord of Lords and King of Kings.

I could write a book, and sell a million copies. All it takes is controversy, and a good measure of sheer silliness, and I think I’ve shown that I can conjure up my fair share of both.

Sometimes taking our theology to such extremes can illuminate its shortcomings. Hopefully that’s the beneficial aspect of this kind of zany speculation.