This business about the Pentagon making its “UFO files” public has a lot of Christians in a lather. What will become of our Faith? What will it imply for the Nicene Creed? If there really are sentient aliens, will they have their own tentacled pentapodal Redeemers, or will they demand to share ours? If the latter, will depictions of Him as a standard human upset them or exalt them?
I don’t get it. I especially don’t get the fears that the discovery of sentient aliens might invalidate Christian doctrine. But there appear to be a lot of people who fear exactly that.
Some of the more militant atheists are strutting around, preening themselves over Christians’ fears and doubts. Never mind that as far as I’ve seen, nothing in the “UFO files” can be taken as strong evidence of alien visitations. Still, I must admit that I get a little amusement out of the panic over it, myself.
Why the jitters? Why wouldn’t sentient aliens just be more of God’s children? And why insist that the existence of such aliens would throw the core story of Christianity, the ministry, Passion, and Resurrection of Christ, into dispute?
I don’t get it, but I must admit that there’s a lot I don’t get, these days.
Look, my brothers and sisters in Christ: God’s ways are not ours. In particular, He can do a lot of things we can’t. He created our universe: every scrap of matter-energy in it. In doing so, He created time itself. For time will only exist and have relevance in a matter-filled cosmos.
It’s possible that we are His only sentient children. But it’s also possible that we’re not. We’re fallen, and needed to be Redeemed, so maybe other, nonhuman civilizations needed – or need – that too. But maybe, as in C. S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy, those other civilizations are un-fallen. Wouldn’t it be a kick in the head to learn that humans are the “black sheep” among God’s children?
If our contemporary understanding of physics remains as it is, we’re unlikely ever to encounter another sentient race. Science-fictional speculations aside, we’re about as unlikely ever to be sure we’ve heard from one. Those speculations can be fun, but unless and until the highly improbable happens and we receive a delegation from Ophiuchus or Aldebaran, we shouldn’t trouble ourselves over them.
But you know what would be maximally disturbing, something that would floor even your humble Curmudgeon? Being visited or contacted by humans in another solar system. Humans exactly like ourselves, who could interbreed with us. Add this to the pot: They already know about the Passion and Resurrection. No, Christ didn’t come to their world as He did to ours. We of Terra revolving around Sol are the lucky ones who had Him visit in human flesh. But it was the greatest Event of all history, and all sentients everywhere know about it.
Which implication would weigh heavier: that only Terra was privileged to have the Son of God walk among us, or that of all the humans in the universe, only we of Terra fell so far from grace that we needed Him and His Sacrifice of Himself?
In this connection, there’s a delightful novel: Space Princess, by Jon Mollison. Give it a look. Among other things, it establishes beyond doubt that I’m not the only crazy Catholic writing fiction today.
Well, as much fun as such imaginings are, what ought to matter to a Christian, alive here and now on Terra, is the state of his own soul. We can confidently leave the souls and salvations of sentients elsewhere in the cosmos to God, don’t you think?
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