Notice to Borrowers

 

In presenting this thesis as partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree from Georgia State University, I agree that the library of the university will make it available for inspection and circulation in accordance with its regulations governing materials of this type. I agree that permission to quote from, to copy from, or to publish from this thesis may be granted by the author, by the professor under whose direction it was written, or by the Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences. Such quoting, copying or publishing must be solely for scholarly purposes and must not involve potential financial gain. It is understood that any copying from or publication of this thesis that involves potential financial gain will not be allowed without written permission of the author.

 

 

_________________________________________

 

Cynthia Anne Miller Smith

 

The author of this thesis is thesis is

Cynthia Anne Miller Smith
2710 Regal Way
Tucker, Georgia 30084

 

The director of this thesis is

Dr. Timothy M. Renick
Department of Philosophy
(Program in Religious Studies)
College of Arts & Sciences

 

 

Shadows of Things to Come:

The Theological Implications of Intelligent Life on Other Worlds

 

A Thesis

 

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University

 

2004

 

by

 

Cynthia Anne Miller Smith

 

 

Committee:

 

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Dr. Timothy M. Renick, Chair

 

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Dr. Kathryn McClymond, Member

 

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Dr. Mark Woodhouse, Member

 

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Dr. Reiner R. Smolinski, Member

 

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Dr. Victor A. Kramer, Member

 

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Date

 

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Dr. George Rainbolt

Department Chair

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright by

Cynthia Anne Miller Smith

2004

 

 

 

Abstract

 

Modern Christian thinkers from the twentieth to twenty-first century often believe that speculation on the existence of extraterrestrial intelligent life is a recent phenomenon - the product of the nuclear age, space travel, and modern science fiction. In point of fact, Christian scholars and intellectuals have been discussing the theological implications of intelligent life on other worlds for nearly two-thousand years. They have asked whether inhabitants of other worlds, like human beings, are creatures with souls made in the spiritual image of God; whether they have fallen from grace or are sinners in need of Redemption; whether the Incarnation of Jesus Christ is a unique universal event affecting the whole of creation; whether Jesus Christ came to redeem and save inhabitants of other worlds as well as human beings by his grace via his life, death, and resurrection; whether the mission of the Catholic Church is to spread the Gospel throughout the cosmos, baptizing all creatures, humans and nonhumans alike; whether the very existence of such inhabitants contradicts or supports certain interpretations of the Bible’s view of the special nature of humanity; and whether their existence implies or denies the intelligent design of the universe. This thesis will explore these questions and consider whether the answers are consistent with the concepts of redemption, justification, sanctification, and salvation as historically put forth by the Catholic Church and various other Christian groups.

 

At the outset, I should emphasize that this thesis is not an examination of evidence for or against the existence of inhabitants of other worlds. It is rather a study of the theological implications resulting from the possible discovery of intelligent life on other worlds and how the theory of a plurality of populated worlds has affected Christians and Christian thought for centuries down to the present day.

 

Dedication

 

I dedicate this Masters Thesis to my Father, a devout Catholic who has believed extraterrestrials exist since he was a little boy; to my Mother, a devout Catholic who encouraged me to read everything I wanted since I was a child; to my Brother who introduced me to science fiction; to my husband, a devout Christian who has put up with me during the writing of this thesis; and to my three sons who bring joy to my heart.

Acknowledgements

 

I would like to thank all the members of my committee for their constructive criticisms and helpful suggestions in the writing of this masters thesis.

 

Tim Renick has been especially helpful in reviewing my thesis more times than I can count and in helping me to make it a worthwhile and interesting piece of work. He had me add where it needed adding and cut where it needed cutting, and was always there to provide me with assistance whenever I needed it.

 

Kathryn McClymond has been an important source of Biblical knowledge and scholarship and in contributing language information to this thesis.

 

Mark Woodhouse has been an invaluable source of information about academic views of extraterrestrials, providing books, magazines, and newsletters and suggesting other works of interest to this thesis. I’m especially grateful that he encouraged me in his class to write my first academic paper on religion and extraterrestrials.

 

Reiner Smolinski has been an unflagging supporter and anchor to me, not only contributing valuable ideas and suggestions to make this thesis smoother and more readable and more complete, especially in the language area, but also encouraging my heart and being there when I needed him.

 

Victor Kramer has been a kind and gracious commentator on this thesis and has helped to make ostensibly absurd ideas into more presentable and mainstream thought.

 

I would also like to thank Father Kenneth Delano for the very helpful exchange of ideas in our correspondence. My thanks also go to Michael Crowe for very helpfully critiquing this thesis and providing interesting commentary on this fascinating topic. I am also deeply indebted to Father Andrew Greeley for his very helpful suggestions during our correspondence over the last several years. Moreover, Louanne Bachner has provided me with useful commentary on this thesis. I also greatly appreciate my correspondence with Carol Newsom of Emory University who provided me with helpful definitions of certain Hebrew words.

 

I would also like to acknowledge the spiritual assistance of God who inspired me to write this thesis which is largely about him and his work.

Table of

Contents

 

Notice to Borrowers

Title Page

Copyright Page

Abstract iii

Dedication iv

Acknowledgements v

Table of Contents vi

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 9

Section 1 9

Section 2 17

Chapter 2 32

Chapter 3 41

Section 1 41

Section 2 65

Chapter 4 74

Bibliography 79

Appendix A 89

Appendix B 92

Appendix C 104

Appendix D 114

                                                                                                Introduction

 

These are shadows of things to come; the reality belongs to Christ.  -- Colossians 2:17[1]

 

For what distances can love reach that are not in that vast sphere?  What visions, what expectations and what presumptions can outsoar that flight?  Like a giant oak tree covered with apple blossoms is the vast man in you.  His might binds you to the earth, his fragrance lifts you into space, and in his durability you are deathless.  -- Khahlil Gibran, The Prophet[2]

Now is the time for all of us to start making the necessary mental preparations for the revelation that we are not alone in the universe.  – Father Kenneth J. Delano, Many Worlds, One God[3]

 

Frederick William Cronhelm, a member of the 19^th century British congregation of Rev. Dr. Charles Musgrave, argues in his short book entitled Thoughts on the Controversy As to a Plurality of Worlds (London, 1858) that the universe cannot be strewn with a plurality of worlds lest we have “a Bethlehem in Venus, a Gethsemane in Jupiter, a Calvary in Saturn” (cited in Crowe 334).  However, other Christian authors from recent centuries argue the opposite is the case, claiming that the Logos becomes incarnate on inhabited worlds throughout the cosmos.  Still others like Rev. Josiah Crampton (1809 – 1883) argue that “the material heavens [are] places of habitation” because Jesus ascended into heaven (cited in Crowe 335).  Ernan McMullin of Notre Dame University writes that theologians have been largely silent on the issues of whether the work of Christ extends to inhabitants of other worlds or whether the Logos has become or will become incarnate on a multiplicity of worlds, but John Jefferson Davis writes that McMullin seems to be unaware of the research of Steven Dick and Michael Crowe, both of whom indicate clearly that such speculations have been going on at least since the third century A.D. (J.J. Davis 22).  Since a number of Christians believe that Jesus is physically in heaven, some speculate that it follows that he has become or may yet become incarnate in many worlds.  Is this position theologically sound, or does Christian theology demand that the Incarnation be unique to the Earth?

For millennia, people gazing up at the starry heavens have asked questions and speculated about the possibility of life on other planets, the nature of the universe, and the place of human beings in it.  There is a series of interesting theological implications to the existence of extraterrestrials, leading to a series of questions regarding the significance of Jesus, the salvific effects of the Incarnation on inhabitants of other worlds in terms of the redemption purchased by the blood of Christ, as well as issues of justification, sanctification, and salvation.  These issues ultimately raise the question:  if extraterrestrials are creations of God, can they be redeemed, justified, sanctified, and saved by the earthly Incarnation of the Logos?  The redemption and salvation of extraterrestrials pose significant theological questions deserving of serious study by scholars and the faithful alike because an understanding of the effects of the actions of the Logos on inhabitants of other worlds tells inhabitants of the Earth as much about ourselves as about God.

It should be noted that this thesis is written within the context of a Christian and pre-Christian Jewish and Greek framework encompassing both Old Testament and New Testament theologies.  While the beliefs of other religions are interesting and certainly worthwhile subjects of study, I have limited my investigation to the Christian and pre-Christian Jewish context since the primary topic is the theological implications of intelligent life on other worlds with respect to the Incarnation of the Logos, a specifically Christian idea influenced by pre-Christian Greek theological thought on the organizing force through which the universe was created.  The Greek word Logos means “reason” or “speech” or “word.”  Philosophically, to the pre-Christian Greeks, it means universal reason providing order and sensibility to the kosmos.  The words kosmos, Logos and other technical terms will be discussed more extensively in Chapter 3. 

Another important word is “catholic” meaning “universal.”  Is the salvation of Christ truly universal, extending throughout the universe?  The Catholic Church teaches that Christ offers his grace to everyone freely.  Does that mean Christians should spread the Gospel in order to make that offer known to inhabitants of other worlds?  This essay will suggest that, for all its complexities, the question of the salvation of inhabitants of other worlds is not qualitatively distinct from the question of the salvation of humans.  C.S. Lewis (1898 – 1963), a British scholar, Christian apologist, Anglican, and novelist, writes in his science fiction works that inhabitants of other worlds, like humans, are hnau, that is, sentient conscious beings (Space Trilogy).  For some Christians, the greatness of God implies that the greatness of his universe include other minds and souls who quest for the ultimate reality, just as do humans.  I will argue that this position is consistent with those of a wide range of Christian theologians, not only Aurelius Augustine and Thomas Aquinas but also William of Vorilong, Thomas Chalmers, Sir David Brewster, and others.  The idea that inhabitants of other worlds can experience the salvation of Christ is not an official teaching of the Catholic Church[4], but it is not heresy either.  I believe it is consistent with Catholic teaching that inhabitants of other worlds can be saved, and I will attempt to show that, although the Catholic Church has not yet issued any official proclamations about the matter, important Catholic and non-Catholic theologians have speculated on the question throughout the ages, and many have arrived at similar conclusions.

In this thesis, I demonstrate that, prior to the twentieth century, the vast majority of intellectuals in the West express the belief that a plurality of populated worlds may exist, and many Christians attempt to reconcile Christianity with such pluralism.  I believe it is consistent with Catholic teachings, as well as with certain of the authors and theologians discussed in this thesis, to believe that inhabitants of other worlds, like human beings, are creatures with souls made in the spiritual image of God whose spiritual essence and physical forms of hnauare incidental to their relationship to his true image.

Some Greek philosophers argue that the notion of an exclusively singular world is ludicrous, and the myths of many ancient peoples populate the heavens with gods and goddesses who are certainly non-terrestrial in origin.  Some Medieval scholars fight charges of heresy to argue that the heavens are teeming with inhabited worlds, while some Renaissance scholars believe that all of the planets in our solar system contain intelligent beings more or less like humans.  Northrop Frye, in The Great Code, discusses the development of humanity’s understanding of thesky:

The nature around us is permeated by death and corruption, but we can discern within it the original “good” creation.  The symbol of this original nature, and all that is now really left of it, is the sky.  The stars give out, according to legend, a music or harmony that expresses the sense of perfected structure.  The two levels of nature thus make up for man a purgatorial order, a means whereby he attains his own “true nature.”

 

This symbolic structure wore out in the eighteenth century for two main reasons.  First the images of the sky’s perfection disappeared:  the stars were not made out of immortal quintessence, and the planets did not revolve around the earth in perfect circles.  The sky joined the rest of nature as an image of alienation, often in fact as the most extreme form of it.  Second, there was no real evidence that the “natural” on the upper human level really was natural to man except the assertions of custom and established authority.  The Lady in Milton’s Comus regards her chastity as natural on her level of nature, but the arguments used are circular:  she wishes to remain chaste, and that is that.  For us, human creativity is still thought of as purgatorial, as a way of raising the level of human nature.  But that it imitates or restores an original divine creation of nature is not a principle now defended with much confidence.  The essential meaning of the creation story, for us, seems to be as a type of which the antitype is the new heaven and earth promised in Revelation 21:1. (113 – 114)

 

It would seem, then, that as the centuries progress, humanity’s view of the heavens change to reflect the evolving science of the day.  When the sky becomes something other than the abode of God, and heaven becomes spiritualized as a relationship with God, albeit on some kind of aethereal plane, then humanity’s understanding of the kosmos evolves to include beings in it which are not necessarily any less fallen than humanity.  With the myth of the perfection of the heavens shattered, scientists and theologians alike are freed from the fetters of its dogma to speculate about other worlds which some theorize may not be all that different theologically from our own. 

In the eighteenth century, intelligent design supporters attempt to explain the design of the universe in terms of Newtonian physics, but, when the theory then in vogue became outdated, later supporters attempted to explain design in terms of quantum theory, and no doubt in the future supporters will attempt to explain design in terms of whatever new theory, perhaps the T.O.E. (Theory of Everything), will then be in fashion.  The problem, as I see it, is that some scientists and some theologians attempt to yoke together then-current interpretations of scientific theories with then-current interpretations of theology so that, when the scientific theories lose their vigor, the practice is to simultaneously reject the theological interpretation to which it is yoked.  For this reason, the Catholic Church at one time rejected new interpretations of scientific theories of the kosmos because its theology was linked to the older Aristotelian science.  When the scientific ideas of Aristotle (384 B.C. – 322 B.C.) were thrown out, the Church scrambled to save its theology from being thrown out with it.  Since Vatican II (1962 – 1965), the Catholic Church more openly supports scientific research and proclaims that scientific theories such as evolution and quantum theory, which explain the construction of the universe and the development of life, do not contradict Catholic teachings.  As scientific explanations increase in number and clarity, so do theological explanations of the kosmos and the probable place of intelligent beings like humans within it.  While scientific theories often are very successful at explaining the process of cosmic evolution and hylology, they often explain hylogenesis very poorly, if at all.  In this thesis, we will see that, as scientific views of the kosmos are updated over the centuries, the views of many theologians and authors are updated as well. 

Perhaps unfortunately, the twentieth century initially rejects the heady ideas of the Renaissance and other earlier enthusiasts of intelligent life in the universe, and many modern scholars denounce the idea of a universe populated with intelligent creatures, arguing that the probabilities are quite low.  Scholars risk losing their respectability for speculating on the possibility of extraterrestrial life, much less discussing the theological implications of inhabitants of other worlds.  However, since the 1950s, when some reputable scientists expressed support for the notion of inhabitants of other worlds, some daring theologians are joining the fray.

Indeed, many of these theologians reveal a fascinating and provocative set of questions surrounding the Incarnation of the Logos with respect to inhabitants of other worlds, and this thesis will examine the various arguments scholars and theologians have put forth in response.  Although the primary thrust of this thesis is to discuss the Incarnation of Christ, the author is well aware that issues of Christ’s death and resurrection are equally pertinent to salvation, whether for inhabitants of Earth or inhabitants of other worlds.  I will argue that the Incarnation is unique to the Earth, even while putting forth arguments to the contrary, because the resurrection of the Logos is distinct from the practice of Jesus of raising people from the dead.  Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead, would die again, but Jesus, after being resurrected, did not and does not die again, according to basic Christian theology.  Therefore, because Jesus does not die again, I will argue that it is incongruous with Christian theology to suppose that he, after becoming incarnate on other worlds, ever dies again, even if he rises again.  Although some of the authors examined in this thesis disagree, I will suggest that Scripture and tradition strongly support the view that Jesus transcends and permeates the universe he created, that he is immanent inside that universe, and that he panentheistically maintains and subsists within the kosmos.

Chapter 1

 

The Debate over the Incarnation and Redemptive Work of Christ

            And the Logos became flesh

            And pitched his tent among us,

            And we saw his glory,

            The glory as of the Father’s only Son,

            Full of grace and truth.  – John 1:14

 

He is the Ancient Wisdom of the World,

The Word Creative, Beautiful and True,

The Nameless of Innumerable Names,

Ageless forever, yet Forever New.  -- Charles Carroll Albertson, “The Holy Child”

 

The idea that we are the only intelligent creatures in a cosmos of a hundred million galaxies is so preposterous that there are very few astronomers today who would take it seriously.  It is safest to assume, therefore, that They are out there and to consider the manner in which this fact may impinge upon human society.  – Arthur C. Clarke, Report on Planet Three and Other Speculations[5]

 

 

Section 1. Thomas Chalmers,William Whewell, and Sir David Brewster et al.

 

Long before the twentieth century, public debates raged about whether inhabitants populate other worlds and, if so, how this hypothesis affects Christianity, Christians, and Christian theology, particularly the doctrines of the Incarnation and redemption of Christ.  William of Vorilong (1390 – 1463), a Franciscan theologian and author of a widely quoted commentary on the Sentences of Peter Abelard (1079 – 1142), believes that inhabitants of other worlds would not sin after the manner of Adam: 

If it be inquired whether men exist on that [other] world, I answer no, for they would not exist in sin and did not spring from Adam.  As to the question whether Christ by dying on this earth could redeem the inhabitants of another world, I answer that he is able to do this even if the worlds are infinite, but it would not be fitting for Him to go into another world that he must die again (cited in Dick, Plurality of Worlds 88). 

 

A little more than a century later, Philip Melanchthon (1497 – 1560), a German disciple of Martin Luther, espouses the early Protestant view that a plurality of worlds violates Scripture, and since in his belief Scripture is the sole rule of faith, God would not have made other worlds without saying so in the Bible (cited in Dick, Plurality of Worlds 88).  Since the Bible describes the creation of one world with the sun, the moon, and the stars, it follows that he created nothing else, certainly not other kosmoi, in his view. As a result, Melanchthon contends that the Incarnation of the Logos is unique to the earth on the grounds that other worlds do not exist. 

A generation later, Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642), an Italian astronomer, mathematician, and natural philosopher, expresses concern about how his Catholic Church might react to the speculation of the effects of the Incarnation and redemption on inhabitants of other worlds and so denies that otherworldly beings exist, though it is not clear what beliefs he would have asserted without such constraints.  Galileo’s friend, the Jesuit Giovanni Ciampoli (1589 – 1643), a brilliant Latinist, warns Galileo in 1615 that ideas about inhabitants on other worlds have profound consequences when taking into consideration the view that such inhabitants are not descendents of Adam nor descendents of Noah (Dick, Plurality of Worlds 90).  To solve this problem, Tommaso Campanella (1568 – 1634), an Italian philosopher and writer, attempts to reconcile Catholic teachings with Renaissance humanism and defends Galileo, speculating about the plurality of worlds theory by insisting that such theories do not violate Catholic teachings (including Scripture) but merely the teachings of Aristotle.  Campanella disbelieves that “men” in other worlds had sinned and needed redemption, asserting therefore that Jesus did not have to die for them.  This idea implies that Christ needed to die and rise again for the people populating the antipodes of the Earth.  However, for these reasons, Campanella seems unconcerned with the theological ramifications of this issue and is unclear as to how theology would be affected if extraterrestrials did inhabit other worlds and had sinned (Dick, Plurality of Worlds 92 – 93). 

Thus begins one of the most important historical debates over whether the Incarnation is unique to the Earth or whether it was necessary for Christ to become incarnate on other worlds to redeem their inhabitants in the same way that earlier theologians believe another Incarnation on Earth was necessary to save the people of the antipodes.  Since most of the authors discussed in this thesis support the notion that other worlds may be inhabited, the question arises if the redemptive work of Christ on Earth applies universally to inhabitants of other worlds without multiple incarnations or if the redemptive work of Christ applies only to humans through his unique Incarnation?  Put another way, does Christ save a multiplicity of inhabitants of other worlds via a multiplicity of incarnations or is his Incarnation unique to the Earth because inhabitants of other worlds are not fallen like human beings are and thus do not need to be redeemed?  Before we can answer these questions, let us review the principal positions.

A prominent position we will examine is that of Thomas Chalmers (1780 – 1847), a Presbyterian minister, theologian, author, and social reformer who was the first moderator of the Free Church of Scotland.  He wrote Astronomical Discourses in which he preaches fervently on the doctrines of Christ’s Atonement and the sinfulness of human beings who, he believes, desperately need grace.  He also argues in favor of pluralism, although he does not believe that Christ became incarnate on other worlds but believes his redemption extends to other planets (Crowe 186 – 187).  Chalmers believes it is acceptable to reinterpret Scripture according to modern knowledge of science and astronomy.  For example, he interprets Scripture to mean that possible inhabitants of other worlds rejoice over the repentance and conversion of one sinner along the lines of Luke 15:7:

I tell you, in just the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance.

 

Chalmers’s sermons and writings were instrumental in the debate about pluralism and extraterrestrials (Crowe 190).  Chalmers argues that:

For anything he can tell, the eternal Son, of whom it is said, that by him the worlds were created, may have had the government of many sinful worlds laid upon his shoulders; and by the power of his mysterious word, have awoke them all from that spiritual death, to which they had sunk in lethargy as profound as the slumbers of non-existence. (73)

 

Chalmers asserts that nonbelievers cannot accept extraterrestrial redemption because they believe an omnipotent God would never bother to visit our paltry planet or take on human form, let alone die or redeem insignificant man (Discourse III 89 – 90).  Yet, for Chalmers, that is exactly what happened:  He writes that God does not let a single world become lost, especially if evangelists bring its inhabitants back from the errors of their ways (94).  The position of Chalmers is that no world is too small or too mean for God to care for its inhabitants, and the way God cares for the inhabitants of all worlds is through the mediation of his Son (Chalmers 107 – 112).  He also writes, “Let us put forth an effort, and keep a steady hold of this consideration – for the deadness of our earthly imaginations makes an effort necessary – and we shall perceive, that though the world we live in were the alone theatre of redemption, there is something in the redemption itself that is fitted to draw the eye of an arrested universe” (Discourse IV 130).  Chalmers seems to imply that the greatness of the Incarnation and redemptive work of Christ suffuses the universe and all its inhabitants, earthly and extraterrestrial.  Chalmers continues: 

Now, though it must be admitted that the Bible does not speak clearly or decisively as to the proper effect of redemption being extended to other worlds, it speaks most clearly and most decisively about the knowledge of it being disseminated among other orders of created intelligence than our own.  But if the contemplation of God be their supreme enjoyment, then the very circumstance of our redemption being known to them may invest it, even though it be but the redemption of one solitary world, with an importance as wide as the universe itself.  (134 – 135)

 

For Chalmers, inhabitants of other worlds are aware of the Incarnation and events surrounding the redemptive work of Christ (135 – 136).  He writes:

[God] does not tell us the extent of the atonement; but he tells us that the atonement itself, known as it is among the myriads of the celestial, forms the high song of eternity – that the Lamb who was slain is surrounded by the acclamations of one wide and universal empire – that the might of his wondrous achievements spreads a tide of gratulation over the multitudes who are about his throne; and there never ceases to ascend from the worshippers of Him who washed us from our sins in his blood, a voice loud as from numbers without number, sweet as from blessed voices uttering joy, when heaven rings jubilee, and loud hosannas fill the eternal regions.  (139 – 140)

 

Chalmers cites Revelation 5:11-13 to support his contention that all creatures throughout the universe praise the name of the Lamb:

I looked again and heard the voices of many angels who surrounded the throne and the living creatures and the elders. They were countless in number, and they cried out in a loud voice: "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches, wisdom and strength, honor and glory and blessing."  Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, everything in the universe, cry out: "To the one who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor, glory and might, forever and ever."  (Chalmers 140; emphasis mine)

 

If the expression “every creature” means every living thing created by God, then the possible implication is that inhabitants of other worlds are aware of the messianic events that have taken place on the earth.

The second primary position examined in this thesis is that pluralism in and of itself, along with its spinoff, the salvation of extraterrestrials, contradicts basic Christian theology.  While this thesis primarily argues in favor of pluralism and the salvation of extraterrestrials, it is important to discuss the opposite view espoused by William Whewell since his arguments, along with the responses of Sir David Brewster, set the tone for the whole debate.  The discussion surrounding the theology of a plurality of worlds and the Incarnation of the Logos continues in this famous debate in the nineteenth century between William Whewell (1794 – 1866), an English philosopher and historian and ethics author (who is largely responding to Chalmers), and Sir David Brewster (1781 – 1868), a Scottish physicist known for his optics and polarized light experiments (who is responding to Whewell).  Whewell, a Christian, was once a pluralist but later writes a book in which he declares that believing that inhabitants most likely live on a plurality of worlds violates Christian teachings for a variety of reasons, while Brewster, also a Christian, reaches the opposite conclusion. 

The debate between these two Protestant men was followed closely by the educated community of the day with many of the people supporting the view that otherworldly inhabitants exist (Crowe 351 – 352) and that their existence does not denigrate Christian theology, essentially Brewster’s position; fifty-six percent of religious writers of the era as well as seventy-one percent of Anglican authors and non-Anglican Protestants and eighty-three percent of the scientists supported pluralism in opposition to Whewell (Crowe 352).  Some debaters of the period argue that Christ needs to become incarnate on a variety of worlds, while others suggest that the Incarnation is unique to the Earth with its benefits extending to inhabitants of other worlds.  Still others suggest that extraterrestrial populations may not have fallen and so are in no need of redemption.  Sir David Brewster opposes Whewell, engaging in a vigorous debate that was followed closely by the public.  Brewster falls back on the traditional belief that Christ died and rose again for all people on the Earth -- past, present, and future -- as well as the people of the antipodes, claiming that extending the benefits of the atonement to inhabitants of other worlds is simply a logical progression (Crowe 304 – 305).  Whewell’s beliefs along with the beliefs of Chalmers and Brewster constitute a lengthy argument which sets the tone for the entire public debate.

Whewell argues that the very nature of the Incarnation on Earth indicates the special quality of our planet as the unique habitation of intelligent beings in the universe.  Thus, for Whewell, precisely because of the uniqueness of the Incarnation and the Christian message, Christianity is not compatible with the notion that intelligent beings populate other worlds even though these worlds are also governed by God.

The heart of the theological dispute historically lies in whether life on other worlds expatriates human beings as the most important creations in the universe on the theory that humans alone were made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27 – 30).  The notion that creatures other than humans may also have been made in the image of God has, for authors like Whewell, deleterious effects on the previously conceived unique relationship of human beings to their Creator inasmuch as Christ became incarnate on Earth precisely because of that unique relationship.  The notion that the Incarnation of the Logos may not be unique to the Earth may have, for many people, deleterious effects on the redemption, justification, sanctification, and salvation of inhabitants of the Earth.  The question becomes whether inhabitants of other worlds are also made in the image of God?  Are they crowns of God’s creation for their particular worlds as humans are for the Earth (Psalm 8:5-9)?  It also raises the issue as to whether inhabitants of other worlds are tainted with original sin and need to be redeemed by the death and resurrection of Jesus.  The contemporary commentator and author Steven J. Dick asks, “Was Jesus Christ to be seen as a planet-hopping Savior in the new cosmology?  Moreover, extraterrestrial inhabitants were nowhere to be found in the pages of Scripture.  Such a Pandora’s box of puzzling questions and implications was sufficient to give even many Copernicans, especially in Catholic countries, cause for grave concern” (Dick, Plurality of Worlds 89).  These questions should give all Christians, Catholic and Protestant alike, cause for serious contemplation of the consequences of discovering intelligent life on other worlds because the response now may strongly impact human/extraterrestrial relations in the future.

 

Section 2.  Five Categories of Opinion on the Incarnation and Redemptive Work of Christ Debate

 

The eighteenth century debate among Chalmers, Whewell, and Brewster rests upon the theological arguments of a host of earlier figures and continues with a series of later figures.  Rev. Charles Louis Hequembourg, who cites Whewell’s essay (not by name), suggests that the whole argument of the Incarnation with respect to other worlds is a difficult one.  Hequembourg feels that, “No difficulty…was ever made a source of skeptical opposition of half such formidable magnitude” (cited in Crowe 344).  The authors and theologians whose ideas I describe below relate, whether occurring before or after, to the Chalmers/Whewell/Brewster debate and fall into five categories, which I have grouped according to my research, representing the leading theological positions in the debate:

 

1.      Those who hold that there are multiple incarnations despite sinless inhabitants of other worlds who need no redemption.

2.      Those who hold that there are multiple incarnations to achieve multiple salvations for sinful inhabitants of other worlds who need redemption.

3.      Those who hold that there was an Incarnation unique to the Earth that applies only to humans and not to inhabitants of other worlds who have not sinned and thus need no redemption.

4.      Those who hold that there was an Incarnation unique to the Earth that applies only to humans and not to inhabitants of other worlds whether they have sinned or not.

5.      Those who hold that there was an Incarnation unique to the Earth whose effects permeate the universe and save not only sinful humans but also sinful inhabitants of other worlds.

 

 

Category 1 Authors:  Multiple Incarnations Despite Sinless Inhabitants of Other Worlds

 

Abbe Jean Terrasson (1670 – 1750), a French priest, Cartesian commentator, and influential novelist, (probably) writes Traite� de l’infini cre�e� (written before 1746, published 1769) in which he fundamentally changes the arguments regarding the Incarnation and redemption so that man becomes one with God, i.e., “man in the plural, God in the singular, because the hommes-Dieu [God/man] would be several in number as to human nature, but only one as to Divine nature” (cited in Dick, Plurality of Worlds 139 and Crowe 135).  Terrasson suggests that God became incarnate even on worlds which had not fallen, claiming such inhabitants would deserve the honor even more than sinful beings (Crowe 135). Indeed, “[a]dmitting that Christ’s terrestrial incarnation and redemption have sufficient merit for the entire universe, he nonetheless suggests that because Christ has a role both as savior and as teacher, his incarnation as teacher on sinless planets is fully appropriate” (Crowe 135).  In 1876 Jules Boiteux published Lettres a` un mate�rialiste sur la pluralite� des mondes habite�s et les questions qui s’y rattachent in which he attacks the pluralism of popular astronomer Camille Flammarion (1842 – 1925) and writes “in the spirit of an orthodox Catholic” (cited in Crowe 415).  While maintaining that inhabitants of other worlds may not have fallen, he argues that it does not preclude the possibility of multiple incarnations and suggests that Christ’s redemptive work on Earth extends to inhabitants of other worlds.

The view that the Logos becomes incarnate on multiple worlds seems to imply that there are benefits other than redemption from sins for numerous local incarnations.  It may be that Earth would not be swaying in the balance had our first father and mother not eaten the apple.  However, the Bible says that Adam and Eve did eat the apple, and their descendants experience the consequences of original sin.  What if free will inevitably results in a fall from grace?  This question leads us to Category 2 authors who maintain that every inhabited world has the equivalent of our Adam and Eve who inevitably fall from grace via sin and need grace via multiple incarnations of the Logos.

 

Category 2.  Multiple Incarnations for Multiple Salvations of Sinful Inhabitants of Other Worlds

 

Rene� Descartes (1596 – 1650), a Catholic philosopher, theologian, and author, largely popularizes the idea of a plurality of worlds in the 17^th century.  He writes to Chanut on 6 June 1647:  “It seems to me that the mystery of the incarnation and all the other advantages which God bestowed on man do not preclude the possibility that he may have granted infinitely many others, very great, to an infinity of other creatures” (Dick, Plurality of Worlds 106).  In 1753, William Hay (1694 – 1755), a layman, politician, popular essayist in theology, barrister, and poet, published in London Religio Philosophi:  or, The Principles of Morality and Christianity Illustrated from a View of the Universe, and Man’s Situation in It in which he argues that Jesus saves only human beings while inhabitants of other worlds need other incarnations of the Logos on their planets in order to gain salvation (Crowe 87).  Hay says that human beings should love inhabitants of other worlds “not as our own Species, but as our Fellow-creatures, and as Members of the same Church and Communion…” (cited in Crowe 86)  He further asserts that “…Praise and Thanksgiving are continually ascending to [God’s] Throne…from every Quarter of the Universe,” making as a result “a general Religion, a joint Communion, a Universal Church.” (cited in Crowe 86 – 87)

John Foster (1770 – 1843), an English essayist and Baptist minister, responds to Chalmers by suggesting that the Incarnation may have occurred on other planets while disagreeing with Chalmers that other planets know about the religious events that have occurred on the Earth (Crowe 191).  Reverend Baden Powell (1796 – 1860), a devout Christian who embraces Darwinism, writes The Unity of Worlds and of Nature:  Three Essays on the Spirit of Inductive Philosophy; the Plurality of Worlds; and the Philosophy of Creation in 1856 in which he states:  “If it be an inscrutable mystery wholly beyond human comprehension that God should send His Son to redeem this world, it cannot be a more inscrutable mystery…that He should send His Son to redeem ten thousand other worlds” (cited in Crowe 310).  R. M. Jouan, a French Catholic who in his voluminous La question de l’habitabilite� des mondes e�tudie�e au point de vue de l’historoire, de la science, de la raison et de la foi (ca. 1900) tries to prove that pluralism is consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church (pp. 305 – 392), also writes in favor of multiple incarnations (cited in Crowe 420). 

Rev. Father Joseph Pohle (1851 – 1922), a Catholic priest from Germany who was one of the founding professors of the Catholic University of America and a pluralist, wrote Stellar Worlds and Their Inhabitants (Koln 1840) in which he argues that a universe populated with intelligent beings on other worlds achieves a higher perfection than a universe consisting of “unadorned deserted wastelands” (cited in Crowe 433).  He also supports multiple incarnations, writing in the last chapter of his book Die Sternenwelten entitled “The Plurality of Inhabited Worlds before the Tribunal of Christianity”:

Concerning the dogma of the Redemption of fallen men through the God-man Christ, it is not necessary to assume as probable also the fall of species on other celestial bodies.  No reason…obliges us to think others as evil as ourselves.  However even if the evil of sin had gained its pernicious entry into those worlds, so would it not follow from it that also there an Incarnation and Redemption would have to take place.  God has at his disposal many other means to remit a sin that weighs either on an individual or on an entire species….(cited in Crowe 433 – 434)

 

Such authors seem to imply that multiple economies of salvation are not only possible but should be respected as applying to each world upon which intelligent inhabitants live.  It seems, in this view, that the saviors of these worlds are exclusively the saviors of the inhabitants of these worlds and not of other worlds (including the Earth), just as the savior of the Earth does not save inhabitants of other worlds.  This is apparently the reason for multiple incarnations.

Rev. Father Kenneth J. Delano, a Catholic priest, and author of Many Worlds, One God in which he suggests the possibility of multiple incarnations of the Logos, agrees with Tillich that the Incarnation may have occurred (and may occur in the future) on other planets.  Delano reacts to a writer who claims that if human beings are not the epitome of God’s creation, then Scripture is completely wrong in its estimation of the relationship of human beings to God, by suggesting that God may have declined to mention inhabitants of other worlds in Scripture because during the time and in the culture in which the text was written, it did not theologically or morally edify the faith community (cited in Dick, Life on Other Worlds 250).  Father Delano writes a personal letter to the author of this thesis (17 June 2003) in which he denies that one must hold that the Logos became incarnate only once effecting the salvation of humans and inhabitants of other worlds alike, claiming that, while such a conclusion is consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church, one should be open to the possibility of other economies of salvation (1).  Delano writes: 

In my opinion, intelligent beings on other worlds are probably not sinless and so, like us, can please God by showing a growth in virtue….It could very well be that Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary redeemed all ET’s as well.  But maybe the Logos chose to be incarnated and even suffer and die on other planets to redeem their inhabitants.  It’s not unthinkable that He would do so, when you consider what motivated Him to do that here, i.e., to show how very much God loves His children, made in His own image. (Delano 2) 

 

Delano continues that the vast distances of space preclude humanity’s spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ to inhabitants of other worlds, so he is “inclined to believe that God must have made other provisions for ET’s – other revelations and other redemptions perhaps” (Delano 3). 

If intelligent beings throughout the rest of the universe either, as Chalmers suggests, know about the Incarnation and redemptive work of Christ on Earth, or, as other authors suggest, know about local Incarnations and redemptive work of the Logos on their worlds, then why are they not here discussing the issue with human beings?  Perhaps, in the view of Category 2 authors, intelligent beings on other worlds have no need to visit the Earth because they have already experienced the salvation of either Christ or the local Incarnation of the Logos in their lives.  Perhaps for the same reason, as I see it, in this view, human beings need not visit other worlds to learn anything theologically new.  It is possible that God made the great distances among planets impossible to traverse in order to maintain the uniqueness of each world’s intelligent beings or for theological reasons we do not yet comprehend.  This view contrasts with Category 1 authors who maintain that Christ becomes incarnate on multiple worlds despite the sinlessness of their inhabitants.  While the authors of Category 2 maintain that multiple incarnations of the Logos are necessary to redeem sinful inhabitants of other worlds, Category 3 authors maintain that the Incarnation is unique to the Earth because inhabitants of other worlds are sinless so that they need no redemption.

 

Category 3 Authors:  Incarnation Unique to Earth with Effects Applying Only to Humans Due to Sinless Inhabitants of Other Worlds

 

As mentioned above, William of Vorilong believes that inhabitants of other worlds did not sin after the manner of Adam, and that the Incarnation of the Logos is unique to the Earth (Crowe 8 – 9).  Monseigneur de Montignez (ca. 1865 – 1866) publishes “TheŒorie chreŒtienne sur la pluraliteŒ des mondes” in which he argues that Christ became incarnate on the Earth because it is insignificant and its people worthless in order to show forth more grandly the power of God.  Nevertheless, Montignez seems a bit inconsistent in that he argues that the benefits of the Incarnation extend throughout the universe even upon intelligent beings who, being sinless, have no need of redemption (Crowe 411 – 413).

Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724 – 1803), the German epic and lyric poet, writes enthusiastically about a universe created by God with Christ at the center while maintaining that “only the inhabitants of the earth have fallen into sin and they alone need salvation through a divine mediator” (cited in Crowe 145).  Even so, Klopstock believes that Christ brought goodness that permeates the universe (ibid.).  Delano, while a Category 2 author, nevertheless entertains the possibility that Category 3 authors may be correct, writing in a personal letter to the author of this thesis:

When St. Paul wrote to the Romans:  “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23), he must have been referring only to human beings, since there are angels who never sinned and enjoy the glory of God.  If God created pure spirits who never sinned, perhaps He also saw fit to create embodied spirits that live without sinning on other worlds.  And if the Logos became incarnated on their worlds, it would not be for the purpose of redemption but to inspire them to even higher virtues, as well as to honor them and to demonstrate His love for them.  (Delano 4)

 

The notion of sinless inhabitants of other worlds is, according to Delano, consistent with Catholic teachings.  The Christian apologist C.S. Lewis, an Anglican, writes in his Space Trilogy, particularly the second volume Perelandra, that each world may have its First Parents who are tempted and yet do not fall from grace as did Adam and Eve of Earth, so that their children do not inherit original sin and yet rejoice in their relationship with God and look forward to what Lewis calls “the Great Dance” at the end of time. 

Ellen White (1827 – 1915), an American religious leader of the Seventh Day Adventists whose prophecies greatly facilitated its growth, is a pluralist who writes that Christ became incarnate only once on Earth and that the inhabitants of other solar systems, although evil has not extended beyond the Earth, rejoiced when Jesus cried out, “It is finished!”  She writes in The Story of Patriarchs and Prophets:

It was the marvel of all the universe that Christ should humble himself to save fallen man.  That he who has passed from star to star, from world to world, superintending all…[took] upon himself human nature, was a mystery which the sinless intelligences of other worlds desired to understand.  When Christ came to our world…, all were intensely interested in following him as he traversed…the bloodstained path from the manger to Calvary….And as Christ in his expiring agony upon the cross cried out, “It is finished!” a shout of triumph rung through every world…(cited in Crowe 240 – 241)

 

It seems that, for Category 3 authors, even if inhabitants of other worlds are sinless, they are still capable of comprehending the nature of sin enough to rejoice at Christ’s conquering of sin on Earth. 

Walter Miller, a Catholic science fiction writer of a novel entitled A Canticle for Leibowitz, suggests that one who has “preternatural innocence” has no need of the sacrament of baptism, a rite necessary only for those tainted with original sin as well as personal sin.  So, in any possible encounters with inhabitants of other worlds, it may be that such inhabitants do not need to receive the sacraments because the sacraments are necessary to infuse the grace of Jesus Christ to forgive sins, and their inhabitants have theoretically committed no sins requiring forgiveness.  Then, some authors maintain that, even though inhabitants of other worlds have fallen from grace via sin, because the Incarnation is unique to the Earth, its effects apply only to natives of this world, so that intelligent beings populating other worlds cannot be saved.  These are Category 4 authors.

 

Category 4 Authors:  Incarnation Unique to Earth with Effects Applying Only to Humans Whether Inhabitants of Other Worlds Have Sinned or Not

 

The French writer Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657 – 1757), a nephew of Corneille and a specialist in interpreting science, in Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds, a popular work in 1686 depicting a fictional conversation in which he supports the notion that inhabitants exist on other worlds, claims that their existence does not violate Scripture or the human faculty of reason.  De Fontenelle claims that, because they are not descendents of Adam and Eve, then the concepts of the Incarnation of Christ and redemption are not applicable (Dick, Plurality of Worlds 124).  Rev. Dr. Richard Bentley (1662 – 1742), a British clergyman and classical scholar who corresponds with Sir Isaac Newton (1642 – 1727) on how the latest scientific theories support the notion of the intelligent design of the universe, assures us that otherworldly inhabitants are not necessarily human in order to allay the fears of theologians that the relationship of extraterrestrials to the Incarnation and redemption does not apply since they are not the descendents of Adam and Eve.  Brewster notes that Bentley asserts that, simply because Scripture mentions only the creation of creatures upon the Earth, it does not follow that God did not create inhabitants of other worlds.  Bentley notes that the Pentateuch does not mention the creation of angels, but faithful Christians are certain that angels were created (Brewster 139 – 140).  Bentley continues, “Neither need we be solicitous about the condition of those planetary people, nor raise frivolous disputes how far they may participate in Adam’s fall or in the benefits of Christ’s incarnation” (Brewster 140). 

Timothy Dwight (1752 – 1817), an American theologian, poet, minister, and Yale president from 1795 to 1817, writes a series of sermons collected as Theology Explained and Defended in which he argues that Christ’s Incarnation and redemption are not only unique to Earth but that redemption applies only to human beings, even though he is a pluralist in favor of worlds whose inhabitants Christ rules.  Johann Heinrich (John Henry) Kurtz (1809 – 1890), a German Lutheran theologian, university professor, and prolific writer of popular books, writes against the Incarnation of God on other worlds, claiming that either their inhabitants are not fallen and therefore have no need of redemption or, if they are fallen, then Christ does not save them (Crowe 261 – 262).  This, I think, is a rather bleak outlook for intelligent beings on other worlds. 

The Canadian curé of Fort Kent, Maine, Abbe Francois Xavier Burque (1851 – 1923), in his PluraliteŒ des mondes habiteŒs consideŒreŒe au point de vue neŒgatif (Montreal), suggests that pluralism cannot be reconciled with the Incarnation and redemption of Christ (Crowe 420 – 421).  He claims that Christ being crucified numerous times on other planets to save intelligent beings contradicts Hebrews 9:26 (Crowe 421), to wit:  “Not that he might offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters each year into the sanctuary with blood that is not his own; if that were so, he would have had to suffer repeatedly from the foundation of the world.  But now once for all he has appeared at the end of the ages to take away sin by his sacrifice.”  Burque does not address, as far as my research can tell, whether the benefits of the work of Christ extend to intelligent beings on other worlds, though he avers that, if they exist, they must have sinned, leading to his conclusion that they probably do not exist.  Rev. William Leitch, D.D. (1818 – 1864), a Scottish Presbyterian minister and Principal of Queen’s University in Kingston (1860-1864), writes God’s Glory in the Heavens (1862) in which he argues that the Incarnation is unique to the Earth because “Scripture…declares that He will forever bear His human nature” (Crowe 452).  He also rejects the idea that the merits of Christ’s atoning sacrifice applies to inhabitants of other worlds (Crowe 452).

Category 2 and 4 authors maintain that inhabitants of other worlds are sinners in need of redemption while Category 1 and 3 authors maintain that they are sinless.  This leads us to Category 5 authors who maintain, like 2 and 4, that inhabitants of other worlds are sinners in need of redemption but particularly the redemption purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ, the Messiah of Earth, the God-Human.

 

Category 5 Authors:  Incarnation Unique To Earth Applies Universally to Inhabitants of Other Worlds

 

Dick says in Plurality of Worlds that a Cartesian author[6] wrote Traité de l’infini créé(written before 1746, published 1769) in which he fundamentally changes the arguments regarding the Incarnation and redemption so that man becomes one with God, “man in the plural, God in the singular, because the hommes-Dieu [God/man] would be several in number as to human nature, but only one as to Divine nature” (139).  The notion that the Incarnation is a universal event rather than one that pertains exclusively to the Earth challenges us to new heights of thought that are not for the faint of heart (Dick, Plurality of Worlds 139).  Henry More (1614 – 1687), an English poet and philosopher of religion, reared a Calvinist but converted as a youth to the Anglican Communion, was the most well known of the Cambridge Platonists, and writes in Divine Dialogues (1668) speculation that extraterrestrials are saved by God’s revelation to them of the Incarnation and redemptive work of Christ on Earth (cited in Crowe 17).  In other words, More argues that God himself reveals to inhabitants of other worlds the nature of the Incarnation and redemption of Christ in order to effect their salvation.

Isaac de La Peyrére in his Men Before Adam asserts that, according to the two creation narratives in Genesis, God created men before Adam, and Adam’s descendents are the Jews whereas all other people are the descendents of the men who were created before.  The author believes that the sin of Adam is imputed not only to Adam’s descendents but is also “imputed backwards unto those first men, that were created before Adam:  and that the condemnation of death reigned backward upon them by reason of that sin” (Chapter XIX; EEBO image 32).  This would seem to imply that the sin of Adam can be imputed also, forwards and backwards, to inhabitants of other worlds who were created both before and after Adam.  This would also seem to imply that the benefits of Christ’s Incarnation, work on the cross, and resurrection are also imputed to inhabitants of other worlds both before and after the death and resurrection of Christ.  For this author, it would appear that Christ’s work not only transcends time and space but also permeates time and space – an argument I will develop in Chapter 3.

Pierre Courbet, a French Catholic theologian, in an 1894 essay in Cosmos, writes that the Logos may have become incarnate on Earth because “the human race is perhaps…the most guilty of all [and had] the greatest need to profit directly from the redemption” (cited in Crowe 416).  Courbet denies that Christ became incarnate elsewhere arguing in favor of the uniqueness of the Incarnation on Earth even while favoring the extension of the benefits of Christ’s redemptive work to inhabitants of other worlds.  Courbet writes that perhaps inhabitants of other worlds benefit from the redemptive work of Christ without knowing it in the same way that a baby benefits from baptism without knowing how or why (Crowe 417).  His intent is, as a Catholic, to combat the view that pluralism somehow stands in direct opposition to the Christian faith (ibid.). 

Januarius De Concilio (1836 – 1898), “priest, professor, pastor, and even playwright” (Crowe 454) writes that God made inhabitants of other worlds “in and through Christ” and that Christ’s redemptive work is universal although his Incarnation is unique to the Earth, so that inhabitants of other worlds who have fallen may also be saved (Crowe 455).  To the criticism of Thomas Hughes (1849 – 1939), a Jesuit, who argues against De Concilio’s arguments but not his conclusions, De Concilio, in his Harmony between Science and Revelation in 1889, writes, “when Christ died and paid the ransom of our redemption, He included [extraterrestrials] also in that ransom, the value of which was infinite and capable of redeeming innumerable worlds” (cited in Crowe 456). 

Wolfhart Pannenberg (1928), a German theologian, called an “eschatological realist,” and an interdisciplinary thinker, asserts the possibility of inhabitants of other worlds in solar systems of the Milky Way or other galaxies.  Pannenberg does not follow Tillich’s line, arguing that the Incarnation of the Logos is Jesus Christ alone through whom the entire created universe came into existence.  Through Christ alone, God has chosen to bring the entire universe, all of space and time, into a unified whole (Peters, “Contemporary Theology” 4).

All of the above authors in Category 5 aver in one way or another that the work of Christ is salvific for the souls of both inhabitants of the Earth and inhabitants of other worlds.  Since there are so many authors in Category 5, I have quoted many of them only in Appendix C. 

In summary, Category 5 authors generally tend to view the universe as inhabited by a variety of beings all of whom are created by God and nurtured by God while steadfastly maintaining that God became incarnate exclusively upon the Earth to save all intelligent beings of whatever race and planet of origin.  Although the specifics of the process vary, the authors of this category are consistent in their belief in Christ as redeemer of all who sin and repent.  In  Chapter 2, I will examine the arguments of modern thinkers who fall into the various categories to see where the ideas of earlier authors discussed in this chapter lead.  Modern authors and theologians are sometimes hampered by an anti-pluralist bias common in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, but many give sober thought to the very important religious issues being discussed in this thesis.

Chapter 2

Modern Thinkers

 

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the kosmos.  – John 1:9

            The world is hot and cruel,

            We are weary of heart and hand,

            But the world is more fully of glory

            Than you can understand.  -- G.K. Chesterton, “The Mortal Answers”

 

Now, my suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose….I suspect that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of, in any philosophy.  That is the reason why I have no philosophy myself, and must be my excuse for dreaming.  -- J.B.S. Haldane, Possible Worlds (1927)

 

Many Catholic and Protestant authors, past and present, are divided on this issue of the Incarnation, maintaining that we really do not know how it might apply to inhabitants of other worlds yet and will not know until we encounter extraterrestrials in the flesh (Crowe and Dick et al.).  Nevertheless, new theologies being developed in response to pluralist issues will have to grapple with the basic Christian message and commandment of the founder of Christianity to spread the Gospel throughout the universe (cf. Matthew 28:19-20; Mark 16:15). 

Modern thinkers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries hold a broad range of ideas about the nature of the Incarnation, its effects on both humans and inhabitants of other worlds, and why humanity was chosen as a vehicle of God’s grace.  For example, E.A. Milne (1896 – 1950), a British astronomer and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, suggests that, because the Incarnation is unique to the Earth, humans can engage in radio contact with inhabitants of other worlds to spread the message of the Gospel.  Milne, in an attempt to break out of the Ptolemaic focus on the Earth alone, asks:  “Is it irreverent to suggest that an infinite God could scarcely find the opportunities to enjoy Himself, to exercise His godhead, if a single planet were the sole seat of His activities?” (Davies 45).  Arthur Peacocke, a D.Phil. in physical biochemistry, ordained priest in the Church of England, and author of nine books on science and religion, writes: 

Christians have to ask themselves (and skeptics will certainly ask them), What can the cosmic significance possibly be of the localized, terrestrial event of the existence of the historical Jesus?  Does not the mere possibility of extraterrestrial life render nonsensical all the superlative claims made by the Christian church about his significance?  Would ET, Alpha-Arcturians, Martials, et al., need an incarnation and all it is supposed to accomplish, as much as homo sapiens on planet Earth?  Only a contemporary theology that can cope convincingly with such questions can hope to be credible today.  (“The Challenge and Stimulus of the Epic of Evolution to Theology” in Dick’s Many Worlds 103)

 

If God created all things for the benefit of humans alone, then I think Milne would agree that the universe is an awfully big waste of space.  As God permeates all of space and time, it seems logical to conclude that God exercises his power throughout spacetime by giving life to other worlds and granting redemption to their inhabitants. 

In a vein similar to the view that God ubiquitously permeates and transcends the universe for the benefit of everything and everyone in it, Miguel de Unamuno, a Spanish philosopher, writes:

“Why!” the reader will exclaim again, “we are coming back to what the Catechism says:  ‘Q.  For whom did God create the world?  A.  For man.’”  Well, why not? – so ought the man who is a man to reply.  The ant, if it took account of these matters and were a person, would reply “For the ant,” and it would reply rightly.  The world is made for consciousness, for each consciousness.

…

If the sun possessed consciousness it would think, no doubt, that it lived in order to give light to the worlds; but it would also and above all think that the worlds existed in order that it might give them light and enjoy itself in giving them light and so live.  And it would think well.

…

If consciousness is, as some inhuman thinker has said, nothing more than a flash of light between two eternities of darkness, then there is nothing more execrable than existence. (Unamuno 12 – 13)

 

Although Unamuno is not speaking of inhabitants of other worlds, one may interpret his words to apply to inhabitants of other worlds.  In other words, while Christian inhabitants of Earth may believe that God created the universe for human beings, it may equally be supposed that extraterrestrials may believe that God created the universe for inhabitants of their worlds, while Christians on Earth may suggest that they believe rightly.  In the view of philosophers like Unamuno, everything that experiences consciousness desires to know God on some level or another, whether superconscious or subconscious.  To desire to know the universe is to desire to know not only what God creates but why God creates.  It is the desire to know the mind of God.  The human desire to know the mind of Christ permeates our quest for life on other worlds, for what is it to know the mind of Christ if not to know the conscious desires of the beings God creates?  The desire to understand the mystery of the Incarnation translates to an implacable and insatiable quest for the meaning of life in the universe that is God’s creation. 

The two quests, for God and for intelligent life in the universe, are the twin themes of this thesis.  For many Christians, the quest for God culminates in the Incarnation, expands their conscious will to experience the cross, and explodes their minds to rise within the resurrection of Christ.  It is possible that encounters with inhabitants of other worlds will expand the consciousness of everyone of whatever species because we may learn from one another what it means to desire God.

While Unamuno may be interpreted as favoring the notion that God creates and sustains every creation and creature in the universe, Charles Davis, a widely respected Catholic scholar in Britain who later left the Church, writes an essay, “The Place of Christ,” in 1960 in which he argues that the events surrounding the experiences of Jesus Christ are the center of all of space and time.  The reason why Christ is the center of the universe is because Jesus is God, and the God-man permeates the cosmos, filling everything with his presence and infusing everyone on all inhabited planets with his grace and love which all creatures can accept or reject as they choose.  Humanity’s place in the universe as only one species among many does not conflict with Christocentrism (Charles Davis 711).  What is the relationship of inhabitants of other worlds to Christ?  Davis writes:

The entire material creation is understood as involved in His work and destined to be transformed by the glory of His resurrection.  This is an anthropocentric view of the universe, based on the primacy of Christ, and Catholic theology has long accepted its application to creatures naturally superior to man, the angels.  Must it be extended to embrace other possible rational creatures, so that man would remain, whatever the physicists might say, the centre of the cosmos?  He would not be the centre in a physical sense nor according to the natural order, but according to that higher plan or pattern which God has decreed for this universe and which is known to us only by faith.  The fact of the incarnation and the exaltation of human nature in Christ would give man this central position…all the movements and forces of the universe and history are taken up into a higher integration, which is supernatural and centred on Christ. (712 – 713)

 

Davis’s argument implies that, if there are multiple incarnations, then Christ’s work on Earth loses “its universal significance” (713 – 715).  If Christ became incarnate a multiplicity of times in a multiplicity of worlds, then our understanding of the Second Coming would be adversely affected.  If Christ comes millions of times, what is the significance of his coming again to Earth? (715)  If Christians have no Christocentric view of the universe, then we cease to believe that Christianity has a unique message affecting the whole of creation, and if we cease to believe that the message of Christ, the Gospel, the Good News of God in Christ, is unique, then we cease to practice Christianity because we have reduced the Incarnation of God to a mere local event with only local implications.  Davis cites Colossians 1:15-19, Ephesians 1, Hebrews 1, and 1 Corinthians 15:27-28 to support his contention that Christ’s atoning work is universal in scope (716).  Jesus demands that Christians submit to him as a Person and experience him in a deeply personal relationship in a way that is central to the Catholic faith, and for this reason Christ’s Person, the Being of God the Son, is the center of all of space and time, so that Christ is the God of all inhabitants of all inhabited worlds including Earth (717).  In other words, Christ is not a local god with only local powers but the cosmic God with cosmic powers who became mortal on what some astronomers consider to be an insignificant world in the spiral arm of an ordinary galaxy, but God is described in the Bible as often raising up insignificant people through whom to show his great power.  Christ, the God-man, is unique, and Christians accept no substitutions.  In the Creed, Christians aver, “We believe in one God…etc.”  Thus, it seems consistent with Christian theology to believe that Christ is the unique God of the universe who rules all inhabitants on all inhabited worlds.

On the other hand, E.L. Mascall, an Anglo-Catholic, in Christian Theology and Natural Science (1956), disagrees with Milne, claiming that no sound theological reasons exist to deny multiple incarnations and atonements (J.J. Davis 27).  J.J. Davis writes:

If the Incarnation involved no diminution in deity, why could not the Son of God, in principle, assume other created natures?  For Mascall, there would seem to be no compelling reason why “other finite rational natures should not be united to that person too.”  This raises the somewhat bizarre image not of the historical “God-man,” but of a “bionic Redeemer” who unites to his divine nature not only the nature of Homo Sapiens but the natures of many other sentient, embodied creatures as well. (27)

 

Mascall acknowledges that other races of intelligent creatures may have so different a civilization that incarnations of Christ on such worlds are unnecessary (J.J. Davis 27).  However, the meaning of “unnecessary” is debatable.  Does “unnecessary” mean that such extraterrestrials are sinless or that they need no local Incarnation of the Logos because God chooses not to redeem them?  By contrast, Rev. Billy Graham, a Baptist and author of many popular books, writes, “I firmly believe there are intelligent beings like us far away in space who worship God, but we would have nothing to fear from these people.  Like us, they are God’s creation” (Graham, cited in Peters, “Contemporary Theology” 2).  I agree with Graham that extraterrestrials may well believe in God, but to believe humans have nothing to fear from them is a belief based on paltry evidence.

In another vein, Father Andrew Greeley, a popular Catholic writer of both nonfiction and science fiction, and a professor of sociology both at the University of Chicago and the University of Arizona, has written stories in which angels like Gabriel are portrayed as extraterrestrials with unusually long lifespans who serve God as messengers.  Father Greeley wrote in 1996, “I think your idea of a survey of what Catholics believe about other life in other places is great.  My own feeling is that the Church should be very modest about what it says on the subject and about evangelizing what might be other economies of salvation.  We should not mess up as we did in India and Japan when the Jesuit attempt to adjust to those cultures was slapped down by Rome” (personal email to author, 24 September 1996, 1).  Greeley seems to imply that “other economies of salvation” may mean multiple visitations by Christ and not necessarily multiple incarnations, though his position is not clear.  

In support of the multiplicity of Incarnations for the redemption of extraterrestrials, Paul Tillich (1886 – 1965), a German-born American theologian and philosopher, writes: 

A question arises which has been carefully avoided by many traditional theologians, even though it is consciously or unconsciously alive for most contemporary people.  It is the problem of how to understand the meaning of the symbol “Christ” in the light of the immensity of the universe, the heliocentric system of planets, the infinitely small part of the universe which man and history constitute, and the possibility of other worlds in which divine self-manifestations may appear and be received…our basic answer leaves the universe open for possible divine manifestations in other areas or periods of being.  Such possibilities cannot be denied.  But they cannot be proved or disproved.  Incarnation is unique for the special group in which it happens, but it is not unique in the sense that other singular incarnations for other unique worlds are excluded…Man cannot claim to occupy the only possible place for incarnation. (cited in Peters, “Contemporary Theology” 2 – 3)

 

So, Tillich falls into Category 2, apparently, because he argues in a slightly different way that multiple incarnations are possible though each incarnation is unique to individual worlds.  In other words, other economies of salvation do not denigrate the uniqueness of the Incarnation on planet Earth nor its universal effects.

            Karl Rahner, a modern Catholic theologian, suggests that inhabitants of other worlds do not live their lives apart from sin and grace, implying that the grace of Jesus Christ applies to extraterrestrials as well as humans (O’Meara 7).  Rahner regards the notion of the Incarnation of the Logos on our world as a problem for the intellect inasmuch as our world is but a tiny mote in a vast universe (ibid.).  That said, Rahner does not dismiss the possibility of a multiplicity of incarnations (O’Meara 8). 

In this chapter, we have seen that the dispute within Christianity over the Incarnation of the Logos and the redemption of the people of the Earth with respect to the possibility of the Incarnation on other worlds and the redemption of their inhabitants permeates religious writings of both Catholics and Protestants during and prior to the nineteenth century as well as into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.  Tension between pluralism and Christianity contributed to many notable figures abandoning Christianity (Paine, Shelley, Emerson, Flammarion, Harrison, Twain, and others).  Indeed, Maunder and Whewell oppose pluralism precisely because for them it conflicts with their Christian faith (Crowe 557).  The writings of other authors, like Tillich and Greeley, indicate that humans should broaden their understanding of what it means to be a creation of God saved by the Logos.  Such authors seem to agree that the Logos saves intelligent creatures with the only question being how.

Crucial distinctions between Christians and non-Christians disappear in the debate over extraterrestrials, with many Christians favoring pluralism for the sake of Christianity, and with many non-Christians favoring pluralism at the expense of Christianity, many Christians opposing pluralism on religious grounds, and many non-Christians opposing pluralism for non-religious reasons.  Central to the Christian debate, of course, are the teachings of the Bible.  Therefore, it is logical to examine the various texts of Scripture speaking to the topic of the meaning of the Incarnation not only to humans but also to possible inhabitants of other worlds.  Inasmuch as Christians regard the Bible as the Word of God, it should be possible to determine whether the notion that all of God’s creations, including inhabitants of other worlds, are saved or can be saved is either found in Scripture or is at least consistent with Scripture.

Chapter 3

Scripture and Inhabitants of Other Worlds and Christ

 

For God so loved the kosmos that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.  – John 3:16

 

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.  – Arthur C. Clarke (Clarke’s Third Law), “Profiles of the Future” (1962)

 

Christ, His Cross shall be my speed!   

Teach me, Father John, to read:

That in Church on Holy Day

I may chant the Psalm and pray.

 

Let me learn that I may know

What the shining windows show:

Where the lovely Lady stands,

With that bright Child in her hands.

 

Teach me the letters A B C

Till that I shall able be

Signs to know and words to frame

And to spell sweet Jesus’ Name.

 

Then, dear Master, will I look

Day and night in that fair book

Where the tales of Saints are told

With their pictures all in gold.

 

Teach me, Father John, to say

Vesper-verse and Matin-lay:

So when I to God shall plead,

Christ, His Cross shall be my speed!  -- Robert Stephen Hawker, “A Christ-Cross Rhyme”

 

 

Section 1.  Kosmos:  The Extent of Redemption

 

Does Scripture support the idea that the redemptive work of Christ extends to inhabitants of other worlds throughout the kosmos?  In this chapter, I will argue that the Scriptural usage of the term kosmos may be viewed as implying that the message of Christ, the Gospel, applies to all intelligent beings throughout the universe.  If the Incarnation is an event unique to the Earth yet with universal effects, then it follows that Scripture should support this view.  I will argue that the Greek word kosmos is a term which has a history of specific meanings depending on the scientific level of the time and culture in which the word appears.  In New Testament times, kosmos means more than simply the world which today we call the Earth but means everything in what we now call the universe or cosmos.  To argue, therefore, that Scripture attests to the universality of the Incarnation and redemptive work of the Logos is more than probable.  The word “Logos” is a technical term in Greek which will be explored more fully in this chapter.   Furthermore, since the Incarnation and redemptive work of Christ have universal effects, I will argue that these events effect the salvation of not only human beings but also of inhabitants of other worlds who have souls in need of redemption just like inhabitants of the Earth.  We will discuss the meaning of “soul” later in this chapter to determine the nature of the beings purportedly saved by the Logos.  In other words, is it theological plausible to assert that extraterrestrials, if they exist, have souls?

From a Christian perspective, one might maintain that the authors of Scripture may not have fully comprehended the extent of the meaning of their words when they wrote them since the Bible contains many prophecies that did not become apparent and faithful people did not understand until later in history.  For example, prophecies of the Messiah did not become comprehensible to certain religious commentators until the coming of Christ.  I will consider the possibility that prophecies about the mission of Christians to spread the Gospel throughout the kosmos did not or perhaps will not become apparent until human beings encounter living extraterrestrials.

I will take a look at some passages from the Bible in a moment.  For Christians, these passages may mean more than has traditionally been perceived.  Before we can appreciate the significance of the Greek kosmos, we need to arrive at a definition of the term.

How scholars define the words “cosmos” or “world” or “universe” has direct bearing on the theological discussion surrounding Christ’s redemptive work with respect to both humans and inhabitants of other worlds.  Examination of the meanings of words often directly impacts our interpretation of Scripture.  The notion that the world or universe is an ordered and harmonious and perfect system dates back to the ancient Greeks.  (I should briefly note at this point that I am relying here on the expert opinions of the cited authors for the definitions of many classical language words.)

The Greek word kosmos means “world” or “universe” or “known sphere of existence” or “realm of existence” (Strong).  The word world means to the ancient Greek astronomers, particularly the Epicureans, a system with its own earth, sun, planets and stars.  The ancient Greeks think of heaven (or the sky) as the Source of infinite nature.  Later theologians interpret the Source as being an all-powerful Creator-God.  (Zeus is the god of the sky.)  The ancient Israelites, according to some scholars, thought of the sky as a physical vault holding back a watery chaos, and when God opened the sluice-gates water fell through in a process we call rain.  So, kosmos is a combination of the Earth and the sky along with the heaven’s contents.  Many scholars believe that both the ancient Israelites and the Greeks thought of the sky as one-dimensional though vaulted or dome-shaped, although the ancient Greeks knew that the Earth was round (more about this shortly).  Moreover, the Friberg lexicon defines kosmos as follows:

16161  ko,smoj, ou, o` basically something well-arranged; (1) adornment, adorning (1P 3.3); (2) as the sum total of all created beings in heaven and earth world, universe (AC 17.24); (3) as all human beings mankind, humanity, all people (MK 16.15); (4) as this planet inhabited by mankind world, earth (MT 16.26; JN 11.9); (5) morally, mankind as alienated from God, unredeemed and hostile to him world (1J 5.19); (6) sum total of particulars in any one field of experience, world, totality (JA 3.6)

This spatial definition of kosmos, however, does not account for all of its signification.  The notion of kosmos developed over the years and is defined differently at different times.  For instance, Anaximenes of Miletus (d c 525 B.C.) “envisioned the sky as a ‘crystal sphere’ to which the stars were ‘nailed…’” (cited in Robert Newman 1).  The early Greeks apparently held the notion that the kosmos was a system ordered by destiny or the Fates.  This view was held until Plato (c. 428 B.C. – 348/347 B.C.) and Aristotle (384 B.C. – 322 B.C.) who developed the idea that the kosmos is an ordered system designed by an intelligent principle, specifically, nous, which governed the divine concept of justice and determined the harmony of the spheres.  Plato, in Philebus (30c), insists:  “…there exist in the universe much ‘unlimited’ and abundance of ‘limit,’ and a presiding cause of no mean power, which orders and regulates the years, the seasons, and the months, and has every claim to the names of wisdom and reason.”  Aristotle, in Physics (8.1; 252a), writes:  “nature (physis) is everywhere the cause of order.”  This cosmological conviction was a critical idea for the Stoics and their system of metaphysics that was later adopted by medieval philosophers and theologians as the system by which God governs and orders the universe through providence (here kosmos signifies order). 

            The pre-Socratic philosophers disseminated and perlustrated cosmological principles and problems and their theories.  Plato dissects, rearranges, modifies, and expands these views in the Timaeus.  Aristotle reviewed and systemized these views in his Physics.  In On the Heavens Aristotle expands his view that the kosmos is unique as an orderly structure:

Either, therefore, the initial assumptions must be rejected, or there must be only one center and one circumference; and given this latter fact, it follows from the same evidence and by the same compulsion, that the world must be unique.  There cannot be several worlds. (cited in Dick, Plurality of Worlds 6)

 

By contrast, Epicurus (341 B.C. – 270 B.C.) in the fourth century B.C. writes:

There are infinite worlds both like and unlike this world of ours.  For the atoms being infinite in number, as was already proved, are borne on far out into space.  For those atoms which are of such nature that a world could be created by them or made by them, have not been used up either on one world or a limited number of worlds….So that there nowhere exists an obstacle to the infinite number of worlds. (cited in Dick, Plurality of Worlds 6)

 

So, it would seem that, for Aristotle, one world system exists, whereas for Epicurus, innumerable world systems exist.  This does not mean that Epicurus was speaking of other planets around other stars because the Greeks lacked this idea.  Rather, Epicurus felt that more than one kosmos in the sense of world system or world unit exists on what might best be termed other aethereal planes of existence.  In his “Letter to Pythocles,” Epicurus further writes:

A world (kosmos) is a circumscribed portion of the sky (ouranos), containing heavenly bodies and an earth and all the heavenly phenomena, whose dissolution will cause all within it to fall into confusion:  it is a piece cut off from the infinite (apeiron) and ends in a boundary either rare or dense, either revolving or stationary:  its outline may be spherical, or three-cornered, or any kind of shape. (cited in Dick, Plurality of Worlds 6)

 

Epicurus, then, appears to believe that the Earth and the sky are intimately connected in a way reminiscent of modern science, although he departs from modern scientists in failing to recognize the sky as three-dimensional.  It is perhaps unfortunate that Aristotle’s view held sway over Christendom for over a thousand years because his understanding of the nature of the kosmos was so badly flawed that, like other Greeks of his time, he was unable to visualize other star systems.  Since his science limited him to believing that the sun, Sol, was the only great light in the sky with enough power to illumine the Earth, Aristotle, again like other Greeks, believed this kosmos to be the only sphere of existence.  Even so, it should be noted that, due to the definition of kosmos as “universe,” it may be that Aristotle was right in asserting that there is only one universe, although Epicurus could also be right in terms of the multiple universes theories. 

            Although many Greeks differed among themselves about the technical niceties of the nature of the universe, most of them agreed on several principles, among which are that the kosmos is finite (in a spatial sense) with no beginning and no ending (in a temporal sense) in what modern scientists would call the steady state theory, is governed by a group of immutable laws which give it a precise and consistently repetitious rhythm, and is ordered by divine principles giving it an unalterable integrity (Runes 68 – 69).  By contrast, medieval philosophers and theologians, broadly speaking, interpreted the Scriptures in such a way that they thought of the kosmos as having a beginning (creatio ex nihilo) and an ending (teleology and apocalypticism), as being a system in which laws were not necessarily immutable on the theory that God can change laws by divine will (miracles), and as being providential in the sense of both God’s foresight and divine right to rule (Runes 69).

            These ancient Greek ideas seem echoed by Josephus (c. A.D. 37/38 – A.D. 100), the famous Jewish historian, who makes the following observation in his Antiquities (1.1.1) regarding the creation of the kosmos:

After this, on the second day, he placed the heaven over the whole world, and separated it from the other parts; and he determined it should stand by itself.  He also placed a crystalline [firmament] round it, and put it together in a manner agreeable to the earth, and fitted it for giving moisture and rain, and for affording the advantage of dews. (cited in Newman 1)

 

Similarly, the Babylonian Talmud also indicates that the Jews believed the sky to be a physical dome, although different from the beliefs of the Gentiles of the same era:

The Sages of Israel say:  the sun travels beneath the sky during the day, and above the sky during the night, while the Sages of the world maintain that the sun travels beneath the sky by day and beneath the earth by night.  It seems that their opinion is better than ours, because during the day the wells are cool, but at night they are warm [!]. (cited in Newman 1)

 

Moreover, the early Catholic teachers also believed the sky to be a physical dome.  The second century bishop of Antioch, Theophilus, writes:  “The heaven, therefore, being like a dome-shaped covering, comprehended matter, which was like a clod” (cited in Newman 1).  Indeed, the fourth century Catholic Father John Chrysostom of Antioch, Bishop of Constantinople and Doctor of the Faith (A.D. 347 – 407), writes:

Waters embrace the back of the visible heaven on all parts; and yet they neither flow down, nor are moved out of their place….Besides the water hath not quenched the sun; nor hath the sun, which hath gone on his way beneath for so long a time, dried up the water that lies above. (cited in Newman 2)

 

These views of the nature of the sky prevailed for many centuries, although they were not necessarily held by all people of all cultures.  Anaxagoras (d 428 B.C.) thought the sky was a “whirling, airy ‘ether,’ which swept the sun, moon and stars around the earth” (Newman 2).  I am citing these authors to indicate that the ancient science of the Greeks and the ancient Israelites reflected an imperfect understanding of nature, although one need not agree with their understanding of nature to appreciate either their science or their theology.  In other words, the Biblical cosmology reflects a scientifically inaccurate view of the universe, but the scientific beliefs of Biblical authors do not necessarily adversely affect later interpretations of the texts in favor of different scientific explanations of the nature of the universe.  As for the science of the Bible, Harry Emerson Fosdick, an American minister of the twentieth century, gives his understanding of the Biblical view of the kosmos:

In the Scriptures the flat earth is founded on an underlying sea; it is stationary; the heavens are like an upturned bowl or canopy above it; the circumference of this vault rests on pillars; the sun, moon and stars move within this firmament of special purpose to illumine man; there is a sea above the sky, “the waters which were above the heavens,” and through the “windows of heaven” the rain comes down; within the earth is Sheol, where dwell the shadowy dead; this whole cosmic system is suspended over vacancy; and it all was made in six days, each with a morning and evening, a short and measurable time before.  This is the world-view of the Bible. (cited in Newman 2 – 3)

 

I am noting this worldview of the Bible because it is a view that was held to be literally true by many devout Christians and is the primary reason why many Christian leaders, Catholic and Protestant alike, took such a dim view of Renaissance and later science which appeared to deny the centrality of humanity’s place in the kosmos.

            The cosmological ideas of Decartes, Lebniz, and Newton diverge from the medieval view to accord more harmoniously with the Greeks, while Kant regarded the difficulties associated with cosmology to be inherently unsolvable and inexplicable – what we might call mysterious (Runes 69).  Post-Kantian analysis of cosmological principles yielded a mesh of scientific ideas with metaphysical ones, leading to an attempt to develop a unified theory of everything hinging on the most basic principles and more resilient argumentation (Runes 69).  Those opposed to this view hold that the kosmos is more complex, and, indeed, its complexities are the most powerful argument for its radical nature as a system and not a unit, despite all the ancient and modern cosmogonies to the contrary (Runes 69). 

Now, with a reasonably sufficient understanding of the meaning of the word kosmos to different peoples in different cultures, we can now begin to explore issues involving not only the contents of the kosmos but also its creation and creator.  Whether souls populate the kosmos within the bodies of inhabitants of other worlds is a question significant to this thesis.  The notion of what the soul is developed over millennia.  Most of the Fathers of the Church (with the exception of Tertullian) argue the nature of the soul is comprised of a simple substance that is essentially spiritual (Runes 296).  Traducianism is the belief that the soul stems from the parents (Runes 296).  Creationism is the belief that the soul is created by God and is today a doctrine of the Catholic faith (ibid.).  Saint Augustine and his later followers in the Middle Ages argue that the soul enters the body by an act of God and achieves a unity with the body so that the two become one (ibid.).  Augustinianism on this point is a kind of modification of Platonic Dualism because the spiritual substance that is the soul is independent of the body until it merges with the body when it becomes inseparable until the death of the body.  The Aristotelian/Thomistic view, known as the hylomorphic theory, is that the soul is in essence not so much a substantial extension of the body but the very substance of the body itself (ibid.).  Later Scholastics believe a forma corporeitatis independent of the soul exists – that is, the essence of a being is a soma (a living body), which is naturally and essentially the foundation of life (ibid.).  In terms of later medieval alchemists, the soul is comprised of a spiritual substance that is laden with “accidents” that are infused in the soul as the result of experiences in the earthly life (ibid.).  When the soul is in union with the body, it is the substance of the body, but when the soul is separated from the body, it is substantially deficient and fragmentary.  How do these understandings of the nature of the soul relate to inhabitants of other worlds?

I will suggest that, by the standards of Catholic theology, it is consistent to hold that inhabitants of other worlds have souls that are the substantial parts of their bodies.  The modern Catholic Church teaches that ensoulment of humans takes place at conception.  Assuming that inhabitants of other worlds reproduce with seeds and eggs or their equivalents, then ensoulment of extraterrestrial bodies takes place at the equivalent of conception also.  Unlike the perishable souls of animals and plants (sensitive and vegetative), hnau, one may assume, have sensitive and vegetative and immortal souls.  On the theory that inhabitants of other worlds have souls, one may assume that something happens to the immortal souls of extraterrestrials upon the deaths of the bodies, just as is true of human souls.  As we have seen, some Christian authors and theologians maintain that the souls of extraterrestrials do not sin and thus have no need of redemption, while others maintain that all souls have sinned and need redemption regardless of the shape of their physical bodies. 

Spirit, from the Latin spiritus meaning “breath, life, soul, mind or spirit,” was originally conceived by the Stoics to be a fire-like principle (pneuma) that animated and gave energy to the kosmos (Runes 299).  Generally, a spirit is an hnau capable of intellectual thought and willful behavior.  Spirit, like soul, is immaterial yet conscious.  Classical spiritualism is the belief that Spirit is the “ultimate reality in the” kosmos, that is, that Pneuma, Nous, Reason, Logos or an Over-Mind is immanent in the kosmos (as opposed to materialism) (Runes 300).  Spiritual aspects of the body are supersensuous, representing a perfect order of existence or demesne (in the sense of domain) of the mind.  Spirit is not only intellectual, rational, and noetic but also moral and divine.  For the author of the Gospel of John, worship is the process of the human spirit communing with the Holy Spirit (Runes 300).  For writers of the Hebrew[7] Scriptures, that is, the Israelites, the body cannot be clearly distinguished from the soul, whereas for the authors of the New Testament, body and soul and spirit comprise a complete unit such that soul and spirit can be differentiated but not separated (cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 and Hebrews 4:12).  This position seems to be borne out in the maxim that, as Scripture also attests,  “So, too, it is written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living being [the Greek phrase is psuche zwsan which can be translated “a living soul”],’ the last Adam a life-giving spirit” (the Greek phrase is pneuma zwopoioun) (1 Corinthians 15:45), implying that God through Christ gives a life-giving spirit to the faithful that is to be distinguished from the soul.  Harry L. Poe and Jimmy H. Davis, twenty-first century authors of Designer Universe:  Intelligent Design and the Existence of God, remark:

The ancient Hebrews described the interplay of the human body and spirit as the nephish hayah (living being).  It was a concept quite different from Plato’s view of the psyche (life principle).  It is most unfortunate for Western civilization that centuries ago scholars translated both words as soul.  For the Hebrew, the soul represented the unity of life that involved both a physical and a spiritual dimension.  For Plato, the soul was the life principle of the universe that became embodied in flesh until it could cast off the physical shell.  Physical life was a hindrance to the soul.  Aristotle reacted to his teacher and suggested that the spirit had nothing to say to the body.  Unfortunately, philosophers and theologians for over two thousand years have played off Plato and Aristotle while paying little heed to the ancient Hebrew understanding of the relationship between physical and spiritual reality.  The Hebrew concept of the Creator and the Christian concept of the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ affirm the dynamic relationship between the spiritual and physical realms. (229 – 230)

 

Many Christian authors who believe extraterrestrial intelligent beings exist maintain that they have souls and spirits as well as bodies which will resurrect on Judgment Day.  This belief is elementary to the Incarnation of Jesus, his death and resurrection.  The reason many Christians embrace this belief is because they believe God chose to enmesh the stuff of which he is comprised with the stuff of which the kosmos is made.  The entire intelligent design movement is an effort to reestablish the relationship between the material realm and the spiritual realm via communication between science and theology, a dialogue that culminates in an attempt to understand the mystery of the incarnate Logos.

Closely related to the ancient understanding of kosmos is the meaning and function of the logos, meaning “word” or “speech” or “reason,” which has a definite history that is worth mentioning at this point, although Henri Frankfort remarks that “Logos…[is] a term so heavily laden with associations as to be an embarrassment whether we translate it or not” (256).  The reason why a discussion of the meaning of the Logos is important is because this thesis is about the Incarnation of the Logos, and it is logical to define just what it is that Christians believe became incarnate to effect the salvation of human beings and inhabitants of other worlds.  The ancient and scholarly understanding of the nature of the Logos is important because the Logos is the crux of the argument concerning the nature of God and God’s Incarnation.  The Logos is what became, according to Christians, incarnate on Earth, and what many Christians believe became incarnate on other worlds, so a discussion about exactly what the Logos is seems to be in order. 

Heraclitus (“The Obsure”) of Ephesus (536 – 470 B.C.) is the first to use the word logos to mean a principle governing the physical universe as well as the principle governing human law (Runes 183 – 184).  Heraclitus believes that the stuff of which the universe is made is in a constant state of flux so that the changing nature of things represents the only true reality (Runes 184).  Thus, Heraclitus argues, the kosmos is like an everlasting fire, continuously burning and consuming via the guidance of the Logos:  “This world (kosmos) which is the same for all, no one of the gods or men has made; but it was ever, is now, and ever shall be an ever-living fire, with measures of it kindling, and measures going out” (cited in Frankfort 256).  The Stoics developed this idea more completely, arguing that the kosmos is essentially one, and this living oneness contains infinitely many parts that fit together perfectly much like pieces of a puzzle, and the thing that gives the kosmos its life is the Logos, which abides within the kosmos and is itself perfect and immutable with divine purpose (Runes 184).  The kosmos-Logos union is a kind of seed from which the creative impulse stemmed (logos spermatikos).  The creative impulses yielded a multitude of logoi spermatikoi which individually function in the creation as the causes of ideas or forms with intelligence and purpose (Hyman & Walsh 17).  Since the Logos governs everything in creation, it is also regarded by some as equivalent to heimarmene (fate).  Since the Logos leads everything in creation to the agathos (good), it is also regarded by some as pronia (providence).  Finally, the Logos, because it is identified with the universal order of things, is sometimes regarded as physis (nature) (Runes 184).

            Philo of Alexandria (ca. 30 B.C. – A.D. 50), who mixes Greek and Jewish thought, regards the Logos as the spiritual director, or the individual agent, through which the universe was created and ordered and governed by the transcendent God.  Northrop Frye in The Great Code remarks:

The Biblical terms usually rendered “word,” including the logos of the Gospel of John, are solidly rooted in the metaphorical phase of language, where the word was an element of creative power.  According to Genesis 1:4, “God said, Let there be light; and there was light.”  That is, the word was the creative agent that brought the thing into being.  This is usually thought of as characteristically Hebrew in approach, although in Heraclitus the term logos is also essentially metaphorical, and still expresses a unity of human consciousness and physical phenomena.  In the metonymic phase logos takes on rather the meaning of an analogical use of words to convey the sense of rational order.  This order is thought of as antecedent to both consciousness and nature.  Philo and the author of John combine the two traditions, and John’s “In the beginning was the logos” is a New Testament commentary on the opening of Genesis, identifying the original creative word with Christ. (18)

 

Philo is a neo-Platonic philosopher and Jewish theologian who holds that Greek philosophy ultimately stems from Mosaic theology, thus justifying his syncretistic blending of the two disciplines in order to apply Greek philosophy to new spiritual interpretations of the Old Testament (Runes 234).  His fame is a mark of his success in his task.  Philo believes that the Logos dwells in the hearts of all people whose purpose is to unite with God by the process of renouncing self, a view Jesus himself makes use of when he says that his disciples must renounce self and take up their cross to follow him (cf. Mark 8:34 – 35; Matthew 10:38 – 39; 16:24 – 25).

            Plotinus (A.D. 205 – 270) develops his theology by calling the initial three Hypostases the One, the Mind (Nous), and the Soul (Psyche).  Plotinus gives the Logos the important task of creating and providing shape to Nous (Intelligence/Mind), which conceptually leads to the hypostatic union of the Christian Trinity, although, for Plotinus, the initial three Hypostases function as the chaotic operations of nature rather than the deliberate organizing order of a god since Plotinus is not monotheistic (Runes 240), but, like many Greeks, uses the word “God” in the singular to refer to all the gods in the same way that English speakers use the word “Man” to refer to all human beings.  Although Plotinus took no notice of Christianity, many Christians of his era and later eras took notice of him and his ideas, such as Boethius, the last of the Romans, as well as medieval and renaissance philosophers and Kabbalists.  The point I’m making is that, for Plotinus, the Logos performs the function of providing an order to the lower realities and governing them, while the One is the absolute Source needing nothing but which allows the Logos to act as a kind of go-between for the three Hypostases and their product the kosmos and everything in it.

For Christian philosophers, the Logos is the Second Person of the Trinity, functioning as not only the creative impulse of God but also the enlightenment and redemption of disciples of Jesus Christ.  Again, for Christians, the syncretistically borrowed concept of the Logos is the organizing force through which God created the kosmos.  For the Israelites, the kosmos is a combination of a flat table underneath a physical vault (the sky) which holds back a watery chaos and below which is a subterranean ocean (what the Greeks called Okeanos) leading to Sheol (the world of the dead).  Thayer’s Lexicon says:

In several passages in the writings of John ho logos denotes the essential Word of God, i.e. the personal (hypostatic) wisdom and power in union with God, his minister in the creation and government of the universe, the cause of all the world’s life both physical and ethical, which for the procurement of man’s salvation put on human nature in the person of Jesus the Messiah and shone forth conspicuously from his words and deeds:  John 1:1, 14. (1 John 5:7 Rec.) (cited in BibleWorks 6.0)

 

Robert C. Newman, by contrast, suggests that the Biblical firmament is not a vault but vapor:  “Now I am not suggesting that the ancient Jews and Christians may not have believed that the sky was a solid dome, but only that the Bible does not teach such a view.” (13)  Newman further notes on the word normally translated “firmament” or “expanse”:

The use of the noun raqia seems to be consistent with either a two-dimensional or three-dimensional expanse.  The object to which this term is applied may be rigid (as, perhaps, in Ezekiel 1), but it may also be non-material (as probably in Psalm 150:1).  Regarding the particular application of raqia to that object created in Genesis 1 which separates the lower and upper waters, we have noted that the text gives no evidence that anything but the “firmament” intervenes between these two waters, suggesting that this “expanse” may be the air.  If the upper water is in the form of vapor or small droplets, there is no physical problem with the air supporting a quantity of water of the same order of magnitude as that presently in our atmosphere. (16)

 

The word raqia may mean an immaterial expanse consistent with our understanding of the atmosphere while the word shamayim is usually translated “heaven” or “sky” as opposed to “atmosphere.”  It is thus possible to argue that Biblical Jewish cosmology is roughly consistent with modern science, even if not exactly.  Again, Newman writes:

Basically, the word shamayim seems to involve a twofold division into visible and invisible regions, with the visible further subdivided into lower and upper regions which we would probably call the “atmosphere” or “sky” and “outer space.”  Such a twofold division of the visible heavens was not unknown in antiquity, as the Greeks spoke of the “sublunary” and “superlunary” regions.

 

The term “heaven” is occasionally used for all three regions taken together (probably Psalm 148:1 and Jeremiah 23:24), and sometimes as a synonym for “upward” (…Genesis 15:5).  In other cases, two of the regions may be spoken of as one (perhaps in Deuteronomy 30:12, 1 Samuel 2:10 or Job 38:29).  Likewise several stereotyped phrases such as “heaven and earth” or “host of heaven” clearly cross the boundaries of the three suggested categories.  Nevertheless, there are clear signs of this distinction in addition to 2 Corinthians 12:2 or modern attempts to harmonize the Bible with science. (19)

 

Newman also suggests that “’heaven’ is the atmosphere, ‘the heaven of heavens’ is outer space, and ‘heaven, God’s dwelling place’ is the invisible realm” (20).  He also implies that God’s presence transcends all these places (20).  Newman finally claims that translations like the Septuagint and Jerome’s Latin Vulgate use terms that are specifically geared to coincide with ancient science rather than actual Biblical meanings so that the Bible’s expressions for various natural phenomena such as heaven and earth are actually consistent with modern science (44 – 45). 

Accordingly, this discussion illuminating the history of the development of science from ancient Jewish science to modern science serves to illustrate that interpretations of Scripture can be regarded as consistent with modern science, while scientific theories based on imperfect understandings of Scripture developed over millennia and sometimes must be taken with a grain of salt.  The point is that the meaning of words like kosmos and Logos that changed over the centuries directly affected Christian theology in terms of, to use Delano’s term, astrotheology.  How scholars interpret the meanings of these terms today directly impacts the whole theory of the uniqueness of the Incarnation of the Logos.  Saint Augustine’s science was much poorer than his theology, for example, because he lacked modern understandings of ancient terms like Logos and kosmos. 

The concepts of the Logos and the kosmos are so heavily laden with philosophical and theological overtones that we must be cautious when using these terms, especially since their definitions vary from one culture and time to another.  To believe that Jesus is the incarnate Logos who came to a planet in the kosmos called Earth is the focus of Christian belief.

Jesus, the focus of Christian faith, is believed by many Christians to be the universal savior, although what constitutes “universal” varies from one Christian to another.  In looking at the teachings of Jesus, one may argue that the message of Jesus originally was addressed to the Jewish people and only later expanded to the Gentiles.  For example, Jesus says to a Canaanite woman who asks him to heal her daughter of demonic possession, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24), although, moved by her persistence, confrontation and argument rooted in an obvious trust and faith, he grants her request.  Jesus later expands his ministry to both the Samaritans and the Gentiles, and the Apostle Paul successfully expands the new faith to include as many Gentiles as possible.  In this sense, the expansion of the Gospel message to include inhabitants of other worlds throughout the kosmos seems a logical progression from Jew to Gentile to extraterrestrial.  Indeed, many passages from Scripture can be similarly more broadly interpreted to suggest that the Gospel message is divinely intended to be universal in the widest sense of the term.

In examining the following Scripture verses, I am using the translation of the New American Bible for Catholics while using the transliterated Greek word kosmos instead of “world” or “universe.” The idea of the universality of God’s message is implied in the usage of the word kosmos in these passages, although this interpretation is, as far as I know, original with me.  Newman notes, “I do not believe Scripture is misleading, though it is capable of being misunderstood.  I think the Christian has nothing to fear from a thorough and honest investigation of Scripture, as it will eventually vindicate itself as the Word of God” (5).  For Christians, Scripture is the Word of God and is its own vindication.  On the other hand, how do scholars understand the Bible in terms of modern views of the nature of the kosmos and the message of Jesus?

For one, the author of the New Testament Gospel and letters of John regards Jesus as a universal savior.  By universal, the author means everyone in the entire cosmos, although, as I said earlier, kosmos means to John (who is writing for an audience of Gentiles who are Greek-speakers since Greek is the lingua franca of the first century A.D.) the Earth and the sky with all its one-dimensional contents.  Since many passages in the Bible imply things to later generations that were not obvious to the original authors, it could be that the usage of the word kosmos in the Bible implies a larger, more complex universe than that originally envisaged by the authors.  References to the tebel (world) as “stand[ing] in place, never to be moved” (Psalm 93:1b) should be understood as imperfect Biblical Jewish science and not Biblical Jewish theology.  The Septuagint translation translates the Hebrew word tsaba’ with the Greek word kosmos, though perhaps the Hellenized Jews who translated the Septuagint held a different view of kosmos  than later Jewish and Jewish Christian as well as Gentile Christian authors and theologians.  Carol Newsom, a professor of Hebrew Bible at Emory University, writes in a personal email to the author of this thesis (18 March 2004): 

In Genesis 2:1 pas ho kosmos autwn translates the hebrew word tsaba', which means "host" in the sense of "military personnel, troops." It is also often used in the expression "host of heaven" to refer to the heavenly bodies or stars. Occasionally, it also is used to refer to the entourage around Yahweh.  The standard reference dictionary, the 3d edition of Koehler-Baumgartner lists the expression "all their hosts" in Genesis 2:1 and notes the ways in which it has been interpreted in recent scholarship.  "Either the beings surrounding God or alternatively the stars, or the totality of what is denoted in the individual works [of creation]." [vol. 3, p. 995] You are right that in Isa 13:10 the Septuagint's reading is not attested in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew, but it seems to refer to a similar conception.

 

Ancient Israelites did assume that Yahweh was surrounded by various divine beings who served in the heavenly court and as a heavenly army. Even when one gets the development of something recognizably like monotheism in the post-exilic period, the belief in these other divine beings continues to flourish and indeed in the Hellenistic period they become much more vivid and individuated, receiving names and descriptions. At that point they tend to be referred to as "angels" or "watchers" or "holy ones" but can sometimes be called "gods" especially in the Dead Sea Scrolls). So, although the conception of these beings changes over time, there is a clear trajectory from the older conceptions into the ones that flourished at the time of the New Testament writings. I must admit I was a bit surprised to realize that the Greek translators were using kosmos for the term tsaba', but I'm less familiar with the nuances of Greek.

 

So, for the Israelites, like the Greeks, tsaba’ is a very orderly array, just like kosmos.  Let us take a look at some passages from John the evangelist and epistolary:

1 John 2:2:       He is expiation for our sins, and not for our sins only but for those of the whole kosmos.

 

This verse is commonly read to mean that Jesus expiates the sins of human beings but can also be interpreted to mean that Jesus expiates the sins of all intelligent beings throughout the “whole kosmos.”  Is the crucifixion a universal event with universal effects?  Again, we may interpret this passage to have a greater meaning than that which was originally intended by the human author, John, because God may have intended a meaning, filtered through John, beyond John’s limited understanding of the kosmos, so that the notion of Jesus saving both humans and extraterrestrials by his crucifixion and resurrection is consistent with scholarly hermeneutics.  La Peyrére says:

That mystery, is the force and power of the Spirit of Christ, by which the Gentiles are changed into spiritual Jews, and into the true sons of Abraham, not according to the nature of the flesh, but according to the nature of Promise and Spirit, which is the true adoption and election of the Gentiles.  Yea, Promise is that election, by which alone the Jews are what they are; by which the Jews themselves are the sons of Abraham, true Israelites, and true Jews, not according to the flesh, but according to Promise and to Spirit.  For all those that descended of Israel, are not Israelites, nor those who are the seed of Abraham all his sons:  but in Isaac shall thy seed be call’d; that is to say, not the sons of the flesh, or the Jews, but those that are called sons of the Promise in his seed, Romans 9.  I say, that promise is it which makes true Israelites, and true sons of God. (86 – 87) 

 

It would seem, then, that inhabitants of other worlds can also be children of God through being or becoming children of the Promise regardless of the nature of their flesh because Scripture says that people who are the descendents of Israel are not necessarily Israelites while those who are not Israelites of the flesh may be Israelites of the Promise.  In other words, extraterrestrials scattered throughout the kosmos may be children of God by adoption via the Promise even while not being the sons of Adam or the daughters of Eve.

Other passages with Eucharistic overtones lead to interesting questions:

John 6:33     For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the kosmos.

 

John 6:51     I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the kosmos.

 

The reference by Christ to the Eucharist in these passages implies that Christians need to bring their celebrations of Communion to inhabitants of other worlds throughout the kosmos, so that they too can participate in the sacred mysteries of the Christian faith.  Some Christians want extraterrestrials to participate in their own salvation and experience the unity of the Communion of Saints by receiving the Eucharist.  A major problem I foresee is the possibility that the physiology of inhabitants of other worlds might not allow them to receive the accidents of bread and wine when consuming the body and blood of Christ.  For humans of many cultures, bread is the staff of life, but for some inhabitants of other worlds bread might be poison.  This may be extremely problematic in that the Church regards the elements of bread and fermented wine to be essential to the celebration, since Jesus used bread made from wheat and fermented wine in his original Last Supper.  Thus, a passage such as this one indicating that the incarnate Logos is the food we need to sustain us spiritually may lend support to the view that inhabitants of other worlds may need other economies of salvation since they may need foodstuff other than bread to experience communion with God on the grounds that the “bread of heaven” is to be distinguished from earthly bread.  In such a case, “bread” may have a larger meaning than the Christian Eucharist and may mean that inhabitants of other worlds who embrace Christ spiritually consume “the living bread that came down from heaven” to effect their salvation.  What is important is that a transubstantiation takes place so that the bread becomes the living flesh of the incarnate Logos, and, on other worlds, other foodstuff may transubstantiate into the body and blood (or their equivalents in terms of the real presence of the Logos).  While Catholic teaching is that bread from wheat and fermented wine are essential for the transubstantiation to take place, the Church may recognize the transubstantiation of other elements for the purpose of spiritually feeding inhabitants of other worlds.  Since other elements may be necessary, it is possible that other economies of salvation are necessitated by different evolution of different species with different sustenance requirements.

Another passage from the Gospel of John has Jesus say:

John 9:5       While I am in the kosmos, I am the light of the kosmos.

Genesis tells us that light was the first of all things created, but this light is a supernal light that does not come from the sun and other stars, since the Logos created the sun and the stars on the fourth day.  For Christians, the Logos is the true light which illumines our souls and enlightens our minds and brightens our spirits.  Scripture also asserts, “God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5b).  Also, “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the kosmos” (John 1:9).  If, as Christians believe, Jesus is the Logos who is the light illuminating the human race, then it is consistent with Christian theology that, by bringing the good news to inhabitants of other worlds, the light may well illumine them as well. 

Now let us take a look at the Gospel of Mark:

Mark 16:15   He said to them, "Go into the whole kosmos and proclaim the gospel to every creature."

 

According to Scripture, the so-called Great Commission tells Christians to spread the Gospel to every “creature,” a word meaning “creation of God.”  If creatures as creations of God exist throughout the kosmos, Scripture passages such as this one may indicate that it is a Christian duty to develop new ways of exploring space so that humans can go to other worlds and spread the Gospel to their inhabitants.  Mark also suggests that the Second Coming of Christ will be universal extending to planetary inhabitants throughout the kosmos:

Mark 13:26-27             And then they will see "the Son of Man coming in the clouds" with great power and glory, and then he will send out the angels and gather (his) elect from the four winds, from the end of the earth to the end of the sky.

 

Here, the word translated “Earth” is from the Greek ges and the word translated “sky” is ouranon (often translated “heaven”).  For the Greeks and Jews, the earth and the sky collectively make up the kosmos.  According to the Christian tradition, both Catholicism and some aspects of Protestantism, Jesus will come again at the Parousia to gather his elect from all over the Earth, and the text may imply everywhere in space.  All over the Earth may mean he will gather all the chosen human beings, while everywhere in the sky may mean all chosen extraterrestrials.           

The tradition of some Christian groups would seem to imply that Scripture passages such as those cited above support the notion that Christ is not only a universal savior but also that the benefits of his work on Earth apply to inhabitants of other worlds.  In John and Mark, the authors imply that humans are not the only creatures subject to Christ’s salvific work.

 

Section 2.  Scripture and Other Sheep in the Universe/Heavens/Sky/kosmos

 

Next, I will examine other Scripture passages which point to the possibility of God including inhabitants of other worlds among the people whom Christ must lead. 

John 10:16   I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.  These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd.

 

A. Durwood Foster cites John 10:16 to support the contention that the "other sheep" referred to may be inhabitants of other worlds, saying, "[t]he love of God manifest in Jesus Christ has surely not remained unknown wherever there is spiritual receptivity" (cited in Peters, "Contemporary Theology" 2).  Jesus may lead these inhabitants of other worlds through the activity of the Church throughout the kosmos.  The Church’s mission, as stated above, may be to bring the good news to otherworldly populations so that they can be led by Christ.  It is possible that Christ himself appeared to inhabitants on their own worlds, but that does not necessarily mean that he would appear in human form.  The disciples did not recognize the resurrected Jesus until he revealed himself to them in the breaking of the bread.  A book called Faces of Jesus features pictures of Jesus as black, white, Japanese, Indian, and so forth.  We all see Jesus in terms of our own cultural upbringing, and it may be no different with inhabitants of other worlds.  We just do not know.  As Jesus said, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on Earth?”  (Luke 18:8b).  This may be the primary concern of Christians – before Christians can bring the faith to inhabitants of other worlds, they must first be examples of faith on Earth.  Then, seeing their faith, inhabitants of other worlds may come to recognize the truth that Christians believe Jesus taught.

The Pauline and pseudo-Pauline epistles also speak of the universality of the creator who made the Earth and all the planets in the cosmos:

Hebrews 1:2  In these last days, he spoke to us through a son, whom he made heir of all things and through whom he created the universe [Greek aiwnos].

 

Hebrews 11:3            By faith we understand that the universe [Greek aiwnos] was ordered by the word of God, so that what is visible came into being through the invisible.

 

Psalm 90:2     Before the mountains were born, the earth [Greek gen] and the world [Greek oikoumene] brought forth, from eternity to eternity you are God.

 

The Greek word aiwn aiwnos (age, world order, eternity) is used in both Psalm 90:2 (Septuagint) and Hebrews 1:2 and 11:3.  The Hebrew owlam means, according to Strong’s dictionary, “long duration, antiquity, futurity, for ever, ever, everlasting, evermore, perpetual, old, ancient, world, ancient time, long time (of past or of future), for ever, always, continuous existence, everlasting, indefinite or unending future, eternity.”  The Hebrew word tebel means “world” or “habitable part” (Strong).  The Greek word oikoumene in Psalm 90:2 means “world, inhabited earth, mankind” and sometimes “the Roman Empire.”  The Hebrew eretz means, according to Strong, “land, earth, whole earth (as opposed to a part), earth (as opposed to heaven), earth (inhabitants), country, territory, district, region, tribal territory, piece of ground, land of Canaan, Israel,” etc.  These passages indicate that God made all the worlds in the universe, creating both the material universe and the spiritual universe.  Since God made all the worlds, it follows that he made any inhabitants upon them and that he is just as concerned about their salvation as he is about the salvation of the inhabitants of the Earth.  Since God lives in eternity, he has all of time to effect the salvation of the peoples of the universe, and it is consistent with Christian theology to believe that the redemptive work of Christ has efficacy for humans and inhabitants of other worlds alike. 

The author of the Gospel of Matthew supports this contention when Matthew’s Jesus speaks of the salvation of the good and punishment of the evil:

Matthew 13:37-39  [Jesus] said in reply, “He who sows good seed is the Son of Man, the field is the kosmos, the good seed the children of the kingdom.  The weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil.  The harvest is the end of the age and the harvesters are angels.

 

Since some Biblical authors imply that Jesus is the universal savior, this passage may be interpreted to mean that Jesus sows children of the kingdom throughout the kosmos and will separate the good from the evil among both humans and inhabitants of other worlds at the end of the age.  The text presupposes the resurrection of Christ since God the Father will grant to him “all power in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18), implying that the resurrection is a universal event affecting both humans and inhabitants of other worlds.  Father Delano writes in Many Worlds, One God, “Several theologians, including C.S. Lewis, have pointed out that a remark made by St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans could be interpreted as meaning that the human race has been given by God the mission of evangelizing the entire universe” (118).  Delano cites Romans 8:19-21, which in the NAB translation Paul writes:

For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God; for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.

 

Delano continues:  “Four other passages from the New Testament:  Col. 1:20; Eph. 1:10; 2 Peter 3:13; and Rev. 21:15 also speak of everything in the heavens and on Earth as being reconciled to God through Christ” (119).  While the covenants made with Adam and Eve and Noah are with all human beings, some authors suggest that, while these covenants were specific to the inhabitants of the Earth, they nevertheless imply that the covenant established by Jesus applies universally on the grounds that the Incarnation on Earth is actually a cosmic event with cosmic implications. 

Various Scriptural passages assert that God made the heavens:

Psalm 19:1-2  The heavens declare the glory of God; the sky proclaims its builder’s craft.

 

Sirach 43:9 The beauty, the glory, of the heavens are the stars that adorn with their sparkling the heights of God,

 

Habakkuk 3:3 God comes from Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran. Covered are the heavens with his glory, and with his praise the earth is filled.

 

Acts 7:55 But he, filled with the holy Spirit, looked up intently to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God,

 

 Revelation 14:7 He said in a loud voice, "Fear God and give him glory, for his time has come to sit in judgment. Worship him who made heaven and earth and sea and springs of water."

 

Edward Nares, in his EIR HEOR, EIR LERISGR ; or “An Attempt to Shew How Far the Philosophical Notion of a Plurality of Worlds Is Consistent, or Not So, with the Language of the Holy Scriptures” argues that the Hebrew and Greek words typically translated “heaven(s)” and “world(s)” allow for a more expansive interpretation.  For example, he translates Nehemiah 9:6:  “Thou, even thou, art God alone; thou hast made the WORLDS, the UNIVERSE OF WORLDS; with ALL THEIR INHABITANTS; the EARTH, with all things that are therein; and thou fillest the whole with life; and THE INHABITANTS OF THE WORLDS worship thee” (cited in Crowe 173) (emphasis with caps Nares).  The NAB translates this verse:  “Then Ezra said:  ‘It is you, O LORD, you are the only one; you made the heavens, the highest heavens and all their host, the earth and all that is upon it, the seas and all that is in them.  To all of them you give life, and the heavenly hosts bow down before you.’”

Kenneth Delano, a Catholic priest, in a personal letter to the author of this thesis, writes:

Concerning the question of whether the Bible does or does not offer any evidence or clues concerning the existence of ET’s, I regard the Bible pretty much as did Abbe Georges Lemaitre (b. 1894).  He was a Belgian astrophysicist, cosmologist, and Catholic priest renowned for his hypothesis of the expanding universe.  When asked about an opposing theory, the steady state theory, Abbe Lemaitre replied:  “Religion has no bearing either on my theories or that of the steady state.  An atheist or a Christian could logically support either one of them.  I do not believe that the Bible was intended to explain such things as cosmology.  I do not believe that God ever intended to disclose to man what man could find out for himself.” (Delano 1)

 

Certainly, there are statements and words (e.g., kosmos) in the Bible that can be understood as referring to all intellectual beings throughout the universe, but not with any certainty.  So, in effect, the Bible leaves open the questions of inhabitants of other worlds and their possible need for redemption (Delano 2).  Once again in Many Worlds, One God, Delano writes:

The Bible has only this much to tell us about ETI:  that God would have to be their Creator too, since the Sacred Scriptures clearly state that the God we worship is the Creator of the entire universe and of all that is in it.  Any further information about ETI we will have to find out for ourselves in the course of our and their endeavors to explore space.  (121 – 122)

 

I am attempting to prove that the Incarnation is unique to the Earth with its effects spreading out across the entire universe; it seems consistent with many authors, especially Chalmers and Brewster, that inhabitants of other worlds probably have a literature and a revelation that inclines them to quest among the stars for the birthplace of their savior.  Christians should be prepared to receive any pilgrims searching for knowledge of their creator, just as Christians should be prepared to receive knowledge from pilgrims about the creator.  It will be of interest to scholars to inquire if they have a salvation history and whether it gibes with the earthly counterpart.  Christians should no more expect information about extraterrestrials from the pages of Scripture than they should expect information about chemistry or particle physics from the lips of Jesus; his listeners had a hard enough time understanding the parable of the wheat and the tares (Delano 3).

A Catholic can only be sure that the kosmos is united in the glory of Christ (Levine 1).  Furthermore, as Al Levine writes,

It occurred to me on a relativistic basis alone there are parts of the cosmos, temporally speaking, in which the Sacrifice has not yet happened.  If there are domains outside our light cone – which there might very well be – then there are domains about which we know nothing whatsoever.  The knowledge of the inspired writers must be limited by their assumption of absolute time, as in much else.  All that they need to know is Easter, and that is what they experienced.  Yet if God is literally ‘light from light,’ then in Him there is no passage of time as we know it, but one eternal present.  I think it’s best not to try to inspect the mysteries too closely, because we have no intellectual access to their contents, and to keep our options open.  (personal email to the author, 7-27-2003, 1)

 

Indeed, many Christians believe Scripture not only gives knowledge of the divine but also enables one to experience the mysteries of God.  Because it is written in the Bible that Jesus is the monogenes (the only-begotten) of God (John 1:18), it seems contrary to Scripture to suggest that God begets other incarnations of the Logos throughout the universe.  Furthermore, it is written in the Christian Credo, “We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.  We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father, through him all things were made.”  Thus, it seems also inconsistent with Scripture and Catholic tradition that Christ ever dies again on other worlds or rises again.  While many Christians believe the mystery of the Incarnation cannot be scientifically explained but only mystically experienced, it seems consistent with Catholic teachings to believe that the Incarnation is a unique universal event with universal effects spreading out across all of space and time yet which God sees as one ever-present now. 

 

Conclusion to Sections 1 and 2

 

Since, according to Christianity, God created the heavens, it follows that God may have created inhabitants of the worlds in the heavens.  Since Christians believe that God is good, it is unlikely that God does not care about inhabitants of other worlds in the same way he cares about inhabitants of the Earth.  Scripture explicitly states that the actions of God affect the kosmos and not just the Earth, so it is consistent with Scripture to state that God became incarnate to redeem not only sinful human beings but sinful inhabitants of other worlds as well (if they exist). 

The view that God is in the universe and the universe is in God is known as panentheism.  From the panentheistic viewpoint, all creatures naturally yearn for the God who is inside them.  It is consistent with Christian theology to aver that God is the creator of all creatures, great and small, and all intelligent creatures, human and extraterrestrial, because it is consistent with Christian Scripture.  While for Saint Thomas, the souls of animals perish with their bodies whereas the souls of human beings are immortal, it is possible to theologize, as a form of astrotheology, that the souls of intelligent inhabitants of other worlds are also immortal as a function of the very nature of the intellect of sapient beings since it is the intellectual soul which, according to some philosophers, including Aquinas, is made in the image of God.

Inhabitants of other worlds may have their own theologies based on God’s intervention in the history of their worlds, but what about the Logos?  Did the Logos become incarnate only once on Earth for the salvation of all intelligent beings throughout the cosmos?  Some theologians I have discussed hold the belief that Christ became incarnate on every world with intelligent beings throughout the kosmos, that he lived and died and rose again over and over again…poor Jesus!  According to my interpretation of mainstream Christian theological principles, the Logos became incarnate only once, and that Jesus suffered on the cross only once and rose again only once, and also that the redemptive effects of Christ apply to inhabitants of other worlds.  To say that Jesus dies and rises over and over again is quite different from the belief, according to Scripture, that “Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has power over him.  As to his death, he died to sin once and for all; as to his life, he lives for God” (Romans 6:9-10).  It seems more consistent with Scripture and Christian theology to say that Christ, the incarnate Logos, lives continuously without interruptions of death and subsequent risings. The reason why many authors make this conclusion is because many of the Scripture passages examined in this thesis support the notion that the Incarnation of the Logos along with the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ transcend and permeate all of space and time in order to effect the salvation of inhabitants of the many worlds. 

Chapter 4

 

Conclusion:  Inhabitants of Other Worlds and the Church

 

            Moreover, we have seen and testify that the Father sent his Son as savior of the kosmos.  – 1 John 4:14

 

The whole visible world is only an imperceptible speck in nature’s ample bosom, no idea comes near it.  We have puffed up our conceptions beyond imaginable space, we have only given birth to atoms compared with the reality of things.  It is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere, whose circumference nowhere.  In the end, the greatest palpable sign of the omnipotence of God is that our imagination loses itself in thinking about it.  What is a man, within the infinite?  -- Blaise Pascal, PenseŒes[8]

 

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware!  Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread,

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise.  – Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan

 

 

Some people today believe that the very existence of inhabitants on other worlds makes the story of the Incarnation of the Logos as a human being an anthropocentric myth, threatening Christianity and the authority of the Church.  Others maintain that the discovery of inhabitants of other worlds will simply expand our horizons without causing the disintegration of the Church.  Who is right?  Arthur C. Clarke writes in his 1951 The Exploration of Space (191) that some people “are afraid that the crossing of space, and above all contact with intelligent but nonhuman races, may destroy the foundations of their religious faith.  They may be right, but in any event their attitude is one which does not bear logical examination – for a faith which cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets” (cited in Dick, Cosmotheology 2 and The Biological Universe 517 and Life on Other Worlds 247).  If and when Christianity comes into contact with the discovery of inhabitants of other worlds, the result will probably not be an annihilation of the Church but an expansion of the Church’s understanding of God’s creation.  Will some people abandon the Church upon the discovery of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe?  Undoubtedly, but, then, untold numbers of people have left the Church for lesser reasons.  The discovery of inhabitants of other worlds may ring alarm bells in the Church, but if the Catholic Church fails to demonstrate resiliency and rise to the occasion, then its demise will not be worth many regrets. 

One of the challenges that will face the Church upon the discovery of inhabitants of other worlds is interpretation of Scripture and tradition; some will argue that Scripture’s failure to mention inhabitants of other worlds indicates Scripture’s unreliability while the silence of Church tradition/teachings on the matter will echo this conclusion.  Fortunately, Catholicism is not a religion solely of the Bible but also of tradition which clarifies Scripture, and the Church certainly has the authority to interpret Scripture in new ways to accommodate revelations of new life in the kosmos of which we were previously unaware.  According to Catholic teachings, God inspired Scripture to teach Christians about salvation and not about the nature of the universe.  Therefore, it seems safe to say that knowledge of extraterrestrials is not strictly necessary to save souls.  For this reason, the topic of this thesis is currently a matter of speculation, albeit one that I believe it is likely we will have to face one day. 

The great authors and theologians of our planet, many of whom I have discussed in this thesis, prove that speculations about inhabitants of other worlds provoke discussions on themes of sin and repentance, virtue and liberation, infinite diversity in infinite combinations (with compliments to Star Trek), and the dependence of creatures throughout the universe on the common God who, Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti claims, created all of us (3).  The idiosyncratic nature of the subject cries for a meeting of minds among scientists and theologians, anthropologists and philosophers, to satisfy both our curiosity and religious desires.  When and if the opportunity arises, thinking Christians will want to question inhabitants of other worlds about their ideas of the meaning of life and consciousness, about their knowledge of the creator and his work in their societies, about their mythologies telling of the great battle between good and evil, and about God’s intervention to effect a sense of morality and common decency and respect for one another, which are the meeting points between barbarism and civilization.  Tanzella-Nitti writes:

The search for alien beings can thus be seen as part of a long-standing religious quest as well as a scientific project.  This should not surprise us.  Science began as an outgrowth of theology, and all scientists, whether atheists or theists, and whether or not they believe in the existence of alien beings, accept an essentially theological world view. (Davies 137 – 138)

 

So, really the religious resonance just highlighted reveals a last important interdisciplinary dimension of the debate:  that of the relationship with theology.  Christian theology, in a particular way, would be largely involved in such a debate.  In fact, it usually reasons in terms of a “register of uniqueness” which seems to regulate the relationship between God and man, an apex reached in the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God made man. (cited in Interdisciplinary Encyclopaedia of Religion and Science:  Extraterrestrial life 4)

 

Finally, Tanzella-Nitti writes:

If the mystery of the Incarnation refers to a Christocentric and not geocentric cardinality, then it can be explored and expressed with cosmic and universal categories, not anthropological.  The third fixed point should therefore be, for our attention, the revealed and salvific universal value, and not only local, of the Incarnation.  The cardinality of Christ, God-man, for the angel creatures (cf. Heb 1,3-14 and 2,5-18) would be interpreted as revealing his cardinality for all possible creatures (cf. Eph 1,10; Col 1,20).  The somehow infinite greatness of the hypostatic union gives also the vicar sacrifice of Christ an infinite and meritorious value.  The way in which this is applicable to the whole universe would remain a mystery for Christian theology, but the efficacy of this sacrifice does not increase even if you multiply it.  The celebration of the Holy Mass, for example, applies in different times and places the fruits of that same historical event, without multiplying it.  I believe, contrarily to that which is suggested by other authors, that the very participation of such salvation and efficaciousness on a cosmic plane – where it could be necessary for other intelligent and free beings – cannot depend on an interplanetary and missionary impetus, nor on an indirect communication (although these factors can and perhaps must operate).  It could only depend on an economy guided by the Holy Spirit, who also works in a way which is mostly unknown for us, but certainly the only one able to secure the universality and interiorization of salvation.  As it happens in the Earth’s salvific economy, the Spirit would again lead to the Son and would render him in some way present.  And all that having the logical conviction that the Creator has in each place his own inimitable ways to make himself recognizable, and perhaps also to make himself present within his creatures. (Tanzella-Nitti 13)

 

The Incarnation of the Logos, the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, and his death, resurrection, and ascension are the crux of the theological universe brimming with intelligent life seeking meaning in the quest for knowledge of the creator.  For Christians, Jesus is the center of all of space and time and will be an essential component of the exchange of knowledge with creatures the nature of whose minds and consciousness are known at present only to God but may become known to human beings who seek out new thoughts and ideas in the vast reaches of interstellar space.  Indeed, it may be regarded by Christians as Christian duty to accelerate research into space travel in order to facilitate the mission of interstellar missionaries.

In this thesis, I have argued that it is consistent with Catholic teachings, including Scripture, that the Incarnation of Jesus Christ is a unique universal event affecting the whole of creation, and Jesus Christ came to redeem and save inhabitants of other worlds (if they exist) as well as human beings by his grace via his life, death, and resurrection.  These beliefs are consistent with the Christian thought and theology of many prominent authors, both Catholic and Protestant, as well as compatible with the concepts of universal redemption, justification, sanctification, and salvation as historically put forth by the Catholic Church in both its oral tradition and Bible.

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Appendix A

Catholic Poets

Alice Meynell.

Alice Meynell (1847 – 1922), an English Catholic poet and essayist, also writes poetry apparently favoring the notion of multiple incarnations and multiple gospels (Crowe 444 – 445).  The vision of a universe permeated by the ever-acting, ever-working, and potentially explicit self-expression of the divine Word/Logos was never better expressed than in her poem “Christ in the Universe”:

           

            Christ in the Universe

           

With this ambiguous earth

            His dealings have been told us.  These abide:

            The signal to a maid, the human birth,

            the lesson and the young Man crucified.

 

            But not a star of all

            The innumerable host of stars has heard

            How he administered this terrestrial ball.

            Our race have kept their Lord's entrusted

            Word...

 

            No planet knows that this

            Our wayside planet, carrying land and wave,

            Love and life multiplied, and pain and bliss,

            Bears, as chief treasure, one forsaken grave.

 

            Nor, in our little day,

            May his devices with the heavens he guessed,

            His pilgrimage to thread the Milky Way,

            Or his bestowals there be manifest.

 

            But, in the eternities,

            Doubtless we shall compare together, hear

            A million alien Gospels, in what guise

            He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear.

            (cited in Peacocke 114-115.)

 

            O, be prepared, my soul!

            To read the inconceivable, to scan

            The million forms of God those stars unroll

            When, in our turn, we show to them a Man.

            (cited in Crowe 445.)

 

 

Meynell and others like her, then, suggests that Christ has one voice but many faces in the sense of one substance but many appearances.  Such a view is supported by Scripture’s indication that the disciples did not recognize the risen Christ until he made himself known to them by word or deed such as speaking their names or breaking bread.  I am citing this poem and others in the belief, as Miguel de Unamuno, a Spanish philosopher writes, that “poet and philosopher are twin brothers, if not even one and the same -- ” (Tragic Sense of Life 7).  Sometimes poetry expresses truths which prose only dreams about.

 

Al Levine.

Al Levine, a Catholic poet, writes in a personal letter to the author (27 July 2003) that he is unsure of his position but thinks he probably falls into Category 3 and composed the following poem posted on the Free Catholic Mailing List (Catholic@FreeCatholic.net) entitled “The Mouth of God”:

THE MOUTH OF GOD

 

They live so far away, these people on other worlds

And if they signal to us

By radio, by laser light

We think: how sad

 

For if they use such primitive

Such mean technology

It means they are the same as us

They'll never reach us

 

But if they use the means of those

Who understand the world much more than we

Than how are we to read their signals

Or even know that they exist?

 

Why should they condescend to us

Or why should we think them knowable -

And yet

God condescends, God speaks

 

To them as well?

Neither microwaves, nor infrared

Nor even waves of gravity come forth

From the mouth of God.

 

For Levine, contact with God is more important than contact with inhabitants of other worlds, though God precludes neither.  It is possible that the more we learn about other worlds and their possible inhabitants, the more we learn about the nature of God.

Appendix B

 

Nature of the Logos and Kosmos with Quotes from Various Authors

 

A reasonable question to ask is why did the Logos become incarnate on the Earth out of all the billions of planets in the kosmos?  The answer to that question brings with it a whole host of new questions about Christ and the Incarnation and whether his redemptive work on Earth applies to all planets in the universe.  Some writers, like C.S. Lewis, ponder the question and come up with the solution that other worlds need not necessarily have fallen in the same way that Adam and Eve fell from grace in the Garden of Eden, and that subsequent incarnations are therefore unnecessary.  Some scholars contend that inhabitants of other worlds are not the descendents of Adam and Eve and therefore are not held to the same covenants or subject to the same inherited disease of original sin.  Perhaps extraterrestrial people fell just as Adam and Eve fell, and so all extraterrestrial races are fallen in the same way that the human race is fallen.  It’s possible that falling from grace is an inevitable consequence of free will.  I will argue that it is consistent with Christian theology to maintain that inhabitants of other worlds have fallen into sin as an inevitable consequence of free will and that the unique Incarnation on Earth as well as the unique crucifixion and resurrection purchase the benefits of salvation to sinful humans and sinful extraterrestrial intelligent beings alike.  However, the answers to these questions are the subject of another essay.

Camille Flammarion (1842 – 1925), author of “L’humanité dans l’univers,” according to Crowe, lists “four solutions to these problems…: 

 

(1)  God simultaneously became incarnate and died on all planets where sin had occurred.  (2)  God became incarnate on various planets at different times.  (3)  God came only to the earth, because only there did sin arise.  (4)  Christ’s earthly actions brought redemption to all the planets.  The third is described as Chalmers’s solution, the fourth as Brewsters’s, with Flammarion favoring the latter.” (Crowe 383)

 

The Reverend Thomas Chalmers suggests that Scripture passages may have

meanings beyond the original intent of the authors, because the meaning of the term kosmos can be expanded to include the entire universe even though the original author’s understanding of the extent of the universe was quite limited at the time of original composition.

 

But tell me, O tell me, would it not throw the softening of a most exquisite tenderness over the character of God, should we see him putting forth his every expedient to reclaim to himself those children who had wandered away from him; and few as they were when compared with the host of his obedient worshippers, would it not just impart to his attribute of compassion the infinity of the Godhead, that rather than lose the single world which had turned to its own way, he should send the messengers of peace to woo and to welcome it back again; and if justice demanded so mighty a sacrifice, and the law behooved to be so magnified and made honorable, tell me whether it would not throw a moral sublime over the goodness of the Deity, should he lay upon his own Son the burden of its atonement, that he might again smile upon the world, and hold out the scepter of invitation to all its families? (Chalmers 94)

 

Whewell writes:

 

The earth, thus selected as the theatre of such a scheme of Teaching and of Redemption, cannot, in the eyes of any one who accepts this Christian faith, be regarded as being on a level with any other domiciles.  It is the Stage of the great Drama of God’s Mercy and Man’s Salvation; the Sanctuary of the Universe; the Holy Land of Creation; the Royal Abode, for a time at last, of the Eternal King.  This being the character which has thus been conferred upon it, how can we assent to the assertions of Astronomers, when they tell us that it is only one among millions of similar habitations, not distinguishable from them, except that it is smaller than most of them that we can measure; confused and rude in its materials like them?  Or if we believe the Astronomers, will not such a belief lead us to doubt the truth of the great scheme of Christianity, which thus makes the earth the scene of a special dispensation? (64) 

 

Some Christian scholars maintain that the prospect of inhabitants of other worlds has no deleterious effects on Christian theology but indeed expands and leavens theological thought with ebullience, an idea rejected by such Christian scholars as William Whewell who expresses opposition to the notion of inhabitants of other worlds on the grounds that their very existence challenges the validity of Christian faith. 

We will see in the course of the discussion on the Incarnation of the Logos that the development of the idea of the nature of the kosmos influenced many of the authors and theologians explored in this thesis.  Scientific advancements in our understanding of the kosmos caused certain theologians to expand their thoughts to include the notion that the Incarnation was not simply a local event on earth but a cosmological event with universal implications.  Subsequent to the Copernican revolution and Kepler’s discovery of the laws of planetary motion, many people, educated and lay alike, developed a greater appreciation not only for the nature of the universe but the extent of the kosmos.  These scientific discoveries expanded Christological thought to include the idea that the Logos rules a vast expanse of space that has not yet been measured and that Christ’s domain of power includes both humans and inhabitants of other worlds alike. 

In many cultures, science, religion, and philosophy are not necessarily distinct areas of study but like different shades of the same color.  In the Bible, statements or implications about the nature of the sky and the nature of things reflect ancient Biblical Jewish science rather than ancient Biblical Jewish theology, though the ancient Israelites themselves may have regarded this modern distinction as no different than trying to distinguish or separate soul and spirit and body.  Aristotle and Plato and other Greeks began the process of distinguishing among religion, philosophy, and science in a way that profoundly influenced Christianity and the later views of Christian theologians and philosophers and scientists.  By failing to see these disciplines in a unified whole, modern Christians often think of religion as being believed on Sundays and science as being believed the rest of the week.  In some ways, the ancients, whose beliefs made no such distinctions, knew what we have forgotten, even while we speculate on what they never knew.  For the early mystical Christians, the Logos is the creator and designer who became incarnate to show the people of this planet how to experience eternal life, while the nature of the kosmos he designed and created was conceptualized as the place where humans experience the process of coming to know God.  Romans 1:20 tells us:  “Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made.”  For Thomas Aquinas, Paul’s assertion predicates the existence of God as an eternal truth (Summa Contra Gentiles, Book I, Section 12).  As their understanding of the nature of the creation grew, so did their appreciation for the design and the designer.  Soon, many began speculating on the design of other worlds as well as the design of their inhabitants, always with a keen eye on the designer.

Many cultures for many years made little if any distinction among the disciplines of science, philosophy, and theology (Davis and Poe 24).  However, with Plato and Aristotle, these disciplines came to be thought of as separate in the West, a feature of Western culture that many other cultures find puzzling at best and simply strange at worst.  For better or worse, this breaking up of the scholastic disciplines led to the unfortunate attitude that science, philosophy, and theology have nothing to say to each other (Davis and Poe 24).  However, I will argue that these disciplines have much to say to each other and their confluence has much to say to us.  The notion that the universe is designed is a feature common to many (if not most) religions (Davis and Poe 24).  Modern thinkers have begun discussing not simply the design of the universe but the intelligent design of the universe (Davis and Poe 24 – 25) and are now are revisiting the notion that the Logos is the organizing force through which the universe was intelligently designed with innumerable intelligent creatures, hnau, made in the spiritual image of their creator.

Certainly, in my view, the vast reaches of interstellar space are no obstacle to the God who is everywhere.  The notion that the Incarnation occurred in a place-where (that is, on Earth, in Israel) does not alter my conviction that the resurrection results in justification for inhabitants throughout the universe.  When one gazes upon the Mona Lisa from the south, the east, and the west, it appears as though the eyes gaze upon each person in each position simultaneously.  Similarly, Jesus appears to be everywhere, gazing upon each person individually, whether an inhabitant of the earth or an inhabitant of another star system, because his flesh is glorified.

Jesus is regarded by Christians as their redeemer and liberator from slavery to their sins.  Just so, Christianity is a religion capable of embracing the notion that Jesus liberates all intelligent beings from slavery to their sins.  Thus, it seems to be consistent with Christian theology that the commission of sins is, for all practical purposes, an inevitable consequence of free will (the exception, of course, is God whether spirit or incarnate) so that all intelligent beings of whatever origin are sinners in need of redemption.  In this view, Jesus redeems all sinners who repent and grants them eternal salvation in heaven.  As an aside, I would argue that, while “heaven” in Scripture and tradition sometimes means the sky or space, it can also mean not so much a place-where as a relationship with God.  In this view, hell is not a place-where either but a lack of a relationship with God.  Heaven is a condition of the soul such that God allows the citizens of heaven to interact via prayers or visions with people still living in the mortal sphere of existence, that is, on a variety of worlds in the universe or anywhere betwixt and between.

The Incarnation can be construed as a problem for those who believe intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe in terms of ubiquity.  That is, the notion Christ or his body are everywhere in the universe at the same time is regarded as an attribute of God.  Since Christ is ubiquitous, it follows that he is present amidst inhabitants of other worlds in ways that perhaps neither humans nor they fully comprehend.  It is possible that inhabitants of other worlds see the risen Christ in different forms in the same way that the disciples saw the risen Christ in different ways.  Some people say that people create God in their own image.  I would say that people have different images of God that change as they grow older, but this is not “creating” God in different images but imagining God in different images.  God is Spirit, and spirits can take many forms.  While the incarnate Logos has taken the physical form of a human being, the eyes of faith may see Christ in whatever way the cultural and religious beliefs of the individual so guide him.  Different people see Christ in different ways on their individual faith journeys, and the faith journeys of inhabitants of other worlds can surely be no stranger than the wide varieties of religious experiences people have on earth (cf. William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience).  So, whether humans bring the Gospel to inhabitants of other worlds, or, as Lewis suggests, human encounters with extraterrestrials result in our being instructed by them, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).  Extraterrestrial interpretations of the risen Christ may be just as profound if not more so than the interpretations of the greatest of terrestrial sages and theologians.  As Scripture attests, “For [Wisdom] is the refulgence of eternal light, the spotless mirror of the power of God, the image of his goodness” (Wisdom 7:26).  Certainly, the incarnate Wisdom can be regarded by all, human and extraterrestrial alike, as the true image of God, the creator of all things.

The Bible contains not only fable but fact, myth as well as history, legend as well as logical treatises on theology because what is unknown is inestimably greater than what is known and in the demesne of the mysteries of God the imagination and intuition are sometimes better guides than raw intellect and logic.  Scripture tells us that we are “servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Corinthians 4:1), and this is no light task for disciples of any era.  In the sometimes dim ancient past, before the days of written records, the curious were often beset with disturbing questions the answers to which evolved into waves of theories without proof along with a multitude of treasures of tradition that is every Christian’s heritage in an effort to understand the mysterious lore that gave rise to both the Old Testament and the New Testament.  These books of this tradition attempt to explain our most elemental innate fears and inherent indwelling hopes and to express humanity’s continuous quest for the meaning of life, the purpose of death, and the desire to know the answers to the mysteries of eternal life.  The Scriptures, for many Christians, have the purpose of bringing faith in the presence of doubt, hope in the presence of despair, light into “this present darkness,” joy in the midst of sadness, purpose in the midst of the vicissitudes of life, and order (i.e., kosmos) in the midst of chaos.  In the midst of the creation of the kosmos, the Logos gave order to the chaotic eruptions of the Deep, and much later, according to Christology, became flesh to show people the way to heaven.  Earlier, it was pertinent to examine the meaning of kosmos, Logos, soul, and other terms in an effort to appreciate the profundity of the Scripture passages that imply that human beings are not alone in experiencing the salvation of Christ.

On the other hand, all human beings are God’s creations and yet humans often fear other humans, as individuals and as nations, because history is replete with wars and individuals harming other individuals for the sake of sordid gains.  Simply because extraterrestrials are God’s creations is no reason to believe that we automatically have nothing to fear from them.  If we pray for extraterrestrials to be good Christians, the extraterrestrials may pray, “God, we thank thee for the booty we are about to receive from the humans we are about to conquer.”  After all, the Promised Land was conquered.  We can only hope that prayers for peaceful relations will be heard and granted.

According to Crowe, the following scholars cite Scripture to support extraterrestrial life:  Beattie (102), Brewster (303), Burr (451), T. Dick (197, 200-201), Ilive (37), E. King (104), R. Knight (336), Lord (343), Montignez (412-413), and Sturmy (35).  According to Crowe, the following scholars cite Scripture in opposition to ET life:  Catcott (92), Kurtz (262), Leavitt (342), A. Maxwell (195), Thomas Aquinas (4), J. Wesley (94).

While John Calvin (1509 – 1564) argues that the designed universe is evidence for the existence of God (Poe and Davis 41), René Descartes takes the opposite tack in his process of Cartesian doubt to conclude that the universe exists based on his faith in God (Poe and Davis 45).  Sir Isaac Newton (1642 [1643 New Style] – 1727), the famous scientist, also dabbled extensively in theology, although he was not a Trinitarian but a theist who believed that God created, organized, and sustains the universe.  Newton’s views were embraced by members of the Deist movement who argue that God set the universe in motion but does not interfere with the clockwork in any way and certainly does not interfere in the affairs of human beings (or extraterrestrials, for that matter) (Poe and Davis 130).  Blaise Pascal (1623 – 1662) argues similarly that the nature and structure of the universe do not prove the existence of God, but rather faith in God gives people the ability to comprehend the nature and structure of the universe (Poe and Davis 49 – 50).  William Paley (1743 – 1805) argues famously that, if one finds a watch, even if one knows nothing about watches, one may deduce from observing its construction and design that it must have had a constructor and designer (Poe and Davis 65-67).  Perhaps the Father is the designer, the Logos is the constructor, and the Holy Spirit is the sustainer.

F.R. Tennant (1866 – 1957) argues in favor of design theory but with a twist:  he argues that, because the soul exists as a necessary cause of consciousness, then God must exist, and without a soul it is irrelevant whether God exists, theologically (Poe and Davis 76 – 77).  Tennant believes that Jesus Christ ultimately showed people the path to God and the divine intention for the universe better than anyone else and so is due appropriate reverence (Poe and Davis 76).  Tennant’s “cosmic teleology” implies that the kosmos has a goal in the mind of its designer, and that this goal is the development of life (Poe and Davis 77).  Tennant argues that the emergence of life is extremely improbable, leading to the inescapable conclusion that the emergence of life must have had a divine impetus (Poe and Davis 77).  The nature and interaction of subatomic particles leads to the conclusion that the universe is fine-tuned for life (Poe and Davis 91 – 92).  The fine-tuning of the universe for life leads to the conclusion that a fine-tuner is necessary for the fine-tuning to occur. 

Perhaps it is because God is immanent in the kosmos that the author of the Book of Wisdom says to us:

            Wisdom 16:17            For against all expectation, in water which quenches anything, the fire grew more active; For the kosmos fights on behalf of the just.

 

How can the kosmos fight on behalf of the just unless God is panentheistically in the kosmos battling the forces of evil on behalf of hnau? 

Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804), a very influential German philosopher of ethics,

aesthetics, and epistemology, writes Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens in 1755 in which he questions whether inhabitants of the large planets in our solar system may be “too noble and wise” to commit sins and also questions whether the inhabitants of the smaller systems “are grafted too fast to matter…to carry to the responsibility of their actions before the judgment seat of justice.”  He also speculates that Martians may be just as sinful as the inhabitants of the Earth (Crowe 53). 

Edward Young (baptized 3 July 1683 – d. 5 April 1765), an English poet, dramatist, and literary critic, composes The Complaint or Night Thoughts (1742 – 1745) in which he writes not only “An undevout astronomer is mad” (Night IX line 773) but also:

            …How various are the works of god?

            But say, what thought?  Is Reason here enthroned?

            And absolute?  Or Sense in arms against her?

            Have you two lights? Or need you no reveal’d?…

            And had your Eden an abstemious Eve?…

            Or, if your mother fell, are you redeem’d?…

            Is this your final residence?  If not,

            Change you your scene, translated? Or by death?

            And if by death; what death? – Know you disease?

                        (IX, 1773 – 1781)

 

Moreover, Young writes in praise of God the Son:

            And Thou the next! Yet equal! Thou, by whom

            That blessing was convey’d; far more! Was bought;

            Ineffable the price! By whom all worlds

            Were made; and one redeem’d!…

            Thou God and mortal! Thence more God to man!…

            Who disembosom’d from the Father, bows

            The heaven of heavens, to kiss the distant earth!

            Breathes out in agonies a sinless soul!

            Against the cross, Death’s iron scepter breaks!

                        (IX, 2262 – 2265, 2348, 2352 – 2355)

 

Famous writers as divergent as Napoleon, John Wesley, and William Blake cherished this poem and encouraged its wide dispersion, keeping it alongside their Bibles and John Bunyan (Crowe 86).  Yet Young’s vision of a fallen Earth amidst a wide variety of fallen inhabited planets inspires Thomas Chalmers and, in the 20^th century, the great C.S. Lewis, proving that the ideal of a plurality of worlds populated with redeemable inhabitants is within the realm of traditional piety and its Christian practitioners (Crowe 86). 

Barthold Heinrich Brockes (1680 – 1747) (Note:  Crowe says 1680 – 1740), an

influential Hamburg poet of the early German Enlightenment, writes:

            Should Christ have died

            Solely for a single world

            Or how have the first Adams

            Fallen on all of them also?

            Have a thousand Eves also been deceived

            By a thousand snakes through a thousand apples? (cited in Crowe 141)

 

Crowe notes that, of the published Christians examined in America and Europe between 1860 and 1900, fourteen Catholics and nineteen Protestants support pluralism while ten Catholics and four Protestants oppose pluralism (457). 

Appendix C

Quotations from Certain Authors of Category 5

 

Category 5.  Incarnation Unique To Earth Applies Universally to both Human Beings and Inhabitants of Other Worlds

 

Category 5 authors include Immanuel Kant; Edward Young; C.S. Lewis (20^th century); Clergyman Andreas Ehrenberg (d. 1726); rector Johan Schudt (1664 – 1722); Hymnologist David Schober (1696 – 1778); James Beattie (1735 – 1803); Beilby Porteus (1731 – 1808), bishop of Chester and subsequently of London; George Adams (1750 – 1795); Barthold Heinrich Brockes (1680 – 1740); Andrew Fuller (1754 – 1815), a Baptist minister; Rev. Edward Nares (1762 – 1841); Comte Joseph de Maistre (1754 – 1821); John Herschel, the famous son of the famous astronomer William Herschel; Sir William Rowan Hamilton (1805 – 1865); Samuel Noble (1779 – 1853); Ellen White of the Seventh Day Adventists; Rev. Thomas Rawson Birks (1810 – 1883); Hugh Miller (1802 – 1856); Rev. Josiah Crampton (1809 – 1883); Rev. Charles Louis Hequembourg in 1859; Camille Flammarion (1842 – 1925), a Frenchman; Abbe Francois Moigno (1804 – 1884); Pierre Corbet in an 1894 essay; Theophile Ortolon (b. 1861); Johann Ebrard (1818 –1888);  Aubrey de Vere (1814 – 1902), a Catholic poet; Rev. Edwin T. Winkler (1823 – 1883); Rev. George Mary Searle (1839 – 1918), a Catholic; Januarius De Concilio (1836 – 1898); and Wolfhart Pannenberg (German theologian).  Clergyman Andreas Ehrenberg (d. 1726), whose pseudonym was Geierbrand Haraneus, and  rector Johan Schudt (1664 – 1722) both note the difficulty inherent in how any discovery of inhabitants of other worlds affects the atonement (Crowe 34).  Hymnologist David Schober (1696 – 1778) attempts a reconciliation of the problem of inhabitants of other worlds with the Christian doctrine of redemption (Crowe 34).  James Beattie (1735 – 1803), a prominent Scottish poet, and professor of moral philosophy and logic at Marischal College, Aberdeen, writes concerning the redemption that inhabitants of other worlds

will not suffer for our guilt, nor be rewarded for our obedience.  But it is not absurd to imagine, [sic] that our fall and recovery may be useful to them as an example; and that the divine grace manifested in our redemption may raise their adoration and gratitude into higher raptures and quicken their ardour to inquire…into the dispensations of infinite wisdom.” (cited in Crowe 102) 

 

Beilby Porteus (1731 – 1808), bishop of Chester and subsequently of London, writes in favor of the plurality of worlds theory and redemption, remarking, “on what ground is it concluded, that the benefits of Christ’s death extend no further than to ourselves?”  Moreover, in support of his theory that the crucifixion’s benefits extend to inhabitants of other worlds, in his work Redemption (79), he cites the Apostle Paul:

We are expressly told, that as “by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible [Colossians 1:16a]; and by him all things consist:  so by him also was God pleased (having made peace through the blood of his cross) to reconcile all things unto himself, whether they be things on earth, or things in heaven [Colossians 1:20]:  that in the dispensation of the fullness of times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in him” [Ephesians 1:10]. (cited in Crowe 103)

 

Porteus goes on to assert that “if the Redemption wrought by Christ extended to other worlds, perhaps many besides our own, if its virtues penetrate even into heaven itself; if it gathers together all things in Christ; who will then say, that the dignity of the agent was disproportioned to the magnitude of the work…?” (cited in Crowe 103).  Porteus supports my contention that it is consistent with Christian theology to say that Jesus saves inhabitants of other worlds by his life, crucifixion, and resurrection.  Since the efficacy of the redemption Jesus acquired for us extends to all, humans and extraterrestrials alike, it follows that it is incumbent upon Christians to spread this good news not only to other human beings but also to inhabitants of other worlds.

George Adams (1750 – 1795), a British astronomer, writes Lectures, vol. IV in which he remarks: 

…since the inhabitants of…other planets…must equally be objects of the Divine favour with ourselves; and since the rational inhabitants of some few or more among so many myriads may have been found disobedient; is a man to blame for thinking that if they stand in need of restoration, they must be full as worthy of it as ourselves; and may for anything that we know, have been already redeemed, or may yet to be redeemed…?”      (cited in Crowe 105)

 

This implies that either Christ has redeemed inhabitants of other worlds as a result of his earthly Incarnation or will redeem their inhabitants if and when humans evangelize them. 

Andrew Fuller (1754 – 1815), an English Baptist minister and theologian, in The Gospel Its Own Witness in 1799 – 1800, argues against Tom Paine’s Age of Reason.  Fuller claims that the doctrine of a plurality of worlds is consistent with Christianity and Scripture.  He further writes that the idea of our redemption by Christ is “strengthened and aggrandized” by pluralism, that human beings and angels are not necessarily the only beings who have Fallen from grace, and that inhabitants of other worlds who have fallen from grace may be comforted to know that the Incarnation and redemption brought to us by Christ “are competent to fill all and every part of God’s dominions with everlasting and increasing joy” (cited in Crowe 172).  Fuller agrees that Christ’s Incarnation is unique to the Earth while his redemption spreads across the entire universe, averring, “The consistency of the Scripture doctrine of Redemption with the modern opinion of the Magnitude of Creation” (i.e., pluralism) and “the credibility of the redemption is not weakened by this doctrine, but, on the contrary, is, in many respects, strengthened and aggrandized” (cited in Brewster 162).  

Rev. Edward Nares D.D. (1762 – 1841), an English clergyman and professor of modern history and modern languages at Merton College, Oxford, writes “Eis Theos, Eis Mesites” (1803) in which he discusses how the notion that other worlds are inhabited by intelligent beings is consistent with Scripture.  Believing that the Incarnation is unique to the Earth, Nares writes that Jesus is “the ONE GREAT manifestation…to accomplish the redemption of all flesh….” Yet Nares maintains that the effects of the redemptive work of Christ extends and is manifest “in some way inscrutable to us, to every rational creature throughout the mighty firmament….” (cited in Crowe 173).  Nares believes that God somehow, we do not know how, spread the knowledge of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection throughout the universe (ibid.). 

Comte Joseph de Maistre (1754 – 1821), a devout French Catholic moralist, diplomat, polemical author, and conservative politician, criticizes theologians who reject pluralism on the grounds that it somehow damages redemption dogma, claiming that believing God has created the vast universe with innumerable stars and planets without inhabitants does a disservice to God’s omnipotence (Crowe 181).  De Maistre writes:

If the inhabitants of other planets are not like us guilty of sin, they have no need of the same remedy, and if, on the contrary, the same remedy is necessary for them, are the theologians of whom I speak then to fear that the power of the sacrifice which has saved us is unable to extend to the moon?  The insight of Origen is much more penetrating and comprehensive when he writes:  “The altar was at Jerusalem, but the blood of the victim bathed the universe.” (cited in Crowe 181)

 

Sir John Herschel (1792 – 1871), English astronomer and the famous son of the famous astronomer William Herschel, favors pluralism, as did his father, but his reasons are religious and metaphysical rather than scientific (Crowe 217).  Sir William Rowan Hamilton (1805 – 1865), an Irish mathematician who contributes significant work to the fields of optics, dynamics, and algebra (particularly quaternions), leading to further progress in quantum mechanics, favors pluralism and, according to Robert Perceval Graves’s Life of Sir William Rowan Hamilton, vol. II, speculates that Christ’s ascension and Pentecost may have consisted of visiting other planets one by one:  “May not [Christ’s] transit from the cloud to the throne have been but one continued passage, in long triumphal pomp, through powers and principalities made subject?  May not the only begotten Son have then been brought forth into the world, not by a new nativity, but as it were by proclamation and investiture, while the Universe beheld its God, and all the angels worshipped Him?” (cited in Crowe 221 – 222).    This idea implies, to my thinking, that Christ’s transit from his earthly life to heavenly life may be more literal than spiritual – that is, Jesus literally travels from planet to planet spreading the Gospel.  This idea contrasts with the notion that all of the inhabited worlds came to know Christ when the Gospel permeated the universe at the resurrection of Jesus so that the Lord need not necessarily literally travel physically to other worlds in order to make known to their inhabitants the message of the cross and the resurrection.  On the other hand, it is possible that humans are destined to be the medium by which inhabitants of other worlds come to know the risen Lord. 

Samuel Noble (1779 – 1853), a minister of the New Jerusalem Church, who, after reading Paine’s Age of Reason, becomes a Christian pluralist, writes Astronomical Doctrine of a Plurality of Worlds in which he attempts to assert that pluralism is consistent with Christianity. After reading Swedenborg, he becomes convinced that Yahweh (Jehovah) became incarnate on the Earth because humans were the worst sinners in the universe while Christ’s salvific work extends to inhabitants of other worlds (Crowe 228).  Philip James Bailey (1816 – 1902), a British poet, composes a poem in 1839 called Festus in which Christ speaks to the angel in charge of the hnau on Earth:

            Think not I lived and died for thine alone,

            And that no other sphere hath hailed me Christ:

            My life is ever suffering for love.

            In judging and redeeming worlds is spent

            Mine everlasting being. (cited in Crowe 232)

 

Thus, it seems that for this Category 5 author inhabitants of other worlds are familiar with the work of Christ on earth because they are aware of their own need for redemption.

Rev. Thomas Rawson Birks (1810 – 1883), a Fellow and Professor of Moral Philosophy at Trinity College at Cambridge and hymn composer, writes Modern Astronomy in which he suggests that two contradictory possibilities exist with respect to the redemption and the insignificance of the Earth in the vast universe:  Either “our is the only world where sin has entered,” an idea that violates “the plainest lessons of moral probability” (pp. 53 – 54), or the Advent of Jesus is the only one of a “series of revelations” (cited in Crowe 296 – 297).  Birks denies the second assertion because the Incarnation has “the plainest impress of eternity…Christ…is the Son of God and the Son of man, in two distinct natures and one person, forever” (cited in Crowe 297).  Birks writes an imaginary comment by Christ during the Wedding at Cana:

My hour to people these worlds of light with myriad worshippers is not yet come.  Your planet, little though it is…is the Bethlehem where I now choose to reveal the mystery of my love to sinners, the guilty and despised Nazareth of the wide universe from which streams of light and heavenly wisdom shall go forth to gladden the countless worlds I have made.  (cited in Crowe 297)

 

Birks implies that “when the work of redemption is complete, a celestial emigration may begin from our little planet…It may be, that as fresh planets are prepared…to receive a race of inhabitants, unborn patriarchs may be sent forth, like Noah, to people its desolate heritage…” (cited in Crowe 297)

Hugh Miller (1802 – 1856), a Scottish geologist, lay theologian, editor of a newspaper called The Witness, and an opponent of the theory of evolution, believes that Christ’s redemptive work applies to inhabitants of other worlds, denying multiple incarnations of the Logos, asserting that “though only one planet and one race may have furnished the point of union between the Divine and the created nature, the effects of that junction may extend to all created nature….If it was necessary that the point of junction be somewhere, why not here” (cited in Crowe 322).  Miller appears to desire to maintain the integrity of both pluralism and Christianity by defending both revelation and natural theology (ibid.).  Rev. Josiah Crampton (1809 – 1883), alumnus of Trinity College, Dublin, and “rector of Killesher in Ireland” (Crowe 334) publishes in 1857 Testimony of the Heavens in which he claims that other worlds are inhabited and also shows how the science of astronomy defends Christianity, which is consistent with pluralism, writing that Christ’s ascension into the heavens, to where he vowed to his disciples he would bring them, demonstrates the truth that “the material heavens [are] places of habitation” (cited in Crowe 335).

Rev. Charles Louis Hequembourg in 1859 publishes Plan of the Creation; or, Other Worlds, and Who Inhabit Them (Boston) in which he argues against pluralism in the sense that other worlds are not now inhabited because the universe is still in its infancy but will be inhabited by resurrected people from Earth (cited in Crowe 344 – 345).  Camille Flammarion (1842 – 1925), a Frenchman who first studies theology but eventually becomes an astronomer of note, also expresses belief in the non-Christian metempsychosis and the transmigration of souls to other planets while maintaining support for Brewster’s contention that Christ’s redemptive work affects inhabitants of other worlds. 

Abbe Francois Moigno (1804 – 1884) of Paris, a cleric and scientist, says that he received permission from “the Commission of the Roman Index to declare formally to [Flammarion] that the creation and the redemption are by no means an obstacle to the existence of other worlds, of other suns, of other planets, etc., etc.” (cited in Crowe 414).

Theophile Ortolan (b. 1861), a priest and theologian, in Astronomie et theŒologie, cites Scripture passages such as the shepherd searching for the one lost lamb while leaving the others behind and the one in which Christ says “In my Father’s house are many mansions” (John 14:2) to support his pluralist interpretations (Crowe 417).  Ortolan suggests that either extending the benefits of Christ to inhabitants of other worlds or claiming that they have not fallen are equally supportable by Scripture and Christian theology. 

Johann Ebrard (1818 –1888), a German Reformed church theologian who teaches at Erlangen University (Crowe 428) and whose anti-pluralism is influenced by Whewell, writes Der Glaube an die heilige Schrift und die Ergebnisse der Naturforschung (1861) and Apologetik (1874 – 1875) in which he argues against multiple incarnations in response to pluralist authors discussing the problem of the atonement with respect to inhabitants of other worlds, citing Scripture to support his views, while simultaneously maintaining that applying Christ’s redemptive work to inhabitants of other worlds does not contradict Christian theology (Crowe 428). 

Aubrey Thomas Hunt de Vere (1814 – 1902), an Irish Catholic poet, critic, and essayist, who was influenced by his friendship with the astronomer Sir William Rowan Hamilton, writes “The Death of Copernicus” in which the fictional Copernicus reflects:

            ‘Tis Faith and Hope that spread delighted hands

            To such belief; no formal proof attests it.

            Concede them peopled; can the sophist prove

            Their habitants are fallen?  That too admitted,

            Who told him that redeeming foot divine

            Ne’er trode those spheres?

 

He goes on:

 

            Judaea was one country, one alone:

            Not less Who died there died for all.  The Cross

            Brought help to vanished nations:  Time opposed

            No bar to Love:  why then should Space oppose one? (cited in Crowe 444)

 

Rev. Edwin T. Winkler (1823 – 1883), a Baptist minister, writes in the Baptist Quarterly (1871) that the Incarnation, while occurring only on the Earth, has universal effects:

As a battle may be fought at some grey pass of Marathon…that shall change the fortunes of a world for a thousand years, so here, on this small world, a triumph may have been achieved by the Son of God, that distributes its spoils to all systems, through all times; and for the temptation and anguish of Jesus of Nazareth, the sweet influences of the Pleiades may be fuller of vernal promise…and seasons of salvation may have befallen all the signs of the zodiac…(cited in Crowe 450)

 

Rev. George Mary Searle (1839 – 1918), a Catholic member of the Paulist order, astronomer, graduate of Harvard University, and professor at the U.S. Naval Academy, as well as observatory director at the founding of the Catholic University of America, early in his career is an opponent of pluralism but later warms to the subject, arguing that other worlds may be inhabited by human-like beings but denying multiple incarnations (Crowe 454), questioning why the Logos decided to become incarnate on the Earth.

Appendix D

Intelligent Design and the Logos

 

Saint Augustine also changed his religion from Manichaeism to Christianity partially as a result of his inability to reconcile the science of his day with Manichaen dualism.  Augustine developed his belief that God transcends all of space and time in response to his reception of the Christian faith (Davis and Poe 32 – 33).  In attempting to reconcile the apparent incompatibility of a good God with evil in creation, Augustine came to the conclusion that God needed to become incarnate to mingle with his creation so that good might be brought out of evil (cf. Davis and Poe 34 – 35). 

Saint Thomas Aquinas gave five traditional proofs for the existence of God, and the fifth proof is the argument from governance, which is an important argument for design theory.  Thomas argues that nonsentient things move towards a best goal or end, and that therefore a sentient being must be directing their efforts.  Thomas concludes that the sentient being doing the directing is God:  “Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are ordered to their end; and this being we call God” (cited in Poe and Davis 37).  Thomas believes the traditional and Scriptural view that the universe had a beginning, although he denies that the beginning of the universal is necessarily temporal, so that one may say the universe is eternally created by God even though it has a beginning and an ending (Poe and Davis 39).  One may argue that the ending of the universe, in Christian apocalyptic terminology, will simply be a restructuring of the universe atemporally.  This discussion on design theory is important because the Logos, while not part of the original design because it is eternal with God and is God (according to Christian theology), becomes part of the design when it becomes incarnate and subject to the constraints of time and space, i.e., the kosmos.  The kosmos is not simply space but, according to modern relativity theory, the spacetime continuum that has a beginning and an ending.  That the Logos is part of the spacetime continuum and yet is eternal is a paradox, a puzzle without resolution, that results in many theologians and authors as well as scientists to reexamine and contemplate their theories on nature and metaphysics.  The Incarnation of the Logos, for many, challenges the randomness theory of quantum mechanics, while, for others, the Incarnation is proof of design theory.

How do these ideas about intelligent design relate to the Incarnation of the Logos and its effect on inhabitants of other worlds?  When we look at patterns in nature, particularly the interrelatedness of living things and their relationship to the kosmos, what we are experiencing is similar to the poetry of the Bible – full of imagery and the sense of wonder.  Living things, particularly human beings, long for their creator the way, according to the psalmist, the parched land thirsts for water (Psalm 63) or “My soul looks for the Lord more than sentinels for daybreak.  More than sentinels for daybreak” (Psalm 130:6).  It seems to be a natural thing for intelligent beings to yearn for the creator and to yearn, in the winter of our discontent, for the Eden where spring comes.  The desire to know where we come from is just as intense as the desire to know where we are going, and the search for inhabitants of other worlds reflects the human desire to reach out beyond the stretch of our arms to other creations of other worlds.  Human beings cannot see where they are going without remembering whence they came, and this is why the Bible is so important in our quest not only to know ourselves but to learn about other creations of God.  The Bible may guide Christians to simultaneously remember the past and look towards the future, which may include relations with inhabitants of other worlds.  To see the kosmos as an intelligently designed system yields speculation on the other things, particularly living things, that the designer has designed.  For those who believe the pre-incarnate Logos is the designer, this is both a scientific and a poetic enterprise, particularly for those who believe that the designer Logos became part of the designed.

Poe and Davis remark:

Belief in an Intelligent Designer forms the foundational article of faith for Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.  Within these faiths design does not function as a proof but as a “self-evident truth.” (211)

 

Later, Poe and Davis ask, “Is the universe more like a machine as the Deists suggested, or a body as Plato suggested, or a work of art as the Bible suggested?  Is God an engineer or an artist?” (226).  I ask, what’s the difference?  To engineer things, whether inanimate things or living things, is a work of art.  The universe is like a machine that has been artfully designed.  The engineer is the artist.  Faith in God is not the same as faith in anything else, including “faith” in the existence of inhabitants of other worlds or “faith” in the science or scientific enterprises that may one day result in the discovery of inhabitants of other worlds.  Faith in God and the belief that the Bible is the Word of God leads us to recognize that the Scriptures can help us to see the “self-evident truth” that the design of the kosmos is an indication that creation is more vast and amazing than any human being has yet thought, or, as Shakespeare put it, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” (Hamlet).  So, now, Christians may turn to the Bible to help make sense of this theory that the Logos not only creates but cares about all of his creations on both earth and elsewhere in the kosmos.  The purpose of the discussion leading up to interpreting Scripture verses in terms of their relationship to inhabitants of other worlds is to suggest that design theory implies more about salvation than meets the eye.  That is, salvation is a broad term encompassing inhabitants of Earth and inhabitants of other worlds, and humans cannot understand extraterrestrial salvation without understanding human salvation.

While Darwinism tells how life evolves, the theory of evolution says nothing about how life began.  The creation of life is a process independent of the realm of natural laws (Whewell 252).  Similarly, the Incarnation of the Logos in the womb of the Virgin Mary is a process independent of the realm of natural laws inasmuch as it is nothing less than miraculous.  That said, Clarke’s Law famously states, “Any sufficiently developed technology is indistinguishable from magic.”  In the technical sense, “magic” is any effect attributed to a supernatural cause.  Thus, any miracle is by the technical definition a kind of magic.  Hence, one might argue that the creation of original life on Earth is a miraculous event, just as is the begetting of life in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit.  Certainly, one is not more miraculous than the other.  A miracle is a miracle.  C.S. Lewis calls the Incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ “deep magic.”  It would not surprise me that God causes the miracle of life on innumerable worlds, but I still maintain that the Incarnation is unique to the Earth because the resurrected flesh of Jesus is a glorious eternal body, and this would not be true if the Logos had to become spiritual again in order to become Incarnate on world after world throughout the universe.  Once flesh, always flesh, even in glorification. 

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