I’ve gone back and forth on whether to write something on this topic, but the government just released it’s UFO report, and people are talking about it, so why not?
The U.S. intelligence report was mostly a nothing-burger, confirming that there are and have been solid objects flying in the air, with movements and patterns that are not explainable by current science, but we don’t know what they are.
Personally, I doubt there are aliens flying around. But it’s a fair question whether the Christian faith would have room for aliens if they were ever confirmed to exist, so here are a few considerations.
Past Christian Speculation
First, it’s not a new question (as usual). In the early centuries of the church, when geographical understanding was limited, there were stories about “monstrous races” of beings in the far reaches of the world, perhaps on the other side of the equator. Against common misconceptions, the ancients did actually know that world was round, but usually assumed the “bottom” half was inaccessible. Even by the 1400s, when Portuguese and Spanish explorers were really beginning to push the bounds of exploration, there were real fears that crossing south of the equator would mean crossing into boiling seas and perhaps be a journey impossible to return from. And surely, at least, there were monsters. So it was rumored, and in the 5th century, St. Augustine addressed the question of the spiritual status of these beings—dog-headed men, cyclopes, etc. He points out that these are just rumors, but concludes that they pose no obstacle to Christian faith—because they either “have no existence at all; or if they do exist, they are not human races; or if they are human, they are descended from Adam.”1 The analogy with possible extraterrestrials is easy to see. In principle, it’s the same question, and Augustine’s answer, basically, is that their existence is no big deal.
In any case, the Age of Exploration soon laid anxieties about the monstrous races to rest. But then came the telescope and modern astronomy. Early in the 17th century, Galileo discovered that the planets—the “wandering stars”—were in fact “worlds,” solid bodies like earth with their own physical features and landscapes. In 1610, fellow astronomer Johannes Kepler wrote to him about the discovery and drew the inference that if there were other worlds, with their own day and night, their own moons, their own mountains and valleys, then in all likelihood they were inhabited: “It is not improbable, I must point out, that there are inhabitants not only on the moon but on Jupiter too…”2
The existence of such beings was not seen then as a threat to Christian faith, at least not by all. Later that century (1692), Church of England theologian Richard Bentley, Master of Trinity College at Cambridge delivered a series of sermons in which he said:
“[A]s the Earth was principally designed for the Being and Service and Contemplation of Men; why may not all other Planets be created for the like Uses, each for their own Inhabitants which have Life and understanding? If any man will indulge himself in this Speculation, he need not quarrel with revealed Religion upon such an account. The Holy Scriptures do not forbid him to suppose as great a Multitude of Systems and as much inhabited, as he pleases.”3
There were skeptics who did see the new astronomical discoveries as portending the end of Christian theology. Among them was American patriot Thomas Paine. In his book The Age of Reason (a sustained critique of Christianity), Paine writes “[T]o believe that God created a plurality of worlds, at least as numerous as what we call stars, renders the Christian system of faith at once little and ridiculous, and scatters it in the mind like feathers in the air…”4
But there were Christian theologians who didn’t think Paine’s assumption carried a lot of weight.
One was Baptist minister Andrew Fuller, founder of the Baptist Missionary Society, who wrote a book in 1801 defending the Christian faith against “The Immorality and Absurdity of Deism.” In the final chapter of that work, “The Consistency of the Scripture Doctrine of Redemption with the Modern Opinion of the Magnitude of Creation,” Fuller responds directly to Thomas Paine, and lays out a fairly detailed perspective on how alien life might relate to the gospel as revealed in Scripture. Fuller sees biblical revelation as leaving plenty of room for alien beings, and even argues that their existence would actually enhance certain Christian claims (like God’s special regard for humanity).5
There was also Thomas Chalmers, professor of theology at St. Andrews and minister in the Church of Scotland. In 1817, he published a series of “Astronomical Discourses” where he also goes into great depth about the relation of modern astronomy to biblical revelation, including the possible place of alien life. He also saw no threat to Christianity in their possible discovery.6
Finally, C.S. Lewis published an essay called “Religion and Rocketry” in 1958 where he also considered this question directly. He did not feel threatened by it either, and thought (in the context of the US/Soviet space race) that theological anxiety about it was premature. It might shake things up, but there was no reason to assume it would be a disaster for Christian faith.7
So, all this to say, the discovery of extraterrestrial alien life, should it happen, would not be completely uncharted territory when it comes to Christian thought.
Biblical Considerations
The Bible says nothing at all about life on other planets, intelligent or otherwise. But here are some considerations.
Christians already believe that there is intelligent non-human life in the universe. There are angels (and perhaps even different types and classes of them). So how could it be ruled out that there are other types of which we are unaware? The creation account highlights the creation of man, of course—it was written to and for man. But it doesn’t tell us everything there is to know about the universe or everything that was created, just that heaven and earth “and all the host of them” were created by God. Creation exists first of all for him, and we aren’t told all its secrets and don’t see all its parts. There is much even of our own world that’s hidden from us (Job 38:16-17).
But the perceived difficulty is that we would feel some need to account for the spiritual condition of these beings. Are they morally accountable agents? Do they or have they sinned? If so, is there any grace or redemption for them? What about the (apparent) uniqueness of the incarnation and atonement of Christ for humans?
I think here we have to simply say that we don’t know, and that’s ok. What we do know is what it says in Hebrews 2:14-16:
“Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham.”
What this suggests is that the way God has worked out man’s salvation is not of direct relevance to the spiritual condition of the other rational beings that we do know of. It suggests that we should not assume that humanity’s particular spiritual relationship to God and Christ actually has much to tell us about the spiritual status of extraterrestrial beings, if they exist. I cited Richard Bentley earlier, and in the same lecture he goes on to say, “Neither need we be sollicitous about the condition of those Planetary People, nor raise frivolous Disputes, how far they may participate in the Miseries of Adam's Fall, or in the benefits of Christ’s incarnation. As if, because they are supposed to be Rational, they must needs be concluded to be Men?”
And perhaps if there are other beings, they’re simply unfallen, and would join with the angels in being astonished at God’s salvation of the rebellious human race. Andrew Fuller raises this possibility:
“If our world be only a small province, so to speak, of God’s vast empire, there is reason to hope that it is the only part of it where sin has entered, except among the fallen angels; and that the endless myriad of intelligent beings in other worlds are all the hearty friends of virtue, of order, and of God.”
C.S. Lewis makes this same point: Those who are well have no need a physician. Perhaps earth is a center of rebellion that the rest of the inhabited universe has not participated in.
But if earth were alone in rebellion, would that make God’s saving work here—his election of Israel, birth, death, resurrection—seem too incredible and give humanity undue attention? In Age of Reason, Thomas Paine suggest that it would be ridiculous for God to give any special attention to earth, to be incarnate as a man, and die “because, they say, one man and one woman had eaten an apple.” But in fact, God in Christ did do a glorious work on earth, and the angels themselves find it a worthy subject of contemplation and praise (1 Peter 1:10). If there are many other (unfallen) planets, maybe they know what God did here, and glorify him for it, or will when they learn of it.
Anyway, we don’t know if there are alien beings at all. We don’t know if they’re fallen. We don’t know, if they are fallen, what God has done (if anything) about their relationship to him. But whatever the answers to these questions may be, there’s no reason to think they would mean the collapse of Christian faith.
The Other Possibility
In the earlier centuries, our observation of space and the planets was very limited. Fuller, Chalmers, and others felt sure that the other heavenly bodies—being solid like earth—were very likely inhabited. Now we know that at least none in our own solar system are, and we see no clear signs of life anywhere else in the universe either, despite spotting many thousands more planets and having telescopes almost infinitely more powerful than anything Copernicus ever had.
So perhaps outside of earth, the planets and galaxies do remain empty. Another possibility is that the spaces are wide open for man’s eventual dominion. In Psalm 8, the Psalmist sings of the dominion that God has given man over “all the works of [God’s] hands,” which explicitly include “the heavens… the moon and the stars, which you have set in place” (v. 3).
Maybe God does actually intend for that to find fulfillment.
City of God (Book XVI, ch. 8). Available here: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120116.htm
Kepler’s fuller statement: “It is not improbable, I must point out, that there are inhabitants not only on the moon but on Jupiter too… But as soon as somebody demonstrates the art of flying, settlers from our species of man will not be lacking. Who would once have thought that the crossing of the wide ocean was calmer and safer than of the narrow Adriatic Sea, Baltic Sea, or English Channel? Given ships or sails adapted to the breezes of heaven, there will be those who will not shrink from even that vast expanse.”
http://digitalcollections.library.cmu.edu/awweb/awarchive?type=file&item=393654
https://www.ccel.org/ccel/b/bentley/sermons/cache/sermons.pdf (see pages 109-110).
Paine goes on, “There is room for millions of worlds as large or larger than ours, and each of them millions of miles apart from each other.” Paine concludes from this that it would be ridiculous for God to give any special attention to earth, to be incarnate as a man, and die “because, they say, one man and one woman had eaten an apple.” Paine’s then mocks: “[A]re we to suppose that every world in the boundless creation had an Eve, an apple, a serpent, and a redeemer? In this case, the person who is irreverently called the Son of God, and sometimes God himself, would have nothing else to do than to travel from world to world, in an endless succession of deaths, with scarcely a momentary interval of life.” Age of Reason (Part 1, Sections 12-13).
Available here: http://scientificintegrity.blogspot.com/2010/04/religion-and-rocketry-by-cs-lewis.html