Is it possible for aliens to exist in a Christian worldview? I see no issue with the notion of non-sentient life (though I suspect that ‘life’ which evolves on another planet would not be life as we know it, unless theories of panspermia are true) existing, with regards to sentient alien life the question may be different. Can they still achieve salvation?
I think it is a valid debate, whether or not alien life exists. Though I do suspect it would only a ‘life’ in the broad sense, or coincidentally.
I remember reading a science fiction story where the humans met a group of aliens who believed in God. Aliens are usually depicted as having all the bad qualities of humans, without any of our good points, but they could just as easily be friendly and kind. We would have to re-think a lot of our assumptions if we ever met sentient aliens.
Carl Sagan mentioned knowing someone who thought sentient life might arise once every 50,000 years or so, and die out faster than that after developing technology, so that the chance of our meeting an advanced alien civilization was zero.
I don’t think aliens are much of a problem for Christians. When I asked my mother, she told me there are other living beings in the universe. She even said that God could have created humans to inhabit distant planets.
That’s occurred to me before. Think of our own timeframe as a civilization able to even conceive of contacting other civilizations and exploring the most nearby corners of space, and how long those abilities may (not) last. It’s a tiny fraction of the age of the universe. It may not be as difficult a factor to overcome as distance, but it seems like it could be a tremendous multiplier.
The Bible says nothing about whether God created life on other worlds. However, there currently is absolutely not one shred of evidence that suggests life exists anywhere else in the entire known Universe.
The ‘Fermi Paradox’ and the ‘Great Filter’ seal the deal for me.
I guess ideas that this would be a problem are tied to anthropomorphic understandings of man being made in the “image of God,” which also seems to be tied to the idea of God as our designer and some of the opposition to evolution. I certainly think we need to stop imagining such trivialities as shape, race, and sex are so important to God – but then that probably means we also have to stop thinking they are so important. The acceptance of diversity and shedding the habit of attacking anybody who is different would also help a great deal.
I’m open to the idea of either microbial or animal like alien life existing outside of earth but I cannot see the UFO style of aliens cause if that was so they would have made contact with us already in my opinion. Of course maybe they already have and the goverment is covering it up for “some reason” but I doubt it.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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