In 11th grade, for a state science competition, I wrote a paper entitled “Exobiology,” looking at the question of Is there life somewhere out there in space? Science has advanced exponentially since 1971, and I was only an 11th grader, but I think I picqued my readers’ curiosity enough with the possibilities that my paper won 2nd place (and I’ll refrain from saying, Darn, wish I’d come in 1st!).
There really are at least three kinds of questions: (1) Is there some something somehow kin to what we think of as “life” on other planets, even in other solar systems? The more we learn from the James Webb telescope and fly-by satellites, the higher the likelihood of life – or maybe very different from what we call “life” in molecular structure, yet somehow living… To me, given what we know of the vastness of the universe, with billions of solar systems, it would be foolish pride to say We earthlings are the one and only.
A very different question is: (2) Could life out there contact us, or (worse) come here and conquer or destroy us? The stuff of science fiction, of course, instigated I guess by H.G. Wells’s “The War of the Worlds.” You do wonder what’s in those files the Trump administration has ordered to be released about UAP/UFOs. Fun to speculate, fun to watch “Independence Day” or “Signs.” I think it says a lot about the human psyche that (a) we are drawn to watch and read stories that terrify, and (b) the plot of such stories is inevitably terrifying. Why not envision life out there being like adorable little “E.T.,” a new friend?
For kicks, read Ezekiel 1 (with the spiritual “Ezekiel saw da wheel way up in the middle of the air”) playing in your head. Did Ezekiel see a UFO? Like other prophetic visions, Ezekiel seems not to be wide awake and alert, but in a hypnotic trance; it’s a vision others can’t see. God was kaleidoscopically revealing to the people (through Ezekiel) that God’s throne is mobile, like a wheeled chariot, covering all the earth, all the way to where the hapless Israelites found themselves so far from home in Babylonian exile.
Since I didn’t stick with chemistry and physics (my first love and my first major) so I’d be qualified to search the heavens for signs of life, from my chair as pastor and theologian we ponder the question of: (3) What would the discovery of life, that is sentient, thoughtfully interactive life out there mean for the Bible, our theology, and even our understanding of salvation? We’d need as many theological answers as there are possibilities for what forms life might take out there!
Our theology insures a few things. God created everything, not just me, our country, the Earth, or even our solar system – and God’s redemption will be not just my soul, or Christians who think right, but all of creation. All of it – including solar systems and galaxies and other universes and whatever beings are any and everywhere.
C.S. Lewis speculated there could be a world out there where their equivalent of Adam and Eve didn’t eat the fruit. And so they never fell, or sinned. Maybe they’d send missionaries to save us!
If there are fallen, sentient beings out there somewhere, God could save them (and would want to save them, God being all love!) any way God might choose. So perfect was God’s way here on earth that we can guess God would save in some way that dealt with and healed whatever would be amiss in that faraway world.
But it could be Jesus, as Jesus, saves them too. After all, the New Testament makes downright cosmic claims about Jesus. John 1 declares that all things were made in, through, and for Jesus. Colossians 1 teaches that all things, visible and invisible, were made in and through him, and he is Lord of all. Check out Hebrews 1, Philippians 2, and Revelation 21 for more.
I am sure of this: looking up in awe, gazing deeply into the night sky is good for your soul. Take a flashlight outside in the dark, read Psalm 8, and ponder God’s overwhelming yet tender might and love in fashioning such glory. Be in awe. Stay in awe. Wonder what’s up there in the wonder. More than our ancestors, we know how unfathomably big it is up there, those specks of light streaming toward us now – at the speed of light! – for millions of years! God made… this. Ours is to notice, and to let our jaws drop in marveling wonder. There’s that kind of life out there, and in here when we do so.