The idea of extraterrestrial life has captivated human imagination for decades, leading to numerous theories and speculations. Among these, the concept of God being an alien race has emerged, prompting discussions about the intersection of religion, theology, and the possibility of life beyond Earth. This article delves into these theories, examining biblical perspectives, theological implications, and cultural narratives surrounding extraterrestrial life.
Biblical Perspectives on Extraterrestrial Life
The Bible doesn’t specifically address the possibility of life outside our home planet. At its core, the Bible is a book about God and his interactions with life on earth. Because, well, the Bible is absent about lots of things. However, the Bible is perfectly clear that life beyond humanity does exist.
There are living beings that occupy time and space with influence over our lives; they just don’t make it a point to visit Roswell regularly. The good ones, who serve God, we call angels; the not-so-good ones, we call demons. But even if the Bible doesn’t specifically talk about the possibility of UFOs or interplanetary visitors, scripture still speaks loud and clear on topics that could (and should) inform how we think about the intersection of aliens and faith. With all due respect to my favorite alien investigators, ‘the truth’ is not ‘out there’. Enough preamble; it’s time for probing…the Bible.
God as the Driving Force
The Bible is clear from the first two pages: God is the driving force behind everything we see (and even the things we don’t). In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. For the English majors out there, you’ll notice that heavens in that passage are plural, as is the original Hebrew word from which it was translated. We could make conjectures about why that is, but I tend to think it’s to signify the vast expanse of what God has made.
That’s just a fancy way of saying the obvious: space is huge… and mankind has only managed to explore an infinitesimally small amount of it. But what we have seen is striking. The thing is utterly beautiful. Seriously, go Google ‘James Webb Space Telescope’. It’s like God built us a home inside the Louvre and then put that inside the Grand Canyon.
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The Bible makes the case that creation, from cicadas to the cosmos, is meant to push our eyes beyond what we can see. Paul, an early leader in the church, explains that even though we can’t see God, creation speaks of Him. In Romans 1:20, he writes, “God’s invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived…. in the things that have been made.” Hundreds of years earlier, King David was so enraptured by creation that he poetically gave it the ability to worship. The immensity and beauty of creation, especially space, draw me to God in awe…and it reminds me how itty bitty we truly are.
God knows no limits except the ones He chooses to observe. I’m not saying that God created intelligent life on other planets, just that that topic doesn’t have to fit into my little boxes of understanding to be true. But one thing I know I can nail down: if there is life on other planets, God is the author of it. In his letter to the Colossians, Paul makes that abundantly clear. All things have been created through Him and for Him.
The Importance of Humanity
There’s a good kind of humility that comes from considering the immensity of space, but it’s counterbalanced by another scriptural truth: you’re pretty dang important. You were born on this incredible planet hurtling through space…and it just so happens to be the very place God chose to make Himself known, the place where heaven comes crashing into human existence.
It started with a garden (Genesis 1 & 2), where the Divine and the human lived alongside each other. When that went sideways, God adopted a childless, elderly couple and made them into a nation that would belong to Him (Genesis 12). He gave this nation plans for a tabernacle and then a temple, where His spirit would once more dwell among them (Exodus 40:34; 2 Chronicles 7:1-3). He came, in the form of man, to a little backwater town called Bethlehem (Merry Christmas). He lived among people-touched, healed, laughed, ate, cried, and worked with them. He died, came back to life, and imparted those people with power (Acts 1:8).
How lucky are you that you’re an earthling? But it also goes well beyond just the planet you inhabit-God has things to say about you. Yes, you, specifically. Like that you were created in His image, reflecting His divine nature (Genesis 1:27). That He knit you together, intricately weaving you into a work of art (Psalm 139:13-14). The New Testament letters say you’re a masterpiece, allowed to approach God’s throne with confidence, the very place where the Divine is pleased to dwell (Ephesians 2:10, Ephesians 3:12, Galatians 2:20).
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But of course, the true value of anything-you, your car, a limited edition comic book-comes from the price someone is willing to pay for it. Romans 5:8 takes that check to the bank, insisting that Christ willingly died for you while you were undeserving. How about one more time, for the people in the back? You were valuable enough for God’s son to die in order to rescue you.
Theological Implications of Extraterrestrial Life
Wait, I thought this was about the Bible and aliens? One of the most frequent arguments against extraterrestrial life, at least from followers of Christ, is that life on other planets would lessen the importance of life on Earth. Which in my experience, doesn’t make too much sense, because I’m a parent of three kids. Did kid #2 lessen my love for kid #1? Of course not. If anything, it enhanced it because each of them reflects parts of my nature (and my wife’s) in different but beautifully complementary ways.
If God wanted to plant sentient life halfway around the corner from Alpha Centauri, that doesn’t make me less consequential. Why do most of our cultural narratives about the possibility of extraterrestrial life jump right to cataclysmic battles and the Fresh Prince face-punching aliens? In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul gives you a weighty and diplomatic title-ambassador. You’re an envoy of God’s love; a diplomat sent out to spread his grace; a representative of Christ Himself.
What’s the King’s expectation of His ambassadors? God… through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation… entrusting us with the message of reconciliation. Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us… be reconciled to God.
I realize all this lives strictly in the hypothetical camp since we don’t even know if alien life exists. But for the sake of argument, it’s worth noting that every follower of Christ is considered His ambassador to the world around them. But if E.T. did ever show up on planet Earth, I hope the people of God would be the first to recognize that our primary role is representing Christ well.
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We’d need to ask ourselves deeply important questions: does this non-human life know God? What do they know of Jesus? To creation that is groaning under the weight of separation, we literally have one job: show (and tell) the love of God. That’s why we’re sent out as envoys in this world. Why we’re made representatives, why we’re named as ambassadors. In Romans 8, Paul paints our reconciliation work in a wide stroke. All creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are…creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay.
Considering the possibility and ramifications of extraterrestrial life can be a helpful thought exercise, but it won’t be more than that until it moves from your head into your hands. Wait? How am I supposed to take action when we don’t even know if extraterrestrial life exists? Here’s the M. There are aliens all around you. They’re your neighbors; friends at work; the helpful cashier at the grocery store; the kids’ soccer coach; even your mother-in-law.
To followers of Christ, sometimes it’s easy to forget that fact. I’ll raise my hand and say I’m guilty. I tend to live my life caught up in my own story and plans, oblivious to the aliens around me. While I scroll through the Pentagon’s UFO report, actual people I know and love remain alienated from their source of hope-cut off from God.
I believe what we’ve said about aliens is true of everyone you’ll cross paths with today. God created them-the friendly ones, the hostile ones, the pretty ones, the cranky ones. God loves them as much as He loves you in a way that elevates their importance without diminishing yours. If you’re a follower of Jesus, you’re an ambassador of reconciliation.
That’s true about the neighbor who always leaves their trash cans out two days longer than they should. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. I write this to remind myself because I’m prone to miss the forest for the trees. I’d rather rewatch The X-Files and have stimulating conversations about the intersection of theology and extraterrestrials than actually incarnate the hope of a reconciled life to the people around me.
The “aliens” are already here, but so is the truth that a life reconciled to our shared Creator is possible. To quote the late, great, Bowie, could there really be a “starman, waiting in the sky?” Honestly, I have no idea. But yes, or no, my faith wouldn’t take a hit. If a UFO lands in my backyard tonight, I want to think I’d greet the inhabitants the same way I’d greet my neighbors Dave, or Bill, or Robyn. You are the light of the world… let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. The aliens are everywhere.
Exotheology: A Theological Exploration
For theories that posit that historical religious scripture or mythology was inspired by visits from extraterrestrials, see UFO religion and Ancient astronauts. The term "exotheology" was coined in the 1960s or early 1970s[1] for the examination of theological issues as they pertain to extraterrestrial intelligence. Exotheologian Joel L. Parkyn, in his book Exotheology: Theological Explorations of Intelligent Extraterrestrial Life (2021),[2] examined the conjunction of human religion and a putative intelligent extraterrestrial civilizational contact or disclosure scenario as advanced by proponents of ufology.
Consequences for human religions depend heavily on the mode, means, and proximity of extraterrestrial contact; whether via radio interferometer, alien artifacts discovered on nearby planets or their satellites in our solar system, extraterrestrial probes encountered on Earth or in space, direct contact in space or in Earth orbit, or contact on one site or several on Earth. Inherent variables such as message content, interpretation, extraterrestrial agendas, and whether an advanced civilization would assume a cooperative, hostile, ambivalent or other posture with Earth leadership will determine short and long term outcomes.
Humanity in a contact or disclosure scenario should not expect a monolithic theological, programmatic, or psychological response among religious institutions and individual believers due to the great variety of institutional, communal, and individual perspectives. Notably, there have been long-standing concerns with regard to certain Christian denominations, with negative reactions predicted among fundamentalist-oriented theologies, which typically advocate strictly anthropocentric and geocentric views.
The Brookings Report titled "Proposed Studies on the Implications of Peaceful Space Activities for Human Affairs", funded by NASA in 1960, in a section titled, The Implications of a Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life, stated in particular with regard to these perspectives: "The positions of the major American religious denominations, the Christian sects, and the Eastern religions on the matter of extraterrestrial life needs elucidation...For them, the discovery of other life-rather than any other space product-would be electrifying..." For these faiths, evidence and/or official acknowledgement of extraterrestrial intelligence could prove especially damaging.
Extraterrestrials could positively expand their religious consciousness in their contacts with other races, including humans; or conversely, their influence become a source of conflict, resulting in the subjugation, trivialization, relativization, or syncretization of indigenous religious beliefs and values in relation to their own. A more primitive extraterrestrial religion, or religion held among less advanced, remotely discovered societies would likely pose little challenged to Earth religions. However, one more complex or belonging to a more ancient, culturally and/or technologically advanced race could present theological and religious challenges for certain believers.
Species with advanced religions may avoid direct contact with the lesser advanced so to not disturb their natural cultural evolution according to their particular religious, situational, technological, and historical era. It is possible that benign extraterrestrial societies may not desire to impart too much information, particularly of a religious nature, aware of the potential social and psychological disruptive effect on a terrestrial-bound populace.
It would be reasonable therefore that benevolent extraterrestrials planning a contact/disclosure event would prepare, either by long-term furtive intervention and/or in coordination with certain governments, so that human cultural evolution produces technological and scientific advances, as well as the prerequisite theological, philosophical, and psychological perspectives, or cultural alignment, to mitigate social disruption.
Historical Theological Perspectives
In the creation stories in Genesis and outside the bible there is no mention of extraterrestrial life. Late Antique and Medieval Theologians like Augustine, Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, in the platonic and arostotelian tradition generally rejected the idea of extraterrestrial life. The first notable theologian to think otherwise was the bishop of Paris Etienne Tempier. This renewed the discussion and some theologians were now more positive to the possibility of other worlds with different lifeforms.[4] Van Vorilong stated that The Crucifixion also brought salvation to inhibitants of other worlds. The discussion started to become more prevalent due to the introduction of the heliocentric model. Early discussions evolved e.g. around the question of original sin.
Modern Christian Views
The Christian writer C. S. In 1951, Los Angeles-based Science Fiction writer Ray Bradbury wrote a short story entitled "The Fire Balloons" as part of short story collection from the Illustrated Man, and ultimately believed that space travel and the discovery of new species and genera of life would - as earthly exploration once did - ultimately serve and expand God's kingdom. He felt that space travel with the same terrestrial laws and moral principles would also apply in outer space.
As two clergymen are arguing about extraterrestrial life and outer space, one priest asks:Learn what? That most of the things we’ve taught in the past on earth don’t fit out there in Mars or Venus… [To] Drive Adam and Eve out of some new Garden, on Jupiter, with our very own rocket fires? Or worse, find out there is no Eden, no Adam, no Eve, no damned serpent, no Fall, no original sin, no Annunciation, no Birth, no Son, you go on with the list, no nothing at all? Is that what we must learn, pastor? If need be, yes, said Pastor Sheldon. It’s the Lord’s space and the Lord’s world in space, Father. We must try not to take our cathedrals with us, when all we need is an overnight case[8]
Exotheologian Joel L. Parkyn thinks that Modern Christians could be tasked with the substantiation or invalidation of an extraterrestrial belief system; an interpretation of such would likely follow according to their distinctive theological predilections, texts, doctrines, and traditions, and their corollaries according to Christian tradition. As such, there may be areas of agreement, those of small adjustment, of wholesale redefinition, or complete incompatibility.
Lutheran theologian Ted Peters (2003) said that the questions raised by the possibility of extraterrestrial life are not new to Christian theology and do not pose, as said by other authors, a threat for Christian dogma. "Just as there is a multiplicity of creatures on earth, there can be other beings, even intelligent, created by God.
Smaller denominations also have similar treatments in passing in their key writings: Christian Science and the Course in Miracles treat extraterrestrials as effectively brother spiritual beings in a non-absolute physical experience, the founder of the former writing, "The universe of Spirit is peopled with spiritual beings,...",[11] and Emanuel Swedenborg wrote, "Anyone with a sound intellect can know from many considerations that there are numerous worlds with people on them. Rational thought leads to the conclusion that massive bodies such as the planets, some of which are larger than our own earth, are not empty masses created merely to wander aimlessly around the sun, and shine with their feeble light on one planet. No, they must have a much greater purpose than that.
In the largest Mormon denomination, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, their canonized scripture teaches of many worlds other than Earth currently inhabited by people.[13][14][15] One of the top leaders Spencer W. Kimball wrote that God has created many worlds populated with his children, and stated, "Are planets out in space inhabited by intelligent creatures?
Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, who was also a physicist, was inclined toward the belief in extraterrestrial life, citing Jewish authorities including medieval philosopher Rabbi Chasdai Crescas (Ohr Hashem 4:2) and 18th century kabbalist Rabbi Pinchas Eliyahu Horowitz (Sefer HaBris). Kaplan says, "We therefore find the basic thesis of the Sefer HaBris supported by a number of clear-cut statements by our Sages.
Rabbi Norman Lamm, former chancellor of Yeshiva University, also wrote on this subject, saying that if the existence of extraterrestrial life should be confirmed, religious scholars must revise previous assumptions to the contrary. Rabbi Joseph B.
Arguments Against Extraterrestrial Life
First, let it be said, we do not believe that aliens exist. The Bible gives us no reason to believe that there is life elsewhere in the universe; in fact, the Bible gives us several key reasons why there cannot be. However, that has not stopped theologians, astronomers, and science fiction fans and writers through the years from contemplating the “what ifs” long and hard. Those who contemplate the existence of aliens and the impact their existence would have on the Christian faith commonly discuss the identity and work of Jesus.
God sent His only begotten Son, God incarnate, to save mankind and redeem creation. Does that redemption include life on other planets? Or would God have manifested Himself on those other planets, as well (in the manner of Aslan in Narnia)? Does “only begotten” mean “only physical representation”? Another consideration: would an otherworldly, sentient, advanced life form sin and need redemption in the same way we do?
Human life is in the blood (Leviticus 17:11). Where is the life of these hypothetical aliens? And what would have to be sacrificed to save them? Another topic of discussion concerning the existence of aliens and Christianity is what it means to be made in the “image of God.” Since God has no physical body, we take this to mean a reflection of God’s non-physical aspects-rationality, morality, and sociability.
One issue rarely broached is the impact of young earth creationism on the discovery of alien life. It is conceivable, if highly unlikely, that the geological pyrotechnics that took place during the global flood could have spewed a bacteria- or lichen-tainted stone all the way to Mars where it found shelter in a misty canyon. But any life form more complicated or farther out would be much harder to harmonize with a literal reading of Genesis 1. Could demons have taken trees and shrubs and rodents and bugs to another planet with an environment similar to Earth’s? Possibly. But without the Spirit’s blessing of life, it’s unlikely any of it would have survived. Parallel creations? Maybe.
Considering what we know about space and life and the world as the Bible portrays it, we already have an explanation for so-called alien activity on Earth. Reports of “close encounters” describe the ethereal, transient, deceptive, and malevolent. Accounts also record that encounters with supposed aliens can be stopped by a real, authentic call to Jesus.
Everything points to the activity of demons, not extraterrestrials. The “discovery” of alien life would have no effect on genuine Christianity. The Bible stands as written, no matter what secular theories are advanced or discoveries are claimed. The Bible says the earth and mankind are unique in God’s creation. God created the earth even before He created the sun, moon, or stars (Genesis 1). Yes, there are strange and inexplicable things that take place. There is no reason, though, to attribute these phenomena to aliens or UFOs. If there is a discernable cause to these events, it is spiritual or, more specifically, demonic in origin.
Theological Implications of Contact With Aliens
Table : Religious Perspectives on Extraterrestrial Life
| Religion/Movement | View on Extraterrestrial Life |
|---|---|
| Christianity (General) | Varies; some denominations are open to the possibility, while others maintain an anthropocentric view. |
| Christian Science | Treats extraterrestrials as brother spiritual beings. |
| The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints | Teaches of many worlds other than Earth currently inhabited by people. |
| Judaism | Some Jewish authorities are inclined toward the belief in extraterrestrial life, suggesting revisions of previous assumptions if confirmed. |