Could your faith survive “Disclosure Day”?

Last week, I had lunch with an older couple in my church. During our lunch, we enjoyed a good conversation until near the end of our time together. When lunch was almost over, the couple asked me if I knew a certain public person. This person claims to be a Christian, has some sort of online following, and has been telling his audience that government officials are about to publicly release evidence for interdimensional beings. He told his audience that U.S. senators have been contacting Christian pastors to alert them of this impending release so that they can prepare their congregations. This person said he is concerned that Christians won't be able to handle and process what it means for interdimensional beings to exist, and it may cause many to doubt their faith. But, he assured his audience that this was all part of end-times prophecy.

So, this older couple in my church wanted me to know about this so that I and the other elders would be prepared to address it with our congregation when this disclosure is made. When this couple started telling me about this, I felt like I had just entered the Twilight Zone.

In retrospect, I believe they misunderstood what this person was saying. I think this person was talking about the upcoming movie and warning his audience how this movie might cause some Christians to doubt their faith and beliefs. (Kind of like the DaVinci Code hysteria) But, for this older couple in my church, they thought this disclosure was a real thing, not a movie.

Whether or not you believe in the possibility of sentient life created by God elsewhere in the universe, which has been speculated by Spurgeon, C.S. Lewis, among others, why would the discovery that there was such life ever threaten true faith? I’ve had this discussion with a number of family members and other believers, and even if there were differences in opinion on whether God would create such beings, eventually it always came down to — even if aliens were proven to exist, it wouldn’t affect our faith.

The Bible didn’t tell us either way (although it certainly mentioned some created beings like angels and demons). It is still God’s word, Christ still died to save sinners, and we are accountable to God for what he has revealed to us, not what he hasn’t. The discovery of something he didn’t in his infinite wisdom mention to us wouldn’t threaten my faith one bit. The fantasies of Hollywood even less so.

There seems to be a common misunderstanding out there that people have to choose between a biblical view of life and the universe vs. a view that includes intelligent alien life somewhere other than Earth. I guess the assumption there is that the Bible teaches humans are alone in the universe as far as intelligent life.

But the Bible directly reveals that angelic beings exist in a variety of forms and that they are intelligent.

They don’t happen to be ‘biological,’ as we normally think of the word, but so what?

It’s clear in the Bible that humans are not alone in the universe. We were saying that long before anybody started saying it about “aliens.”

Where Spielberg and others have a point is that intelligent life, let’s say biological and mortal life, on other planets adds a layer of theological complexity. It raises a lot of questions—because the Bible doesn’t say anything about that kind of life elsewhere at all. No comment one way or the other. So, if they are there and are eventually discovered by us or us by them, the questions do flow: Do they have souls? Are they sinners? If so, are they redeemable? If so, how? And on it goes, especially on the ethics of how we would interact with them. What sort of rights would they have? Are they also in the image of God? How would we even decide? Do they have their own Bible?

So, sure, it would raise a lot of questions. For some, I suppose, it would be really challenging to their faith, because of assumptions woven in that they have not recognized are their own and are not really belonging to the Christian faith.

I remember a friend asking me this basic question when I was a new believer. Not to brag, but my response was "well, if it's not specified, maybe God didn't need us to know the answer to that one....". I stand by that.

At around the same time--I was not and am not completely sanctified yet--I saw a skit on SNL where a man goes to Heaven and asks St. Peter what the wildest thing is that's nonetheless true. Peter says he couldn't handle it, so they settle on the 200th (?) wildest thing, which is "Pro wrestling is real".

Moral of the story; Hollyweird often goes to just weird when they try to get philosophical.

I agree that it doesn't make a lick of difference to the biblical storyline we've been given whether or not there are other creatures besides mankind who are both material and morally accountable to God, nor does it make a lick of difference to our faith.

I wonder...is the converse true? Do evolutionary atheists need life to exist elsewhere to feel secure in their belief in blind processes giving rise to life whenever conditions are right? Is that why they're excited about mere water molecules found here and there, and the possibility of even the lowest of life forms like algae or lichens...?

Again, if I were an evolutionary atheist, I'm not sure it would make a huge difference to me. The whole schtick with evolution kind of acknowledges the improbability of it all, and just says that conditions were right and there's been enough time that, here we are.

But the fact is, so far, it appears to be the case that we are absolutely unique, and maybe that's just too haunting a fact, that perhaps we are made in the image of God, a little lower than the angels, after all.

Michael, I think the answer is that for a lot of atheists who think things through, it does matter a lot whether they find life on other planets, because they know that if you have a chance of one occurrence of life in a universe that's ~15 billion light years across, you ought to have several chances of the same. So if you have only one liveable planet in the entire universe, that casts into doubt the notion that these things could happen randomly.