The Christian Answer to the Alien Problem

Introduction. Is Christianity at odds with belief in extraterrestrials? Does belief in UFOs and ETs contradict biblical teachings? Or can belief in aliens be compatible with the Bible?

Vatican officials made headlines last year after releasing a statement saying that belief in aliens does not contradict God. Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, the Vatican's chief astronomer, said that ruling out the existence of aliens would be like "putting limits" on God's creative freedom:

In my opinion this possibility exists . . . Certainly, in a universe this big you can't exclude this hypothesis . . . Just as there is a multiplicity of creatures on earth, there can be other beings, even intelligent, created by God. This is not in contrast with our faith because we can't put limits on God's creative freedom . . . Why can't we speak of a 'brother extraterrestrial'? It would still be part of creation . . . As an astronomer, I continue to believe that God is the creator of the universe and that we are not the product of something casual but children of a good father who has a project of love in mind for us.

The Vatican's statement came as a shock to the public since this is the first time a major Christian denomination as a whole has condoned the belief in extraterrestrial life. Most of Christendom is still cautious about endorsing such ideas, and not without good reason. Christians have been wise to approach the issue of alien life with both care and timidity. Since the presence of alien beings in the universe would be no small matter, surely it seems strange, then, that a superficial reading of the holy scriptures Christians hold dear, the Bible, would not reveal that God ever included aliens in His plan, either in creation or redemption.

Still, the evidence keeps piling up. AOL recently conducted a poll asking their audience if they believe extraterrestrial beings have visited earth, if the government is trying to cover up extraterrestrial life, and whether or not they have seen a UFO. While the majority (75%) admitted to never actually seeing a UFO, 73% of those polled truly believe that extraterrestrials have visited earth and 76% believe the government is trying to cover up their existence. On the other side, only 17% don't believe we have been visited and only 15% don't believe in a government cover-up. Clearly, more and more people are seeing evidence indicating that the UFO/ET phenomenon is real and it only stands to reason that a good number of these people are also Christians. They want to know what the Bible says about life on other planets and why their churches insist on treating the topic like the plague.

To be fair, there are still many Christians, very smart Christians, who hold to the traditional view because of strong convictions that the Bible doesn't permit extraterrestrial life. They may not know what to make of all the UFO reports, but they know in their minds it can't be of extraterrestrial origin – the Bible tells them so.

In this series I'm going to reveal why Christian churches have traditionally rejected the idea that life could exist elsewhere in the universe. I'll do my best to state their cases accurately and fairly and, then, I will attempt to expose the weaknesses and fallacies in their biblical arguments.

Before we look at these commonly held arguments objecting to extraterrestrial life, I just want to make it clear that the reasons I give for debunking these objections are not why I believe in aliens. In future posts I will carefully explain my reasoning for this. Now I am merely attempting to communicate why the following arguments (supposedly based on Biblical principles) are not nearly enough to persuade me to believe otherwise.

The Geocentric Model (AKA an argument from silence). Jason Lisle writes this article, from Answers in Genesis, in which he argues that life couldn't exist on other planets because God had special plans when He created Earth, plans He did not have for the other planets:

The notion of alien life does not square well with Scripture. The earth is unique. God designed the earth for life (Isaiah 45:18). The other planets have an entirely different purpose than does the earth, and thus, they are designed differently. In Genesis 1 we read that God created plants on the earth on Day 3, birds to fly in the atmosphere and marine life to swim in the ocean on Day 5, and animals to inhabit the land on Day 6. Human beings were also made on Day 6 and were given dominion over the animals. But where does the Bible discuss the creation of life on the “lights in the expanse of the heavens”? There is no such description because the lights in the expanse were not designed to accommodate life. God gave care of the earth to man, but the heavens are the Lord’s (Psalm 115:16). From a biblical perspective, extraterrestrial life does not seem reasonable.

I'm sorry, but asking, “Where does the Bible discuss the creation of life on the lights in the expanse of the heavens,” is not a real argument to dismiss life on other planets. It is an argument from silence! Nothing can be deduced from an argument of silence. It's true, the Bible never explicitly states that there is life on other planets, nor does it state that God had life on other planets in mind in the creation order. Using this same logic, however, one could also say there's nothing in the Bible to the contrary. That is, the Bible never states life isn't on other planets. The Bible doesn't say God's only intention for life was exclusively for Earth. Though an argument from silence can, at times be a valid and convincing form of abductive reasoning at times, in this case it is clearly fallible. As the saying goes, "Absence of proof is not proof of absence."

In the article God and the Extraterrestrials, Werner Gitt has this to say:

The Bible, the revealed written Word of God, teaches that life is only possible through a process of creation. Even if there were other galaxies with planets very similar to earth, life could only be there if the Creator had fashioned it. If God had done that, and if these beings were going to visit us one day, then He would surely not have left us unenlightened about this.

Notice, again, the argument from silence. Gitt seems to believe that God, the infinite author and ruler of the entire universe, would be obligated to enlighten us, His finite, subservient creatures, if He wanted to create extraterrestrial life. The intent of the Bible, however, was never to explain everything, but to bring people to God. It states:

“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” - Deuteronomy 29:29

“Do you listen in on God's council? Do you limit wisdom to yourself?” - Job 15:8

Gitt continues:

The reasons stars were made are given to us in several places in the Bible, not only in the well-known Psalm 19 but especially in the Creation account. In Genesis 1:14 we read: ‘And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years.’

We see from this that stars are there for mankind on earth. Add to this the sequence of creation (on the first day the earth, and only on the fourth day all of the stars), and it is easy to see the thrust of the biblical testimony, that the purpose of creation is uniquely centred on this earth.

Yes, the creation account tells us the purpose of stars. For all intents and purposes this has always been mankind's primary practical use for stars - signs, seasons, days and years. As I'm sure the Answers in Genesis team would agree, there's much more information about the stars (and planets) than what is found in Genesis 1 and Psalm 14. Indeed, much of what we know about the planets could not have been known before their discovery. Is it heresy to believe Uranus orbits on its side at 97 degrees or that Venus and Uranus are the only planets that rotate opposite to the direction of their orbit because such information is omitted from scripture? Absolutely not.

While I have found everything the Bible says about our universe to be accurate, the canon just doesn't tell us everything there is to know about it.

As often as it makes its rounds, this is by far the weakest biblical argument opposing extraterrestrial life. In the next few posts we will examine much stronger arguments than this one.

Believing in aliens is believing in evolution. Before I begin to answer this objection, it's only fair to point out that there are many sincere Christians on both sides of the evolution debate. As this graph shows, mainline protestants are divided right down the middle when it comes to believing in evolution as a valid explanation for the origins of human life on earth. Roman Catholics tend to believe in it a little bit more, but evangelical numbers are way down in this arena. I've found this trend even more so in theologically reformed circles, which are more fundamental in their hermeneutical approach.

Those who consider themselves to be theistic evolutionists as well as Christians who feel the concept of evolution does not contradict their Biblical worldview will neither be swayed by this objection or my answer to it. Rather, this article is written for those Christians, like myself, who do not believe in evolution.

As this objection suggests, many Christians conjecture that the belief in life on other planets stems from an evolutionary ideology and must, therefore, be rejected. In Are ETs and UFOs Real? Jason Lisle argues:

The idea of extraterrestrial life stems largely from a belief in evolution. Recall that in the evolutionary view, the earth is “just another planet”—one where the conditions just happened to be right for life to form and evolve. If there are countless billions of other planets in our galaxy, then surely at least a handful of these worlds have also had the right conditions. Extraterrestrial life is almost inevitable in an evolutionary worldview.

David Laughlin also weighs in with this:

The idea that other civilizations exist in outer space is based on evolutionary assumptions. Since, it is reasoned, life evolved on earth, it must have evolved in other regions of the universe as well, because the universe is so large. Such reasoning is faulty, though, because evolution does not have any biblical or true scientific basis to begin with.

In fact, there is a message from a higher intelligence that has been given to us on earth, and it tells us the real solution to life's basic problems:

'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life' (John 3:16).

Many Christians refuse to believe in aliens because, to them, it means embracing a faulty evolutionist worldview. Since science has never offered evidence to support the evolution theory and since a literal reading of the Bible does not support an evolutionary worldview, Christians have little to no incentive to believe in it. Such theories, we believe, are better left in the hands of those in great psychological need of a substitute worldview – one where there is no God and, therefore, no judgment or consequences for behavior. For us, the creationists, we sleep soundly at night knowing our lives have a purpose and knowing there is a God who is literally in control of everything.

Despite what you may or may not have seen in the news recently, the young-earth, creationist theories are starting to gain traction in the scientific community and intelligent design (as a whole) has literally taken off in recent years. Gone are the days when people viewed “creation science” as an oxymoron. Now, many are seeing a correlation between faith and science. As Sam Brownback once stated:

The truths of science and faith are complementary: they deal with very different questions, but they do not contradict each other because the spiritual order and the material order were created by the same God . . . Ultimately, on the question of the origins of the universe, I am happy to let the facts speak for themselves. There are aspects of evolutionary biology that reveal a great deal about the nature of the world, like the small changes that take place within a species. Yet I believe, as do many biologists and people of faith, that the process of creation — and indeed life today — is sustained by the hand of God in a manner known fully only to him. It does not strike me as anti-science or anti-reason to question the philosophical presuppositions behind theories offered by scientists who, in excluding the possibility of design or purpose, venture far beyond their realm of empirical science.

Since most creation scientists openly refute the possibility of alien life, it's easy to see why so many Christians can't find a place for ET in their theology. But is there really no chink in the creationists' logic? Look again at this argument, to which they continually turn to “debunk” aliens. Since many proponents for extraterrestrial life believe that aliens evolved through the process of natural selection, it's automatically assumed by many creationist Christians that life can't exist elsewhere. While whimsically dismissing the idea that maybe since God made such an enormous universe He might have put life on other planets as well, creationists arrogantly put limits on what God was capable of in the creation process. Some will contend that the Bible never mentions God putting life on other planets during the creation process but we have already seen (In Part 2) that this is an argument from silence, and thus invalid.

I don't remember seeing the creation of angels anywhere in the creation narrative. Is the AIG team ready to write them off too?

ET's Salvation. I now come to the final (some would say “main”) point Christians raise in objection to belief in aliens. This is the hardest of the three arguments to refute, and complicating the issue is that this is the argument that holds a lot of Christians back from believing in extraterrestrial life, myself included for many years. In Are ETs and UFOs Real? Jason Lisle protests:

When we consider how the salvation plan might apply to any hypothetical extraterrestrial (but otherwise human-like) beings, we are presented with a problem. If there were Vulcans or Klingons out there, how would they be saved? They are not blood relatives of Jesus, and so Christ’s shed blood cannot pay for their sin. One might at first suppose that Christ also visited their world, lived there, and died there as well, but this is antibiblical. Christ died once for all (1 Peter 3:18; Hebrews 9:27–28, Hebrews 10:10). Jesus is now and forever both God and man; but He is not an alien.

One might suppose that alien beings have never sinned, in which case they would not need to be redeemed. But then another problem emerges: they suffer the effects of sin, despite having never sinned. Adam’s sin has affected all of creation— not just mankind. Romans 8:20–22 makes it clear that the entirety of creation suffers under the bondage of corruption. These kinds of issues highlight the problem of attempting to incorporate an antibiblical notion into the Christian worldview.

I find the above argument valid; just not complete. If there were a created race other than us humans, one would have to consider how they fit in with God's plan of redemption. Are they perfect beings living in a fallen world? Are they fallen beings with no chance of salvation?

The problem doesn't go away with aliens, though. If the above argument is indeed valid, there is at least one race of creatures that all Bible-believing Christians would never doubt exists but that also shouldn't exist if the logic above is correct. Any takers as to what creature that might be?

Angels!

Following the same logic as this objection, angels have no more possibility of existing than aliens do. Jesus is now and forever both God and man; but He is not an angel. Since angels are not blood relatives of Jesus, Christ's blood cannot pay for their sin. And, another problem emerges that was mentioned. Romans 8:20–22 makes it clear that the entirety of creation suffers under the bondage of corruption. Indeed, Adam's sin would have affected all of creation — both the physical and the spiritual realms. Does this mean angels don't exist? The Bible makes it clear that they do.

Now, try to resist the temptation of jumping ahead of me, folks. I'm still nowhere near concluding that aliens are actually angels or that angels are aliens. I'm not saying they're the same thing. Right now all I'm doing is drawing a connection. Belief in angels has the same theological implications as belief in aliens. Although I consider the above argument to be valid, it's not completely airtight because if we are forced to throw out the idea of aliens on those grounds alone then we must also throw out the idea of angels. It wavers at this point. If the existence of angels is possible, then isn't the existence of aliens also possible?

(Editor's Note: Click Here to learn how angels fit into God's plan of salvation.)

This should cover all the usual bases, but if anyone else has any other theological problems with aliens I will be happy to address those as well.