From: Dr. Blake Nelson (bnelson301@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Sep 18 2003 - 15:00:13 EDT
I'm merely suggesting that the Wilkinson book is a
good resource that covers the topic rather than
belabor the point and clutter up the list with long
posts that are primarily theological. But since you
want to, I apologize for the rambling that follows
since I am sitting here waiting for the hurricane to
roll in... but here are my semi-organized thoughts on
the topic.
Your thesis is one that is commonly trotted out by
folks like Sagan and certainly Paul Davies as some
amazing difficulty that will leave traditional
religion banging its head saying "oh! how can we deal
with this!" Davies' Are We Alone is particularly bad
in this regard and it only shows his ignorance of
christian theology.
Usually, as with Davies, ETs are thought to create
problems for the traditional christian view in regard
to:
1. humanity's "special" relationship with God,
2. the significance of the life and death of jesus,
First, how are ETs a problem? I assume from your
thought experience, bacteria on Mars, if such exist,
are not a problem for you. Of course, such life is
really no different than bacteria on earth or the
whole range of animals, plants, etc. on planet earth.
If we presuppose the existence of an advanced,
sentient, self-conscious alien life form, how is that
problematic? In the seventeenth century there was
endless speculation about such forms of life, without
much theological worry or worry about the relationship
of humanity to God. It is not scriptural to assert
that human beings are the only beings with which God
has a relationship or that humans are the center of
the universe... to the extent that that idea ever held
much sway it was due to Aristoteleanism and that made
humans the literal center, which is different than the
most important part -- indeed the spheres were closer
to "perfection" than earth in a lot of Aristotelean
thought...
The special relationship to God for humans, as opposed
to other life on the planet, stems from the idea of
humans being in the Image of God which has several
interpretations and is tangential to this discussion
since we will assume later that ETs share these same
characteristics. None of them make humanity the
measure of all things. To the contrary, the biblical
view is that God is the center of all things and we,
as well as other ETs, are part of creation that
reflect God's glory.
So, the crux of the problem for you seems to be the
idea of a highly advanced religious system and whether
this somehow vitiates the significance of Jesus' life,
death and resurrection.
There are two different ways christian thinkers have
addressed this topic of the significance of Jesus: 1.
once for all and 2. relationship of God to other
worlds. Regardless, it is the second person of the
trinity in relation to all the cosmos.
You seem to take a simplified once for all argument to
say that Jesus would be ineffective if aliens have
some sort of "advanced" religious system. I dont see
that the two go together at all.
The once for all view says that God's incarnation in
Jesus is the one event in the whole universe where God
reveals Himself most fully. First, I dont see that
this is more of a problem for ETs than it is for
anyone other than a 1st century person living in
Palestine, since no one else gets to meet Jesus
personally, and only precious few 1st century people
living in Palestine did. So, ETs provide a writ large
question of what about other religions, etc. Missions
to the stars seem of little difference to me than
missionary work here on earth. So how is your problem
any different than missionary work and other religions
on earth?
The other relationship to Gods on other worlds view is
one that has been suggested by theologians like E.L.
Mascall in his 1956 Bampton Lectures. He believed
that if there were other parts of the universe where
rational beings have sinned and are in need of
redemption (something that your fragility seems to
assume) that the second person of the Trinity either
has or will some day unite his divine Person to their
nature as occured in Jesus of Nazareth.
Why does the possibility of multiple incarnations make
Jesus less important? That is, it seems to me (and I
am not taking one of these positions over the other),
exactly the same kind of antropocentric thing that you
are claiming makes christianity fragile. Thus, your
argument is only correct based on your presumptions
which beg the question.
The deeper theological issues would appear to be:
1. The nature of the relationship between Jesus of
Nazareth as completely human and Jesus who is the
eternal Word of God -- this has been a subject of
christological reflection, unbidden by positing ETs,
for over two millenia. If the significance of Jesus
the man, is that He was also the Incarnation of the
Word of God, then it is the Word of God, the Second
Person of the Trinity that is important in that
respect, and incarnation elsewhere is unproblematic
because, in this view, Jesus of Nazareth is God
revealing Himself to us as what *human beings* are
meant to be, and how we can be reconciled with God and
the nature he intends for us. In this view, the
Incarnation of Jesus is not the whole story of what
the second person of the Trinity is all about nor what
He does. One would expect God to care about and show
interest in other worlds and other sentient life and
relate to them just as He cares about the fall of
sparrows -- whether that relationshipe requires
Incarnation is something to which scripture is silent
and is largely immaterial.
Another way of looking at this is that what God
reveals in and through Jesus of Nazareth is central to
who God is and thus incarnation and salvation are
universally central to God's relationship to his
creation.
Of course, all this presupposes that aliens sin, which
is another assumption you seem to have. Does
salvation have to be linked to incarnation or are
their other ways that God accomplishes salvation?
Humans have fallen in some sense and need both
revelation and salvation -- there is no way to assume
that such is the case with aliens.
To add something that seems implicit in your thought
experiment, but is not explicated as such, Davies sees
the problem that some religions will be further down
the road than christianity -- i.e., that religious
ideas, like scientific ones advance and progress and
become better. Both statements are in a sense
incorrect, but especially so for religion. Again,
Davies shows his ignorance of religion in that he
without a word tosses out revelation. In the
traditional christian view, humans don't need *better*
religion, they need reconciliation with God that they
cannot achieve themselves. God achieves this
reconciliation and God reveals himself to us in ways
that we can understand. Such a view, unlike Davies'
idea of progress in understanding spirituality,
recognizes the limits of the human mind for
understanding and relating to God.
Indeed, while there is no reason to presume that
humans might not learn new things about God from
meeting ETs, the ETs would also learn new things about
God from humans. I do not see a problem with this.
They may well have good news to share with us. We
certainly would have good news to share with them.
--- Steve Petermann <steve@spetermann.org> wrote:
> Dr. Blake wrote:
> > Maybe a good entry level primer of the issues (and
> > non-issues) ETs present would be David Wilkinson's
> > _Alone in the Universe?: The X-Files, Aliens and
> God_.
> > It covers many different topics at a very
> > introductory level. This is one of those topics,
> and,
> > if I recall correctly, he does a fairly decent job
> of
> > dealing with both what scripture has to say about
> this
> > and what traditional christology has to say.
>
>
> You know, I really hate this kind of "argument". I
> like to know what people
> think is important reading but when a reference is
> used as an "argument" I
> get really suspicious. It seems to show fear of
> engagement and implies that
> the prior argument is *so* unsophisticated and
> elementary it doesn't deserve
> comment. If lists deteriorate into bibliography tit
> for tat then they are
> worthless. However, civil and rigorous argumentation
> is, in my opinion, what
> influences what I think and what others think as
> well.
>
> Steve Petermann
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Dr. Blake Nelson" <bnelson301@yahoo.com>
> To: "Steve Petermann" <steve@spetermann.org>; "ASA"
> <asa@lists.calvin.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2003 12:44 PM
> Subject: Re: Fragility and tendentiousness
>
>
> > It only becomes ridiculous when one makes
> tendentious
> > arguments and presupposes, inter alia, that all
> > sentient species require redemption in the exact
> same
> > manner as the Christian proclamation about the
> life,
> > death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
> > Something which I did not assert in my comments.
> >
> > Maybe a good entry level primer of the issues (and
> > non-issues) ETs present would be David Wilkinson's
> > _Alone in the Universe?: The X-Files, Aliens and
> God_.
> > It covers many different topics at a very
> > introductory level. This is one of those topics,
> and,
> > if I recall correctly, he does a fairly decent job
> of
> > dealing with both what scripture has to say about
> this
> > and what traditional christology has to say.
> Needless
> > to say, he -- like I -- would disagree with a lot
> of
> > your assumptions and certainly with your
> conclusions.
> >
> >
> > --- Steve Petermann <steve@spetermann.org> wrote:
> > > > The fact that
> > > > the second person of the trinity relates to us
> as
> > > > Jesus of Nazareth and what the NT says about
> how
> > > > through the second person of the trinity the
> > > universe
> > > > is redeemed does not describe those redemptive
> > > efforts
> > > > *exhaustively* nor is it concerned with how
> the
> > > second
> > > > person of the trinity relates to ETs.
> > >
> > > Okay, I guess I *am* ignorant of this line of
> > > theology. So I guess earth
> > > based Christians would accept an "Alonzo of
> Alpha
> > > Centari" as the
> > > incarnation of the "second person of the
> trinity" on
> > > Alpha Centari. This
> > > could mean there are billions of "Christs". Does
> > > this mean that salvation is
> > > planet centric/dependent, depending on a Christ
> > > appearing at some time in
> > > the history of the planet to save all prior and
> > > future inhabitants? Can
> > > there only be one Christ per planet? Do you see
> how
> > > ridiculous this line of
> > > thinking becomes?
> > >
> > > In the past religions could avoid these types of
> > > thought experiments but I
> > > don't thing they can now. If a theology is
> supposed
> > > to be systematic, it
> > > cannot avoid addressing these types of questions
> if
> > > it is to be considered
> > > serious.
> > >
> > > Steve Petermann
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "Dr. Blake Nelson" <bnelson301@yahoo.com>
> > > To: "Steve Petermann" <steve@spetermann.org>;
> "ASA"
> > > <asa@lists.calvin.edu>
> > > Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2003 12:05 PM
> > > Subject: Re: Fragility
> > >
> > >
> > > > This "problem" has been dealt with extensively
> > > many
> > > > times by many theologians. And Christianity
> has
> > > not
> > > > ever been particular anthropo-centric in the
> ways
> > > that
> > > > people who claim, inter alia, the Copernican
> > > > revolution threatened the church assert.
> > > >
> > > > These are old cannards that are trotted out by
> > > people
> > > > who tend to be very ignorant of christian
> theology
> > > > historically as well as presently.
> > > >
> > > > Perhaps, the problem may be understood better
> > > simply
> > > > by thinking about it this way -- the universe
> is
> > > > redeemed through the second person of the
> trinity
> > > --
> > > > who was Incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth. The
> fact
> > > that
> > > > the second person of the trinity relates to us
> as
> > > > Jesus of Nazareth and what the NT says about
> how
> > > > through the second person of the trinity the
> > > universe
> > > > is redeemed does not describe those redemptive
> > > efforts
> > > > *exhaustively* nor is it concerned with how
> the
> > > second
> > > > person of the trinity relates to ETs. The
> > > assertion
> > > > to the contrary brings in a boat load of
> > > assumptions
> > > > that are not necessarily textually nor
> > > theologically
> > > > sound. Since it gets more into theology than
> > > science
> > > > I will drop the matter there.
> > > >
> > > > However, Christianity is no where near as
> fragile
> > > as
> > > > you posit by the thought experiment.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > --- Steve Petermann <steve@spetermann.org>
> wrote:
> > > > > Science has continually chipped away at the
> > > > > reasonableness of religious
> > > > > claims until, in my opinion, traditional
> > > religions
> > > > > are at this point very
> > > > > fragile. This fragility is no more evident
> for
> > > > > Christianity than in the
> > > > > area of extra terrestrials. Last number I
> heard
> > > was
> > > > > that there are 100
> > > > > billion galaxies in the universe. The milky
> way
> > > > > galaxy has an estimated 200
> > > > > billion stars. That means there are an
> enormous
>
=== message truncated ===
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