“Mom, are aliens real?” It was a question my eight-year-old had been asking daily for weeks.
“We don’t know, Joseph. The universe is very big, and we have not been able to explore it fully. What do you think?” (I wasn’t the kind of parent that liked to shut down my kids’ questions.)
One day, Joseph got in the car and said with certainty, “Aliens aren’t real, Mom.”
“Really?” I responded. “How do you know?”
“God told me.”
“God told you?” I echoed. “What does God sound like?”
“Loud, like Dad,” he said after a moment, “but not mean.”
I’ve thought about that conversation with my, now, adult son many times in the past months. Maybe the memory resurfaced because I saw the delightful film Project Hail Mary starring Ryan Gosling. Maybe I remembered because my book group recently read Imminent: Inside the Pentagon’s Hunt for UFOs by Luis Elizondo. Maybe because extraterrestrial life keeps popping up in the news—In February, President Trump ordered the Pentagon to declassify files on UFOs and extraterrestrial life, after which Tennessee Republican, Tim Burchett said that Americans would “become unglued” if they heard the same briefings on extraterrestrials that he did, and in April a FEMA official weirdly claimed he was teleported to a Waffle House.
Whatever the reason, I’ve found myself revisiting a form of Joseph’s question: How likely is it that extraterrestrial life exists?
The answer to this question is not straightforward. Scientists estimate that the universe could contain up to one septillion stars (that’s a one followed by 24 zeros). Furthermore, they believe that around ten percent of stars have a planet that would be habitable — about the same size and would get about the same amount of sunlight as Earth. Habitable does not mean inhabited. To support life, a planet in a habitable zone would also need water (a uniquely broad solvent) and organic molecules.
If a habitable planet contained water and organic molecules, we still don’t know what it would take for a cell/life to emerge. We can’t quite answer that question for earthly life. Tom Cech’s discovery of self-splicing RNA, provided support for the RNA-world hypothesis for the emergence of life on Earth. A recent paper potentially upended the central dogma of biology with evidence of a protein that can make DNA with no nucleic acid template. These kinds of discoveries bring us closer to solving the mystery of first life, but don’t yet solve it. If life did develop on another planet, the evolution of complex life would take a lot of time, as it did on Earth.
How likely is it that extraterrestrial life exists? We don’t know.
What would it mean theologically if intelligent extraterrestrial life existed?
The Bible seems silent on extraterrestrial life. But it is anything but silent on God. Scripture and the natural world together reveal a God who is endlessly creative, expansive and not easily confined by our assumptions. It’s not hard to imagine that such a Creator might delight in life beyond a single planet.
Would the presence of intelligent extraterrestrial creatures diminish human dignity or force us to reconsider what it means for us to be created in the image of God?
Scripture clearly tells us that God loves us. God chose to have a special, covenantal relationship with us. That relationship does not change if God relates to other creatures, just as the special relationship and love I have for my firstborn did not diminish when my second child was born—in fact, it expanded.
Peter Enns argues that the image of God is best understood as humanity’s unique role in being God’s kingly representatives in Creation. Other intelligent creatures in the Universe would not negate our role in God’s Creation. It might simply mean Creation is richer and more layered than we imagined.
Would intelligent extraterrestrial creatures need the incarnation?
It’s possible that other intelligent creatures did not rebel against God and are, therefore, not in need of redemption. Prof. Karin Öberg suggests that although we may think of the fall as natural, rebelling against God is the most irrational thing we might do. She wonders if extraterrestrials would be mystified by our disobedience and are awed by the grace we’ve been given in Christ. C.S. Lewis explores the idea of intelligent extraterrestrial creatures who did not fall in Perelandra, the second book of his Space Trilogy.
Some may believe that extraterrestrial life is fallen but the incarnation did not cover their disobedience. This seems, to me, inconsistent with the extravagant nature of God’s grace as described in Scripture and as we experience it in our own lives.
Perhaps extraterrestrial life is fallen but saved by something other than Christ’s incarnation. Maybe the nature of their disobedience warranted a different plan.
Or these creatures have fallen, like we have, and are saved through same incarnation that saved us. I resonate most with an incarnation sufficient for all Creation. In Colossians 1:15-20, Paul writes that all things—visible and invisible—were created through Christ and for Christ, and that through Christ, God reconciles all things to himself.
All things. Not just humans but all of Creation. It seems to me that all Creation would include extraterrestrial life too, if it exists.
So, are aliens real? I didn’t have a definitive answer when Joseph asked me those many years ago and I don’t have one now. I hoped my answer for him then would nurture curiosity and wonder. I hope we all live with curiosity and wonder.
What I do hold true is that whatever we discover—that we are alone or part of a vast, inhabited cosmos—God loves it all and God’s grace is sufficient.
The idea that the story may be much bigger than our imaginations is intriguing and would not make the story of Christ less true. Thanks be to God, whose creativity and grace stretch far beyond the limits of our understanding.
