Some interesting conversation started on Dean Knisely's blog . I have my own take on this question, because while I am not an astrobiologist per se , I do have very close interactions with them. In fact, I was accepted to a graduate program in astrobiology not too long ago. So I've had to reflect for some time on the implications of our continually growing knowledge about the conditions under which life evolved in this stellar system and on this planet and the increasing possibility that we are not so very unique in the scheme of things. What follows here is an exercise in the long view of affairs. Unless I am much mistaken, we will not confront the problem of extrasolar evangelism for a few centuries yet.
And in those centuries, the Church faces a crisis of affairs more potent than even the destruction of the western Roman Empire. I'm not sure what form it will take. On one hand, it could be an event of near human extinction in which our manipulations of the climate and planetary biogeochemistry finally reduce much of the planet to marginal human habitability for an extended period without the prospect of quick recovery. In that case, the Church may have to return to its role after the failure of Pax Romana victoriis Romanis to twist Augustus' odd phrase in the Res Gestae . But we must remember that the Church in that period was not just a caretaker of knowledge, but it was also a caretaker of values. Respect for innocent life and meum et tuum may not be upheld by law in future ages. Nor might there be much concern for the guilty. This is why it is so important for Christendom to maintain a modicum of its social teaching in the midst of regional disorders such as Zimbabwe and the military adventures of our own government. To where shall we look if it fails globally?
Alternately, our problems may be technologically soluble. Just this week, I was talking with a gentleman who raises funds for and otherwise promotes private experiments in nuclear fusion for power generation. While he admits the low likelihood of success of what he is doing, we might just get lucky. A new source of abundant energy, if properly distributed and used, would go a long way to mitigate the effects of the toxic mix of economic inequality and environmental degradation that is the wind in our door. But if technology pushes the limits of plasticity once more, we likely face another and epistemologically stranger outcome by the end of the century. Advances in biotechnology and computer science may present us with options for modifying ourselves and our children or just push us further into electronic intimacy, in which our presence to one another becomes more and more mediated by machine. C.S. Lewis envisioned that the Moon is constantly embroiled in civil war between the barren side that faces us and the fertile garden that he imagined on the other side. Of course, the "dark side" of the Moon is nothing like this. But his veiled talk of "cold marriages," where lovers construct robots with artificial gonads rather than accept in their own bodies physical intimacy and reproduction, may not be a lunatic fantasy in the world of 2090 (see the movie Demolition Man for another example). In the era which the futurists call the Singularity, I see the Church's witness to the Incarnation could be crucial. A God with us is a God who encourages us to be present and engaged with one another and with the raw physicality of the created order, even when we do not want to face them.
But in a few hundred years time, provided we are equipped for it, it will be quite easy for us to put a large transmitter array in orbit of Mercury or elsewhere and listen and look very carefully for the signs of other civilizations. Even within my lifetime, I will not be surprised to have seen evidence for the existence of a planet like our own. Three months or so of the Iraq war would pay for such a search (as it would pay for other, more fungible things). What should the Church's witness be to another sentient species? With what should we evangelize the stars?
In the words of Get Religion, astrobiology has a very strong religion ghost attached to it. Many trace the beginnings of the scientific investigation of life beyond the Earth to Giordano Bruno, who was condemned for heresy and burned at the stake in the Campo de Fiori in Rome on that account. Bruno speculated on limited evidence that the fixed stars were like the Sun and that there were an infinity of worlds orbiting their own stars. Descartes comes very close to admitting this, too, in his slightly later Treatise on Light , which remained unpublished until his death on that account. It's not clear what the nature of Bruno's heresy was, since the official record of the trial likely was suppressed and lost. A contemporary (Luigi Firpo) claimed the charges were:
"Holding opinions contrary to the Catholic Faith and speaking against it and its ministers.
Holding erroneous opinions about the Trinity, about Christ's divinity and Incarnation.
Holding erroneous opinions about Christ.
Holding erroneous opinions about Transubstantiation and Mass.
Claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity.
Believing in metempsychosis and in the transmigration of the human soul into brutes.
Dealing in magics and divination.
Denying the Virginity of Mary.
The charge of interest to this work is "claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity." Considering the nature of Bruno's other theological opinions, this was a penny compared to the pound. The Catholic Encyclopedia suggests his heresies veered toward Gnostic fantasies of various sorts including various beliefs anathematized by the Fifth Ecumenical Council concerning the Holy Spirit as anima mundi . But Bruno's celebrity is not the creature of anyone who cares about these matters, so I long had the impression that it was the plurality of worlds that so dismayed the Inquisition. After all, if there were intelligent life, would it be necessary for Christ to be incarnate on all of those worlds and die over and over again? C.S. Lewis may have had Bruno at the back of his mind when he orders the universe in his Space Trilogy to be ruled by Archons, angels of God that do act like animae mundorum . However, most planets including all of those outside the Solar System do not have life, regarding it as a burden or a humiliation. Venus has human life, thanks to the Incarnation, but they do not fall thanks to the assistance of a Christian Earthman. Martians apparently don't quite have free will. And if the Venusians had fallen, God would have had to come up with some new plan. They could not be justified by faith in God in Christ. Fortunately, we do not live in Lewis' modified Neoplatonic fantasy world or Tolkien's passingly similar Arda (Old Solar and Valinorean are practically the same language, after all. If you like the Lord of the Rings , you really should read The Space Trilogy).
To this soteriological puzzle, I propose an alternate solution to Lewis'. My first inspiration for this idea is that great hymn of Athenagoras many of us sing in the evening, "O gracious light...you are worthy at all times to be praised, o Son of God, o Giver of Life, and to be glorified throughout all the worlds." The 1979 BCP translates the Greek kosmos as "all the worlds." What is interesting about this translation is that it is perhaps the most accurate of all the translations I can read. The Latin has saecula , which is ridiculous, suggesting an extent of time usually signified by the Greek aion , though "aion" in the sense of "world to come" or "age to come" is a known use. Everyone else generally translates it as "world." The New Testament speaks of three kinds of worlds, oikoumene , which I take to mean the world of the secular powers, for this is the world of "and the decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed." This is the world of our limited imagination and the world of our conceits about power. There is ge , the word for soil expanded to all the inhabited land. It's very important. John, who generally does not use it as much as the other Evangelists, uses it in places such as 12:24 and 12:32, where it has soteriological relevance, connecting Christ's death to curse of the ground and evil power of the air. But otherwise, John uses kosmos , famously at the words of John the Baptist, "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world." Τῇ ἐπαύριον βλέπει τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐρχόμενον πρὸς αὐτόν, καὶ λέγει, Ἴδε ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ θεοῦ ὁ αἴρων τὴν ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ κόσμου. . The world of John's Gospel is primarily the cosmos, a word best understood in English as "order" in the sense of the "created order." Thus, if we take John 3:16 literally, for instance, we must admit that salvation is through Christ's Incarnation on earth.
Moreover, the linguistics of the Great Commissions can be read to suggest the importance of humans to the economy of salvation generally. Matthew's version commands us to evangelize every ethnos . Mark's version tells us to go through the kosmos and preach the gospel to every ktisis or created being, which is a wide commission that only St. Francis and a few others have taken seriously. In the Song of the Three Young Men, the authors encourage the whole created order to praise the Lord, matching the scope of the Markan commission. The Acts commission speaks of the ge , but an alternate translation of eschatos ge might be "end of the world" as opposed to "furthermost part of the world." For God, time and space must be quite interchangeable, so it is quite interesting how terms about space and time are quite interchangeable in the Scriptures.
But these linguistic arguments matter very little if the Evangelists operated under a limited worldview and vision of the cosmos . If in their view, we were alone, their use of cosmos really might be restricted to the Earth. Although, as we will see later, I believe in the power of prophecy to put into words visions beyond the prophetic imagination, the argument from usage has been warned against since at least Augustine's treatment of the linguistic arguments about love in City of God that still stimulate the theological imagination (see Pope Benedict's Deus Caritas est . However, in the same way that love is one, I argue that salvation is one, through Jesus Christ, and chiefly but not exclusively mediated through the missionary efforts of His Church.
For indeed, the Evangelists likely did not have a limited vision of the created order and the importance of Christ's saving work to it. Their contemporary, the Apostle Paul, stretched the limits of the Hellenistic worldview when he wrote:
The created universe is waiting with eager expectation for God's sons to be revealed. It was made subject to frustration, not of its own choice but by the will of him who subjected it, yet with the hope that the universe itself is to be freed from the shackles of mortality and is to enter upon the glorious liberty of the children of God. Up to the present, as we know, the whole created universe in all its parts groans as if in the pangs of childbirth." (Romans 8:19-22).
And so there is to be no doubt about Paul's meaning (he isn't just talking about the natural environment on Earth), you can read Ephesians 1 or this famous line closing the book:
"Our struggle is not against human foes, but against cosmic powers, against the authorities and potentates of this dark age, against the superhuman forces of evil in the celestial spheres."
Yes, I realize there is nothing particularly obvious in these passages. But put into a more modern context, I suggest that we take them more seriously as encouragement to think about how Church can fulfill its commission to bring the fullness of Christ to all things in anticipation of the eschaton when we all shall be free.
Why Now?
One key mythos of science is that it constantly leads us to consider how small and insignificant we are before the infinity of the cosmos. While I admit the utility of this mythos for inculcating in us humility, I think there is a strong possibility that there is a happy medium between our insignificance and our centrality to the universe. I would argue that the human species arose at an opportune moment in the history of the universe. The primary evidence for this is chemical. The observations over the last decade of extrasolar planets have demonstrated something quite important about planets, they very much tend to form around stars with high amounts of heavy elements observed in their atmosphere, things like iron and magnesium (or carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen for that matter), which are essential for our enzymatic systems. Stellar evolution models suggest that the heavy element concentration of the stars (their metallicity) has increased over time, as the nuclear fusion processes that power the stars and their fiery destruction in supernovas gradually produce more and more heavy elements from the primal hydrogen and helium of the early Universe. These heavy elements also form the nuclei of the cores of the giant planets in our Solar System.
The Sun is a later generation star. Its initial heavy element reservoir, which condensed out to form the planets and similar bodies we know today, is a legacy of at least 500 stars by last count. Evidence for this inheritance comes from relics of these stars in the form of silicon carbide and diamond grains that formed from these stars and were blown out into the nebula out of which the Sun formed with different chemical properties than the meteorites in which they are typically found. It's possible that the Sun may be among the first generation of stars with enough heavy elements to form terrestrial planets, though that particular idea is controversial. But what if it is true? At this point, our planet had a variety of advantages:
It orbits a G-type star, which produces a significant flux of photons with energies between those necessary for electronic and vibrational transitions (tending toward low atmospheric absorption of incoming radiation). A planet orbiting a G type star at a distance at which it is generally warm enough to have water probably will not become tidally locked to its star (as Mercury and Venus in some sense have). Moreover, G-type stars have an early phase of strong UV flux followed by a period of gradual brightening, which may have been necessary for early organic synthesis and the development of photosynthesis. Although I would not go as far as James Lovelock in arguing for biological regulation of the Earth's climate, the possibility that the rate of evolution is optimized by a slowly changing radiation budget is intriguing. Moreover, if Lovelock is right, timing is crucial. Carbon dioxide (despite our hiccups) has been declining over the history of the Earth as the Sun has brightened. However, if carbon dioxide falls below 150 ppm, photosynthesis is greatly reduced. Thus in a few hundred million years, the Earth either will be too warm or too carbon-deficient for plant life.
In a few centuries, I suspect we will have a far better idea of how special we are and how early we are in the general scheme of intelligent life. One possibility is that we are among the first fruits of a brief flowering of intelligent life. In that case, the Scriptures give us hope of an eschaton in which Christ will recreate the universe and bring us into union with him. As the universe expands and we wonder if the rate of stellar enrichment in heavy elements will outpace the reduction in density, this is hope indeed. The era of the terrestial planets may be quite brief. To any civilization with our sophistication, the news we bring may be good indeed if we still hold it in sincerity.
Why Us?
The challenge of extrasolar evangelism, no doubt, will vex future theologians. After all, it's far easier for Jesus to be an "astral traveler" from the practical perspective. It would absolve us of responsibility if Jesus became incarnate for each fallen intelligent species. But my heart cries against this on several grounds. First, the universality of Christ and his sacrifice is limited by his "dying over and over again." The preacher of the Hebrews was insistent on one death alone to cleanse our conscience.
Second, the idea that Christ would have to become incarnate for each species presents problems for the principle of our equality before God. The kingdom of our God is one for every language, tribe, people, and nation. While the Creed we say today speaks of Christ becoming a human being, our future Creed may speak of the Creator becoming a creature. We have founded our principles of equality on us all being created in the image of God. Is the image of God to be found in our particular form? Or does it lie in our creative powers, truly iconic of the Creator? I won't pretend that this presents an evangelical challenge. But it will be best for our future relations with our extraterrestrial brothers and sisters if we are insistent that we are like them in the most fundamental way, that God created them in His image, and died for their sins in our common vulnerability. To argue otherwise will raise questions of superior and inferior and the spectre of exploitation. This is not to say that I am certain of this, and I think we will have to listen carefully to their stories and be prepared to have our minds changed. But I think our default assumption should be that we share the Kingdom with them through Jesus Christ, first revealed in the flesh in Bethlehem Ephrata.
Third, I fear there may be additional objections on the grounds that it will take a long time to evangelize the universe. What will happen to those who never hear the Word? In the first place, every other species will have the same opportunity as we do to know God through the order of his creation, which is evidence of the Son and therefore the Father. Those who live in this light have excuse on the day of judgment as Paul suggests. The larger problem lies in the harrowing of Hell, when Jesus supposedly preached to the "souls in prison." I still don't know how this is supposed to work with aliens.
Some also might wonder why should we be the only evangelists? If the acts of God were seen by all, it would be more efficient. But if we are among the first intelligent species, this makes some sense. We should realize these issues have arisen before. For the LORD made distinction between Israel and the nations, while proclaiming that the nations should have salvation in the seed of Abraham. At Morning Prayer lately, I have been reading the Story of the Three Young Men and the Fiery Furnace from Daniel. In this story, King Nebuchadnezzar learns of the power of the one true God through the faith in the face of death and deliverance of three of his court officials, who are Jewish. In this sense, humanity may be special, but it is an obligation. The maintenance of our habits and our faith in the darker corners of space will be a proclamation of Christ.
FutureScripture/LoveSounds
Let us conclude this fanciful set of speculations by considering a key question: if we are meant to evangelize space, how will the Scriptures speak to us if they are written from a worldview in which our present limits are very much the limits of the important universe. I would suggest that the Scriptures were revealed in such a way that this problem could be evaded by creating an analogy between outer space and the sea. Best of all, this analogy is at the very beginning of the Old Testament, where the Spirit hovers over the face of the waters. Other creation accounts suggest that God created the universe by killing the primal sea monster. Thus in the Scriptures, I think many references to the sea also could refer to outer space in the same way that many of the events of the history of Israel and Judah and the rituals of the Law also refer to life of Christ. The other planets then become islands and coastline. Think of what the Psalmist says, "The LORD is king. Let the earth rejoice and the multitude of the isles be glad!" (Psalm 97). It seems a tad redundant, but it might signify to us a wider view of creation. Or think on the words of Isaiah, "A bruised read he shall not break and a smoldering wick he shall not quench until he establishes justice on Earth and the coastlands wait for his teaching...Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise from the end of the earth: Let the sea and what fills it resound, the coastlands, and those who dwell in them" (Isaiah 42:3-4,10). Indeed, Isaiah is clearly referring to Earth as he knows it with Kedar and Sela giving glory. But as the Church has made a practice of Christological reading, She may in future have to practice cosmological reading. The coastlands indeed may be waiting for His teaching, groaning aloud for the revelation of the children of God. Amen.
