Created Aliens

The Bible Affirms the Existence of Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence

When riding past an unusually spacious residence, we may reasonably assume that a large family lives there. When we see a huge office complex, we tend to picture a large number of people working there. It’s no wonder, then, that the universe’s vast expansiveness stirs us to question how many other physical, intelligent, civilized beings may reside there. Nor is it any wonder that E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (Steven Spielberg’s 1982 film) has been named one of the top family movies of all time.¹

As an astronomer, and a human, I understand this inclination to believe we must have distant, as-yet-unseen neighbors. However, I also understand, based on tested laws of physics, that looking out in the distance is looking back in time, back even to the beginning of cosmic space-time, matter, and energy. What I see is that physical conditions are just now barely survivable in one narrowly suitable locale for humanity’s existence.

Many of my books and articles address the question, “Are we alone?” from a cosmologist’s perspective.² Here, I’d like to respond to the question from a biblical, theological perspective. I invite you to join me in some considerations.  

SETI

With funding exceeding $100 million and with thousands of hours of observation time on the world’s largest telescopes, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has been a top priority for research.³ China’s recently commissioned 500-Meter (1,600-foot diameter) Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), the largest radio telescope in the world, was built to serve SETI and has already been engaged.⁴

Such a massive investment of human and financial capital in SETI raises questions and debates of interest for astronomers as well as philosophers and theologians—arguably, for all humans. SETI seeks to answer a question posed by humans since (perhaps before) the beginning of recorded history. Are we humans the only intelligent creatures to exist in the universe, or is the universe filled with planets harboring advanced species of life? As Porky Pine commented in a June 20, 1959, Pogo comic strip, “Either way, it’s a mighty soberin’ thought.”

Theological Implications of SETI

One astrobiologist has asserted that the discovery of extraterrestrial life of any kind would be catastrophic to the Christian faith.⁵ Such an assertion is based on the belief that the discovery of life on multiple planets would prove that the origin of life from a prebiotic soup of appropriate chemical compounds is (or must be) so straightforward and simple as to render belief in a supernatural Agent, or God, unnecessary.

Many Christian scholars have responded that if the origin of life really were so straightforward and simple, biochemists would have been able to create life rather easily in the lab by now.⁶ They note that even the most knowledgeable, skillful, and technologically well-equipped biochemists are still struggling to link, chemically, any more than 50 amino acids, let alone create a functional protein, and none has yet been able to manufacture an RNA or DNA molecule. Thus, it appears that some Being far more knowledgeable and powerful than the world’s best biochemists is essential for life to exist. These Christians would say that the discovery of any life-form anywhere in the cosmos would simply demonstrate that God created life on at least one other of the universe’s trillions of trillions of planets.

The Bible claims that God did, indeed, create ETI. Such beings are identified as malakh in Hebrew and angelos in Greek. Angels are described in 38 of the Bible’s 66 books. According to the Bible, these creatures differ from humans in that they are not constrained by either the known laws of physics or the known space-time dimensions. Rather, they exist in a realm distinct from the universe, yet have been granted power to enter the human realm for brief episodes—either in physical or nonphysical form.⁷

Whether these ETI are physical beings constrained by the physics and dimensions of the universe or nonphysical beings unconstrained by the physics and dimensions of the universe—their existence in no way threatens the veracity of the Bible. At a minimum, the Judeo-Christian Scriptures affirm the existence of such beings, and they neither affirm nor deny the possibility that God created other physical beings.

Doctrinal Implications of ETI

According to the Bible, we are not alone. What’s open for debate is whether or not God has created one or more species of life on other planets—intelligent, technologically capable physical beings. Christian scholars have debated this question for two millennia.

Some point out that nothing in the Bible says God did not create life on other planets, and the creation psalm, Psalm 104, celebrates God’s creation of an abundance and diversity of life. Everywhere one may go on Earth—from ocean depths to mountain heights—we find a variety of life-forms. Psalm 104, along with other psalms,⁸ plus the books of Job⁹ and Isaiah,¹⁰ proclaim how abundantly and joyfully God created all manner of Earth’s life.

Many Christian scholars have cited this manifest exuberance for the creation of life as strong evidence that physical ETI must be prevalent throughout the universe. This belief explains why various forms of ETI show up so frequently in literature written by Christian authors.¹¹

Other Christians argue that if, indeed, God has created physical ETI on multiple bodies throughout the universe, the Bible would not be silent about them, especially given how much the Bible has to say about angels. Of course, the Bible is silent on many topics and issues that have no bearing on how humans can be rescued from their fallen condition and come to enjoy an eternal, loving relationship with their Creator. If extraterrestrial beings have not rebelled against God and, thus, remain in unbroken relationship with their Creator, why would the Bible mention them?

Range of Possibilities

Christian scholars who maintain that we are alone point out that the New Testament Gospels reveal a God who is purposeful and selective in the miracles he performs. We see several instances where the crowds and individuals, including King Herod, demanded a miracle. However, in every such instance, Jesus refused to perform one. These accounts suggest that God limits miracles to those he chooses, in keeping with his purposes.

This economy-of-miracles principle relates to the existence of ETI in this way: God’s stated purpose—populating a new creation with free-will beings who can be trusted to exercise their free will only for good—requires only one planet with a population of physical, sentient, spiritually endowed beings. These creatures have been granted the capacity to recognize God’s existence and self-sacrificial love and, despite all manner of temptation to do otherwise, place their hope and trust in him alone, both for their earthly life and the life beyond.

One of the stronger arguments against ETI comes from Hebrews 10:10: “we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus once for all” (emphasis mine). This passage would deny that God visited multiple planets to sacrifice himself over and over to redeem fallen beings. It does not rule out, however, the existence of microbes, trees, or dolphins created on other planets. It does not rule out the existence of sinless creatures, nor does it rule out the possibility that Jesus’ sacrificial death on Earth somehow atoned for the sins of fallen beings on other planets. Just as humans on Earth can learn about, verify, and respond to God’s incarnation, atoning sacrifice, and resurrection, physical-spiritual beings on other planets could conceivably learn about and verify the same events via the Holy Spirit’s communication with them.

The latter theological model does have some bearing on how one interprets what the Bible says about the timing of the “new creation.” If there is more than one planet in the universe with physical, sentient, spiritual beings in need of redemption, then the timing of their existence in cosmic history could possibly affect the timing of redeemed humanity’s entrance into the new creation (as described in Revelation 21–22), but this issue is peripheral.

Although the latest astronomical observations indicate that we likely are the only beings of our kind in the universe, we are never really alone.¹² Christians who take the Bible as a wholly truthful revelation from God are free to believe any one or more of these ETI scenarios, all of which provide hope for a life that has meaning and purpose and community without end.

Nontheists who view life from a naturalistic perspective have no such hope. Whether or not physical life abounds in the universe, the unchanging physical laws of the universe indicate that cosmic expansion will continue toward an eventual “heat death.” That’s when space-time, mass, and energy become too diffuse for physical life of any kind, however brilliant or capable, to exist.

Notes
1. “‘E.T.’ Named Best Family Movie,” Hollywood.com (June 7, 2014): hollywood.com/movies/e-t-named-best-family-movie-57159121.
2. Hugh Ross, Designed to the Core (RTB Press, 2022); Hugh Ross, Improbable Planet: How Earth Became Humanity’s Home (Baker Books, 2016).
3. Zeeya Merali, “Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Gets a $100-Million Boost,” Nature 523 (July 23, 2015), 392–393: nature.com/articles/nature.2015.18016; Jill Tarter et al., “The First SETI Observations with the Allen Telescope Array,” Acta Astronautica 68, nos. 3–4 (February 2011), 340–346: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0094576509004056; David H.  E. MacMahon et al., “The Breakthrough Listen Search for Intelligent Life: A Wideband Data Recorder System for the Robert  C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope,” Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 130, no. 986 (Feb. 21, 2018): sciencegate.app/document/10.1088/1538-3873/aa80d2; Noah Franz et al., “The Breakthrough Listen Search for Intelligent Life: Technosignature Search of Transiting TESS Targets of Interest,” Astronomical Journal 163, no. 3 (March 2022): https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/ac46c9.
4. Zhi-Song Zhang et al., “First SETI Observations with China’s Five-Hundred-Meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST),” Astrophysical Journal 891, no. 2 (March 17, 2020): https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ab7376.
5. Constance M. Bertka, “Christianity’s Response to the Discovery of Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life: Insights from Science and Religion and the Sociology of Religion,” in Astrobiology, History, and Society: Advances in Astrobiology and Biogeophysics (Springer-Verlag, 2013), 329–340: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-35983-5_18.
6. Fazale Rana, Creating Life in the Lab: How New Discoveries in Synthetic Biology Make a Case for the Creator (Baker Books, 2011).
7. One example is the angels who ate dinner with Abraham (Genesis 18:1–22).
8. Psalms 8, 29, 33, 65, 139, 145, 148.
9. Job 12:7–10; 38:36—41:34.
10. Isaiah 42:5; 44:23–24; 45:18.
11. Some well-known Christian authors of science fiction involving ET and ETI are C.  S. Lewis, J.  R.  R. Tolkien, and Madeleine L’Engle.
12. Psalms 139:7–12.