With the news that seven earth-type planets that could be able to sustain organic life have been discovered around the dwarf star Trappist-1, it seems increasingly possible that humans are not alone in the universe.
So where does this leave traditional Christian beliefs?
Here are 10 questions for Christians to ponder about intelligent life on planets other than earth.
1. Can an alien go to heaven? Revelation speaks of Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, meaning that heaven transcends boundaries of time and space. If aliens do exist, then they can certainly go to heaven, as heaven has no geographical limits that restrict it to one place alone. Of course this means aliens could also go to the other place.
2. Can an alien sin? Intelligent life could surely not exist without being aware of moral ethics. Therefore an alien would certainly know how to sin, and also be in need of forgiveness and redemption. Whether this concept for an alien would be rooted in their equivalent of humanism, or related to a supernatural entity, would be one of the most fascinating things to discover about alien life.
3. Did Christ die for aliens too? If intelligent life does exist beyond earth, then missionaries will regard it as part of their gospel duty to evangelise them. But this of course depends on the answer to question 4.
4. Could Christ have been incarnated also on an alien planet? It is possible although this could have interesting consequences for the doctrine of the Trinity. A verse by the hymn writer Frederick William Faber, a Victorian High Anglican, suggestst there are possibilities in creation beyond our experience or imaginings. In There's a wideness in God's mercy, one verse reads:
There is grace enough for thousands
Of new worlds as great as this;
There is room for fresh creations
In that upper home of bliss.
5. Should we preach the gospel to aliens? There is an assumption among many commentators that Christians believe humans to be special and unique. In fact, many Christians believe Jesus to be special and unique, but that humans are less significant - rather like the millions of 'grains of sand' that Isaiah speaks of in Psalm 139. David Weintraub in his book Religions and Extraterrestrial Life said in an interview with Scientific American that Christians tend to believe humans are 'the sole focus of God's attention' but this does an injustice to many if not most Christians. In Matthew 10, we learn that not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without God knowing about it. Surely then we can assume that in his infinite ubiquity, God will also care about every individual alien that exists, just as he cares about every sparrow on earth.
6. Should we eat an alien? Leviticus tells us we cannot eat anything with cloven feet. This is just one of many dietary restrictions that few Christians actually obey as St Paul abolished them for Christians. The famous quote from psychiatrist Thomas Szasz is: 'In the animal kingdom, the rule is, eat or be eaten; in the human kingdom, define or be defined.' So while Christians might not necessarily pay much attention to Szasz, it is the case that a lot might depend on how an alien was defined by those who discovered it: human, or animal, or something else altogether.
7. Can an alien teach us anything about God? If they were found to exist, then that would teach us a lot, certainly. Currently, opinion is divided. Ken Ham, founder of Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, argues that the search for alien life and habitable planets is pointless because God uniquely created Earth and the life on it. He says the search for alien life is 'driven by man's rebellion against God'. Among Catholics, Jose Gabriel Funes, director of the Vatican Observatory, says not believing in aliens is 'putting limits on the creative freedom of God'.
8. Is there any biblical reason why there shouldn't be aliens? No. Some Christians do believe there can't be because Genesis doesn't mention it. But nor does Genesis rule it out and other verses such as Psalm 8 suggest possibilities far beyond the limits of mere earth: 'When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.'
9. If we ever met one, could we share communion? Assuming the technology might one day exist that would allow us to meet or communicate with an an alien in a galaxy far away and that he, she or it had a faith something like our own, the question whether believers of different species could share bread and wine – or the alien equivalent – together could keep theologians busy for centuries.
10. Could aliens truly be 'in the image of God'? If aliens exist then certainly they will be. To argue otherwise is to fall in the trap set for Christians by atheists and others – that humans have made God in our own image. The fact is, we cannot set human-type limits on God's awesome Creation. That is why the possibility of alien life is so exciting. Far from undermining faith in a creator, it will merely teach us more about the unending miracle of life, in all its forms.
