Do space aliens have souls? Inquiring minds can check Jesuit's
book
By Carol Glatz
4 November 2005
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Galaxy-gazing scientists surely wonder about
what kind of impact finding life or intelligent beings on another
planet would have on the world.
But what sort of effect would it have on Catholic beliefs? Would
Christian theology be rocked to the core if science someday found a
distant orb teeming with little green men, women or other
intelligent forms of alien life? Would the church send missionaries
to spread the Gospel to aliens? Could aliens even be baptized? Or
would they have had their own version of Jesus and have already
experienced his universal or galactic plan of salvation?
Curious Catholics need not be space buffs to want answers to these
questions and others when they pick up a 48-page booklet by a
Vatican astronomer.
Through the British-based Catholic Truth Society, U.S. Jesuit
Brother Guy Consolmagno has penned his response to what he says are
questions he gets from the public "all the time" when he gives
talks on his work with the Vatican Observatory.
Titled "Intelligent Life in the Universe? Catholic Belief and the
Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life," the pocket-sized
booklet is the latest addition to the society's "Explanations
Series," which explores Catholic teaching on current social and
ethical issues.
Brother Consolmagno told Catholic News Service that the whole
question of how Catholicism would hold up if some form of life were
discovered on another planet has piqued people's curiosity "for
centuries."
He said his aim with the booklet was to reassure Catholics "that
you shouldn't be afraid of these questions" and that "no matter
what we learn, it doesn't invalidate what we already know" and
believe. In other words, scientific study and discovery and
religion enrich one another, not cancel out each other.
If new forms of life were to be discovered or highly advanced
beings from outer space were to touch down on planet Earth, it
would not mean "everything we believe in is wrong," rather, "we're
going to find out that everything is truer in ways we couldn't even
yet have imagined," he said.
The Book of Genesis describes two stories of creation, and science,
too, has more than one version of how the cosmos may have come into
being.
"However you picture the universe being created, says Genesis, the
essential point is that ultimately it was a deliberate, loving act
of a God who exists outside of space and time," Brother Consolmagno
said in his booklet.
"The Bible is divine science, a work about God. It does not intend
to be physical science" and explain the making of planets and solar
systems, the Jesuit astronomer wrote.
Pope John Paul II once told scientists, "Truth does not contradict
truth," meaning scientific truths will never eradicate religious
truths and vice versa.
"What Genesis says about creation is true. God did it; God willed
it; and God loves it. When science fills in the details of how God
did it, science helps get a flavor of how rich and beautiful and
inventive God really is, more than even the writer of Genesis could
ever have imagined," Brother Consolmagno wrote.
The limitless universe "might even include other planets with other
beings created by that same loving God," he added. "The idea of
there being other races and other intelligences is not contrary to
traditional Christian thought.
"There is nothing in Holy Scripture that could confirm or
contradict the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere in the
universe," he wrote.
Brother Consolmagno said that, like scientists, people of faith
should not be afraid of saying "I just don't know."
Human understanding "is always incomplete. It is crazy to
underestimate God's ability to create in depths of ways that we
will never completely understand. It is equally dangerous to think
that we understand God completely," he said in his booklet.
He told CNS that his booklet tries to show "the fun of thinking"
about what it would mean if God had created more than life on
Earth. Such speculation "is very worthwhile if it makes us reflect
on things we do know and have taken for granted," he said.
He said asking such questions as "Would aliens have souls?" or
"Does the salvation of Christ apply to them?" helps one "appreciate
what it means for us to have a soul" and helps one better
"recognize what the salvation of Christ means to us."
Brother Consolmagno said he tried to show in the booklet that "the
church is not afraid of science" and that Catholics, too, should be
unafraid and confident in confronting all types of speculation, no
matter how "far out" and spacey it may be.
For science fiction fans, Trekkies, or telescope-toting space
enthusiasts, the booklet's last chapter reveals where there are
references to extraterrestrials in the Bible.
Brother Consolmagno said the Bible is also replete with references
to or descriptions of "nonhuman intelligent beings" who worship
God. For example, he said the Scriptures talk about angels, "sons
of God" who took human wives, and "heavenly beings" that "shouted
for joy" when God created the earth.
The booklet, however, offers no "hard and fast answers" to
extraterrestrial life, since such speculation is "better served by
science fiction or poetry than by definitions of science and
theology," he wrote.
He said the booklet is meant "to put a smile on your face" and,
perhaps, make people think twice about who could be peeking at
Earth from alien telescopes far, far away.
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Editors: Readers in the United States and Canada can order this
booklet and other CTS publications through the society's Web site,
www.cts-online.org.uk, or by e-mail,
[email protected]
