No.
Why would God create aliens in the first place and why without souls? Do you mean like animals?
I couldn’t imagine Jesus coming down to many different planets dying again and again.
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seagal
Guest
Well of course if they were created before us, but as I said that’s a huge assumption based solely on supposition. Who’s to say we couldn’t be the older species? Either scenario is just as likely.
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openmind77
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Actually there are rumors that the aliens are already here. Here is testimony from a former governor for instance: youtube.com/watch?v=IfVOeC8EiPY and youtube.com/watch?v=z3wr6_-XoRE
All this may or may not be true, but we from earth definitely don’t have the capability to visit any of the earth-like planets which are light years away anytime soon.
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Ismael
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There is no reason to exclude this possibility.
If there are alien creatures with rational intellect they will also have a rational (and thus immaterial) soul.
One might then ask several questions like:
-Does Jesus’ redemption also apply to them (I’d say no.)
-Is it possible that God incarnated in alien worlds as well (sort of Alien Jesus - I’d say that it is possible)
etc… (my answers are not definitive, of course).
Well… MAYBE.
There is no assurance for ‘steady technological and scientific advance’
For example: It’s true that technology has improved a lot the last 100 years… but most of ‘cutting-edge theoretical physics’ was defined by 50 years ago and there has not been much progress since then. (The recently experimentally discovered Higgs boson was theorized in the 60’s!).
Most of the technological innovations in physics these days are still based on theories created almost 100 years ago (quantum theory, quantum field theory, relativity).
Moreover there is no guarantee that nature even allows to travel great distances in a short time (like in star trek or star wars).
Then we must take in account that great disasters can set back a civilization as well.
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mikekle
Guest
With God, anything is possible, we only know about what he feels we need to know about…Im sure there is ALOT more though!
Plus, I have a feeling these beings are probably nothing like we are, they may not be ‘hardwired’ to sin, it may not even be an issue for them…maybe their biggest concern is something we cant even comprehend or does not apply to us.
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Ion
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I do not think there is anything good to expect from them.
They have abducted people, what do you guys think of this? Isn’t that a mortal sin?
You are concerned about their relationship with Christ while they do not care at all?
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GEddie
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Nature doesn’t provide for metal to float; we found a workaround.
Likewise for objects weighing tons to fly.
All that is needed is to find the workaround.
ICXC NIKA
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Blue_Horizon
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Tim do you really know what you mean by “soul”.
If you define “soul” the way the Catholic Church defines “soul” then it follows necessarily that if aliens do exist they must have souls.
It only then remains to discover what sort of soul they have.
The Church speaks of only three types of “soul.”
(It used to be open to a fourth type of soul but modern science put the kibosh on that one).
Vegetative (plant)
Sensitive (animal)
Intellective (human)
So if your little grey men (and women unless they are hermaphroditic) are capable of free will and abstract thought then that classifies them as “human” - even if we don’t want to know them because they aren’t the same colour as us and we probably cannot reproduce successfully with them.
The Church would probably have to revise “human souls” into different “species” if alien sightings were confirmed. At the moment men and women, though very different (men are apparently from Mars, women from Venus), are yet both called “human” even though the Church held for 1600 years that women were just “incomplete men”. Nowadays we don’t say that anymore.
But aliens, surprisingly, are more different from us than men are from women. So we would have to say they are a different species of “human”. You may be surprised to know that angels are each a different species and in fact the word “angel” describes a “genus” not a “species”. So if aliens came on the scene then the word “human” would prob follow the same fate.
Intellective souls are immortal, animal and plant ones are not.
So aliens are going to be around a long time if they exist and we prob cannot escape them in heaven/hell. Maybe that’s them with the black slinky body suits and pitchforks in ancient pictures of hell. I find it discriminatory that these latecomers get the best managerial jobs there.
We cannot assume they are fallen and in essential need of baptism.
(It may be necessary for their remaining in grace that they show solidarity with the human race by getting baptised anyway like Jesus did).
However the above doesn’t hold true if the Garden of Eden actually refers to another place beyond earth from which all human life (ie intellective souls) originated.
In that case they are indeed fallen and the sods need to be baptised or perish by the sword or missile attack as appropriate.
If they are fallen then the scientific pan-spermatic theory has just received a shot in the arm boost. It would also mean that aliens are actually our cousy-bro’s.
Chances are we might be able to inter-breed with them then - though if we have both evolved along different lines for so long it seems unlikely.
Try not to think of souls as made of matter and differing accordingly.
That would demonstrate a complete lack of imagination.
Souls differ according as to their powers over matter.
All souls that enable matter to have free will and abstract thought (intellection) are per se human. It has nothing to do with having pink skin, blue eyes, fair hair or two arms and two legs. A brain would at least seem to be required as an “interfacing organ”.
I doubt that alien’s are animals as animals probably are not capable of making spaceships or time-machines.
They could be plants. I have a few really weird ones in my back-garden that you are welcome to “take out” by whatever means you deem suitable.
PS Angels are not souls, nor do they have souls for they have no intrinsic ordering over matter. They have “authority” over matter - but only the lowest rank closest to earth.
All other 6 choirs are far to spiritual to be concerned.
That is why the fallen angels have wings that don’t work very well.
They roam/rule the earth or the “air” (which is considered “material”) which for them is being “stuck in the myre” for they are far below the height of even the lowest choir of graced angels. Having their faces stuck in materiality is their punishment as it were.
Its worst for Lucifer as he used to be in the top choir of angels (seraphim).
And of the seraphim he was at the top, very far from earth and its mundane concerns.
Angels are all intellective, like us. So “humans” have a foot in both camps as it were.
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Ion
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"The question of the reality of the soul and its distinction from the body is among the most important problems of philosophy, for with it is bound up the doctrine of a future life. "
"St. Thomas’s doctrine is briefly as follows:
- the rational soul, which is one with the sensitive and vegetative principle, is the form of the body. This was defined as of faith by the Council of Vienne of 1311;
- the soul is a substance, but an incomplete substance, i.e. it has a natural aptitude and exigency for existence in the body, in conjunction with which it makes up the substantial unity of human nature;
- though connaturally related to the body, it is itself absolutely simple, i.e. of an unextended and spiritual nature. It is not wholly immersed in matter, its higher operations being intrinsically independent of the organism;
- the rational soul is produced by special creation at the moment when the organism is sufficiently developed to receive it. In the first stage of embryonic development, the vital principle has merely vegetative powers; then a sensitive soul comes into being, educed from the evolving potencies of the organism — later yet, this is replaced by the perfect rational soul, which is essentially immaterial and so postulates a special creative act. Many modern theologians have abandoned this last point of St. Thomas’s teaching, and maintain that a fully rational soul is infused into the embryo at the first moment of its existence."
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Ion
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Yep, until you don’t see “collision with an UFO” as an option on your insurance papers it’s pure speculation…
But why do you suppose there can’t be an animal more intelligent than a human?
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Blue_Horizon
Guest
I don’t suggest anything of the sort."The question of the reality of the soul and its distinction from the body is among the most important problems of philosophy, for with it is bound up the doctrine of a future life. "
"St. Thomas’s doctrine is briefly as follows:
The existence of the soul does not reside in the intellectual potency of the material human body. You suggest that an organism with intellectual potency must have a human soul
- the rational soul, which is one with the sensitive and vegetative principle, is the form of the body. This was defined as of faith by the Council of Vienne of 1311;
- the soul is a substance, but an incomplete substance, i.e. it has a natural aptitude and exigency for existence in the body, in conjunction with which it makes up the substantial unity of human nature;
- though connaturally related to the body, it is itself absolutely simple, i.e. of an unextended and spiritual nature. It is not wholly immersed in matter, its higher operations being intrinsically independent of the organism;
- the rational soul is produced by special creation at the moment when the organism is sufficiently developed to receive it. In the first stage of embryonic development, the vital principle has merely vegetative powers; then a sensitive soul comes into being, educed from the evolving potencies of the organism — later yet, this is replaced by the perfect rational soul, which is essentially immaterial and so postulates a special creative act. Many modern theologians have abandoned this last point of St. Thomas’s teaching, and maintain that a fully rational soul is infused into the embryo at the first moment of its existence."
What I do say is that if a creature evidences acts of abstract thought then it obviously has a soul with intellective powers. To the best of my knowledge that satisfies at least one definition of “human nature” (it may be at odds with other definitions as there is no single complete definition that I am aware of) and also what makes a corporeal soul immortal.
If you hold otherwise perhaps you could supply some Thomistic quotes.
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k5rakitan
Guest
I’m sure they do, and it would be awesome to meet some of them one day. I have a friend who edits science fiction novels, so I’ll talk to her about this. Here’s one of the stories she edited that I read. It raises some very interesting questions:
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Ion
Guest
I already gave it : the human soul is specific to humans and is directly created by an act of the will of God. Why can’t be an animal more intelligent than you, able to beat you at chess every time like a computer does? The snake have tricked Eve in the garden…
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Blue_Horizon
Guest
This is nonsense so far as Aquinas is concerned.
A material creature either possess a rational soul or it does not.
Animals with the power of reason are called “human” full stop, end of story.
It may help if you research what 'the power of reason" or “rational” means according to the Aristotelian philosophy adopted by the Church.
No animal possesses such “reason”.
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Ion
Guest
Prove it.
We are not animals even if some people may think so.
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Blue_Horizon
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Ion you have now clearly demonstrated you are a Thomistic autodidact and are not yet able to understand even his basic “under the hood” philosophic structures.
If you do not trust my formal education in Aquinas there is little more I can do for you in a 5 min contribution other than suggest you take an Aquinas theology paper at your local Catholic Uni.
Humans are indeed of the genus “animal” as Aquinas states.
I am not going to “dialog” with you further on this topic.
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fhansen
Guest
This, from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, may help:
**1951 Law is a rule of conduct enacted by competent authority for the sake of the common good. The moral law presupposes the rational order, established among creatures for their good and to serve their final end, by the power, wisdom, and goodness of the Creator. All law finds its first and ultimate truth in the eternal law. Law is declared and established by reason as a participation in the providence of the living God, Creator and Redeemer of all. “Such an ordinance of reason is what one calls law.”
Alone among all animate beings, man can boast of having been counted worthy to receive a law from God: as an animal endowed with reason, capable of understanding and discernment, he is to govern his conduct by using his freedom and reason, in obedience to the One who has entrusted everything to him.**
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Ion
Guest
In the CCC the bold part is a cite from Tertullian, a symbolic explanation meant for understanding.
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