Baptizing Aliens

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Apologies for a wacky title, this thread is completely serious

Stumbled across some articles where they mentioned that Pope Benedict said he would baptize an alien.

I find this interesting… wouldn’t that open the door to baptizing dogs, cats, trees. etc?

I thought the thing that separates us from other life is that humans are made in the image of God (Jesus). Jesus became a man, not a Dog, or Alien.
“He is the image of the invisible God, firstborn over all creation etc…”

CS Lewis space trilogy kinda deal with this stuff and is pretty cool.

I guess the only aliens that we could baptize are aliens that are also made in the image of God (Jesus).

Or we would have to reconsider what image of god means?

Enjoying the speculation but still very confused 😛
 
Dogs, cats, trees, etc, lack cognitive minds (ie, rational soul).

This would make them not an image of God.

It is not being biologically alive, after all, that makes us an image of God, but the rational/spiritual/human soul.

Any aliens that could get here would have a human-class or larger mind, which would make them baptism candidates.

I wonder why all the interest in aliens from the official Church, though?

ICXC NIKA
 
TIK said:
Stumbled across some articles where they mentioned that Pope Benedict said he would baptize an alien.
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I don’t know if the quote is accurate, but why NOT Baptize an alien? It can’t hurt.

Theologically, Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross! [Phil.2:6-8]
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And, thus, we are redeemed. There is no theological reason to believe that such salvation could apply to non-human sentient life, but, hey, it can’t hurt (and it might save), so why NOT do it?
 
“Missionary to the aliens” I rather like the title. Imagine this

“Aliens fly to earth and ask to be baptized”
Amazingly, they already have memorized the New Testament, the CCC and know how to pin down the CA apologists with a few gnarly questions. They happily return the lost letters of St. Paul and twenty extra copies of early New Testament Manuscripts, all well worn and well-read; scholars go bonkers.
 
It’s a common trope in science fiction novels. See “Eiffelhelm” for a really good one.

If they had cognitive souls and asked to be baptized, then sure, there would also be children of God, just separated by a wider distance than the tribes of mankind that missionaries traveled to baptize.

If they could formulate a desire to be baptized; could understand the concept of God; and had need of baptism (living in a fallen state), I would guess they could be baptized. Koko the hand-signing gorilla, or any other intelligent animal whose speech we might be able to someday decipher, such as a dolphin, might conceivably express the first concept; I would argue that the innately possess the second concept as creations of God; but would fail on the third. Gorillas and dolphins and dogs have not sinned against God. Even if a baptismal godparent stood in on their behalf, as we do with infant baptisms, he or she could not affirm the third statement given our understanding of theology.

On an alien, it might be difficult to establish the third. See James Blish’s novel “A Case of Conscience” for an exploration of these theme.
 
ASK FATHER: Baptizing aliens who burst into flames from water. No. Really.
Okay, in the future, if we find that there is life-out-there and that life-out-there wants to be Christian, but that life-out-there takes a real dim view of water (as in bursting into flames at the touch of water – alas, Jar Jar is not one of them), how do we baptize aliens?
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Could this be an out? The Church says that we baptize humans with water. Perhaps Holy Mother Church could allow baptism of aliens with, say, liquid helium – which would be exciting, or nitrogen tetroxide - which could be interesting, in tense way, or may even with really pure hydrogen peroxide – which could do a bang up job of it, or perhaps also digoxin – which might require immediate Extreme Unction.
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atassina said:
“Missionary to the aliens” I rather like the title. Imagine this

“Aliens fly to earth and ask to be baptized”
Amazingly, they already have memorized the New Testament, the CCC and know how to pin down the CA apologists with a few gnarly questions. They happily return the lost letters of St. Paul and twenty extra copies of early New Testament Manuscripts, all well worn and well-read; scholars go bonkers.
Click to expand...
The world really wants to know when Elvis goes on tour.

-Tim-
 
TIK said:
Apologies for a wacky title, this thread is completely serious

Stumbled across some articles where they mentioned that Pope Benedict said he would baptize an alien…
Click to expand...
He didn’t say that at all.
 
If you go to the blog of Michael Flynn (sf writer, author of Eifelheim), he has info on medieval theologians and the speculative theology of the baptism of monstrous beings.

There was a fairly strong strand of tradition that said St. Christopher was a member of the non-homo sapiens, but human because rational and not angelic, people called Dogheads (Cynocephaloi). So a fair number of folks thought baptism of non-homo sapiens humans was just as much a fact as baptism of pygmies. (The Romans knew African pygmies were real, but to medieval Europe after African trade was closed off, they were just a story.)
 
neophyte said:
He didn’t say that at all.
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I can only find evidence of a Vatican astronomer with a manifest desire to baptize aliens “only if they asked”. Pope Benedict never said anything like that and Francis’ recent comments are characteristically vague and open to interpretation.
 
TIK said:
Apologies for a wacky title, this thread is completely serious

Stumbled across some articles where they mentioned that Pope Benedict said he would baptize an alien.

I find this interesting… wouldn’t that open the door to baptizing dogs, cats, trees. etc?

I thought the thing that separates us from other life is that humans are made in the image of God (Jesus). Jesus became a man, not a Dog, or Alien.
“He is the image of the invisible God, firstborn over all creation etc…”

CS Lewis space trilogy kinda deal with this stuff and is pretty cool.

I guess the only aliens that we could baptize are aliens that are also made in the image of God (Jesus).

Or we would have to reconsider what image of god means?

Enjoying the speculation but still very confused 😛
Click to expand...
Why not? They have their own masses in Spanish…oh, wait…
 
If there is intelligent life on another planet, why wouldn’t God choose to reveal himself and his love for the creatures on another planet? Who are we to say that Holy God cannot save intelligent life on other planets? Right now it is just speculation on our part because we do not know of intelligent life on another planet. As Elizium commented, the Vatican Astronomers said that life on another planet is a possibility–that is all. If there is life on another planet and God revealed himself to intelligent life on that planet, maybe he would incorporate the believers into eternal life with different signs, symbols, and rites so baptism with water wouldn’t make sense anyway. So. your question about appropriateness of baptism would not matter and everything would be alright. A great modern resource to think more about this possibility from today is Fr. Thomas O’Meara’s recent book “Vast Universe.” Fr. O’Meara taught at Notre Dame and the Aquinas Institute of Theology for many, many, many years.

Fr. O’Meara has an article summarizing his speculation on the subject here:
huffingtonpost.com/thomas-f-omeara-op/salvation-of-extraterrestrials_b_1671783.html#
 
Elizium23 said:
I can only find evidence of a Vatican astronomer with a manifest desire to baptize aliens “only if they asked”. Pope Benedict never said anything like that and Francis’ recent comments are characteristically vague and open to interpretation.
Click to expand...
Just reporting because your reply needs a thumbs up, IMHO!
 
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