So would that mean an Alien or Martian (if they were to exist) who had a soul and was willing would be turned away on theological grounds (under current teaching)? Or would this be the kind of thing or issue that would require a Papal/magisterium judgement call? I am curious only because this would prove to be an interesting point and furthermore how would we judge which type of sould they had (animal or human) in terms of eternal life.
What it means is that this question has already been asked-and-answered by the Church. It might not seem that way to some, but that’s the plain truth of it.
Long ago, in the early centuries of the Church, it became a settled issue that we
human beings are redeemed very specifically because God became man. That’s why we say it in the Creeds. An entire discipline of theology exists on this subject matter, we call it Incarnational Theology, a subtopic of Christology.
If we were to say that any other species has been or could be redeemed by the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, the Word-Become-Flesh, the God-Become-Man, then we would be denying everything about our Christian faith (yes, everything). We would have to go all the way back to the 4th century Arian controversy and start everything all over again, because everything we think we know about the Incarnation would be wrong. Indeed, we would have to back to the Annunciation itself and re-think its meaning.
Did Mary say “let it be done unto me” to allow herself to become the mother of an Incarnate God-Man-Martian? This is not some silly caricature. It is a very serious question which would have to be asked if we were to want to change our Christian faith to allow for the possibility of any other species (terrestrial or alien) of being redeemed.
As I said earlier, this is not a new question. This question has been considered settled and beyond dispute (dogma) since the earliest centuries.
Only that which was assumed at the Incarnation can be saved by the Incarnation. In the person of Jesus Christ, God became man. He did not become God-man-martian, or any other species, known, unknown, or hypothetical.
There is a
reason why we spend so many words in the Creeds speaking about the Incarnation. There is a reason why we say in the Creed
Code:
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and became man.
To say, or even speculate that aliens might be saved by the Incarnation of Christ would be a betrayal of those words in the Creeds and every other time those or similar words or concepts appear in our Christian faith. And indeed,
this is the very concept around which all of salvation history revolves. God became man.
This is not a new question by any means. It is one that the Church has considered quite thoroughly. God became man.
Only that human nature which was assumed at the Incarnation can be redeemed by the Incarnation.
