Could Jesus have died on other planets too if aliens exist?

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Hypothetically lets say there is life on other planets. Would Jesus have to die on that planet also in order to bring about salvation for them? Or, would this only be the case if that alien race committed original sin as the original sin of Adam and Eve is only of the human race, and thus this alien race wouldn’t be impacted by it.

So would in theory an alien race live in a sinless and perfect world if there was never any original fall there? The devil would have the same temptation as it did in the garden of eden but maybe these aliens didn’t fall to it as Adam and Eve did?

Lets say they did not fall to it and live in a sinless world as God initially intended, would temptation still exist on a daily basis since temptation isn’t a result of the fall (because it existed before the fall).

In theory, lets say multiple planets supporting life have fallen to temptation, is it possible that Jesus has come down to these planets and been crucified multiple times for them since His crucifixion on Earth would only bring about the salvation of the human race?

In this hypothetical scenerio, could this also mean Jesus has multiple sets of different Apostles, Popes, Saints, and an entirely different Bible? Their Roman Catholic Church would be based on however their set of Apostles built it.

Obviously this is all hypothetical but if an alien race does in fact exist, doesn’t this open up all these questions to discussion? They seem like rather far-fetched questions but if other life does exist, then aren’t these questions valid topics to consider?
 
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Couldn’t we also consider that, the devil is not likely to use the same temptations twice as the devil will want to try to adapt and become more cunning and smarter on other planets in order to try to have greater success in the devil’s evilness. So would “the fall” look totally different than? The 7 Deadly Sins are tempting for humans but maybe not for other alien races?
 
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I was just thinking about this yesterday.
So, here’s what I came up with.

Jesus had no body before the incarnation & returned to heaven with His body. So that seems pretty set.

Most importantly, all of creation was affected by His ressurection just as all of creation fell due to original sin.

Animals didn’t sin, but were still affected by the fall. Other planets are full of destruction too we know. So, if other intelligent life exists on another planet it would also be affected by the fall of humanity.

The question is… are they also made in Gods image with the ability to house God within them and affect all of creation by sin? The Catholic Church would have to declare a dogma eventually.

In the meantime, I’d think of them like brothers, fellow children of God. I think we’d have to spread the message of Christ upon meeting them. Like missionaries.

There’s only one “all of creation”, and it either fell from perfection or didn’t. So, I think other planets are included.

We’d be kind of like Isreal. First children with God pulling in His other children through us.

Pretty cool.
 
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So you think it is unlikely there are multiple sets of Apostles and potentially multiple sets of Roman Catholic Churches? Each being inspired by the Holy Spirit? Obviously only hypothetical but it is interesting to think about
 
I think it’s possible there’s multiple churches on different planets.

It just seems unlikely to me with what we already know.
God’s always done an expansion of covenants on our planet. At least partially because we’re all to be one. He’s never done multiple equally true religions before. God even left A LOT of people out of the loop for thousands of years rather than reveal himself to multiple groups simultaneously.
Seems against His nature.

Also, What did Jesus do with his glorified body? How important is the incarnation if he’s just using His body like a suit to trade for different styles? (Which also would seem to go against Catholic teachings that we are bodies and we are souls NOT souls wearing bodies)

There can’t be more than one fall in my eyes though. That just doesn’t make sense unless there’s been multiple creations that have begun and ended. Which I’ve wondered about.

Maybe that’s where angels came from. Some previous spiritual only creation that’s now passed away.
 
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I suggest the question can’t be answered until we FIND intelligent extra-terrestrial life.

Now we know we are the only intelligent life in the Solar System – we’ve done enough exploration to confirm that. There MAY be life somewhere else in the Solar System, but not intelligent life capable of communicating in the electro-magnetic spectrum, as we do,.

What about outside the solar system? In his book, Life 3.0, Max Tegmark offers a pretty compelling argument that if there is another high-tech civilization anywhere near us:
" . . . making it unlikely that it’s in the narrow range between the edge of our galaxy (about 10^21 meters away) and the edge of our universe (about 10^26 meters away). If it were much closer than this, it would mean there are so many other advanced civilizations in our galaxy that we’d probably have noticed, which suggests we’re in fact alone in our universe."

In other words, the argument that “The Universe is so large, there must be other civilizations” is refuted by the argument “If there are other civilizations in the space we can see, there must be so many of them that we’d have already detected at least some of them.”
 
Also, the Universe is so large that even if there was another intelligent civilization it’s unlikely that we’d ever see each other. The distances are incomprehensible vast.
 
The late Ray Bradbury had a short story, “The Man” on this idea ( in The Illustrated Man ) and a long poem, “Christus Apollo” ( I Sing the Body Electric ). While well intentiod, I now think it’s borderline heretical, since Scripture says Christ died ONCE for our sins, with no implication of this needing to be repeated anywhere else–no matter what the Mormons say…🤩
 
Cruciferi said:
Also, the Universe is so large that even if there was another intelligent civilization it’s unlikely that we’d ever see each other. The distances are incomprehensible vast.
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And consider this – the Titanic sank in 1912, 107 years ago. It was the first ship to use the SOS radio signal, and there was considerable radio traffic between the Carpathian (that rescued the survivors) and New York City.

Now imagine there’s a high-tech civilization 50 light years away. They’ve had time to receive radio signals from Earth, study them and send us a reply – we should be getting it right now. What good would it do us, other than knowing we’re not alone?

We could ask them questions – but imagine we had asked questions in 1912, and are getting the answers now. Make a list of all the burning scientific questions of 1912, and you’ll see they fall into two categories – questions we’ve already answered ourselves in the intervening years, and irrelevant questions based on false assumption.
 
Questions like this make me want to avoid teaching CCD. :crazy_face:
 
Opal0427 said:
The Catholic Church would have to declare a dogma eventually.
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No, not at all. The faith is for our salvation as human beings, and does not extend to other species. We have the full tradition from the Apostles and there is nothing out in the universe that would add anything essential to the revelation God has given us in Christ. Our first parents fell, and the gospel is our remedy. Whether or what religions extraterrestrials have, which may or may not be their own invention (if they’re confused like us, then most of them would be) or they may have a revelation of their own, we don’t know.
 
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I propose a further complication, namely, the history of Judaism on these others planets. This would also have to be addressed since, like it or not, Christianity and The New Testament (including the Gospels, of course) are based on The Old Testament (including the Law). Jesus is not some detached historical figure; he was born and raised as a Jew and learned and elaborated upon (or changed) the Law. His birth, life, Passion, death, and Resurrection were intimately linked to Jewish society and culture. How would all of this play out with aliens on other planets?
 
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meltzerboy2 said:
How would all of this play out with aliens on other planets?
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Why should they care? That’s not a flippant question; but as a Christian I believe God chose Abraham to father a Nation for Himself, to prepare for his incarnation. An incarnation that was conceived to restore a broken relationship. Our story is about an inspired (literally) — but corrupted — species on this little blue planet. ETs might find it fascinating, but it’s not their story.
 
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So you believe that this whole human relationship with G-d and Jesus that changed humanity on several levels happened on this one, solitary, lowly planet Earth and nowhere else, including planets that may have intelligent life, perhaps more intelligent than our own?
 
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I don’t know what God has done on other planets. 🙂 (To be perfectly honest, I don’t know what he’s done here, either, but I have faith). Jesus is the incarnation of the Son, and he lived on this planet. And he will return here. What the Son has done on other planets, we can imagine; but we can’t limit him to his incarnated humanity. [This is all in Aquinas, by the way, it’s not my original theology.] As speculated, maybe we’re a strange species for disobeying our creator, and others may never have fallen. If they are spiritual, then they have a relationship with God, but it probably doesn’t involve a crucifix.
 
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Neithan said:
I don’t know what God has done on other planets…Jesus is the incarnation of the Son, and he lived on this planet. And he will return here. What the Son has done on other planets, we can imagine; but we can’t limit him to his incarnated humanity. [This is all in Aquinas, by the way, it’s not my original theology.] As speculated, maybe we’re a strange species for disobeying our creator, and others may never have fallen.
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I agree. God is limitless and therefore we can sit around making up endless speculations about what God did, does or will do on some other planet. Some people find this interesting to think about. Others (like me) find it a tedious waste of time.

But the bottom line is, we don’t know. And it’s not relevant to us in any event. Our concern is what Christ did when he came to Planet Earth as a human.
 
Dolphin said:
Hypothetically lets say there is life on other planets. Would Jesus have to die on that planet also in order to bring about salvation for them? Or, would this only be the case if that alien race committed original sin as the original sin of Adam and Eve is only of the human race, and thus this alien race wouldn’t be impacted by it.
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It’s possible that, just like the people of Israel were God’s chosen people, the planet earth is the chosen point of contact for the salvation of the entire universe, and thus he needed only die once.
 
I actually find these speculative questions really interesting, even fun, and not tiresome — partly because I’m confident that they are moot as far as the deposit of faith goes; although I can appreciate how some might consider it akin to debating how many angels can dance on a pin or something.

Anyway, the creed says that the Son came down from heaven “for us men and for our salvation.” It doesn’t say for the salvation of the universe, but for us humans specifically. Of course, it depends on your soteriology; but why would our fall from grace, considered as a species in a particular location, extend to others that we have never had any contact with, and probably never will?
 
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