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

[IWantGod]

Of course, it depends on your soteriology;

I’m glad you pointed that out.

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?

I don’t know, but why not? If Intelligent aliens exist there must be an answer that includes them as well, otherwise it’s just Speciesism, and our deposit of faith is potentially rendered incoherent. So it’s not just a question of how many angels can dance on a pin; it’s a serous question.

1. We can either say that human-beings are the only beings in the universe with personal souls, and therefore salvation only applies to us.

or…

1. Aliens never fell from grace.

or…

1. Jesus Christ dying on the cross affected the salvation of all personal souls in the universe once and for all.

Number 3 makes a-lot more sense than Jesus potentially dying a billion times.

 

[Neithan]

Number 3 makes a-lot more sense than Jesus potentially dying a billion times.

Your summary is succinct but No. 3 assumes salvation can only be effected through an incarnation of the Son and his sacrificial death. There are an infinite number of ways. My own feeling is that we cooperated, of course without entirely aware of it, in our salvation history by demonstrating through our own invention (hinging on our free will, though corrupted) the sorts of religions we desired or expected, explicitly and implicitly, most of which involved sacrifice, and many even human sacrifice. The latter of course an ultimate example of our destructive sins against each other — ultimately by sacrificing the Son — inverted into the means of redemption.

I forget which church father said it, but the pagan religions were a kind of darkened foreshadowing of revelation in Christ, and Israel a preparation. Other species may have fallen, if they did at all, in innumerably different ways, and express very different religious sentiments. Or only some of them may have fallen, not right at the beginning, corrupting only some and not all descendants.

 

[Maximus1]

I would think Ephesians 1:3-4 might create some insight.
In Ephesians, we are chosen in him( Christ) from the foundations of the world.
This is God’s will. So the first question I would think we would need to know is would God’s will expressed in Ephesians include aliens or would God’s will be different for aliens. At least as expressed in Ephesians.
I would also consult John 1, and Colossians 1:15:19, as these passages directly describe the the Cosmic Christ.
Clearly the WORD, or Logos is preeminent in all of creation. God loves all of creation, and God is in all of creation( imminent and transcendant). God loves God. So there is no reason to think God would not have a relationship.
In terms of Jesus, that is an interesting question. In John 1:14, THE WORD became flesh. That is the most important event in our history. Christ Jesus is our mediator, we are adopted through. The mystery of incarnation is our gift.
Here I would imagine the Christian salvation would be the story elsewhere, but I would GUESS , the Aliens story would be an incarnation of their own.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Maybe not. Intelligent life doesn’t have to be anything like us or possess technology anything like ours. There could be intelligent worms in caves on Uranus, for example. They might be perfectly content to live a mile underground, not leveraging radios, etc., all the while exchanging sophisticated thoughts with each other.

But at this point, we violate Occam’s Razor – we have invented something (intelligent worms) that we have no evidence for.

In any case, my argument was about advanced intelligent beings that DO communicate in the electromagnetic spectrum.

 

[Hobgoblin]

In any case, my argument was about advanced intelligent beings that DO communicate in the electromagnetic spectrum.

So you did… Sorry about that. I misread your post the first time.

The whole topic is theoretical though. We have no evidence of any alien life.