Does the Incarnation bar the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence?

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MJDorry

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I apologize, as I know that there have many discussions on the matter of extraterrestrial life and intelligence, and I’ve seen a few asked with regard to the Fall, but I’ve not quite seen the question posed this way.

Essentially, if we hold that Jesus was both fully man and fully God, and that He rose to Heaven bodily, how would that effect the possibility of a hypothetically fallen species on another planet? Is it theologically allowable that the Logos could incarnate as several Christs who are both fully God and fully corporeal respective to each hypothetical species? Or does our theology of the Incarnation exclude the possibility of a Vulcan Christ, Klingon Christ, Ferengi Christ who all fully God—fully the Logos—but each also uniquely only fully their own species, a la sub-trinitarian multi-aspected oneness?
 
Yes, this hypothetical species would have free will and reason. As to your second question, yes and no, possibly. He didn’t bother to set the record straight on heliocentrism and the spherical shape of the earth, so I don’t know that He would’ve found it terribly relevant to go on about a species on another planet when we had yet to even grasp the relative structure of the universe. Also, it may be that in this hypothetical scenario, we are the first in our universal timeline to fall and receive redemption.
 
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It’s simple. If there are intelligent extraterrestrials, they were created by God, and his plan covers them in some way. If they have souls and can love God, then God must have a plan for them. Are they fallen like us? If so, God has a salvation plan for them. Did they never fall from grace? If so, then they are all set. Will we ever meet them? Who knows! God knows, and he’s got it covered.
 
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The only person I knew who was both Catholic and a lover of all things ET came to the conclusion that if there was other intelligent life then they never fell because God would not lie about having to send His ONLY Son.

I tend to agree with this mostly because it makes sense to me, and I don’t really think much on the matter.
 
RandomAlias said:
t’s simple. If there are intelligent extraterrestrials, they were created by God, and his plan covers them in some way. If they have souls and can love God, then God must have a plan for them. Are they fallen like us? If so, God has a salvation plan for them. Did they never fall from grace? If so, then they are already saved. Will we ever meet them? Who knows! God knows, and he’s got it covered.
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That seems extremely closed minded. If an intelligent alien species traveled milions of light years to earth with superior technology and intellect compared to us humans, it would be in our best interest to listen to their views since their science would obviously be superior to ours.
 
A hypothetical being has no free will or determined existence. Since they are hypothetical one simply ascribes which attribute and let speculation take its course. There is no justification for linking such speculations to theology or scriptural exegesis.
 
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That’s what I was saying. Because my friend concluded that Jesus was God’s only Son, the only possibility for other life would be beings that did not require a savior. IE not fallen.
 
He GAVE His only BEGOTTEN Son (not made). This says nothing of the Son’s singular Incarnation as Jesus Christ, but rather refers to God the Son as proceeding from God the Father, Who has existed for all time and Who was given to us. The act of giving precedes the Son’s bodily conception. His bodily conception is the earthly actualization of the act of giving.
 
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Jamie5 said:
That seems extremely closed minded. If an intelligent alien species traveled milions of light years to earth with superior technology and intellect compared to us humans, it would be in our best interest to listen to their views since their science would obviously be superior to ours.
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I don’t get your assessment of my statement as closed-minded. I see no incompatibility between what I wrote and what you wrote. Maybe they are more intelligent. Of course we would benefit by listening to them and learning what they may share. Maybe they can solve some of our problems. Maybe we can also help them. This may be part of God’s plan.
 
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No.

The hypothesis went something like this.

God created all life, and perhaps other creatures that, unlike humans, were not the image and likeness of God.

Those other creatures (like angels) may have any number of human/angel/whatever traits but they did NOT fall.

My friend got there by the fact that God made it very clear that He was sending his ONLY Son to save people. God knew this was going to happen when He made people and had the perfect plan. Humans may not have required a savior if they had behaved.
 
RandomAlias said:
I don’t get your assessment of my statement as closed-minded. I see no incompatibility between what I wrote and what you wrote. Maybe they are more intelligent. Of course we listen. Maybe they can solve some of our problems. Maybe we can also help them. This may be part of God’s plan.
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I agree in that respect, but would you believe the Aliens if they could PROVE their God was real and could show us how we as humans were created? This is a conundrum that scares many religious people I feel, the thought that everything they believed or have faith in was not true.
 
MJDorry said:
His only BEGOTTEN Son (not made). This says nothing of the Son’s singular Incarnation as Jesus Christ, but rather refers to God the Son as proceeding from God the Father, Who has existed for all time.
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However, Jesus’ existance since before time spoke to God’s plan for redeeming people. Since we know that God is triune, there are no more options for other creatures to be redeemed. Thus, if they exist (as my friend’s theory goes) they must never have fallen as either we would be mislead as to God’s nature (God cannot lie, so impossible) or they would have no hope of salvation (again impossible for God)
 
I get what you’re saying, but I simply don’t see how God’s triunity excludes a subunity of corporeal incarnations, or vice versa. I’m not saying that the Son really did or would incarnate in several locations to several species, but rather that I don’t think the reasoning here against it is thus far sound.

Jesus did not exist before time. The Son existed before time, and as you say, He did speak to our redemption, which would be won through his incarnation as Jesus, but I still fail to see how this excludes his speaking to the redemption of another hypothetically fallen species. Everything He tells us pertains to us and our relationship with Him, but it does not exclude the possibility of another relationship. Certainly, it’s not explicit either way, but I would like to understand the implicitude in what was told to us, hence my asking in the first place. I don’t think anything about this hypothetical implies God lying about His true nature.
 
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Why try to limit the way that God could bring about redemption to hypothetical extraterrestrial intelligent entities?

Christ’s sacrifice was perfect and fitting for all of humanity, but that is not to say that a different form of redemption wouldn’t be fitting for a different entity.

God operates in His own way based on what would best fulfill His will. The fall of an extraterrestrial intelligent society would be unique to that society and whatever covenental relationship God had established with them, and the restoring of that covenental relationship would be equally unique.
 
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MJDorry said:
I apologize, as I know that there have many discussions on the matter of extraterrestrial life and intelligence, and I’ve seen a few asked with regard to the Fall, but I’ve not quite seen the question posed this way.

Essentially, if we hold that Jesus was both fully man and fully God, and that He rose to Heaven bodily, how would that effect the possibility of a hypothetically fallen species on another planet? Is it theologically allowable that the Logos could incarnate as several Christs who are both fully God and fully corporeal respective to each hypothetical species? Or does our theology of the Incarnation exclude the possibility of a Vulcan Christ, Klingon Christ, Ferengi Christ who all fully God—fully the Logos—but each also uniquely only fully their own species, a la sub-trinitarian multi-aspected oneness?
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No, the Incarnation does not preclude the existence of other intelligent species.

Your question presumes that somehow, each species out there (1) fell; and (2) require the same economy of salvation that we do. Neither of these can be safely assumed.

God became man because (1) man fell; and (2) God chose to redeem us by becoming man. This is OUR economy of salvation.

If there are other intelligent creatures out there, God will have his own economy for them. It may involve incarnation, but it may not. It may even be that they never fell, or that God never bound them to the same moral laws and commands as he did us, or maybe they fell and he did not see it fit to redeem them (he didn’t see it fit to redeem the angels).

God did not reveal the existence of intelligent aliens or of his plan for them. What you’re describing is possible, but God is not bound to have to do anything. We may just have to find out thorough future xenoanthropology when we finally encounter them.
 
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Jamie5 said:
… would you believe the Aliens if they could PROVE their God was real and could show us how we as humans were created?
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My faith would not be shaken. You speculate about “their God.” There is one God. Their God is our God too. The one, true God created all things and also all truth. To quote the Catechism:
God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth. … [The] things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God.
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Substitute “universe” for “world” in that.

If the hyper-intelligent beings are benevolent, they could show us truths about the universe and perhaps about human history. Perhaps they would share their faith. The only problem is, if their intelligence far surpasses ours, we would not be able to understand faith at their level. To explain it at all, they would have to map their higher-level concepts onto human-level concepts so we can grasp it. That would be both frustrating and fascinating.
 
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What if the aliens, like the movie prometheus could prove that THEY created us?
 
Then who created them? Go up the chain of causality until you reach the eternal, uncreated existence. (My apologies to St. Thomas Aquinas.)
 
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Just one more thing: if they have a book that looks like this, DO NOT BOARD THEIR SPACESHIP !!!

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

(and now I’ve revealed the source of my CAF avatar)
 
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