Theory: Fallen Alien Worlds would need to go like ours

[spauline]

**Theory: Fallen Alien Worlds would need to go like ours
**

I think that Vatican paper that says there could be aliens is bogus. I think they are a little liberal, and don’t speak for the pope. Cuz if other worlds fell, they wouldn’t last without a Flood and Babel, or something like that. And moreover, they would need Judaism and then Christ IN THEIR OWN world. I don’t think these liberal wimps that write that magazine and run that paper have really thought things through.

What do you other Catholics think about this?

for example, let us just follow the implications: if a world fell, would it not become nearly totally wicked, saving a remnant, just like our Noah’s day? But couldn’t we argue, if we were Orthodox, that if God HADN’T sent the Flood, that the world would’ve killed itself off?

Cuz I think that if the world that we have will end because man rejects Chrsitianity irrevocably–implying that the intrinsic, incurable wickedness guarantees a Divine Intervention to prevent extinction (“unless those days are shortened, no flesh should be saved. But for the sake of the elect, those days shall be shortened”)–then how could NOAH’s DAY have lasted without a Flood? Therefore, if another world fell, some Divine Chastisement would need to cleanse away the wicked and spare the remnant, else that world would end before it got started to be Redeemed.

 

[aperture]

I honestly cannot understand what you’re saying. A fallen alien world would need some sort of disaster to be saved? Where is the contradiction in this?

 

[tjm190]

Who says there can’t be aliens?

 

[ricmat]

I have no opinion on your proposition, but coincidentally, I am just finishing the fiction book “Perelandra” by CS Lewis which tells a story of “how an alien world might fall (as in ‘original sin’)” - and to some degree, how our world fell as well.

It’s a great book, part of the Space Trilogy, for those of you who haven’t read it.

 

[spauline]

gosh, this thread is rated one star. Eek. It must be the non-faithful Catholics here.

Look, let me start to elaborate.

In our world, every time a great stage of sin arises, it pretty much takes the respective collection of persons into total depravity. Total depravity would be seen, I think, in ANY material world, as the antitheses of the base principles of goodness. The base principles of goodness, as per the Baltimore Catechism, are:

Know, love and serve God in this life
Be happy with HIm in the next life

Therefore, wickedness, in summary, is the antithesis of these principles:

No regard to know, love and serve God
Seeking happiness from THIS world rather than the world to come

Now, look, at the introductory ages of this world.

First, humanity fell into the first error, no regard to know, love and serve God. This was Noah’s day. God responded with a destruction of humanity and the sparing of the holy remnant, Noah and His family.

The next was Babel, which seems to symbolize the pursuit of a material utopia (let us build a tower unto heaven), a glorificaiton of man and the creation to the detriment of the glory of the creator, that is, seeking ultimate fulfillment from the CreaTION in THIS world, rather than the CreaTOR in the NEXT world.

Well, wouldn’t these conditions be the same in ANY material world, seeing as these principles would still apply.

Further, it seems that man’s stubbornness in the fallen nature rendered these chastisements necessary, if only because man was apparently unable to be diverged from these lies of the fallen nature by a mere CONDITIONAL THREAT of such chastisements. THat is, it seems that because God did not make these avertable through repentance, it must have been because GOd knew that they wouldn’t repent, and so sent the chastisements UNconditionally, as opposed to conditionally when we look at the Babylonian exile, which did not NEED to happen, but only happened because the Jews didn’t repent in time.

Hence, I am arguing, that any material world would already include these introductory stages if God wishes to guide the history toward a salvation, seeing as, if God left the condition of fallen man in these conditions, Redemption could not be started, and that, in fact, given the first condition of the derivative “Noah’s Day”, unless God destroyed the world and started over with a remnant, the particular world would end, seeing as there is nothing to restrain the wickedness that, if unchecked, leads to the self-extinction of the creatures.

Does that make sense?:

 

[vera_dicere]

We’re talkign about God. To say there are defintely or defintely not aliens is to pigeon hole the Lord. It is not beyond His ability to craft other worlds, nor is it beyond His ability to provide said worlds with alternative means of salvation.

So, I accept the possibility of alien life. Whether it’s more advanced than our’s or is simply a few single cellular organisms in some sludge somewhere is debatable.

To say 100% that there are no aliens is arrogant and reeks of an assumption of a limit on the Lord’s power.

And besides, who’s to say there’s not an alien species out there that are free of the rebellion against God that infests man?

 

[vera_dicere]

First, humanity fell into the first error, no regard to know, love and serve God. This was Noah’s day. God responded with a destruction of humanity and the sparing of the holy remnant, Noah and His family.

The next was Babel, which seems to symbolize the pursuit of a material utopia (let us build a tower unto heaven), a glorificaiton of man and the creation to the detriment of the glory of the creator, that is, seeking ultimate fulfillment from the CreaTION in THIS world, rather than the CreaTOR in the NEXT world.

You seem to be basing your entire argument on bibical stories that are historically inaccurate.

The Flood and Babel are stories, constructed to explain to an early, ignorant culture God’s intervention and power.

They cannot be seriously used to debate agaisnt the existance of life on other worlds and by which methods the Lord uses to offer them slavation.

 

[spauline]

You seem to be basing your entire argument on bibical stories that are historically inaccurate.

The Flood and Babel are stories, constructed to explain to an early, ignorant culture God’s intervention and power.

They cannot be seriously used to debate agaisnt the existance of life on other worlds and by which methods the Lord uses to offer them slavation.

Hi, vera,
thank you for the reply. Firstly, I agree that a world does not NEED to fall. I am only concerning myself with FALLEN worlds, if any exist, for if a world has not fallen, there is nothing of interest to the world, since it is not in need of redemption. In a nonfallen world, the creatures live in peace and grow together in unity in knowledge and love of God.

But GIVEN a fall of a world, several factors come into play.

Secondly, my argument is not, of course, that God COULDN’T create other worlds. Of course He could.

I am arguing that any fallen world would need the same spiritual stages that ours would, and that, therefore, why would God create other worlds when the history would be the same anyway? God is not arbitrary. There is only ONE Son of God, not many. ONE Incarnation, not many.

That being set aside, your estimation of the Flood and Babel reeks of an alternative arrogance that does not even admit an allegory of history here. The CCC seems rather plain that Catholic Tradition does see some sense of history in those stories, if even they are allegorical in nature.

For example, alhthough Gen. 1-3 are clearly allegory, they are describing ages of history: Creation, Original Justice, and the Fall, all of which are addressed dogmatically as generally realities, even though, again, they are being allegorically represented.

Now, we can grant that between the Fall and Christ, nothing is dogma about what history is real history from the OT, but the CCC seems to imply that the Flood and Babel have some historical context:

see next post…

 

[spauline]

…

Here is the quote from the CCC:

ARTICLE 1
THE REVELATION OF GOD
I. GOD REVEALS HIS "PLAN OF LOVING GOODNESS"
51 "It pleased God, in his goodness and wisdom, to reveal himself and to make known the mystery of his will. His will was that men should have access to the Father, through Christ, the Word made flesh, in the Holy Spirit, and thus become sharers in the divine nature."2
52 God, who “dwells in unapproachable light”, wants to communicate his own divine life to the men he freely created, in order to adopt them as his sons in his only-begotten Son.3 By revealing himself God wishes to make them capable of responding to him, and of knowing him and of loving him far beyond their own natural capacity.
53 The divine plan of Revelation is realized simultaneously "by deeds and words which are intrinsically bound up with each other"4 and shed light on each another. It involves a specific divine pedagogy: God communicates himself to man gradually. He prepares him to welcome by stages the supernatural Revelation that is to culminate in the person and mission of the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ.

St. Irenaeus of Lyons repeatedly speaks of this divine pedagogy using the image of God and man becoming accustomed to one another: The Word of God dwelt in man and became the Son of man in order to accustom man to perceive God and to accustom God to dwell in man, according to the Father’s pleasure.5
II. THE STAGES OF REVELATION
In the beginning God makes himself known
54 "God, who creates and conserves all things by his Word, provides men with constant evidence of himself in created realities. And furthermore, wishing to open up the way to heavenly salvation - he manifested himself to our first parents from the very beginning."6 He invited them to intimate communion with himself and clothed them with resplendent grace and justice.
55 This revelation was not broken off by our first parents’ sin. "After the fall, [God] buoyed them up with the hope of salvation, by promising redemption; and he has never ceased to show his solicitude for the human race. For he wishes to give eternal life to all those who seek salvation by patience in well-doing."7

Even when he disobeyed you and lost your friendship you did not abandon him to the power of death. . . Again and again you offered a covenant to man.8
The Covenant with Noah
56 After the unity of the human race was shattered by sin God at once sought to save humanity part by part. The covenant with Noah after the flood gives expression to the principle of the divine economy toward the “nations”, in other words, towards men grouped “in their lands, each with [its] own language, by their families, in their nations”.9
57 This state of division into many nations is at once cosmic, social and religious. It is intended to limit the pride of fallen humanity10 united only in its perverse ambition to forge its own unity as at Babel.11 But, because of sin, both polytheism and the idolatry of the nation and of its rulers constantly threaten this provisional economy with the perversion of paganism.12
58 The covenant with Noah remains in force during the times of the Gentiles, until the universal proclamation of the Gospel.13 The Bible venerates several great figures among the Gentiles: Abel the just, the king-priest Melchisedek - a figure of Christ - and the upright “Noah, Daniel, and Job”.14 Scripture thus expresses the heights of sanctity that can be reached by those who live according to the covenant of Noah, waiting for Christ to “gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad”.15

It seems therefore, that if you challenge the assertions of the CCC here, which you seem to do at least in part, it betrays that you are somewhat liberal and in dissent of Church teaching.

In which case, your antagonism to my ideas is partly your own fault, that you are not fully credible. These arguments are for FAITHFUL Catholics, who already accept the WHOLE Church teaching and not just SOME of it.