What is the Christian missionary responsibility if life is discovered on other planets? Does the Great Commission call followers of Jesus to evangelize Alpha Centauri?
After all, John 3:16 says that God “so loved the world …” — not the worlds. Or moons.
In a speech titled “Did Jesus die for Klingons too?” German academic Christian Weidemann recently told attendees at a U.S. government-funded conference on space travel that discovery of other worldly life could raise some difficult questions.
The Orlando, Florida, event was billed as “The 100-Year Starship Symposium.”
“Weidemann, a professor at the Ruhr-University Bochum, said that the death of Christ, some 2,000 years ago, was designed to save all creation, writes Gavin Allen in the British newspaper the Daily Mail:
However, the whole of creation, as defined by scientists, includes 125billion galaxies with hundreds of billions of stars in each galaxy.
That means that if intelligent life exists on other planets, then Jesus or God would have to have visited them too, and sacrificed himself equally for Martian-kind as well as mankind.
The alternative, posits Weidemann, is that Jesus chose earthlings as the single race to save and abandoned every other life form in the galaxy.
Or, it could have been because humans were the only race who had sinned and required ‘saving’, said Weidemann, who added: ‘You can grasp the conflict.’
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posted October 5, 2011 at 2:53 am
I am total surprised of that out of content remark. When God said that HE SO LOVED THE WORLD, It didn’t mean that he so loved the universe. The world. It refers to us people. because he SENT HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN CHILD SO WHOMEVER BELEIVES IN HIM WOULD BE SAVED. God loves us because we are his creation. Sinners and not sinners and He is proud of his work. That’s why we must honor the glory to Him. But some people make a mock of these. It is obviously clear, those are not God’s children. GOD PLEASE, FORGIVE THEM FOR THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY DO.
posted October 6, 2011 at 3:46 pm
That is mighty arogant of us to think that another world would have come to a time when an ultimate sacrafice as Jesus’s would even be neccessary. Maybe the other worlds “got it” from the beggining, maybe the other “Eve(s)” didn’t fall into sin. Maybe Jesus went but didn’t have to die. It’s sad to think that there couldn’t be a place where beings are’nt like the ones the inhabit this planet called Earth!!
posted October 6, 2011 at 8:26 pm
jesus died for the sins of adam and his decsendance not for these other beings,they are outside of the covenet.adam’s decsendance where under the curse of the law.
posted October 8, 2011 at 4:06 pm
Read Isaac Assimov’s “Christus Apollo”. He has a provocative answer to this question.
posted October 10, 2011 at 9:29 am
Would Jesus need to perform a redemptive sacrifice on all planets supporting persons with free will? Maybe.
Saint Pio [Padre Pio] could bilocate. He was just human. The God-man, as an infinite Divine Person, could, in a way we don’t understand maybe, appear in many places at once over millions or billions of years to save all persons everywhere.
posted October 12, 2011 at 1:35 pm
I wonder this all the time! And some scientists believe that dolphins are as smart as humans. Do dolphins have souls? Was there a dolphin Jesus that had to die for dolphins?
posted October 23, 2011 at 2:25 pm
Or better yet, wouldn’t it be better to get that the Bible is the first book, the book for Earth, the starting point of “life”. We are the beginning, so that is why it is so crucial that we follow exactly the prescriptions in this Life code God gave us: the Holy Bible. He started with us as living beings, we managed to derail His wise plan. So In His infinite indulgence, wisdom and love, He found a way to give us a costly second chance. It is now up to us to prove we have understood so this plan can continue on on the right foot. Although it wasn’t expected, science is constantly finding new various ways life is and can develop on other planets (ref.:Nova last week), it is there, waiting or budding to continue on its gigantic development. As the main character mentioned in the film Contact, “otherwise, what a waste of space isn’t it?”, and God doesn’t waste a thing. If we can only get it right, we can then only prepare ourselves for more awe and have even more to be thankful for. In the meantime, thank you God for all we have for now and forgive our sins. Amen.
posted October 23, 2011 at 5:40 pm
I do think that there is life elsewhere in the universe and intelligent life, at that. This planet may be the site in which all other life in the universe became affected by the fall of the human race. The human race rebelled against its Creator and, thus, sin entered the material universie and spread throughout it.
The healing would start here on Earth through the death of Jesus Christ and spread to the rest of the universe. It may not be necessary for Christ to go to other planets and die for those races, since they, more than likely, would not be the cause of the breach in the universe caused by sin. Instead, they would be affected by the breach in differing forms and degrees. Plus, humans are responsible to preach the Gospel to other humans.
Christ died to redeem humanity and, thus, reconcile all creation, wherever that may be, to Himself.
posted October 23, 2011 at 8:54 pm
In My Father’s House there are many mansions….this could mean the entire universe, also…and the book of Enoch, which was taken from the bible says: – Milik, Jazef. T., ed. The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4
The Book of Enoch is “an ancient composition known from two sets of versions, an Ethiopic one that scholars identify as ’1 Enoch’, and a Slavonic version that is identified as ’2 Enoch’, and which is also known as The Book of the Secrets of Enoch. Both versions, of which copied manuscripts have been found mostly in Greek and Latin translations, are based on early sources that enlarged on the short biblical mention that Enoch, the seventh Patriarch after Adam, did not die because, at age 365, ‘he walked with God’ – taken heavenward to join the deity.”
posted October 25, 2011 at 9:05 pm
I for one believe that Jesus was talking to the known world as people saw it then and could envision it growing. If he had intended for us to evangelize and try to save aliens then he would have given us the ability to travel through space to do such an act. Until then I believe we have enough issues to work on while living as a Christian on this planet for now.
posted October 28, 2011 at 1:01 am
What if, Our father in heaven is alien? What if he planted us here to thrive and we blew it. Like we arent blowing it now. So he sent his son down to die for us and pass us from our sins? I cant personally think we would be the only planet with life. I dont have a deffinate answer so I will still pray and give thanks for everything that I have and be the best I can be. But sometimes I wonder.
posted October 28, 2011 at 1:47 am
The notion that God sent His only son to save humanity suggests how arrogrant we can be. It also says that “God created the Heavens and the Earths” suggesting more than one Earth and more planets with inhabitants
that possess intellegence and, just like us, would want to believe in something “bigger” than yourselves. God gave us a powerful brain, yet we seem to regress in certain areas. Are we still “growing” in terms of evolution? But so slowley, and filled with greed. God help us all.
posted October 28, 2011 at 5:54 am
Life is life. Jesus is master of life, ALL life. He came to prepare and save all of mortal life from death, satan’s cryptic tool.
The unconscious appeal of the super-popular movie “et” was so great precisely because it tellingly spoke to this thematic reality.
posted October 28, 2011 at 11:35 am
The Bible says that God created the Heavens and the earth – ONE earth. We don’t know what He was doing the rest of the time. He could have created just about anything He wanted to. Thank You, God, for all you created.
posted October 31, 2011 at 4:49 pm
To me, there is no question that Jesus would die for any sentient life. As for non-sentient life, they do not *sin* because technically, they don’t know any better, but yes, I do believe that non sentient but semi intelligent life does go to a benign place after death.
posted November 3, 2011 at 5:42 pm
Scientists are coming to the conclusion that there are so many rare and necessary conditions for advanced life to exist as we know and recognize it, that we may be alone in the universe. See: The Rare Eath Hypothesis.
posted November 27, 2011 at 4:01 am
Didn’t Jesus tell his apostles “I have sheep in other pastures, of which you do not know” or words to that effect? Haven’t we always thought he was talking about other places on this planet? If interested, and willing to follow the rules of a local human church, shouldn’t we be willing to accept him/her/it into the church of choice as we would into citizenship in our nation under the same conditions: observe our customs, follow our rules, pay our taxes? Perhaps the flocks and pastures were a bit more different and farther away than we thought . . . .
posted December 27, 2011 at 5:15 pm
We are not the only planet in the universe, so why not have God love every creature or life on all the planets in this vast universe? Humans on the planet Earth that think We are IT are wrong, IMO. Why would a divine being just make one tiny planet when he/she is given credit for being all powerful?