In his essay, "Religion and Rocketry", Lewis poses several questions. If there are alien species and if they have "rational souls", are they fallen like the human race? Assuming the first two questions are true, the third is one that I, as well as many other sci-fi and fantasy fans, have overlooked. Would alien species need Christ's Redemption? Some stories address part of this topic--how we would compare the new species to ourselves. In many stories, the species ("rational souls", or not) is viewed as savage, mindless, corrupt, and/or sub-human. Lewis makes the point that an elevated view of humanity is a flawed one. Because Christ came to our world to die for men "precisely because men are not worth dying for; to make them worth it." So then, if these other-worldly beings are fallen and need a Savior, what does that say for our faith? When asked whether or not he thought aliens existed, my dad's answer was always no, because that would mean that Christ would have to die for them as well when He died once and for all of all the earth. But is it impossible, according to our faith, that He died on another world to rescue its inhabitants? I don't know if I see that as a deal-breaker for Salvation. But it is certainly something to think about.
Another thing that came to mind while reading this essay was the question of an afterlife for these beings. Would they be present in the same Heaven or Hell as humans? Would they even need Salvation in the first place, or if they did, would it be to the same extent that we do? And if so, would that have any affect, theologically or otherwise, on us?
Too many questions at too late an hour.
To some extent, I wonder how much it matters that the "people" in question are actually extraterrestrials? What do we say about terrestrial folks who've never heard about Christ? Whatever that is, why can't we say the same thing about aliens? Does it matter if someone is separated from knowledge of what Christ did by space instead of by ocean or jungle? How? Just wondering....
ReplyDeleteLewis of course explores the idea of an unfallen rational species in Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra. Well worth reading, and I'm sorry we couldn't fit them in.
Also interesting are Mary Doria Russell's novel The Sparrow and Robert J. Sawyer's Calculating God, both of which deal with aliens and God. While the latter is an amusing and clever story, the former is sometimes very disturbing.