"The hypothesis of other savior - revealer figures in other parts of the universe does not refute strong claims for the significance of Jesus, but it would call for reexamination of the language in which those claims are stated."
She ends with two ethical issues. Carl Sagan has suggested that extraterrestrial life, if it is far advanced of us, may offer us salvation. The flaw in this thinking is the belief that technological superiority implies moral superiority. It does not. If we view the Fall as a single Edenic event, then we may argue that some extraterrestrial may have escaped it. But if we argue that the Fall is really a metaphor for our continuous development from our animal past, then we would expect all sentience to have participated in it. In either case there is no guarantee we could participate in their salvation. Lastly, Prof. Murphy raises another issue.
"The second ethical issue comes down, as so many do, to money. However exciting and important the scientific pursuit of extraterrestrial discoveries may be, Christians (and Jews and Muslims) must object to any prioritization of national resources that further deprives the stranger in the land, the widow or the orphan."It is this issue that I wish to discuss. I wish to argue why we are called to go to Mars and beyond and how this actually helps us seek balance in our earthly priorities to help the disenfranchised among us.
Part of what we are to do with this call is to bring the Good News to the poor, proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and let the oppressed go free. If we limit our view of God's creation to just this planet, are we then to ignore the possibility of brokenness and oppression on other worlds? Can we plea ignorance? We can say that we do not know enough about other worlds and we must deal with what we do know. Is our ignorance an excuse when God gives us the ability to envision such possibility? All of God's creation, all of life is spiritually interconnected, human and Martian, should there be such people. God gives us the ability to make good on our spiritual interconnection and become physically connected in an ever expanding circle of relationships.
What then are we to do with a call to encounter other sentient beings? We Americans have had this experience before, when the Europeans came to the Americas. They believed in their religion strongly and did not believe that there could be anything otherwise acceptable. They trampled on the indigenous belief systems and cultures with disastrous results for the Native Americans and indeed for their own spirituality. We do not want to repeat these mistakes. To avoid their mistake, we must on first (and subsequent) encounters, look, listen, and learn before we act.
Let us then begin with a spectrum of possibilities as illustrated in the accompanied diagram.
This spectrum is drawn relative to our own situation of Christians living on the planet Earth. It is not ontological. It is merely illustrative and directed towards Christians. A Jew or a Muslim or a Martian must redraw it to suit their own situation. There are two dimensions. The technological development dimension provides the spectrum of development relative to our own: lesser or greater than what we have achieved here on Earth. Although not everyone partakes of our technological development, it is a pervasive reality here. The other dimension is spiritual development. Again it is relative to our own Christian condition. Here we view the possibility of a people having no viable or functional religion. Roughly this is a condition where the people are bereft of any significant spiritual guidance. Furthest from this is a people whose spirituality is highly developed to the point where we would almost view them as angels. In between, relatively is our claim of the Messiah or Christ event.
We can examine three interesting points on this chart:
The first situation is somewhat like suggestions that Third World people should be evangelizing First World people. Our technology is superior, but our spiritual state is consumed with consumerism and meritocracy. A Third World missionary can bring to us a prophetic pronouncement against our idolatries and bring us back to the liberating path of Jesus. Such a missionary comes with only the power that God's Word bears. He or she does not back that power up with irresistible weapons, overwhelming economic resources, or manifest destiny. The power solely rests in the power of truth and love. Thus, our situation would be with an alien race far superior to us technologically, but yet bereft of a corresponding spiritual maturity. Here our call can be clearer and even safer from temptation. To call upon such alien superiority to give sight to the blind, release to the captives, hope to the poor, and freedom to the oppressed would be a calling both risky and graceful.
However, in the second case, we must be exceptionally careful and vigilant. For this is a case very much like the case when the Europeans encountered the New World. The Europeans were militarily and economically more powerful and they used that power (illegitimately) to either impose Christianity upon the Native Americans, or to establish a world view that demonized the "soulless" Indian. If we encountered aliens who were much less advanced than ourselves, we must first look, listen and learn. Their technological condition does not necessarily indicate their spiritual or their cultural state. We must not declare the aliens "soulless demons" and thereby give ourselves the license to exploit them as the Native Americans were. We may have much to contribute, but before we proclaim Jesus in any forthright way, we will need to learn to collaborate with them, to share believes in a mutually acceptable way, and be willing to be transformed as we attempt to transform. We will need much of the thought and mutuality that we have been developing in the ecumenical movement among the many religions of Earth.
The third case is the circumstance that Dr. Murphy suggests where the aliens also had a Christ event. If we have been authentic and honest in our looking, listening, and learning, we will have to accept that indeed the Christ event may not be unique after all. In our hypothetical situation, unlike when we encountered other earthly religions, we could encounter another religion arising from a historic Messiah. Is this the same personage as we encounter? Or is it a different personage, but resurrected to the same Christ? What is the significance of the likely different experience of the sentience who was resurrected? Is this yet more about Christianity? Is more of the canon written on some other world? The questions simply pour out.
But given all of this, can we justified spending our scarce resources on Mars exploration? Will such expenditure take food out of the mouth of one of our own on the off chance that we might put it in - at great cost - the mouth of some far away child? We are often taught that charity begins at home. And indeed, Jesus said nearly as much to the Syrophoenician woman. "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs (Mt 15:26)." Yet, when Jesus is asked who is our neighbor, he replied with the story of the Good Samaritan. Everyone is our neighbor. What we have learned over the years is that Jesus expands our circle of relationships in concentric circles. We start with the circle of our family, then the circle of our tribe, then of our nation, then of the diverse world, then of non-human creation on earth, and now of non-human sentience elsewhere in the universe. As our world becomes smaller and smaller, and our society more and more diverse, we see the essential need to widen our circle of love and outreach. So whether a child is next door or on the next star, the child is still our neighbor. Can we then deny the need of a child on a far star anymore than a child in Bosnia or Rwanda? But are we obligated to search for the child? If Jesus called us to evangelized all nations, even to unknown worlds, is not Jesus' evangel to give sight to the blind, release to the captive, hope to the poor, and freedom to the oppressed?
But realistically in our open and democratic society, the public simply will not let us abandon earthly matters. Realistically, the space program must compete for the scarce resources in the Halls of Congress. It no longer has any particular special niche and is subject to the same budgetary concerns as social programs. Its constituency is far diminished. It is not at all clear that money is taken from social programs to fund space exploration. But, I believe that a discovery of certain life on Mars or another planet will motivate the public to invest in Mars exploration. Some will be motivated to learn more about a potential enemy; but, most will want to go in wonder and hope. Both international and private investment would become available.
And that leads to a most compelling reason to launch an exploration of Mars. When we look deep into mathematics and science, we learn that we can never know everything. Science is open-ended. This is the warning of the Tree of Knowledge. If we eat of it, we must not believe that we will become God. We can never know everything. Only God is able to know everything, if the Divine desires. Yet we are called to know, to ever learn more about God's good creation. To not to explore is to deny the goodness of God's creation for the good is ever beckoning. Thus, God sets before us the exploration imperative. Unlike the technological imperative that presupposes the goodness of our hand, the exploration imperative presupposes God's good hand. And if indeed this is a divine calling, then God's will can be done in it. What might we be called to? Though we will always have the poor with us, we must never forget them. More than new technologies, we may find new sociologies and cultures with better answers to poverty, violence, and alienation. Further, an otherworldly vector in our society opens up fresh and new windows. It can seed new vision in our tired world. Vision is the child of imagination and discovery. Our world is very short on vision. We are in an era of day to day survival and short sightedness. Indeed, we are spiritually perishing for want of hope and vision. Although Mars exploration should not be our sole vision, it could motivate us to begin to think about the long view, about just where we as a world want to go into the 21st century. It is a concrete activity that can seed a vision of the future. If so, then the theological task is even more important to help shape the vision into one that is congruent with the Kingdom of God. A new vision must embrace all our people, rich and poor. But until we are ready once again to envision rather than to constrict, we cannot expect to push our limits to embrace and empower all sentience.
Amen. Shalom and peace.
Rev. John A. Mills