Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, just posted a nine-minute video to YouTube discussing the theological implications of discovering extraterrestrial life.
“Imagine alien spaceships show up in the sky tomorrow,” Moore says. “What are the challenges to Christianity as we think this through? I think there are a few of them.”
Though aliens have been a subject of science fiction for years, Moore says encountering actual aliens would raise plenty of doctrinal questions. Do aliens have souls? Does the Incarnation of Christ as a human—and the accompanying offer of salvation—extend to aliens? Does original sin affect aliens?
“We have intelligent beings in the text of Scripture, some of whom are not fallen, and for them, there is no atonement needed in the sense of blood atonement,” Moore says. “And then there are others that are fallen for whom there is no atonement offered there. So if we were to discover alien beings, how would we know that those beings are fallen? Maybe they’re not necessarily acting morally perfect, but maybe they’re as the animals are: not accountable before God in that way. There’s not a sense of moral agency that is there. I don’t know. What I would know is if they are intelligent beings, we would want them to worship their God, even if they’re not created for immorality through the death and resurrection of Christ.”
Watch the video to hear Moore’s full discussion of this unusual topic. Do you agree with his thoughts on alien life? Do you think alien life even exists? Let us know in the comments.
