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The possibility of aliens and alien UFOs often poses a challenge to those who profess the Christian and Catholic Faith, and in general hold a biblical view of life. For many believers looking seriously at the subject, the prospect these really exist shakes their faith, or at least poses to them that risk.
However, if we apply perennial philosophy and theology, and the wisdom of Church teaching, we can already resolve the seeming paradox in our mind before we should hypothetically learn aliens are real. What seems to be a “negative paradox,” that is an unsolvable problem due to inherently contradictory ideas, I will maintain is really a “positive paradox,” that is a difficult but solvable mystery.
Some of these solutions I’ve made on my own over the years, which I develop here, but I learned a lot about this subject listening to a a recent, highly engaging interview of Dr. Paul Thigpen, a Catholic theologian, on the Pints with Aquinas podcast. He talked about how his new book Extraterrestrial Intelligence and the Catholic Faith: Are We Alone in the Universe with God and the Angels? attempts to resolve the dilemma. I thankfully draw from some of his main points here.
This seems to be an important dilemma to resolve going forward, since many today keep pointing more and more to evidence aliens exist and are even here on Earth, some even claiming we are approaching a full public disclosure. I personally see no conclusive evidence to commit to the belief aliens exist, or are here among us. But I can’t exclude absolutely the possibility, so I present this essay as much as a remedy for my own potential spiritual dilemma, if it’s true, as also a remedy you might yourselves use if hypothetically it all turns out one day to be true. If you find this helpful, please share it with others.
Firstly, the most important point in all of this is that there is no real doctrinal contradiction between potential alien, intelligent life and alien civilizations, and the Faith, because God is an omnipotent creator, and Scripture does not exclude the possibility. We are God’s highest physical creation here on Earth, and by means of baptism we are raised in our nature to share in a sense in God’s own divine nature, but relative to the Magisterium, it is an open question whether or not we are the highest physical creation in the universe, in our original pre-baptism nature, or whether or not we are the only physical creation in the cosmos with a spiritual soul.
If hypothetically there are many races of aliens out there, each species, per God’s design, may or may not have immortal souls, may differ in degrees of likeness to God, have never sinned or fallen from God’s grace, or have, and if so they may have any path to redemption God chooses for them, including also becoming incarnate as one of them on their planet, as He has on ours. There are countless scenarios for their existence beyond our imaginations, because again God is omnipotent.
Secondly, theological considerations of physical, intelligent life beyond our world have been considered by popes, Fathers and Doctors of the Church, mystics, and saints for two thousand years in a relatively benign and curious way that was not considered heterodox. It is only now that it has become a scandalous mania in pop culture overlapping with New Age spirituality and the occult. Part of the past discourse was about potential life beyond the “known world,”on other parts of the planet, yet to be discovered or mapped, that is potential non-human people who in their theory geographically could not have descended from Adam and Eve in the present Middle East (believed to be the origin of the Garden of Eden), but would still be physical, rational beings. They had to grapple with that possibility theologically, just as the first Christians discovering the Americas had to sort through how to view the indigenous tribes they discovered.
St. Padre Pio, a great mystic who had special gifts of knowledge, including the ability to remote view far off places, bilocate, and read people’s souls, said in an interview that aliens on other planets exist, and that there are ones who have never sinned nor fallen from God. Blessed Ann Catherine Emmerich herself says that in one of her visions she saw other intelligent beings on other planets.
St. Thomas Aquinas, interestingly talks about how Christ could become incarnate in another physical body, in addition to His human body, and also that the Father and Holy Spirit could if they chose to. Therefore, God in His omnipotence, in any of the three persons, could become incarnate as an alien on another planet, if He wanted to, as a matter of redemption, or for any purpose.
As strange as this might sound, it would be possible even if the people He created that He would incarnate as, were one-eyed, little green people who reproduce asexually, with tentacles instead of arms, floating around in a liquid environment, designed to devote their life to music and mathematics. The point being, God can create any kind of intelligent life He wants to create.
God could have theoretically made them however He wanted, with or without free will, with different degrees of freedom, more like angels or more like humans, or even somewhat lower than humans but still rational. If more like angels, they could have decided their fate with one singular choice, becoming permanently good and perfect; or rejecting God, they could have become like fallen demons, but physical, allowed to spread evil in the universe.
These different unique scenarios could go on and on in an expansive universe potentially as diverse with life and physical phenomena as we find here on Earth. If God created an abundant diversity of life on Earth, He could have done so throughout the universe. And in God’s plan for our own redemption, God only knows, He could be arranging it that one day an alien civilization from another planet, or multiple alien civilizations, do in fact come here and interact with us.
Some of them may be dominated by evil, or worse are in a demonic-like, damned state. Others may be virtuous and like God. Some may have received wisdom and revelation about God and the supernatural, while others may be largely ignorant still searching for truth, or willfully ignorant of it.
Just to reiterate, in my personal view all of this is extremely unlikely, and again I see no reason to believe that there certainly are such alien civilizations out there.
Thirdly, continuing for the purpose of the discussion, let’s now magine what a hypothetical, full public disclosure of their existence might look like. One day we turn on our TV and see the president introducing an actual alien on the front lawn of the White House, like one of those typically represented three foot tall aliens, with big heads and big oval eyes, and tiny bodies. Then the aliens and their spaceships make themselves clearly visible in every city, likewise meeting mayors and mixing with people in broad day light, videos plastered all over YouTube and the news, once and for all settling the question.
Within a few months the first step of full disclosure has occurred, learning the basics of who and what they are, their capabilities, where they are from, how long they’ve been here, what their intentions are, how advanced they are, how old is their civilization, it’s basic history, are there other alien species and are they themselves friendly or malevolent, and how can we cooperate, if at all.
Honestly, it is very hard to imagine a public disclosure without some degree of mass chaos, and an immediate, traumatic existential shock across the population. The effect would be one of the most, if not the most sweeping, existential paradigm shift ever in our collective understanding of reality.
If, as many expect, the aliens are atheistic, materialists, making science their religion, with no belief in a supernatural God, for us that would just mean that they either never had or at some point lost faith in the supernatural, and in no way would that mean they may be right because they are more scientifically advanced. We can engage them at first on the level of philosophy and metaphysics about the idea of a divine, infinite creator. Such is hardly a backward, unsophisticated concept, but rather, if you think about it, actually the highest concept you can imagine or think about, whether you believe God exists or not. By definition, He is the greatest thing you can conceptualize, and I would expect aliens sophisticated enough to master quantum mechanics, to travel across galaxies, to be able to sit down and also understand that idea.
We can hope to enlighten them with the depths of our philosophy and theology, and historical culture, but their naturalism would mean that objectively they are morally and spiritually inferior to us, further from God, that is as a civilization, and should be treated as such, no matter how scientifically advanced they are, or how superior they might act because of it. They may offer us scientific advancement, and we offer them the truth about an infinite, creating God and divine ruler over everything that exists, and His purpose in creating the universe and everything in it.
In the first place, we would have to learn what they believed and why, to get some sense or orientation in how to regard them, how to interact with them, and to what degree we might try to convert them on some level depending upon what they are. We would have to do this analysis for every alien species that is disclosed. And we might be surprised they basically believe as we do and are perfect beings who never fell from God.
At the same time, we would have to be careful to rule out if they are demons, that is fallen angels, or evil spirits, taking on a visual appearance. The apparent alien body or UFO could be being used and manipulated by a demon, to deceive us I nto a state of confusion and disbelief. Exorcists and all the methods they employ to examine if a case is demonic in nature, would need to be used to examine, question, and test these entities for the most typical signs of the demonic. Ask the alien to sprinkle them with holy water, invoke the name of Jesus, touch them with a blessed St. Benedict’s medal, and if they start screaming in terror then yeah, they’re demonic.
Fourthly, my personal sense of faith and where we are at in Christian history, we are most probably in or nearing the end times or latter days foretold in Scripture, and the presence of such aliens here would in my mind reinforce that view. This is not to predict the literal date of the end of the world, which not even Christ knows, as He said, but to discern the signs of the those times as the Bible describes. There are actual verses from the Book of the Apocalypse visually describing different heavenly entities active during the latter days, so if there was an actual public disclosure of aliens, I would start to think that refers in part to them. I would anticipate a global crisis somehow involving them.
If this End Times scenario ever hypothetically came true that included the presence and role of aliens, Christians and godly, benevolent aliens could become allies against the powers of anti-Christ, while malevolent, demon-like aliens may become allies with demons and the forces of the anti-Christ in the final battle. Heck, who knows if these different alien species visiting here, good vs. evil, are preparing as we speak for a galactic and planetary battle over our civilization. Perhaps God has already given them an understanding of the Book of Apocalypse, or unbeknownst to them they are playing a prophetic role, which in God’s plan is part of the end of the world, ushering in the Second Coming of Christ.
Fifthly, we are entering now into the mysteries of eschatology, or the theology of the end times, but mixed with what some call exo-theology, or theology applied to the possibility of alien life. At this point we start a deep dive, theologically speaking.
Pushing this even further, let’s imagine full public disclosure of aliens occurs after another world war begins, say within the next few years, considering how war is unfolding in East Europe and now the Middle East, with real threats of global war. The aliens appear on the scene to respond to the threat or reality of a nuclear holocaust, and then our contemporary history becomes officially full throttle apocalyptic.
Even if we learn that aliens once seeded Earth with life, or even bioengineered us alongside evolution using ape ancestors, then, as fantastic as that would sound, we could say that technically, objectively that would still be doctrinally consistent with the Faith. It would turn out to be that mysterious process in the past by which God used His own creation (aliens and matter) to create us, Himself creating the immaterial soul, as long as there was one original individual man and woman on Earth infused at some moment with a soul, as the Magisterium does not teach a literal, fundamentalist interpretation of Genesis.
Now there could be some nightmare scenario in which the aliens force their belief there is no God or afterlife, that they are gods and our creator, and that they have some hellish design for our future, like genocide, or perpetual imprisonment and slavery. Well if that ever happened, we would resist if not fight them, if necessary to our death, if it came to it, in the spirit of the martyrs, confident in eternal life in heaven. We would hold high the Cross, the Eucharist, the Scriptures, and the rosary, and prepare for martyrdom. No matter how strong or deceitful they might be, we would keep the true Faith, knowing with absolute certainty the contradictions they are telling us are actual lies.
Like St. Augustine said for himself, I would not be a Catholic if it were not for miracles, because of the weakness of my mind in understanding divine revelation. Just consider how much overwhelming evidence there is for the miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady’s Miracle of the Sun at Fatima in 1917, all the Eucharistic miracles, or the modern miracles of mystics like St. Padre Pio or Blessed Alexandrina. We would hold tight to these miracles to strengthen us in our faith. In fact, if the aliens are open to it, we should share with them those miracles that hold up strongest to the scrutiny of science.
In conclusion, even if none of this happens in the future, this is the message we must keep reminding ourselves of, and telling others about when grappling with this subject. The objective truths of our Faith could and would be maintained in any alien/UFO scenario, no matter how perplexing or difficult.
In the end there is much we do not know about creation, including if aliens exist, yet it all remains the handiwork of an all-good and all-loving heavenly Father, who made us in His image, with immortal souls, giving us just one short life here on Earth to save our souls, through Our Lord Jesus Christ. I remain skeptical on this topic, but prepared for the possibility keeping my faith and hope in the Lord.
I welcome any comments for discussion. Feel free to email me at:
JosephOstermeir@gmail.com
