ALIENS, EXTRA TERRESTRIALS AND CATHOLIC THEOLOGY

Fig . Extra terrestrials,#allien..#

Fr. Clinton Sensat 

I'm seeing a lot about aliens. I'm sure it's due to the recent headlines. So I thought I'd offer some insight into the mainline Catholic approach to this, at least as I understand it. 

First, there is nothing in Catholic teaching that forbids aliens. We already know of nonhuman creatures with intelligence- angels -and it is entirely possible that Neanderthals and Denisovans and all such, while definitely possessed of rational and immortal souls, were not descendants of Adam and Eve, who may well have been the first homo sapiens. 

Second, good Catholic theology NEVER makes sweeping generalizations about scientific fact in the absence of scientific evidence. Let's imagine social media was available three hundred years ago, and rash men asserted with certainty that dinosaurs could not exist due to their reading of Genesis, and that any supposed dinosaurs were really demons. Boy, would they be embarrassed today. 

So where can we go from here?

IF there are aliens capable of interstellar flight, they by definition are creatures with rational (and therefore immortal) souls. [I'm presuming technological flight here, rather than something like spaceborn animals.] If they have immortal souls, Catholic theology allows for the following possibilities:

1.) They never sinned, but were created in a state of pure nature, and so are outside of the drama of salvation, though they may worship the Creator. 

2.) They never sinned, and are filled with grace, and so show us an analogue of what humanity would have been without the Fall. 

3.) They sinned, but are not capable of salvation. 

4.) They sinned, and Jesus Christ became incarnate on their world as well (theoretically possible according to Aquinas), and is their savior as much as He is ours. 

5.) They sinned, and are waiting to hear the gospel from us. Despite the fact that this brings its own complications, I personally consider it to be the most likely, though only for reasons of historical analogy. 

My major point here is one of POSSIBILITIES. We simply don't know before we know. And any attempts to argue that aliens CAN'T exist or are really demons or must be x, y, or z strike me as insufferably rash. There are limits of logic and law present in the universe, but those limits allow many more things than our narrow imaginations might encompass. 

After all, who would argue for the existence of the duck-billed platypus unless we had irrefutable evidence it was real??

And I know the idea of aliens scares many people. Maybe it should. Maybe it shouldn't. We won't know until we know. But I am certain that IF they exist, they are God's creatures too, and though they might be dangerous, they still fit within His Providence.