Do aliens disprove Christianity?

What would the discovery of alien life mean for Christianity? The question of whether we are alone in the cosmos has been reawakened in the wake of recent declassification of military footage showing widespread UAP’s, or Unexplained Aerial Phenomena, in the skies above our planet.

The supposed rub for religion is that the existence of extraterrestrial life—especially sentient life that may dwarf our own intelligence and technology—would somehow undermine any sacred story that spotlights human beings as unique, or that sets events here on Earth as though central to all of creation, or to the prophetic future of our cosmos.

So how does the Christian story speak to the potential existence of ET? Do aliens disprove Christianity?

Well, thoughtful Christians have been considering this question for decades. Formal debates have echoed around student halls and YouTube channels, academic conferences have been convened, and Christian scientists, philosophers, and theologians have all weighed in on the subject by putting the proverbial pen to papyrus. Long story short, while the discovery of aliens would raise some fascinating questions for Christians to wrestle with, no-one thinks ET posses a serious threat to Christianity. In fact, first contact may even end up strengthening the case for God.

So whether you’re secretly worried about the news, or perhaps excited that your favourite sci-fi might be bleeding into reality, in this video my goal is to lower anxiety, and parse out a few dimensions on what alien life would mean for Christianity. So with tons of ground to cover, let’s dive in.

First, let’s start with a surprisingly positive consideration. Given the odds stacked against the development of biological life, the discovery of advanced alien civilisations may actually strengthen the case for God. How?

Dating back decades now the SETI program—or search for extra-terrestrial intelligence—has sent technological eyes and ears into space looking for signs of life. Originally scientists were somewhat optimistic, believing there were only a few parameters for a life-permitting exoplanet, rendering it likely that advanced civilisations should exist somewhere in the vast number of systems that are older than our own, even just in our Milky Way galaxy. In fact, scientists have long used what is known as Drake’s equation to predict the number of potential advanced civilisations we are likely to detect.

The problem is, Drake’s equation carries a lot of unknown assumptions. How many planets have life-permitting features? What fraction of those planets actually bring about biological life? What fraction of those biospheres allow simple life to develop into complex or sentient species who become technologically advanced? And what fraction of those civilisations end up broadcasting their existence amongst the stars?

The truth is, with the subsequent discovery of the extraordinary fine-tuning of Earth in our own solar system, with hundreds of relevant features allowing our little blue planet to flourish, alongside the profound challenge to the odds posed by abiogenesis to even get the biological ball rolling, it’s not surprising we have heard nothing but silence among the stars, bringing Fermi’s paradox to the fore.

Now there are some attempts to explain Fermi’s paradox, or why, given there are so many potential life-permitting planets much older than our own, we don’t see evidence of alien life everywhere, colonising the stars. One popular explanation is called the Dark Forrest hypothesis, where advanced civilisations remain silent or hidden in the proverbial cosmic forrest, rather than calling out in the dark, and so potentially alerting predatorial alien civilisations of their existence and whereabouts. Or another favoured scientific explanation of alien hiddenness is the Great Filter hypothesis, which posits that some evolutionary leap in our own past, or some technological self-destruction in our future, like AI rebellion, or nuclear war, is a common hurdle holding alien life back from ever reaching an interstellar level of technological advancement.

But even if we did suddenly encounter others alien civilisations, their existence is not a reason to disbelieve in God. No their civilisation just serves as one more opportunity to spotlight and marvel at the extraordinary fine-tuning of the universe that allows for life to develop anywhere at all, not just on Earth. As observed and articulated by fine-tuning experts, like Dr. Luke Barnes, it is this extraordinary calibration of the initial conditions of our universe for life that is difficult to account for on naturalism, with theism offering a ready explanation. That fine-tuning is evidence of design, with God setting the physical parameters of the cosmos in order to create living beings capable of a deep and meaningful relationship with Him. So aliens are by no means a defacto problem for theism. In fact, given how new arguments for God’s existence are being discovered and developed all the time, they might just have a superior case for a creator, or even have special revelation of their own, of God making Himself know to them across their own history. So it should make us extraordinarily curious.

Second, given the purpose of God’s revelation in Scripture, while extraterrestrial life is entirely compatible with Christianity, we shouldn’t necessarily expect to find aliens in the Bible.

Simply put, the Bible serves as God’s revelation to humanity about who He is, who we were created to be, and how, through the history of redemption, God has opened the door for us to be saved through Jesus. Neither Scripture nor Christian doctrine claims the Bible serves as exhaustive truth; merely sufficient truth. Which is why Scripture no more tells us about aliens than it does about chemistry and dinosaur fossils; because as important as those things might be to understanding the natural world, and as much as Scripture might encourage us to study God’s creation scientifically to uncover these truths, in the end they are relatively inconsequential to coming into a saving relationship with God. Galileo’s famous dictum here applies when it comes to the Bible, “God was interested in telling us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.”

So the silence of Scripture on aliens is no defeater of Christianity. And Christians should be open to the evidence of alien life. After all, given the Bible does speak about the existence of at least one other species of sentient creatures in the cosmos, namely angels, it’s not hard to entertain the notion that God could have created another sentient species on a different planet. So without denying that humans serve as God’s image bearers on Earth, nor the eternal plans God has for us, like a parent with multiple children, it is entirely compatible with Christianity to say God has other creatures whom He loves in other corners of the cosmos.

Which leads to third, the discovery of extra-terrestrial intelligence would spark some fascinating questions for Christians to investigate. What relationship do these aliens have to their Creator? Beyond the arguments and intuitions of natural theology, has God made himself known through a history of revelation on their planet? Do they have additional arguments for God’s existence that might convince sceptically minded people on Earth? Has God incarnated as one of them? What is their spiritual status with God? Are they pre-fallen, like humanity was in Eden’s garden? Or like some angels and all of humanity, have they too fallen into sin? And if they have, has God provided atonement for them somehow, or do we have a role to play in ET phoning home, spiritually speaking? Does the cross of Jesus Christ have cosmic implications?

While super interesting, these questions are not exactly new. Some of them were already pondered hundreds of year ago with the discovery of new continents on our planet, sparking wider conversations amongst theologians and missionaries, not simply about the salvific status of their native human populations, but about the potential discovery of life beyond our planet, and what that would mean for Christian mission.

C.S. Lewis, while perhaps best known for his fictional world in the Chronicles of Narnia, penned his lesser known Space Trilogy with voyages to the planets and people of Macalandra and Perelandra, to help parse out these questions and imagine some possible implications for Christianity.

One cool reference Christians might not now about is how often famed preachers have entertained the possibility of alien life. Take Charles Spurgeon, for example, the 19th century Baptist pastor, who is often called the prince of preachers. In his sermons, Spurgeon often gave voice to the idea that the heavens are populated by countless worlds of intelligent creatures, to which humanity may forever be sent to extol the wonders of God’s grace in the gospel. Here’s one excerpt from his sermon The Church’s Glory, preached in 1864.

“And we, I believe, are here in training for that eternal work of making known to illimitable regions of space, and countless myriads of intelligent beings whom God has created, but who have never fallen, the story of this little planet, and of the God who loved it so that he came here, and died that he might save his people from their sins…” (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 10)

So Christians, you don’t need to be afraid of the discovery of alien life. Of course, given the Bible’s teaching around fallen angels, and even the alien-like depiction of fallen angels in two of the five books that make up 1 Enoch, there is always the small possibility that any first contact may be in fact be a demonic ruse designed to mislead humanity. But that suspicion need not shape a Christians response to UAP’s or stellar signals. Christians should simply show discernment, where like the Apostle Paul might just suggest, we only need to be concerned of demonic deception if ET starts preaching another gospel.

No, at the core, Christians are animated by a story expressing the inexhaustible bounds of God’s love for all his creation, and God’s delight in the diversity of the creation He has made. So why not aliens? And while we should remain sober in the face of the odds and publicly available evidence, if strangers did turn up on our planetary doorstep, Christians should be the first to send out the welcome wagon and show hospitality, in Jesus’ name.