I can’t rest till I find out.
According to apologist Mark Riser,
I read an article not too long ago by Ken Ham, President of Answers in Genesis. In the article, Ham decried the amount of money that has been spent on the search for extraterrestrial life. Then, he made a statement which catapulted him into controversy, “Only descendants of Adam can be saved…To suggest that aliens could respond to the gospel is just totally wrong.”
We can agree with Ham that the search for alien life has been fruitless up to this point. But, it is necessary to say that we, as Christians, should not get into needless controversies such as whether aliens can be saved or not. Ken Ham did say that “the Bible doesn’t say whether there is or is not animal or plant life in outer space.” He should have stuck with that. To go further than that is unfounded speculation.
Ham article here.
Not a controversy we’ll get involved in. Just a note: The 20th century’s best-known apologist in English, C.S. Lewis had this to say about such matters:
Each new discovery, even every new theory, is held at first to have the most wide-reaching theological and philosophical consequences. It is seized by unbelievers as the basis for a new attack on Christianity; it is often, and more embarrassingly, seized by injudicious believers as the basis for a new defense.
But usually, when the popular hubbub has subsided and the novelty has been chewed over by real theologians, real scientists and real philosophers, both sides find themselves pretty much where they were before. So it was with Copernican astronomy, with Darwinism, with Biblical Criticism, with the new psychology. So, I cannot help expecting, it will be with the discovery of “life on other planets” – if that discovery is ever made.
He also offered a number of other sourced qualifications, including:
3) If there are species, and they are rational species with a spiritual sense, are any or all of them – like us – fallen? (p. 86). God’s activity on behalf of humanity implies not our merit or excellence, but our demerit and depravity: “No creature that deserved Redemption would need to be redeemed” (p. 86). Perhaps the beings we encounter would not have fallen so far as humanity has.
4) If all of them or any of them have fallen, have they been denied Redemption by Christ? (p. 86). If they exist (which is still hypothetical at this point), perhaps Christ has already been incarnate their world and provided salvation to them. Or perhaps, of all other created species it is only we who fell.
Rats. Now we are into serious theology. All the fun has gone out of the question. – O’Leary for News
Follow UD News at Twitter!