I suppose we will have to wonder forever at the serendipity behind Donald Trump releasing classified UAP materials at the same time that a movie comes out about releasing classified UAP materials. Neither has provided the mind-imploding revelations that everybody was led to expect. Not to be unfair to the movie, though; I liked it. It wasn’t Mr. Spielberg’s best, by any metric, but it had many excellent concepts and parts, and it’s always a joy to me to watch how he directs. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would give it about a 7 or 8, I guess, so in that way it’s on par with BFG or Bridge of Spies or Munich. I’m a Spielberg fanboy, though, so take my ranking with a grain of salt.
The “heroes-try-to-escape-from-a-car-stuck-to-a-fast-moving-train” action sequence was particularly well done. There’s a gutwrenching, spellbinding scene where the antagonist, Scanlon (played by Colin Firth), attempts to use alien tech to remotely control young ex-nun novice Jane (Eve Hewson), and it turns into an analogy of demonic possession and the passion of Christ in Gethsemane, and that is buttered pancakes with syrup for this Catholic theologian guy. The digital animals were a poor choice; they felt cartoon-y and suddenly I remembered I was watching a movie. How hard would it have been to hire a wrangler and bring in a genuine fox, deer, cardinal, etc.? I’m asking honestly. It would have looked better, that’s for sure.
The main thing I wanted to write about here is the concept of intelligent extraterrestrial life forms and their relationship to Christianity. Speaking of serendipity, that just so happens to be one of the subjects I explore in my new nonfiction book coming later this year (perhaps early next year—it’s up to the publisher, really).
There are two schools of thought on this subject within the Christian world, two camps.
The first camp says that human beings are the only rational, intelligent beings that God made in the visible universe. The second camp is open to the possibility that God has indeed created other rational, intelligent beings, and they may number in the dozens or thousands or millions for all we know. And there is, by the way, a colorful history of debate on this issue in Church history; this isn’t a topic that just popped up in the last few decades. Christian clerics and scholars have wondered about it for more than a thousand years.
The bottom line is: Christians are 100 per cent free to believe in aliens, or not. There are some irresponsible parties out there claiming that it is instantaneous heresy to believe in the possibility of non-human creatures with rational souls. That’s very, very false, people.
The Church teaches many things officially, and tells us that if you choose to be a Christian then you have to accept certain beliefs: that Jesus is fully divine, for instance, or that God is Three Persons in one divine nature. I can happily explore those doctrines all the livelong day, and ponder them, and derive insights from them, but I’m not free to reject them, not if I still want to consider myself a faithful Christian.
The existence of extraterrestrial intelligence, by contrast, has not been officially endorsed or denied by the Church. One camp or the other can scurry to source material and make a case for their side, which can be beneficial to the entire conversation, but neither should grant themselves magisterial authority. Maybe aliens are real; maybe they’re not; yeah, sure, maybe they’re demonic illusions meant to distract us, like will-o-the-wisps; or maybe only some of them are, and others are benign beings from other planets? I don’t know. But I’d love it if fellow Christians would stop claiming that their view is Church doctrine and everybody else is a pawn of Satan. There is no settled Church doctrine on this matter.
Lastly, I want to touch on the supposedly crucial question often posed by alien-chasers everywhere: “are we alone?” I’ll self-servingly paste an excerpt from my upcoming book, with the caveat that it may not actually make the final draft, but I think it makes my point, regardless:
“…many people’s attitudes towards the idea of extraterrestrials has become one of two things. For some, it is a matter of fear and concern. For others, there is a rising buzz of irrational hope: extraterrestrials could save us. They could disarm our nuclear weapons, show us a new path of enlightenment, help us advance to a new phase of evolution, FINALLY. Dwindling, it seems, are the ordinary Christians who calmly shrugged and said ‘could be. I just don’t know,’ and then got back to regular work and family life. It’s only making it worse that the government is more involved; I think I liked it better when they were cagey and denied everything. Now well-paid officials with crisp ties have begun assuring us that we need—NEED—to know about extraterrestrials, and not merely for military defense reasons, but because, as I’ve heard quite a few insist, we all need—NEED—to know if we are ‘alone in the universe’ or not.”
“But practicing Christians have always known that we aren’t alone in the universe. Traditionally, historically, from the Pope to the brick mason, we’ve always known that everything is teeming with countless millions of Thrones, Powers, Dominions, Archangels…saints who regularly cross into our dimension with gifts, healings, and guides to future events…ghosts, demons, and every kind of thing “undreamt of in your philosophy” all presided over by an Almighty, Omniscient God Who is not only One Person but Three Persons in one Godhead. Oh, and you say there might also be aliens from other planets? Could be. I just don’t know. I was too busy contemplating everybody else I already know about in the cosmos. Christians already have a close relationship with mystery, and miracles, and the strange, and the marvelous. Our entire religion is built on the literal Resurrection of a Person not originally from Earth. We can handle aliens.”
So, there’s my hot take. I recommend Disclosure Day, if you’re into Spielberg or sci-fi, but don’t expect too too much; certainly not answers to the deepest questions about our existence.
Oh, and in the spirit of disclosure: I absolutely believe that the universe is peppered with non-human creatures with rational souls. God, I’ve noticed, has a habit of being extremely, explosively, superabundantly creative, from everything we see around us down to the microscopic level and out to the macroscopic reaches of the visible universe. Here on our own planet, almost whatever part of it which we’re able to personally explore reveals life, swarming, pulsing, overwhelming. “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”1 So, based on what I know about Him, it’s logical to suppose he made more like us. And to quote St. John Paul II when he was asked by a little child if aliens are real, “Always remember: they are children of God as we are.”2
