Congressional Hearings on UFOs and the Foresight of C.S. Lewis
“knowledge [scientia] shall increase” (Daniel 12:4)
Article context: Congress is holding hearings on alleged recovery of extra-terrestrial vehicles and even claims of extra-terrestrial beings recovered. This was initiated due to “whistleblower” status testimony of governmental appointed investigators. It is in addition to mounting video evidence (radar and infrared) from military aircraft pilots involved in Unexplainable Aerial [or Anomalous] Phenomena, a.k.a. UAPs, formerly called UFOs. This article of speculative theology is written for an ecumenical audience and non-Christians. Whether the phenomena which Congress is investigating is legitimately extra-terrestrial, a deception of the demonic, paranormal activity, drones or just more governmental psychological operations, this article is a reminder to Christians that Christianity is the Grand Narrative in which all other narratives live and move and have their being.
Outside of Star Trek fans and agnostics, the possibility and growing probability of extra-terrestrial races is shocking to many people, even Christian Sci-Fi fans. For many devout Christians, the current whistleblower claims of recovered craft do not quite fit their understanding of doctrines and the place of humans in the universe. Some devout Christians dismiss the phenomena immediately as a deception by evil spirits; rightly aware that evil spirits really do often cause similar phenomena as experienced with poltergeists, hauntings, and the preternatural phenomena during exorcisms. Additionally, Christians already know we are not alone in the universe in view of Christian angelology and the Christian dogma that God made beings who do not properly fit our visible light spectrum: things invisible and without dimension. In light of current news reports and Congressional hearings, I would like to address a few issues conversationally.
As a Christian theologian and professor, I am in agreement with C.S. Lewis’ speculative theology. In his science-fiction Space Trilogy 1938-1945, Lewis speculates that Jesus Christ’s Incarnation and its purposes would not be diminished by the existence of pre-human or post-human extra-terrestrial races [cf. Volume II of ‘The Space Trilogy’: Perelandra, Ch. 5]. Speaking only speculatively, based on today’s astronomical data and solar system discoveries (not to mention the innumerable galaxies containing innumerable solar systems), extra-terrestrial races should probably be expected (though visits are highly questionable due to the vast distances). Simultaneously, due to the current paranormal status* of E.T.s and the reported immoral activity of secret governmental programs via the Freedom of Information Act, we should not embrace the existence of extra-terrestrial beings without common and substantial evidence. This would require show and tell of ‘spacecraft’ actually transporting people to other solar systems. Current Congressional hearings will fail that test.
Yes, I’m aware of mathematical equations proposed by people in defense of the thesis that humans are the only intelligent terrestrials in the universe. Nevertheless, in dedication to the truth, I do not wish to dismiss data and evidence a priori as did many Roman inquisitors at the trial of Galileo. Those inquisitors mistook the pre-Christian theory of Geocentrism [everything orbits Earth] for alleged revealed doctrines and ignored the abundant data Galileo collected (though some of his equations and orbits were still imperfect). I prefer to learn from history and mistakes of the past. I’ve known several eyewitnesses to otherworldly ‘spacecraft’ and discussed the experiences with them. The additional radar, infrared, and sonar recordings may point objectively to something more, even if in the end a paranormal explanation [spiritual activity] remains the best working hypothesis.
Learning from history
500 years ago, the vast majority of the educated world still followed the Ptolemaic system [Geocentrism] which was inherited from the Babylonian civilization hundreds of years before Christ. Since the time of the Babylonian system of cosmology and even older systems, some form of Geocentrism was standard science at the time of Christ. Christians adopted the then-fashionable Geocentrism as the common way of speaking about common experience within the civilized world. Christians always speak about God’s activity in the world according to customary or common knowledge or science (the Latin word scientia or science is translated into English as “knowledge”).
If Christians did not witness to Christ in accord with common knowledge (science), then the focus of salvation would mistakenly become a new cosmology and physical science rather than a New Covenant with the transcendent God who created and sustains all life. Science is about the operations of things inside this world, while true religion is about transcending this world and entering into eternal life with the transcendent and eternal God. Like Job, Christians accept God’s admonition (cf. Ch. 38) that there are many mysteries of the physical universe and sciences which God has not felt the need to explain because they do not concern moral development and are for human discovery.
The matters of science are mostly part of man’s vocation to licitly “fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen 1:28a). The more humans fulfill their vocation to “multiply and fill the earth and subdue it” the more new knowledge or scientia is opened to us as it was at the time of the discovery of the New World and Scientific Revolution. Perhaps this subduing of the earth is why the Book of Daniel speaks of the approaching final judgment of all things as “knowledge shall increase” (Dan 12:4); the Latin Vulgate says, “multiplex erit scientia” (Dan 12:4).
Nevertheless, physical sciences are never an alternative to the wisdom of God which focuses on moral development of humans. God is beyond all categories, especially time and space. The truths about God are unchanging and metaphysical, above the world of scientia and knowledge that humans achieve through discovery alone. The transcendent truths about the Trinity, the metaphysical reality of the Logos becoming flesh (Jesus), and moral teachings about human beings – who are made to share in divinity (2 Pet 1:4) and transcendence (2 Cor 4:7) – will never change; especially the role of the Ten Commandments. These will never fundamentally change even despite the development of scientia.
It is moral development that matters most because union with the Eternal is about a union of minds and wills, man’s primarily spiritual nature. The human will must be taken up into the Divine Will for eternal life to be shared by humans. Eternal life is about loving God, not travel within time and space or splitting atoms. New discoveries of physical sciences will not increase good will within the human will no matter how new and exciting a physical discovery is within this world of time and space. However, love of God and neighbor will develop humans apart from scientific discovery. Too often, humans use science for killing instead of healing. This is why today’s governmental involvement with “spacecraft” can be particularly concerning and Congressional and public oversight is needed.
Christians are dedicated to morally acceptable advances in the sciences
Always dedicated to the truth, it was Christians who advanced the Scientific Revolution. The 16th Century observations and hypotheses of the Catholic monk Copernicus were advanced and defended by the mathematics and astronomy expertise of the Catholic university professor Galileo in the 17th Century. Galileo died loving Jesus in the Eucharist and is buried in a Catholic Basilica. Catholics initiated the shifting of the world away from Geocentrism and towards knowledge of the solar system (Heliocentrism, the Copernican system). Many bishops of the time were trapped in false biblical polemics with the Protestants on the issues of inerrancy of Scripture, while Galileo understood Scripture in the tradition of Saint Augustine: beware of immature syntheses of Faith and science. Divided over Galileo, many of the bishops and the laity of his time did not know how to reconcile the new physics and science with their incorrect training in the synthesis of Faith and reason (scientia). This was true of Catholics and Protestants.
Misunderstandings in the physics of Geocentrism did not diminish the metaphysical and transcendent reality of God the Eternal. However, they did reveal that Church courts do not always properly differentiate what belongs properly to divine revelation and what comes from the realm of common and inaccurate human knowledge. The Ten Commandments were written in stone to show that the moral law and principles of natural human justice are unchanging. With the Ten Commandments, God was clear that he wants human hearts to abandon sin and develop morally for a share in eternal life; a life that comes from loving God and one’s neighbor as fully revealed in Jesus Christ. Knowing the proper principles of an atom does not advance or change the already well-known and ancient principles of human moral development.
Not only were there epochal shifts in cosmology 500 years ago, there were major shifts in anthropology, including the study of human ancestry according to scientific methods. Only 250 years ago, most of the Western world had little reason or need to presume humans had a history much more than 6,000 years old. In fact, Jewish newspapers still use such dating on their daily periodicals to maintain theological history and cultural identity. Simultaneously, Israeli anthropologists are leaders in the scientific field and embrace a much older age of the human race than dates on their newspapers. Long before Christianity, common knowledge dismissed Sumerian records of kings living tens of thousands of years due to false Sumerian cosmogonies [the world coming from the mating of gods or their bodies forming habitable structures, pace Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy’s ‘Knowhere’]. Nevertheless, perhaps there was a kernel of testimony to the age of humanity in such ancient records of the dynasties of Sumerian kings? Whatever the kernel, it did not add to human moral development.
After the 18th-19th Century advances in archaeology, followed by carbon dating, followed by genetics (with many Catholics in the lead as scientists), it became clear that timelines of humanity’s age needed revision from use of the style of theological history alone to scientific accounts as well. However, Marxist approaches to history at that time prevented the usual synthesis of Faith and reason and rightly led to fundamentalist over-reactions. New scientific methods for historical analysis replaced the emphasis upon the ethical and symbolic histories which had emphasized right-living and relationship with God the Eternal One. Prior customary knowledge (related to ethical emphases) became less important to modern questions which were growing more concerned with conquering time and space and overthrowing prior authorities. Old categories had become insufficient to contain new emphases on physical processes and classification of species (pace creationists who believe the theological narrative of the Flood of Noah explains away the carbon dating of legitimate scientists). Scientifically speaking, today it seems human origins go back 100s of thousands of years.
Speaking in historical generalities, by the start of the 21st Century, it was clear that stone monuments and temples dating back 11k years [Gobekli Tepe] had been uncovered from the sands of time in 1963. By the late 20th Century, anthropologists and geneticists had demonstrated that Homo Sapiens dated back more than 50k years and had genetics from Neanderthals who dated back another 100k years or more. Examples could go on about how the Scientific Revolution, now become the Space Age and Information Age, today continues to unravel many prior and customary ways of speaking about the age of the human race. “Knowledge [scientia] shall increase” (Daniel 12:4).
Christianity is no more guilty of promulgating inaccurate or immature customary knowledge than anybody else who still speaks of sunrise and sunset. Christianity’s primary concern is not customary knowledge, but rather God’s revelation in Christ. Properly separating scientia from the revelation of the Transcendent is no easy task since revelation is always communicated in common human language and science of the time. Nevertheless, wise people know better than to throw out the baby with the bathwater; and, Scripture is now being better read with its original context in mind and when God’s pedagogy is also included.
Christianity is the religion of truth, freedom, and family
Christianity is dedicated to advancing all legitimate and tested human knowledge, because we are dedicated to the truth in all things. As Thomas Aquinas taught, all truth is of the Holy Spirit and truth does not contradict truth. We are dedicated to the truth in all things because we are the religion of authentic freedom, and Jesus taught that “the truth will make you free” (Jn 8:32). For this reason Christianity is also always dedicated to the synthesis of Faith and reason. Authentic freedom is at stake.
Christianity has always taught that Christ’s life and coming into the world affects all humans. It affects every and all humans all the way back to the origins or their ancestors, and all the way into future generations. Where Western Civilization once commonly assumed that our origins only went back 6K-7K years, we now happily discover the human family and origins is much older and probably goes back hundreds of thousands of years. Wonderful! More relatives and friends!
How happy we shall be if in the future we discover that intelligent terrestrial beings and races go back further than Denisovans and Neanderthals. How happy if they go back billions of years to other galaxies and star systems and come in purple, grey, green, and translucent and not just red, yellow, brown, black and white. The Incarnation of the Logos, Jesus Christ, is still the center of salvation for each and every intelligent creature before and after his birth on planet Earth. However, we still don’t have the evidence to jump to such happiness of an even larger family. It all remains only speculation.
The possibility of extra-terrestrial life is not contrary to Christianity or “Original Sin”
Even if this year is not epochal like the Copernican Revolution, and even if UFOs/UAPs hypothetically remain in the area of the paranormal or government secret programs, having so much new data on the existence of innumerable solar systems and galaxies, it would make a lot of speculative sense that there are extra-terrestrials and that Jesus is still the center of the universe from a religious, existential, and salvation perspective.
Too many Christians forget that in our theological traditions, theologians always warned against limiting Jesus’ (God’s) incarnation to one only for redemption from “sin.” Certainly, the possibility of sin cannot be separated from God’s reasons for the Incarnation and sin is a primary purpose in the reality we know on Earth. Jesus came to ensure that intelligent creatures – naturally limited and with weaknesses – always have access to God and share in God’s divinity through the Son’s power and permanence. However, being a creature is not the same as being a family member of God. That requires something more and for this reason we must also consider the plan of God which Saint Paul speaks of in Ephesians 1:4-5 and Colossians 1:17-20. Christ was also destined to be “head of all things” God had created by becoming a member of the human race. He was to communicate sonship to creatures who are not family simply by being born human (cf. John 1:12-13). Saving from sin and establishing headship as a family member does not require that Jesus only came due to sin.
In accord with Ephesians and Colossians, one of the greatest Fathers and Doctors of the Church, Saint Athanasius of Alexandria taught – that given the chance for sin that comes with limited intelligence and freedom – the Incarnation was necessary. Included with the need for redemption on Earth, the Incarnation was necessary to elevate us from creaturehood into true and actual sonship with God (cf. Athanasius, Against the Arians, Book II, #59,68-69); that what is naturally exterior to man [grace of election], should become interior to man in God’s becoming man [grace of sharing in the sonship of God]. In this, God would share his divinity through Christ’s resurrected body which is the New and Everlasting Covenant. Christ’s humanity would help our human wills be joined to God’s divinity interiorly. In the case of Earth, our subjective needs are primarily redemption from sin, but God’s plan is greater than our subjective needs. God’s end was always sonship in Christ for human participation in the life of the Trinity, “sons in his only-begotten Son” (cf. CCC #52) and for the glory of God.
It was only through the natural Son of God (the Logos), that humans were to share and benefit in God’s Sonship. This is the thought, not only implicit to Colossians and Ephesians, but it is implicit to Saint Athanasius’ teaching (circa 321 A.D.): “God became man, so that man might become God” (cf. CCC #460) by the grace of sonship. Most likely following Athanasius’ emphases and Pauline thought, the 13th Century Doctor of the Church and greatest natural scientist of his time, Saint Albert the Great speculated Christ would have come even “apart from sin” and that this speculation was the most in accord with Christian piety.[1] The similar and later teaching of Blessed Duns Scotus, also a Doctor of the Church, is known to all. There has always been accepted and diverse authority inside Christian tradition on the priority of the reasons for the Incarnation and these certainly have application to the possibility of extra-terrestrial life.
Perhaps this is why C.S. Lewis gives his speculative theology through an extra-terrestrial ‘human’ in the 1943 science-fiction work Perelandra (Volume II of the Space Trilogy): “There was more than one reason [that the Logos became flesh], and there is one that I know and cannot tell to you, and another that you know and cannot tell to me” [Ch. 5]. In his speculative theology and Space Trilogy, it is clear that C.S. Lewis had no problem with there being races on other planets before the human race on earth and even after it; all bearing the image of God.
Speculative Theology: “Comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth [of God’s love in Christ]” Ephesians 4:18-19
With the above considerations, let’s reflect on Catholic dogma and who can benefit from the Incarnation. Again, here we are doing speculative theology: People who are not Jesus’ genetic descendants can share in Jesus and be made family of God through Jesus: “For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother” (Mt 12:50); and, people who were born thousands of years before Jesus could only access heaven because of Jesus and his coming; including members of civilizations thousands of years prior to the Israelites (cf. 1 Peter 3:18-21). So, just how far back do pre-Israelite civilizations go and must they all be genetically in continuity with today’s humans on earth?
Afterall, one might rightly counter argue that the above points seem guilty of equivocation if applied to a race without genetic connection to humanity on planet Earth. Defenses of “Original Sin” from the 16th Century and common knowledge at the time of the Council of Trent seemingly lead to taking Adam and Eve as scientific historical narrative instead of primarily ethical and symbolic historical narrative based in the common and accepted knowledge of previous times. Again, 500 years later and through scientific method, what had been commonly accepted anthropological science is beginning to look as symbolic and moral as the blending of the Ptolemaic system with Genesis’ 7 days of creation…a primarily ontological and moral account of God’s establishing a covenant with humans.
It should be obvious to most Catholics that the Catholic Church has already learned to better distinguish narrative forms since the Galileo affair.[2] Ludwig Ott’s Fundamentals of Catholic Doctrine is clear that declarations of the Council of Trent cannot be strictly applied to today’s new contexts and questions of propagation of original sin.[3] The Church permits speculative theology to give possible solutions to modern and contemporary questions which are raised by new scientific data.[4] Questions of modern anthropology are not necessarily any more heretical than was the Heliocentric system of Copernicus before Galileo. Nevertheless, for the sake of speculative theology to meet modern questions and in order to meet those rightly suspicious of “heresy,” let’s ask: what is a human? and, what is earth?
Minimally, a human is the fusion of matter (earth) and spirit into a unique and living individual. A non-planet ‘Earth’ being, an intelligent terrestrial creature, would also be the fusion of matter and spirit. Why would they not be ‘human’ in the same generic sense as us? According to today’s biblical fundamentalists, God makes humans (like Adam) by scooping up matter and anthropomorphically breathing into it. Well then, again ignoring all secondary causality and complexities, how would extra-terrestrials similarly created be different than ‘humans’ or ‘Adam’ even if they are not genetically connected? Why would Jesus not matter to such intelligent terrestrials as well since their intelligence would make them in the image of God? They could just as easily be baptized into Jesus as Earthlings are or have a form of baptism by desire. God said, “Let us make man [generic] after our image…and let them have dominion” (Gen 1:26), and not, “Let us make a man [singular] after our image” (cf. Gen 1:26).
Speculatively, let’s put 2 & 2 together: first, one only needs to be a creature and somehow reflect the image of God (intelligence) and Jesus is automatically the reason for one’s existence and one’s possibility for heaven (which additionally requires the covenant of sonship); two, nothing is stopping any intelligent terrestrial creature who wants eternal life from receiving baptism or baptism of desire as clearly the “spirits” in Jesus’ descent into death did (cf. 1 Peter 3:19-20). This applies not only thousands of years into the past, but possibly even billions of years into “pre-history.” It also extends into the future so long as time and space makes terrestrial life possible. Speculatively, where do you draw the line on how far back and how far forward you will allow God to go in extending his family in Christ?
Since humanity on planet Earth is the place where the Logos took flesh (Jn 1:14), make no mistake, God chooses the weakest in order to humble the strong and proud. Earthly humans are likely the ‘trash pandas’ of the universe [Guardians of the Galaxy reference by Star Lord to Rocket the Racoon]. We are most likely morons compared to what is out there. Are any other species polluting their oceans, rivers, and land with poisonous chemicals and radiation? Is any other intelligent species justifying murder of the innocent and babies? Nevertheless, no matter how intelligently superior a race is, no one is saved by their natural powers or something else naturally inherent to their race or planet.
True dignity is only found in imaging God’s love as sons in the Son. What matters most is moral superiority and not technical superiority. No superior intelligent terrestrial race can enter heaven by their own personal powers because creatures are not naturally sons of God (cf. CCC #52-53). It is only by God’s condescension and sharing himself freely with creatures in Christ that a new and higher life can be shared in the souls of intelligent creatures. Grace builds on nature.
Created human nature is the pre-requisite for sonship, it is not actual sonship with God (cf. John 1:12-13). Only the Logos is Son by nature and eternal generation. Angels needed adoption by grace to enter Heaven and so do terrestrials. God infinitely transcends every creature, and it is only because the Logos took flesh (John 1:14), that creatures can become family of God (John 1:12). Without God’s Incarnation (Jesus), everyone is merely a creature and incapable of sharing eternal life.
See “A Catechesis for ‘God Butchers’” for more on how and why God adopts creatures. Scroll especially to the section on the ‘Metaphysics of Uniting Time with Eternity’ inside the article.
*the paranormal status requires discernment of spirits: “This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son” (1 Jn 2:22); “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8).
[1] cf. Donald Goergen, O.P., “Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas on the Motive of the Incarnation,” in The Thomist: A Speculative Quarterly Review, Volume 44, Number 4, October 1980, pp. 523-538 [digital on Project Muse, July 24, 2023].
[2] cf. Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation: Dei verbum, #12.2.
[3] Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Doctrine, revised and edited by Robert Fastiggi (Baronius Press, 2018), p. 123.
[4] Ibid.