On Tuesday evening, Sally and I attended a Durham University panel discussion event that was held at the Institute of Chartered Accountants headquarters in London. It was part of a programme run by the Institute of Advanced Studies, which essentially is an interdisciplinary project trying to bring experts from a wide variety of fields together to take part in shared conversations around a given theme. This year’s topic is light, and the evening took the format of a panel discussion with a theologian (David Wilkinson), an astronomer (Jocelyn Bell-Brunell), a classicist (Serafina Cuomo) and an anthropologist (Bob Latyon), and chaired by Martin Ward, who is a physicist. It proved to be a very lively evening with lots to think about.
After enjoying much needed refreshment beforehand (it was a very humid evening), the discussion began with the four panel members being asked what they felt when they looked up at the sky, and all four mentioned a sense of wonder and mystery. The discussion then proceeded to think about the place the various objects in the night sky – comets, stars, supernovae and so on – have played in human understanding and interpretation of events. We learned of the political ramifications that could sometimes be associated with unusual cosmic events in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds, the relative lack of interest in such things in the Bible, which then makes the story of the star at Bethlehem even more unusual and intriguing, the different ways in which cultures other than our own have interpreted the constellations, and how we need to get our act together and think much more seriously about how we would deal with supposed contact from an alien civilisation. Quite a mixture, I’m sure you’ll agree!
I thought the most interesting part of the evening (and this probably says a lot about me!) was the discussion of UFOs and why it might be that so many people (including apparently four million Americans) believe they’ve either encountered or been abducted by aliens. Each of the panel was asked how they’d respond if a signal wishing to make contact was received, and if we should send a message back, what would it be? Serafina Cuomo admitted she’d known the question was coming and so asked her eight year-old son what he thought. Apparently, he wanted to go to see them, and take all the penguins, because he’s worried about the polar ice gaps melting! While this was very sweet, it has a serious point: perhaps we’re so keen on the idea of alien visitations because we’re seeking salvation, a second chance after we’ve made such a mess of our own planet. It’s not an unusual theme in science fiction, after all. David Wilkinson’s answer was that our message back should be ‘tell us your story’, to try to build relationships.
Both got me thinking, and I know David’s done some work on this, about the theological implications of there being intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, something that cannot be ruled out categorically, and indeed as the Drake Equation suggests, is perfectly possible. We talk about Christ’s resurrection as having implications for the whole of creation, not just our own planet, because that’s what the Scriptures tell us we must do. It’s the first fruit of a new creation, according to St Paul, which will eventually be brought to completion when God restores the heavens and the earth (you might read ‘Surprised by Hope’ by Tom Wright for a fuller discussion of this theme and its implications), and some such as Rowan Williams have referred to it as a ‘second Big Bang’, an explosion of new creative energy into the universe. If this is the case, and our understanding of the resulting atonement for sins and restored relationship with God is bound up with God having shared our human nature (the Word became flesh as John’s Gospel puts it), then what meaning does this story have for an alien civilisation with intelligent beings capable of moral agency, and therefore presumably of sin?
After enjoying much needed refreshment beforehand (it was a very humid evening), the discussion began with the four panel members being asked what they felt when they looked up at the sky, and all four mentioned a sense of wonder and mystery. The discussion then proceeded to think about the place the various objects in the night sky – comets, stars, supernovae and so on – have played in human understanding and interpretation of events. We learned of the political ramifications that could sometimes be associated with unusual cosmic events in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds, the relative lack of interest in such things in the Bible, which then makes the story of the star at Bethlehem even more unusual and intriguing, the different ways in which cultures other than our own have interpreted the constellations, and how we need to get our act together and think much more seriously about how we would deal with supposed contact from an alien civilisation. Quite a mixture, I’m sure you’ll agree!
I thought the most interesting part of the evening (and this probably says a lot about me!) was the discussion of UFOs and why it might be that so many people (including apparently four million Americans) believe they’ve either encountered or been abducted by aliens. Each of the panel was asked how they’d respond if a signal wishing to make contact was received, and if we should send a message back, what would it be? Serafina Cuomo admitted she’d known the question was coming and so asked her eight year-old son what he thought. Apparently, he wanted to go to see them, and take all the penguins, because he’s worried about the polar ice gaps melting! While this was very sweet, it has a serious point: perhaps we’re so keen on the idea of alien visitations because we’re seeking salvation, a second chance after we’ve made such a mess of our own planet. It’s not an unusual theme in science fiction, after all. David Wilkinson’s answer was that our message back should be ‘tell us your story’, to try to build relationships.
Both got me thinking, and I know David’s done some work on this, about the theological implications of there being intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, something that cannot be ruled out categorically, and indeed as the Drake Equation suggests, is perfectly possible. We talk about Christ’s resurrection as having implications for the whole of creation, not just our own planet, because that’s what the Scriptures tell us we must do. It’s the first fruit of a new creation, according to St Paul, which will eventually be brought to completion when God restores the heavens and the earth (you might read ‘Surprised by Hope’ by Tom Wright for a fuller discussion of this theme and its implications), and some such as Rowan Williams have referred to it as a ‘second Big Bang’, an explosion of new creative energy into the universe. If this is the case, and our understanding of the resulting atonement for sins and restored relationship with God is bound up with God having shared our human nature (the Word became flesh as John’s Gospel puts it), then what meaning does this story have for an alien civilisation with intelligent beings capable of moral agency, and therefore presumably of sin?
It got me thinking that perhaps there are at least three possibilities for how God in Christ might interact with other worlds:
- What we understand as a unique event isn’t actually thus, and the salvation story is brought about by particular events in each world where redemption is required. In other words, God enters into those worlds in different ways and brings about salvation one at a time. This raises all sorts of questions about revelation and our understanding of God as Trinity, to name but two issues.
- Perhaps the Christ story really does represent God’s one foray into the creation, and so when such a story might get communicated elsewhere in the universe, it could well have to begin with ‘a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…’! This may well make it incredibility hard to relate to God, but perhaps not; I find the incarnation and God having been there and done that, if you see what I mean, very comforting when life’s tough, but many of other faiths manage quite well without such an understanding of a personal God (or even a God at all). Either way, it’s hard to imagine what Christianity would look like without the incarnation at its heart.
- Perhaps God doesn’t care what the vehicle is by which people (in the broadest sense) gain insight into the divine, as long as they do, which would impact our own earthly interfaith dialogues, never mind a wider cosmic view! In some ways this is the easiest answer to work with, but again it asks us what we believe about revelation and the true character of God – can we say anything ‘true’ about the divine?
A not unconnected question relates to what it means to be made in the image of God, and indeed what it is to be human. I saw a fantastic BBC series a little while ago about animal intelligence and behaviours, called ‘Super Smart Animals’. It showed how various animals can do things we used to think were unique to humans such as multi-step problem-solving, imagination, abstract reasoning and so on. While not as smart as the breed of crows featured who solved several stage problems to retrieve food using tools, the crows around our neck of the woods certainly display teamwork and problem-solving skills when they want to raid our rubbish bags! It’s also been long known that apes, for example, sometimes display what we might call sinful behaviours if they occurred in humans, such as bullying, freezing out, domestic violence and even infanticide. Taking what we can see in the animal kingdom and what we might see ‘out there’ at some point in the future, I think we seriously need to go on wrestling with the question of what it means to be made in God’s image, and perhaps to acknowledge that we’re not as special as we like to think…
I don’t have any answers for these questions, but nonetheless enjoyed being prompted to think about them by this very engaging evening. After grabbing another drink, we headed off to our hotel, which because of an admin cock-up by the website I used for booking, was not near Regent’s Park as intended, but at another part of the same chain at Canary Wharf. I’ve now had, as a result, my first experience of a jacuzzi, and all I can say is I want one of those!
